So she had a smile on her face as she stretched lightly before the spar. "Don't you need to get ready?"
"Not really. I'm always ready," Ranma replied with a negligent shrug.
"We'll see..."
"Ready?" Hotaru asked as she held up her hand. Seeing nods from them both, she dropped it. "Fight!"
The shorthaired blonde moved fowards, sending a series of jabs out to test his defenses, but he ducked and weaved around them all. He didn't even take his hands out from behind him, and he simply let her back him up as much as she wanted. It seemed like he didn't care, and she started to fume, but she didn't want to let it get to her. So she forced herself to calm down and quickly shifted her stance so that when his next dodge took him to the side, she had an uppercut waiting for him.
But he blocked it quickly and grinned. "Not bad."
"Humph. Aren't you going to actually fight?" she asked.
"Who says I ain't?"
"Huh?"
Responding to her question, he twisted his arm around so that it twirled hers away, allowing him to use a couple of open handed strikes to shove her away. "Gotta know what you're facin', right?"
"Right," she replied and charged fowards again. Instead of repeating her earlier attack though, just as she came over to him, she ducked down and began to send a series of heavy punches at his gut. He blocked them all, and managed to get a few back in at her. So she came up with a cresent kick to the head, which he caught and used to spin her to the floor, but she turned it around in order to catch him in a pincer hold with her legs.
Twisting out of it, he slid back and sent a couple of kicks of his own at her, making it so that she had to move back to avoid them. The last one she dived under, and went to use the momentum to slam him, but he slipped out of the way and used the opportunity to kick her legs out from under her. She landed flat on her face and yelped in pain at the impact.
When she rolled over though, she couldn't go much further as she found his foot at her collarbone, ready to smash her throat in.
"Damn..," she growled.
"Winner, Ranma!" Hotaru called out.
He grinned and pulled his foot back so that he could hold his hand out to help her up.
Taking the offer, the shorthaired blonde got off the floor and pulled her hand back as she dusted herself off. "Oh boy..."
"That was so cool!" Minako pronounced, "You two seemed to be so perfectly torched!"
"That's 'matched'," Rei corrected. "Though it was amazing how you two challenged each other."
Haruka snorted. "Yeah right."
"What's the matter? You got a good fight."
"I did, but this guy held back."
"He did?"
"Yup, and I don't know if it's because I'm a girl or what..."
"Nah..," Ranma commented.
"Then you just hold back against everyone?"
"Sure. Ya gotta have somethin' in reserve, or ya ain't gonna have it when ya need it."
"So... you actually fought me?"
"Uh-huh. Ya did pretty good too. It's kind of surprising."
"Why is that?" Rei asked with a frown.
"Pop just said that I was gettin' a fiancee. The stupid panda never said that any of ya can fight. I actually had to pull out some moves."
"Gee, thanks," Haruka drawled dryly.
"No problem."
Ami shook her head at the boy's simple self-confidence, and sighed. "Well, at least we know that he can fight."
"And he's so good at it," Morrigan purred as she slid an arm around him, "Perhaps he could show me how good he is at horizontal grappling techniques..."
Pulling her sister off the confused boy by her ear, Rei rolled her eyes. "We all know what you mean by that."
"So?"
The other sisters shared a roll of their eyes at the eldest's words.
Ranma still wasn't sure what that meant, but he knew that he'd gotten a repreive from something while:
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(Posted Wed, 01 Sep 2004 19:57)
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