Emiya Clan – Nerima 17

Two girls moved back and forth across the field, alternately advancing and withdrawing from each other. The air between them was a blur of motion as arms and legs clashed in a furious display of blocks, parries, and counterattacks.

Akane's face was twisted in concentration as she beat back Chiyo's relentless assault. She knew without a doubt that she was stronger than her opponent, and after the daily training with Ranma and the rest of the Emiya Clan, she was proud to find she had the slight edge in speed over the other girl. Despite this, Chiyo had seemingly far more combat experience than her and seemed to know her style inside and out. The other girl would launch her strikes which forced Akane to block in positions which forced her to take a precious half-second longer to wind up her strongest attacks, which was all the time she needed in order to move her own limbs into the best position for taking those strikes directly.

Ranma stood on the sidelines, watching the sparring match with a critical eye. On the surface, it seemed the two girls were a fairly close match. It was a marked improvement for his fiancée, considering she had started at a level where most of the physical fighters in the family could flatten her easily. Since his fight with the family elders, Homura had simply requested he allow the children to utilize their full abilities during practices, so they didn't let their skills lapse. The one time he had engaged in sparring with Chiyo, he had nearly been caught off guard by her skill with paired shortswords. He had won, of course, but the margin for victory had been far closer than he'd been willing to admit to anyone. Chiyo, he had been surprised to learn, was actually one of the weakest members of the family, though she had made up for her lack of natural ability using sheer determination and skill.

However, it was that hard-won skill which was the window of opportunity for Akane to win this match, if she could see it herself. Chiyo's skill with her blades was completely reflexive, which was hindering her in unarmed combat. Her hand-to-hand strikes tended towards wide, sweeping motions and thrusting attacks – and they were all just slightly short. Akane was still batting aside each attack she saw coming at her, but if she closed the gap between them she would probably win in a grappling fight. Come to think of it, Ranma suddenly wondered if the older girl had realized her own weakness and was keeping herself slightly out of range on purpose. He didn't think it was to tire Akane out and slow her down; she had much greater endurance than any normal person he knew, aside from Ryouga, but she could catch Akane in a mistake and take advantage of that opening.

Then the mistake came, but to Ranma's surprise it was Chiyo who had made it. She had stepped in too far in one of her thrusting attacks, and rather than parry the blow like she had been doing up until now, Akane turned into the attack, grabbed the outstretched limb, and threw Chiyo over her hip in a classic Judo maneuver. After a sudden flurry of limbs, Chiyo was flat on her back while Akane knelt over her, one hand pressing a shoulder down while another was raised, ready to deliver a knife-edged blow.

Chiyo smiled easily, "Yield." She accepted a hand-up and brushed the grass off of her pants. "I'm impressed, Tendou-san. You've improved greatly since you first came here."

Akane grinned back at her and looked to the side, "I had a good teacher. At last." She grinned wider as Ranma made a face at her.

"Uncute Tomboy," he said, though there was a playful tone to his voice. He winced as she bounced a small rock off his head, then turned to the rest of the group. "Anybody else wanna go at it today?"

Several hands rose into the air; Ranma wasn't surprised to find Kumako's and Haru's had shot up almost instantly. He frowned and raised his voice slightly. "Keeping in mind I'm here to act as a referee, not a combatant."

Haru's hand went down, disappointed, although Kumako's remained raised.

Ranma sighed.

ooo

"Ryouga-san~"

Ryouga lifted his head to see Eiko and Koyuki walking up towards him. Slightly flustered, he looked around for Ranma and found the other boy across the field with the majority of the children. "Uh, yes?"

Eiko's grin seemed to grow wider at his discomfort, but she made no mention of it. Instead, she waved out her arm to indicate her companion, "We had a short discussion earlier and thought you could help us with a little experiment."

Ryouga was wary, "What sort of experiment?"

"Shampoo-san has demonstrated the capability to break down walls with seemingly little effort," Koyuki said. "Unfortunately, even with Ranma-sama's assistance I do not believe my capabilities in unarmed combat would match hers for a significant period of time, if ever. I wish to resume training in my traditional skill set, however I would require a means of gauging its effectiveness."

"...huh?"

"She doesn't think she'll ever match Shampoo in speed, so she wants help trying to figure out if she can simply block her with her snow barriers," Eiko translated. "Especially considering the little Amazon seems to pack a fairly strong kick."

"Oh," Ryouga blinked. "Why didn't you just say that?"

"I did," Koyuki said frostily.

"So what exactly do you need me to do?" the Lost Boy asked.

Koyuki and Eiko traded a look, then Koyuki sighed and nodded. The elder girl crossed her arms, "It's pretty simple. She's going to try making the strongest walls she can, and you're going to try to bust it. If she can't make one you can't break through, she knows she needs to work on her power. If she can get one, then she'll just have to work on her speed."

There was still something about the girl's demeanor that made him cautious. Ryouga narrowed his eyes, "There's no trick to this, is there?"

"Not at all," Eiko said with that unnerving smile.

ooo

Fortunately, once she had taken off her training bands, Koyuki found she did possess enough power to collect enough snow that Ryouga couldn't simply smash through. Unfortunately, Ryouga could see what the girls meant about 'speed'. After several trials, it had taken the better part of a quarter-hour for her to collect enough snow in the air, and the resulting block was almost thicker than the wall that formed the boundary of the field.

"It's still pretty loose," Ryouga said, shaking off the snow clinging to his hand. "It's not so much that I can't break it, it's just too thick for the attack to go all the way through. It's more like it's ablating the attack rather than stopping it. Can you make it more compact?"

Koyuki thought for a moment then raised a hand towards the block. There was a crunching sound and the snow block compressed into a narrow plate roughly a third of its original size. She remained still for a few moments longer, as if memorizing the structure of the snow block, then lowered her hand and nodded.

Ryouga drew his hand back, then threw it against the wall in a straight punch. White powder exploded from the impact point, but his arm didn't emerge from the other end. He nodded and shook his hand again to throw off the snow clinging to his knuckles. "That works, I guess. Now you said you have to try to make that faster?"

Koyuki chewed on her lip and nodded slowly.

"How fast can you put up one of your normal barriers?" he asked.

Koyuki lifted a hand, then paused for a few moments. She extended that arm out to her side and made a circling motion in the air. "Punch here."

Ryouga lifted an eyebrow but did as she asked, launching a fast strike towards the empty space to her side. White powder exploded in midair and he felt as if he had just run his hand through a small wooden board. He stared as he saw the remains of the shredded barrier midway up his forearm, then it melted away in the air.

"This level is sufficient to protect against projectile attacks, such as the sort Keiko is likely to use in a sparring match," Koyuki explained. She prompted him to launch another strike, which he did. This time he saw her throw an arm out, a wave of snow following the movement and throwing itself against his fist. He still broke through easily, but the snow continued to batter at his arm as it passed, pushing it slightly off course. "That would be sufficient to redirect strikes from Chiyo-neesan or Haru-niisan in a sparring match. However, if they are putting full power into their attacks, they can break through as easily as you have just done."

Ryouga frowned, "And putting up a solid barrier which was capable of outright blocking me took you over ten minutes?"

"That seems to be the case," she said.

Eiko perked up, "We might be going in the wrong direction, you might not have to block her attacks outright."

"But then she'd take a hit, which would probably hurt her a lot," Ryouga pointed out.

"Maybe," the elder girl shrugged. "Maybe not, it really depends on how fast she can be on her feet. But, my point is this: Ryouga-kun, what's that on your arm?"

Ryouga looked down, "Snow?" He began shaking the limb and brushing off the powder with his other hand.

"Exactly." Eiko looked at her sister. "Koyuki, don't you control snow?"

Koyuki froze in place, a mannerism Ryouga was beginning to recognize as a sign she was thinking hard. Suddenly her eyes widened and she looked at him. "Ah..."

Eiko smiled and bent over the other girl so she could whisper into her ear. Koyuki stiffened again, but occasionally nodded at whatever point the other girl was making. Both of their eyes snapped over to him as they straightened.

The Lost Boy scowled, somehow he didn't like where this was going. "What?" he growled. "Don't tell me you're going to try to do something silly like dump me in snow just to try to take control of my body."

"Very well," Eiko nodded. "We are not going to do something silly like dumping a bunch of snow onto you just to take control of your body."

ooo

A few minutes later, Ryouga stared at the black-clad woman with a hurt expression on his face. He was stuck in a kneeling position, his arms covered in snow and pressed against the ground. His body visibly twitched as he struggled to rise to a standing position, but every time he made some headway, his hands would suddenly press back down, forcing his body to follow.

"You lied to me," he complained.

"Not really," Eiko said with a chipper smile. "We didn't dump snow onto you, and we didn't take control of your whole body... just your arms." She looked over to where Koyuki was visibly straining with the effort to keep him down. "You can let him go, now."

Koyuki relaxed and Ryouga pulled himself back into a standing position, stretching out the kinks in his back as he did so. He turned around to glare at the obstacle course Eiko had made him run through. Based on the assumption that Koyuki could put up smaller, weaker barriers much faster than she could put up a single one capable of stopping the martial artist, Eiko had Ryouga charge Koyuki from a distance. The snow girl bought herself time by throwing up barriers in his path while simultaneously dodging out of the way of his attacks. The barriers did serve to slow him down slightly, but the real goal lay in the fact that each time he ran through, the snow gradually accumulated onto his arms, Koyuki splitting part of her concentration to make sure none of it was shaken off by his movements. By the time he'd noticed the powder was still present, his arms were already weighted down and – more importantly – there was enough snow present that Koyuki could treat the whole mass as one of her snowballs. The end result was very much like a Ryouga-puppet being led around by invisible strings on his wrists.

Ryouga growled as he rubbed his arms, "It could work, especially if your opponent hasn't seen it before. Once they know what's going on they can just avoid the blocks completely." He suddenly frowned as he noticed the snow on his limbs remained stubbornly in place.

"Certainly, it is a strategy that will require further modification to be combat-usable, but it does open up various additional options for attack or misdirection," Koyuki mused. She glanced over at Eiko, "I am surprised I never thought of it before. Thank you, Eiko-neesan."

"Hey," the Lost Boy called out, "Your snow is melting, can you get it off please?"

Eiko smiled, "No problem, Koyuki. In fact, I also had a few ideas you could use to trick your enemies to run through the stuff."

"Hey! It's.. a lot of snow, I'm a little worried here..."

Koyuki nodded, "I would be grateful if you could share those suggestions with me, Sister."

"Wet! Wet wet wet we—BWEEE!"

Eiko looked over her shoulder. "Oh my!" she said with mock horror. "We forgot about Ryouga-san! Koyuki, you should know better than to leave a potential pool of water around him!"

Koyuki tilted her head, "But, you told me that amount of snow was insufficient to trigger his transforma—"

"Bwee?"

"Did I say that? I guess I was mistaken!" Eiko laughed unconvincingly and turned back to the little piglet, who glared at her. "Sorry, Ryouga-kun."

P-chan snorted at her in disbelief and headed for the house at a quick trot, evidently in search of hot water. As he left, Eiko waved at him then turned back to her sister.

"So, here's what I had in mind..."

ooo

P-chan made his way across the lawn in annoyance, trying to remember where he had set his travel bag. If he could just get to it, he had a metal canteen and a propane heater he could use to boil up enough water to change him back. He reflected sadly that he was probably the most dexterous piglet in the world. Suddenly he lifted his head to recheck his surroundings... and found himself out on the street somewhere. His eyes suddenly wide, he frantically looked around for any sign of the Emiya mansion, but couldn't see it anywhere from his position. He resigned himself to another few months of random wandering and turned around, but froze as he came across two small feet blocking his way.

He stared up at the short girl in front of him, though she had traded in her usual flowing dress for practical clothing more suitable for physical activity, she had kept her distinctive ribbon in place, though her ash-colored hair had been further tied up into a neat braid. "Ryouga-san," Reiko said quietly as she knelt down. She held out her hands in a clear invitation to climb onto them, which he took with a disgruntled 'bweh'.

She tucked him against her chest with one hand, drawing a blush from the piglet and raised her free hand to the hilt of a full-sized nodachi strapped to her back. P-chan wondered how he had missed seeing before, considering it looked almost comically oversized on her, but refocused his attention on his rescuer as she looked down at him. "Ryouga-san... hold on." Her eyes took on a sudden vacant air. "Sankakukankei," she whispered. She crouched slightly as if to jump, and suddenly the world exploded into a fast moving blur.

Almost before he had time to feel nauseous, the world snapped back into focus and he found himself in a small room decorated almost entirely in black furnishings. Reiko kept him pressed against her as she pulled the sword from her back and set it on a stand alongside an identical copy. Then she walked out with him at a much more agreeable pace into the backyard of the Emiya House.

P-chan blinked, had he really been this close to the place? He mentally shrugged, Well, I guess I hadn't been wandering as long as I thought I had.

He noted that Reiko was heading over to Ranma's group, where a few heads turned to look at the approaching girl. One of the heads immediately stood up in shock.

"P-chan!" Akane squealed. "How did you find me? Such a good little piggy!" She didn't see Ranma's sudden face-palm or the smirks on a few of the other children's faces.

"Bwee..."

Reiko handed the piglet over to the girl as she approached. "Found... wandering," she explained. Akane was clearly uninterested in any further explanations as she cuddled her 'pet' to her chest.

P-chan promptly fainted.

ooo

Still at a distance away from the group, Eiko and Koyuki had been continuing their conversation as they walked back towards the house. They noticed the sudden commotion and Koyuki turned her head to stare at her sister. "Eiko-neesan," she said slowly. "How much of today did you have planned out?"

Eiko turned her head away to avoid her sister's stare. "I don't know what you're talking about."