After the first exchange of blows, the two reassessed each other briefly - leaping back to their starting position and meeting the other's eyes. Ranma quirked an eyebrow. Akane nodded and her gaze narrowed.
Ranma wasn't the best of the best, spending every waking moment thinking about martial arts. He didn't miss practice that much though, and he incorporated martial arts training where he could into everyday life. Just because he mainly learned traditional fighting methods didn't make him a pushover.
Akane wasn't a pushover either. She spent a great deal of time in practice and pursued weight training and running to pad out her time. She was quite capable of handling your average street thug and even a fair number of serious martial artists.
As the two met again together it went faster. Akane's duck and grab flowed into a set of blocks that kept Ranma at bay. Ranma's spinning back kick was deflected and the flurry of followup punches met an iron defense.
Soun watched from the sidelines, his fear that Akane might get hurt fading as it was obvious that the two were cranking up their attacks slowly as they felt each other out.
It was not the brutal spectacle of simply trying to beat the other's head in, this was trying to test out the other and find out what they knew.
Akane had started off hostile, but found herself enjoying this more and more. The morning battles were stupid and annoying and not much of a challenge. THIS was the Art, far more than those battles. Her grin was savage as she found a standard to measure herself against, and cranked the fighting up a further notch to try and gauge her ability to do so.
Ranma was enjoying this, but looking mainly for something that he could use against threats targetting his sister. At a natural break, he stepped back and half-bowed. "You're pretty good."
"You're not bad yourself," allowed Akane.
"Unfortunately, I don't think your school has what it would take for me to protect my sister. Not against the sort going after her." Ranma rubbed where a particularly hard hit had clipped his ribs. "If it weren't for that, I'd want to try and stay and learn your style."
"You're trying to protect your sister?" Akane asked, wincing involuntarily as she felt her forearm where she'd blocked a particularly hard kick.
"Yeah. She's kind of got mixed in with a crowd of friends, unfortunately one of 'em has got some really nasty types coming after all of 'em." Ranma caught a towel that another girl had just tossed him. "Thanks. I got beat pretty quickly, just couldn't land an attack that would get through those defenses."
Akane nodded. She hated boys, all right. Still, this one didn't seem so bad. "Well, I'm sure I could beat it. The Anything Goes Style specializes in adapting to different situations."
"I don't think so," said Ranma. "No disrespect, young sensei."
Akane tried not to beam at being addressed as a martial arts master by someone with a skill level she could respect. "Try me."
Ranma sighed, thought about it, and shrugged. "Okay. Tell you what. I'm going further out to try and find a technique that'll do it. I've heard about some martial arts ghostbuster types down in Kyoto or Nara. I'd appreciate it if you could deliver a message to my sister, just tell her I'm okay and still looking. Her name's Ami Mizuno, and she's in Juuban. I'll write the address on the letter."
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(Posted Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:05)
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