{Village is Joketsuzoku, home of Nyuuchezu Chinese Amazon Warriors… They are very powerful martial artists and warriors. They have many, many secret techniques not taught to outsiders,} the Guide replied, nodding to himself.
{Secret techniques, huh?} Ranma wondered aloud. {Sounds interesting… Very interesting…}
The Guide stopped walking for a moment, bringing a halt to the procession. A slightly troubled look was on the man’s face, which had something to do with the boy’s appearance and attitude, and something else about his vow of silence when it concerned the boy’s apparent father cum mother.
{Tell me, Honored Customer… How long will you keep your father from knowing what is happening?} the Guide asked. {How long will the fool suffer?}
{Hum… How about this,} Ranma said while reaching into his pack. {I have some American currency here, about five hundred of their dollars… Will that boy your silence? I’m afraid that’s all I can really spare, what with traveling expenses as they are.}
The Guide’s eyes light up in greed (and thoughts about the young daughter he’s raising on his own on a paltry government tourist guide’s wages). Nodding quickly, the guide took the money and pocketed it deep within his breast pocket, his silence most definitely assured.
{Good,} Ranma nodded.
“come on, boy,” Genma-chan snarled, turning around to look back at them. “We’re burning daylight here!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ranma replied. “Don’t make me neuter you.”
Genma-chan blanched.
* * *
Several hours later they reached the large wooden gates of Joketsuzoku, behind which lay the rather nice, if rustic village itself. Wooden homes built of sturdy timbers with heavy tile roofs lined the cobblestone pathway leading from the main gate. However, oddly enough, nobody was walking those paths.
Ranma and Genma-chan frowned.
{What is going on here?} Ranma asked the Guide. {You gave me the impression that there were people that lived here. Were you lying to me?}
{Oh no, sir!} the Guide reassured. {Today is the day for their annual tournament. Almost everybody should be at the Village Center right now watching the fights.}
{Hum… Very well, then… lead us to the Village Center,} Ranma commanded, then switched to Japanese again. “Apparently they’re having some kind of a tournament today, and we’re lucky enough to be here and witness it.”
“Oh?” Genma-chan wondered aloud. “I wonder if they have food?”
“Probably,” Ranma nodded. “Let’s go find out.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Genma-chan replied with a hungry smirk. “Sounds like a great idea… Let’s go!”
*sigh*
{What fools these mortals be…}
* * *
They arrived at the Village Center to see one of the last fights taking place. A large woman with a staff that had to be six inches thick with heavy iron bands on it bashed a much smaller woman off the challenge log, then raised her staff in victory.
Ranma knew that women could be just as strong as any man, but that bulk was just not what he wanted to see on a woman. Strength is good and all, but a woman should not look like a burly man.
Taking another look around, he spotted a large table leaden with food. A sign was posted next to it declaring it as the first prize in the tournament. More than likely the first prize for the winner of the tournament that looks to be drawing to an end.
An evil Cheshire grin flittered across Ranma’s face for a moment before he schooled himself. Tugging on Genma-chan’s gi-sleeve, he pointed out the banquet table.
“Sign there says ‘free food’, Pops,” Ranma said in a dull-sounding voice. “I ain’t that hungry, but you might as well get your fill, eh?”
Genma-chan didn’t even bother to reply as she darted over to the table and immediately began to stuff her now much younger and more feminine face. The wonders of a faster metabolism made her twice as hungry as elsewise she would have been, and it showed in her current actions.
Normally she would know much better than to trust her son about something like that.
Nodding to himself, Ranma slowly faded away from view, becoming immaterial so that he could enjoy the ensuing chaos from a safe distance. A safe distance that just happened to be the roof of a nearby building, about twenty feet off the ground.
This is going to be good, Ranma thought to himself.
* * *
Cologne looked up from watching the tournament, a vexed look on her face. Something had tickled her senses in a manner unfamiliar, and after being around for three hundred years you started to listen when your senses said that something wasn’t right.
It had saved her life before, numerous times.
Her eyes passed over the crowd, pausing momentarily on the not wholly unfamiliar mug of the Jusenkyo Guide, before landing on a young Japanese boy… a boy with golden-yellow cat’s eyes, and a very disturbing smile.
It was him who tickled her senses.
Her eyes widened in shock as he slowly faded away, disappearing completely from her five senses. Five senses where not her limit, however, and she soon stretched out her Ki sense to encompass the area, looking for the disturbance of the boy’s unique life force.
Tracing her eyes to the roof of the Counsel Building, her eyes widened at the sight of disembodied eyes and a wide Cheshire grin.
A frown on her wrinkled face, she made her way up the side of the building, the tournament below momentarily forgotten in the light of this new development. Several hops, the occasional grabbing of an outcrop, and one tense moment when a roof tile slipped beneath her cane, and she reached the roof.
The eyes turned towards her.
{Hello,} Ranma said, his teeth not even moving. {Can I help you?}
{Who are you?} Cologne asked tersely. {What are you?}
{I am Cheshire,} Ranma replied, slowly fading back into view. {Though my father calls me Ranma.}
Cheshire, Cologne wondered to herself. Where have I heard that name before? A book, wasn’t it? One from the Western Lands… something about mushrooms…
{What evil intentions do you have for my village and its people, monster?} she demanded.
{Evil inte—Heh… heh heh heh…} Ranma chuckled, looking down at the tournament. {Nothing evil, actually… just a little revenge on the half-wit that calls himself my father.}
Cologne followed his gaze down to the challenge log, where she saw a black-haired Japanese girl of about 17 standing triumphantly on the challenge log. Her great-granddaughter looked up in confusion and anger from the muddy ground below, having obviously gotten knocked off.
{Father?} Cologne asked, before realizing. {Jusenkyo!}
{Indeed,} Ranma nodded. {Jusenkyo… Spring of Drowned Young Girl, to be precise.}
{Damn,} Cologne exclaimed, before leaping off the roof to intersect her heir. {Shampoo, stop at once!}
{But Great-grandmother, I must give outsider girl Kiss of Death!} Shampoo argued.
{This is no girl, child… This is a Jusenkyo-cursed male!}
{Aiyah!} Shampoo said in dismay, looking at the confused Japanese girl on the log.
{Quickly, fetch me a kettle of hot water!} Cologne demanded one of the onlookers.
As the hapless woman went to fetch the requested water, Ranma faded into view next to his father. Several of the Amazons took a step back, readying their weapons against the monster in their midst, only to be ignored by him.
“So,” Ranma nodded to himself. “Couldn’t help but challenge their champion, eh? Got a little feminine pride now?”
“What are you talking about, boy?” Genma-chan demanded. “You know that, as a practitioner of Anything Goes, you can’t refuse a challenge! Besides, what’s going on here?”
“Oh,” Ranma said, looking towards the elder. “In think they’ve sent somebody to get a kettle of water so that the champion can see who it is that actually beat her.”
“Oh, that’s good then, I guess,” Genma nodded.
“Look, here they are now with the kettle,” Ranma pointed.
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(Posted Thu, 04 Nov 2004 17:25)
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