Forcibly United

oOo

Comes the Hot-Blooded Dragon

Chapter 4

oOo

Ranma glanced over at the Lost Boy as he read the note. Ryu had just warned Benny that the island was five minutes away. Ranma figured that now was as good a time as any to test out the potion they'd recieved.

"Well, this is just damned evil," Ryouga grunted, handing the note he'd unwrapped from the vial Wong Fei Chin had given them. The vial which would allow them to circumvent the thirty foot barrier imposed by the magical bracers.

"Aw man, no way!" Ranma hissed, shaking the note. He glanced over at Ryouga. "This sucks. I'm gonna need to be able to move if I want to fight Ryu fair and square. That means you're stuck taking the potion."

"I don't want to feel that! That's revolting!" Ryouga protested, crossing his arms.

"Neither do I! And I'd be all distracted for the fight if I'm the one who takes it! You gotta do it, man!" Ranma pleaded with the other boy, who merely shook his head. The pigtailed martial artist then pointed over Ryouga's shoulder. "Behind you!"

"What?!" Ryouga spun, searching the seas for the threat. WHAM! Force that would have buckled the steel plating on a cruiser struck the back of his head. He spun back around. "Ranma, what the hell was that for!?"

"Damn Bakusai Tenketsu training and it's stupid freaking invulnerability," Ranma muttered, ignoring the boy for a moment as he glared at his own fist. He then glanced up. "If I knock you out, I can feed you the potion and you won't have to remember the freaky experience."

"...Remember that you have to hit me around two hundred times to knock me out," Ryouga informed him, turning his back to his rival once more.

W-W-W-W-W-W-Wham! Ranma took it as a measure of his increasing strength that the Lost Boy's knees buckled after only one hundred and sixty nine strikes, each delivered at Amaguriken speeds. Turning the face-down boy's unconscious form over, he thumbed open one of his rival's closed eyes, making sure it was "seeing" him.

Then Ranma poured the love potion Wong Fei Chin had given them down Ryouga's throat.

Just as promised, Ranma found he could move to the other end of the torpedo boat, far outside the normal limit the bracers enforced.

Ranma grinned.

oOo

Ryu glanced across the beach. Not fifty feet away, Ranma Saotome stood across from him, his stance loose and open. He was ready for anything.

Well, nearly.

"Time for you to see the results of my training, Saotome!" Ryu growled, sand exploding at his feet as he pushed off the ground, aiming at his foe. Predictably, Ranma leapt to the side to avoid the attack, rather than meet it. Ryu landed and immediately twisted into a backhand which had no way of connecting with the boy.

Of course, that wasn't his plan. Ryu's blunt form of the Kijin Raishu Dan hammered the sand at his pigtailed foe's feet, sending him tumbling.

He'd planted his hands when Ryu closed the distance. While Ryu gave the other Japanese youth credit for trying to block the hammer-blow with his feet, both knew that Ranma was sorely off-balance. Ryu grabbed the boy's feet and pulled, leaving Ranma's torso momentarily horizontal. The camo-clad boy's rising knee met his descending elbow, with Ranma's kidneys cushioning both from the force.

The pigtailed boy lashed out with his far leg, catching his opponent square in the chest and launching him back. It was enough to open up some distance between them.

"Damn! You've gotten better," Ranma groaned, coughing as he slowly rose to his feet.

"You too, Saotome. Last time I fought you, I would have had you with that first strike," Ryu replied, rubbing his chest. He'd discarded the kevlar vest he'd been wearing before arriving at the beach, and his ribs were now informing him that it had been a terrible idea.

"You used a variant of the Kijin Raishu Dan to kick up that sand. What's the name of the technique?" Ranma wondered, crouching low. Defensive, ready to respond to any attack.

"It doesn't have a name, yet. It's blunted. It trades cutting power for striking force. Not much different from a chi blast, though not quite as strong," Ryu admitted. He narrowed his eyes. "Shall we?"

Not waiting for a response, he dove towards Ranma once more.

oOo

Dutch watched the fight, his cigarette hanging loose in his mouth. Beside him, Benny watched with similar amazement while the camcorder took in every detail. Ranma was currently trading blows with his foe faster than either of them could follow: They couldn't actually see what caused one or the other to kiss the ground, all they could see was the two exchanging blows and then one or the other would be skidding along the ground, kicking up a massive wave of sand.

Both had heard the boys describe their abilities and heard similar stories from Revy. They'd even seen a demonstration of it back on the boat, after the fight with the Hind-D. Still, seeing it in actual combat got across a great of context which had been, until this moment, lost to both of them.

"Let me tell you Benny-boy, I've got to give Revy a raise when we get back," Dutch said, cracking open a Heirekan. He took a sip before continuing, "These maniacs are crazy. I mean, I'm good... But she claims that she can keep up with them?"

"She can hold her own," Rock admitted with a chuckle, glancing up at Dutch. "Remember that job we did with them a month ago?"

"What about it?" Dutch asked.

"Well, these two are just getting warmed up. Knowing Ranma, the real fight is only getting started," the former salaryman replied, turning back to watch the fight intently. "It's not that they're any more destructive than Revy is with her M79. It's just that they're doing it with their bare hands."

"That's what makes it so impressive, Rock," Benny quipped.

oOo

Ranma knew the fight was going poorly. Ryu's ability to wave his arms and then blast the sand at his feet was crippling his ability to fight. No matter how masterful he was with the Saotome School of Anything Goes, he hadn't yet mastered the ability to actually fly, and so Ryu was being patient and waiting for the times when Ranma would land and his foe had a good angle.

So far the battle had been more or less even, but years of training in the Yamasenken's brutally direct style had left Ryu Kumon with strength that nearly rivaled Ryouga's and endurance superior to Ranma's. Even his speed was improved from the last time they'd fought, coming close to matching the Saotome heir's.

That meant that fighting an endurance match was out. Ranma had to end it before Ryu wore him down. The pigtailed boy snorted to himself at the thought: It was no different from many of his other major fights.

He was glad of one thing, however: Ryu had indeed sealed the Yamasenken, as promised. Though many of the moves in the boy's style were obviously based on the same sort of domineering power The Way of the Noisy Thief relied on, they were now Ryu's own. Even his new ranged attack, though obviously based on the same basic principal of the Kijin Raishu Dan, was radically different in both it's execution and lethality.

His was now a style meant to preserve life, to fight to defend instead of to harm. Ranma was genuinely glad that his opponent had taken that from their previous fight and grown thanks to it. Of course, the fact Ranma had the bad luck to be in a position to experience the new style first hand wasn't exactly the sort of thing he'd been hoping for.

As he ducked under a ball of compressed air which shattered one of the many boulders littering the beach, he grinned.

Who was he kidding? He would have wanted to fight Ryu the next time he saw him regardless of whether or not he was paid to do it. Hell, he was tempted to buy the guy a beer when he woke up after the fight just for showing up the tomboy in the first place.

A blast of air caught him in the small of the back, sending him further inland. He groaned as he got to his feet. He knew he'd have to win the fight first, if he was going to offer Ryu a beer afterwards. He eyed the forest which edged the beach and grinned.

"Perfect," he whispered to himself.

oOo

Benny groaned and closed the cam-corder as Ryu dove at Ranma, driving the pigtailed martial artist into the woods.

"Guess that's all there is of recording this fight," Benny muttered.

oOo

Ranma leapt between tree branches as Ryu shattered the limbs around them, noting grimly that visibility was getting rather low. A shower of leaves more or less blocked Ryu from sight, leaving Ranma and his foe to find one another by sound.

Ranma knew where Ryu was due to the source of the hardened balls of air. He assumed that Ryu knew where he was because of the rattling of tree branches, though he couldn't be sure just how Ryu was managing to tell the difference between a foot on a branch and a branch striking another branch.

Or perhaps, he mused, Ryu wasn't. Perhaps he was using a variation of Kijin Gundai Ranbu to just throw those balls of air around the forest. If that was the case, Ryu wouldn't be able to move from the center. He'd be right there, where Ranma could strike.

The pigtailed boy used the cover of the leaves to close in on his target, leaping high into the air and preparing to descend on Ryu from above. The added force of his fall could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Descending through the leaves, his foot dropped heavily onto his target.

oOo

The battered rock had served it's purpose, as Ryu had used the angled piece of granite to deflect his attacks into the foliage. He'd done so under the assumption that Saotome would seek the center of the attacks to strike.

He watched as his foe shattered the stone with a heel drop, watched the brief confusion on the boy's face. That confusion was already fading to horrific realization as Ryu closed.

oOo

Ranma spun, partially deflecting Ryu's punch as he blindly threw dozens of his own at Amaguriken speed, tracking blows up the boy's left arm and ending on his chin in the fraction of a second it took for Ryu's much stronger blow to blast Ranma back into a tree trunk.

Ranma's head struck something solidly and darkness claimed him.

oOo

It had been nearly ten minutes since the trees had stopped shaking when Rock heard the sounds of underbrush shaking. His eyes widened as he saw two figures emerge: Ranma was helping Ryu through the brush, and both boys were arguing. Ryu's left arm hung at an odd angle, broken or dislocated.

"You won fair and square, Saotome! I can't continue the fight!" Ryu growled, head butting the boy weakly.

"Bullshit! You knocked me right the hell out with that last hit of yours!" Ranma argued, returning the head butt. "I mean, I'm the best, but even I know when I've lost!"

"My arm's broken, jackass!" The camo-clad teenager argued, gingerly lifting is left arm a bit for emphasis. "You were only knocked out for a couple of minutes! I was too busy focusing on my pain to finish you off, even if I wanted to!"

"Who're you trying to kid? Broken bones don't hurt that much!" Ranma countered.

"Ever broken one?" Ryu asked with a grimace.

"Nope," the pigtailed boy confirmed with a shake of his head.

"Yeah, then don't comment about something you've never experienced. Believe me, I wasn't going anywhere," Ryu growled.

"Fine, I win! I still want a rematch as soon as your damned arm is healed! No way I'm letting you get off this easily, Kumon!" Ranma said, handing the defeated boy over to his comrades.

"You'll get it, Saotome. I still haven't perfected my arsenal yet," Ryu growled. He slowly offered a hand. "I'm just sorry the fight ended the way it did. It's never any good for either person when it's so close to a draw as it was."

"You're damned right," the blue-eyed youth noted, taking the extended hand. He grinned a bit. "At least I get to tell the tomboy that I evened things up for her with your arm."

"Well, unless your other friend wants to punch me in the face-" Ryu began.

"I do," Dutch confirmed.

"-which he can do sometime else," Ryu replied, before continuing, "I guess me and my men should be on our way. We're out of these waters, Saotome. We'll find other pirates to pirate from." He glanced over at Dutch, producing a key. "Look, I can't exactly repay everything that I stole from you. I can offer some replacements, though. Follow my boat to our current dock and you can take your pick of what we've stolen from the other reprobates in the area before me and my men take the scraps."

"You've got yourself a deal, kid," Dutch said with a feral grin.

oOo

Author's Notes:

I'd like to address a point Ushio raised in a review of the last chapter, since I can't contact them: People having to die in the Black Lagoon setting. Black Lagoon is not like that at all: Nameless Mooks die all the time, but that's because they're explicitly there for characters to shoot to show how awesome they are. Named characters die pretty rarely unless they're specifically the antagonists for a story arc, and even then it's by no means a guarantee.

Anyway, as regards other matters... You can expect this first story arc to come to a close in three days, just in time for Forcibly United having been in existence for one whole month! No matter how long the last chapter is (and it'll be one of my longer ones, I think), it'll be finished and up in three days to celebrate.

Then, the next arc will begin sometime soon afterwards.