Emiya Clan - Nerima 04
Karin yelped as she dived to the side, narrowly avoiding the axe kick that cratered the ground where she'd been standing. She tucked herself into a somersault, rolling smoothly back to her feet as she dashed towards Keiko laying down a burst of suppressive fire. Her assailant avoided the barrage with a blur of movement.
She was panting as she reached her ashikabi, supporting her hands on her knees as she watched Keiko attempting - and failing - to tag the red and black blur zig-zagging across the field. "He's faster than I thought," she wheezed.
Keiko simply grunted as her alternating fire emptied the chamber of one of her revolvers. She brought the weapon behind her back, hidden from view as she let the spent casings dissolve and traced in new bullets to rearm. Bringing it back out, she resumed firing as she repeated the procedure with her other weapon.
Sakuya and Koyuki ran up to their position from the other side under her cover fire. Both looked winded at the extended exercise, but otherwise unharmed. Sakuya glared at their opponent - now standing still some distance away from them with a very smug expression on his face.
"We should have brought Haru-niisan," the shadow user said between breaths. "Or Chiyo-neesan. We just can't keep up with him as we are."
Koyuki said nothing, focusing only on catching her breath.
Keiko frowned at the snow girl, "Four on one is bad enough; I don't think this plan of yours would work if we brought in more people."
Koyuki flushed slightly, and not simply from exertion. "That's... my ashikabi...for you..." she said, almost sounding proud of herself.
Keiko looked the others in the eye, then back at the martial artist now making a show of yawning and stretching for the watching crowd. She grimaced, "Matsu-kaasan said these people were used to magic?"
Karin straightened up and adjusted her glasses, "Yep. Thanks to Koyuki's boyfriend and his friends, we'd probably just be filed with the rest of the odd happenings in their lives."
"Good." Making sure her movements were clearly visible to their opponent, Keiko stopped the flow of mana and allowed her weapons to dissolve into the air. Reaching over her shoulder, she began a new trace and seemingly pulled a Remington M24 from behind her back. She watched the boy blinking in surprise and grinned. Bringing her other arm up, she traced a magazine box-cartridge filled with rune-enhanced rounds and slammed it home, throwing the bolt with a satisfying click.
"Gloves off then, Sisters."
The Previous Day...
"You want to what?" Ranma looked up from his position along the fence to stare down at the girl walking on the sidewalk at a more sedate pace.
"I wish to challenge you," Koyuki repeated. She looked up at him, "You mentioned that there were individuals around you that would not take my claim seriously; that in your circle the preferred method for settling disputes would be honorable combat."
After some shenanigans that went well into the late afternoon, Karin and Fuuko had finally released the boy from their hidden bunker. Koyuki naturally volunteered in escorting him off the Emiya grounds and back along the roads leading to Nerima.
"That's true..." Ranma rubbed his chin thoughtfully, still balancing himself on the fence. "But I think I also mentioned, you wouldn't stand a chance against me in a fight. You're simply not fast enough."
"It is my understanding that you would say the same thing about many of your opponents," she replied. "However, I have also observed you tend to find yourself in situations where numerical superiority is not in your favor."
"If you mean everybody gangs up on me, yeah."
"That means there is a precedent for an implied level of skill. I wish to challenge you with the aid of my sisters." Koyuki looked up to find him watching her... while walking backwards on the narrow chain-linked fence. She blinked at the casual display of balance. "We often work together in matches against our elder siblings much the same way. I am confident our teamwork will suffice in closing the skill gap between us."
Ranma shrugged. "If you say so. Tomorrow afternoon, at Furinkan High School. Do you know where that is?"
"I believe so." She left out that Father had been considering transferring her to that school to allow her to be closer to her ashikabi.
"Just look for the crowds when you get there. Stakes?" She looked up in confusion at his question. "Proving something to the fiancées is fine, is there anything you want from me if you win?"
"I do not wish to incapacitate you, Ashikabi-sama." She ignored his frown over her use of his formal title and blushed. "My victory conditions for this battle will be to claim a norito from you. I will settle for that as my reward as well."
He nearly fell off the fence at that, but managed to keep himself upright - barely. "And...if I win?" he asked cautiously.
Koyuki blushed even further and looked away. She pressed her fingers together shyly, "If you win... you may do with me whatever you wish?"
There was a splashing sound as her ashikabi face-faulted straight off the fence and into the artificial river on the other side.
Koyuki smiled slightly and continued walking.
Present...
It was Ranma's turn to evade as the report of a rifle shot cracked through the air. He twisted to the side, letting the project pass over his shoulder by a safe margin... when it suddenly exploded behind him, throwing him back to the ground. He blinked in confusion, but his danger sense went off and he was back on his feet, speeding away from a shadowy appendage that tried to tangle itself up in his legs.
Sakuya was already on the move, avoiding a retaliatory charge as Ranma blurred past her former position. Her earpiece crackled and she suddenly dropped to the ground.
"Duck," came the belated warning over the radio channel as another shot cracked over her head. Like before the shot went wide of the martial artist, only to explode in front of him this time.
Keiko chambered the next round into her rifle and whispered, "Isa (Ice)." The rifle in her hands thrummed with stored energy as she primed the next round. "Koyuki, your turn."
Ranma frowned as he emerged from the fireball. Not only had Koyuki's Sniper sister forced him to break off his attack runs, but the explosions had been placed in such a way as to keep him from approaching from certain vectors. His tactical mind went alive, capturing all four sisters' positions at a glance. Shadow was off to his right but moving across the field. Sniper was also to the right, but seemed to be training a shot just to his left, setting up a shot in case he moved to pursue Shadow.
Looking taking a quick glance in that direction he saw Koyuki standing in front of the last sister. Glasses hadn't done much since they'd broken formation again, she was simply kneeling with her hands pointed at the ground. He started to turn his attention back into figuring out what Koyuki was doing when he suddenly noticed Glasses' hands were faintly glowing.
Magic, he grimaced. Sniper and Shadow were trying to delay him while Glasses did... whatever she was doing; Koyuki acting as the final defense line. Well, if they were bringing out their big guns - and he glanced warily at Sniper, wondering if that really was the biggest gun she had - it would be rude of him not to return the favor.
Barely a second had passed as he finished his planning. Spinning, he threw out a hand towards Sniper and focused his ki.
Mouko Takabisha! The energy attack seemed to catch Sniper by surprise but she managed to duck and roll out of the way in time. By doing so, however, she lost her shot and he launched himself in a blur of motion directly towards Glasses.
Shadow and Koyuki both responded almost instantly. Koyuki sent a barrage of snowballs forward, but rather than aiming it directly at him, she peppered the ground along his path with snowy patches. If he let himself run over those he'd probably get bogged down, slowing him down enough for him to be caught by a followup attack. Shadow sent tendrils snaking along the clear patches, which made him break off his attack entirely and find a new vector.
Taking to the air wasn't an option. Out in the open field he had no way to redirect himself, and Sniper seemed good enough to track him on a simple ballistic path. No, he had to stay low for this. Concentrating, he threw out his arms again, this time towards Shadow, and launched another energy blast at her.
Shadow dodged like he expected, but instead of throwing herself to the side she had moved forward, underneath the blast and pressed on to get into melee range with him. He set himself into a stance, but noticed a collection of snow forming in mid air just above him. He remembered what Koyuki said about needing to take the time to form a strong attack. If she launched it too soon he'd just have a few tiny snow balls to deal with, which he could easily handle. He turned his attention back to the more immediate threat.
His danger sense flickered again just as Sniper took another shot and he ducked reflexively. However, the shot hadn't been aimed at him but rather the snow formation. As before, the rifle round exploded, but this time the explosion spread a wave of cold around the immediate area. As the snowball exploded from the impact, the cold wave solidified all the pieces into ice shards.
Ranma suddenly found himself underneath an umbrella of thousands of icy daggers, which would deal significantly more damage. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed his newest fiancée smirking slightly.
He threw his arms up just as they began to rain down by the hundreds.
"Ranma!" Akane stood on the sidelines, her hands hovering over her mouth in shock.
Beside her sister, Nabiki narrowed her eyes as she watched the purple-haired girl continue her charge forward. Shadowy tendrils rose from her body and shot into the dust cloud, while a localized snow storm appeared to saturate the ground with white. "He won't go down that easily," she said nonchalantly.
"Of course not," said a slender girl dressed in the school's male uniform from behind them. Further behind the girl stood the Amazons, content to sit with the rest of the crowd, although Mousse was apparently watching the baseball club on the other side of the field.
Ukyo crossed her arms, "Ranchan's barely warmed up." She nodded back towards the cloud, just as a red blur shot out and knocked the shadow girl flat on her back. Tendrils reached out instinctively but were beat back as Ranma retaliated with rapid-fire fisticuffs. A palm strike finished the combo and cratered the ground around the poor girl, the shadows around her vanishing as she was knocked unconscious.
"Sakuya!" Keiko shouted over the radio. She recentered her aim on Ranma as he was straightening up from the strike which had downed her sister. As she squeezed the trigger she noted a few scratches here and there on his clothing, but nothing else. Had he dodged their combination attack almost entirely? Her shot cracked through the air and he flickered away, faster than she'd seen him move yet. "Karin!"
"Busy..." came the strained reply.
"Fast analysis, he came out of Icicle Fall almost completely unscathed, then he just batted away all of Sakuya's attacks with his bare hands!"
"Wait one..."
Koyuki stood her ground as Ranma bounced around her, throwing up a wall of snow each time he seemed to vector in and attack. Without Sakuya to help keep him away from her, he seemed to be content with probing attacks, testing her defenses. Grimacing, Keiko squeezed off one last shot from her sniper rifle and dismissed it, tracing out a handful of fragmentation grenades.
"Fire in the hole!" She threw out three in a spread, then traced out her paired JTL-E .500 S&W revolvers as she closed in under the cover of their detonations.
Karin's voice was back, still sounding strained from splitting her attention between her complicated tracing and holding a conversation. "Records show the boy's capable of throwing hundreds of punches per second in short bursts. As silly as it sounds, he probably punched away the icicles before they could hit him."
"So, don't let him punch you," Keiko summarized. She sighted on a blur at the far edge of the detonations and laid down a burst between him and Koyuki. Ranma peeled away from the renewed assault and backpedaled, giving Koyuki some more breathing room as he planned out his next move. Keiko used the time to run up to her sisters. "How are you holding up?" she asked.
"Assuming he keeps with probing attacks I can defend indefinitely," Koyuki replied. "I am not, however, very confident about withstanding his energy attacks or his punch-combo."
"I'll try to keep him off balance as best as I can," Keiko assured her. "Gonna go check on Sakuya."
The radio suddenly crackled to life and a pained moan could be heard over the suddenly live channel. "Ow..."
Keiko's hand went to the receiver in her ear, "Sakuya! Are you okay?"
"Did somebody get the plate number for that truck?"
Karin snorted from her position.
Koyuki continued watching Ranma, circling them slowly while he waited for them to start up again.
Keiko wasn't amused, "Do you need us to get you?"
"mmrgh... Give me another minute or so and I should be able to move. You know I heal fast.."
Keiko nodded, though her fallen sister couldn't see the action. "Right... Karin?"
The other redhead lifted up two fingers. Two minutes.
"Okay." Keiko concentrated on her two pistols, flooding the next three shots in each one with prana.
Thurisaz, Algiz, Berkana...
"Koyuki, you're up," she said as she fired the three shots from each pistol into the ground evenly spaced behind their position. As her barrier spells went up, protecting her rear and flanks, she dissolved the handguns once more and replaced them with a Browning-Miroku Citori shotgun.
Koyuki stepped behind her sister and lifted her arms. The air temperature dropped and snow began to form and circle their position. As the seconds passed, more and more snow was collected and soon it became difficult to see through the barrier.
Ranma charged in with a probing attack and was met with a shotgun spread of rubber pellets. Quickly he backtracked through the barrier and noted how the pellets were picked up by the growing storm. Circling around he tried charging in from the back side, but whatever Sniper had done resisted his punches quite well. He backed off again and circled around to the front, shaking out his hand slightly.
He cautiously approached the localized storm, noting how the snow spiraled through faint patterns with Koyuki at the center. As he stepped closer, Sniper lifted her shotgun in warning, but he simply grinned in response.
"Eh, I dunno how much you guys really know about what I can do... but this," he indicated the spiraling snow. "This is probably not a good idea."
Somewhere in the crowd, an elderly Amazon Matriarch half choked as she recognized the pattern as well.
Backing up a bit, Ranma charged up and launched another confidence-powered energy blast at the defensive barriers. This time, the storm picked up the attack and caught it, adding the energy to itself and increasing the potency of the barrier. Koyuki stared impassively, but quirked an eyebrow. Ranma's smile grew even wider and he stepped back a bit further.
His battle aura flared and he charged up an energy bolt using hot ki.
"Got it!" Karin cried out triumphantly.
The radio crackled again, "Uh...girls?" Sakuya's concerned voice floated out.
Karin held her hands out over the open space on the ground and chanted, "Trace on!" Four large objects began to take shape simultaneously against the ground.
"Sisters? Can you see what's going on out here?"
The objects were roughly cylindrical, with an open cap at one end. They almost looked like a bazooka sized flashlight.
Keiko was still watching the space immediately in front of her. "What is it Sakuya? Visibility is low but he hasn't tried to get in yet."
"He's, uh... he's throwing those energy blasts into Koyuki's Storm Wall. They're a different color, kinda reddish instead of blue like his other ones."
Karin, who had been cackling with her success, suddenly stopped. "Wait, what?"
Keiko looked back over her shoulder, "What are those things?"
"They're oversized net-guns," Karin said quickly. "I also added an adhesive to the mixture. Each shot should be able to cover almost half the field, if all of us fire at once we stand a good chance of pinning him down for 'Yuki to have Happy-Fun Time. But, Sakuya, what did you say?"
"I said he's shooting red energy blasts at you, like fireballs or something."
Karin paled and hugged one of the net-bazookas to her chest. "Yuki!" she shrieked. "Stop the storm! Now! Stop the storm now!"
"Ah?" Koyuki hesitated at the unusual command. Even as she processed the words, a red blur shot through the vortex, knocking an unprepared Keiko flat on her back, and landed in a crouch in front of the snow girl.
"Sup," blue eyes stared into wide grey ones. Ranma held a chambered fist ready, cold ki swirling around the limb.
Karin's face paled. "Oh..."
"Hiyruu-"
"Crap..."
"...Shoten-"
"We're SO dead..."
"...Ha!"
Sakuya watched in horror as her sister's Storm Wall took a life of its own, twisting and spiraling into the sky like a vengeful dragon. She screamed as several specks ejected themselves from the top of the vortex, tumbling out of control through the air. She struggled to her feet, running towards the closest one, extending her shadows to try to catch or even cushion the falling body...
...and stared in confusion as a giant flashlight fell into her waiting arms.
"Eh?"
She looked the object over, noting the anchor weights connected to the oversized gas-powered launchers, the high-tensile ropes leading into the handle-cavity and she suddenly realized it was a net gun. A monstrously oversized one, but still recognizeable.
Turning back towards the storm's origin, she saw Ranma standing unaffected by the force he had unleashed, fist still held in his uppercut pose. Latched on to his arm, hanging on for dear life to keep from being pulled away, was Koyuki. Hanging on to her leg by one arm was Keiko, her weapons long since vanished. Her other arm was wrapped around Karin's waist, who was clutching another one of the net-bazookas to her chest with her eyes squeezed shut.
The storm gradually died, sending the latter two falling unceremoniously to the ground in a heap. Koyuki somehow managed to get her legs underneath her as she landed gracefully, her hands still clutching Ranma's. It was a very picturesque sight, one Sakuya would have been happy to indulge in - and take a few pictures of - if she'd been in any state of mind other than relieved panic.
The flash of a camera and a sudden sound not unlike grinding teeth from the bystanders suggested she was not alone in that opinion.
Ranma stared smugly at the girl holding his arm.
"I think I win," he said proudly.
Koyuki stared back at him wide-eyed, a renewed blush on her cheeks as her mouth moved soundlessly. From behind the two of them Karin blinked as she realized: one, she was still alive; and two, her weapons hadn't vanished. She waved to get Sakuya's attention, and the radio crackled to life once more.
"On three! Onetwothree!"
Sakuya frantically searched for the trigger on the odd weapon she carried, but managed to get it properly aimed and fired in the general direction. The recoil knocked her flat on her rear as the ginormous weights shot out, dragging the very large, very sticky net behind them.
Ranma, his attention mostly on her sister, reacted too slowly to get out of the way. Koyuki, having been forewarned, jumped him just as they were bowled over by the projectile. The martial artist landed on his back, Koyuki literally glued to his front as the net wrapped around the two, just barely missing Karin and Keiko as they scrambled out of the way.
"Yes! I caught a pokémon!" Karin shouted happily. She cringed as Keiko thwapped her sister over the head.
A sudden bright flash made Sakuya look back at the pinned couple, just in time to see her sister's wings bursting into existence, cutting away the net from her back. Clearly she was taking advantage of their current immobility. Angry shouts and shrieks, as well as numerous camera flashes, showed that the crowd had noticed as well. The fiancées were already in motion, weapons at the ready to deal out swift punishment. The rest of the Wrecking Crew soon followed.
Still blissfully unaware of the rest of her surroundings, Koyuki reached up to stroke Ranma's cheek with a newly freed arm. "No, Ashikabi-sama. I believe it is my victory."
"Er," Ranma's wide eyes flicked to the side, taking in the sight of the angry NWC closing in on their position.
Koyuki followed his gaze and frowned, closing her eyes and tucking her head into her chest as she began chanting.
Karin went wide eyed again, "Shields! Code: AoE-N!" she cried.
With no time spare, Keiko simply slapped her hands on the ground in front of her to create her three-point barrier for the two of them, while Sakuya summoned her shadows to wall herself off. Obliviously, the NWC finally reached the couple, extreme-violence promised in their eyes.
Koyuki's voice resonated through the air as she finished her norito chant. Arashi Nadare!
The field exploded into a fast moving avalanche of snow and ice spears; fortunately the ice was mostly aimed upwards, which prevented anybody from being skewered. The wave of snow knocked over and buried all the combatants, cresting and coming to a stop just before it reached the line of spectators. The hastily erected shields helped keep the sisters from being buried too deeply and they were soon peeking cautiously from behind them, staring across pristine field.
Their eyes turned back towards the epicenter, where Koyuki - having dispatched the distractions - lay comfortably on her ashikabi's chest with a pleased expression on her face. Ranma, for his part, looked almost as white as the snow around him, his eyes flicking between the girl lying on him and the field around.
Karin scratched her head and adjusted her glasses.
"So... we won, right?"
Keiko threw a snowball at her.
(a/n) - i really wanted ranma to win, because ranma never loses. on the other hand, i reaaaally wanted koyuki to win too... so.
inb4 'overpowered!'. yes i think noritos should be overpowered. is koyuki OP with a norito? if you don't know it's coming: yes. i'm also taking liberties and assuming its something like powerstone. boosted stats all around, but once you actually use the norito, you go back to normal
can koyuki beat a NWC without a norito? not a chance. her basic abilities can barely stand up to a probing attack from ranma, she can stop mousse's projectiles, but thats it. shampoo can bust through, ryouga can definately bust through, heck even akane can bust through. and koyuki isn't fast enough to dodge akane like most the rest are.
more or less she's completely dependent on ranma to be nearby AND willing in order to not get completely bowled over. while he tolerates her now cuz he sees her as weak, that may change. after all, she is acting almost as clingy as shampoo does, she's just somewhat nicer about it.