But the truly worst part of it all—well, besides having a 300-year-old woman giving him a full-body massage every day, that’s pretty fucking bad—was the diet she had him on. He didn’t even want to know what went into her ‘herbal remedies’ that made it taste so horrible.
Even with all, however, he had to agree that the results of the training were impressive, to say the least. The last few days she’d had him train without the harness on, and he could hardly believe how strong he was now. He had to be careful not to jump too high, or punch too hard, as he still did not quite know his own strength.
As it was, it would probably take him at least another week to adjust to his new level of physical power.
With a faint smirk, Ranma walked into the small training hall attached to Cologne’s home. It was a warm day, and the sliding doors were all open to let the light and air in. His pupils were tiny slits, compensating for the sheer brightness of the light from the sun, unfiltered by heavy atmosphere at such a high elevation.
{Ah, I see that our Son has finally arrived,} Dowel said with a wide grin. {I’ve been looking quite forward to this… sparring session.}
Ranma frowned at the eager look on the woman’s face.
He knew that her own training had to be less than fun, having started off with getting exploding rocks chucked at her. What he didn’t know was just how bad her training had been, since he had been concentrating on his own for the past month.
Eyeing her momentarily, he could see that she was a bit more balanced, seeming to have gotten a little more agile from her constant training. He knew that she would not be nearly as agile as he was, but he also knew that he would not be quite as strong as she.
The outcome of this fight would be interesting, to say the least.
{Ah, I see you’re both here, good,} Cologne remarked as she hopped in on her cane. {Now, I know both of you want to get right to the fight, but there are a few things we need to clear up, first.
{Dowel,} she said, turning to the woman. {Under no circumstances are you to break any of his bones. We cannot afford any lag in training of that length, and any bone of his you break, I will make the same break on you, understand?}
Dowel nodded, slightly fearful.
{Ranma,} she said, then turning to the boy. {The same thing goes about special abilities as it did last time. You will also fall under the ‘broken bones’ rule, to be on the fair side.
{Now that that’s cleared up, you two can begin your sparring session.}
And with that, the Elder turned around and hopped over to the open porch, ignoring all those warnings about skin cancer and sitting in the direct sunlight to enjoy the match in comfortable warmth.
Dowel shifted into an offensive stance, her staff held evenly in her hands at her right side, iron cap facing towards Ranma’s throat. Her heavy leather boots creaked in complaint as she lowered her stance for mobility, a scowl passing across he face.
Ranma shifted into a low stance that utilized his speed and agility, his eyes narrowing as he tried to guess what her first move would be. His lean muscles, hidden beneath a loose-fitting suit of dark gray Mandarin garb, tightened in expectation.
Their standoff lasted all of half a minute, before Dowel finally lost patience and charged at the boy, a battle cry coming from deep within her chest.
Ranma frowned at the increased speed of her attack. Though she wasn’t nearly fast enough to be any real challenge to him yet, her speed was enough that she might gain more than just glancing blows in this fight.
Leaping over her whirlwind attack, Ranma touched against the high ceiling for a moment, seeming almost to stick to it before launching himself down at her in a descending kick.
Dowel recovered from her attack just in time to bring her staff up to block his kick, a loud thump coming from the unexpected strength of the impact of his foot against the hardened oak.
Ranma cushioned the impact, bending his knee to bring himself in close enough to grab a hold of the staff with his hands. Using the staff as a fulcrum, he brought his other leg around to strike at her face, only to have her duck beneath the blow and swing the staff, and him, away from herself.
Ranma grinned at her, teeth and eyes gleaming, as he landed softly about ten feet away. So far the first clash had occurred, and though no blows had landed, Ranma appeared to be the superior fighter at present. A fact that did not settle with the large amazon one iota.
This time, however, Dowel knew better than to blindly spring to the attack. Getting into a more defensive stance, she shifted her weight around slightly for a better center of gravity, her staff coming into the front to block incoming blows. After about ten seconds of waiting for he to take the offensive, Ranma finally lost patience. Seeming to almost float as he came towards her, he moved in a sliding gait, his feet barely leaving the floor.
Moments later he dropped down, his right leg coming out and around in a sweeping strike at her left shin. Moving her staff with relative ease, Dowel brought the cap down on the ground, causing his heel to strike against the wood instead of her leg. The staff budged a few inches, since she had underestimated the strength on his attack, but she quickly compensated.
Seeing as his attack was blocked, Ranma retracted his foot slightly, going as if to leap back. As soon as she brought her staff up to strike at him as he fled, he dropped back down and burst into a raising kick towards her stomach.
Dowel stumbled back a few steps, eyes wide as she struggled for breath from the unexpected blow. Taking advantage of her state, Ranma spun back around in another sweeping kick, this time at her left knee. The blow connected with just enough force against the back of her knee to take it from under her, causing her to fall to the side.
Cologne watched in interest from the sidelines as Dowel turned her fall into a rolling tumble, bringing her out of striking distance from the lad, and giving her the time needed to get back into a proper fighting stance.
It seems as if the increased strength in his muscles, combined with her techniques to make it leaner and more agile, had had the effect of increasing his speed a small amount as well. That was something that Dowel had not quite counted on, but now the woman knew, and would be expecting it.
Frowning, Ranma took a step back and assessed his opponent. Her agility had indeed increased, though not by an amazing amount. Her strength and endurance were still most definitely the key focal points in her fighting style, and would be what won her the fight if indeed she did win.
He hoped she didn’t.
However, he had managed to get a few telling blows in on her. The strike to her abdomen had definitely left a mark, her breathing a little shallower from the pain of what must be a slowly growing bruise. She hadn’t moved enough yet for him to tell if his strike on he knee had had any effect past knocking her down.
Both opponents stood eying each other, patiently waiting for the other fighter to make the first move, the first mistake. Dowel fell into a tighter stance, muscles tending as Ranma moved, standing up from his crouch to take a neutral standing position.
Wondering if the boy was overconfident, or just that stupid, Dowel came in with a quick staff combo, hoping to peg him at least once with her staff to even the score. Unfortunately for her, the boy seemed to almost flow around her attacks like water, ducking, weaving, sometimes just taking a single step back to increase the distance between them enough for her to miss.
And then it happened.
Overextending with a blow to catch the boy as he leaned back, Dowel watched in slow-motion as he reached his hands forward to grip the staff firmly in his own hands, pulling he forward with her own weapon. He first pulled forward, then downwards as he himself fell to the ground, pulling her with him.
The next sensation she felt was that of both his feet hitting her on the bruise that she got from his earlier kick, the sheer speed and inertia of her own movement causing her to fly through the air in a graceful arc towards one of the massive, three-foot timbers that held the roof up.
THUMP!
The training hall seemed to raise on it’s supports for a moment before settling back down, the resounding thump of Dowel’s face meeting the heavy support echoing against the walls of the surrounding village like the beat of a drum.
Both Ranma and Cologne winched in unison as Dowel’s large body slumped down against the support. Relief flooded them moments later as the sounds of heavy snoring met their ears, telling them that she was still alive, if a bit waking-impaired.
“Well,” Cologne said finally. “It seems that you won. Lucky for you you’re already an Amazon, and she’s already going after your father, otherwise you’d have yourself a new wife right about the time she woke up.”
Ranma shivered in fear at that thought, but went over to check his ‘mother’ for injuries. Luckily, the most wounded part on her would be her pride, though the growing lump on her forehead would probably give her some discomfort for the next few days or so.
“Well, she’ll live,” Ranma noted.
“Indeed,” Cologne said with a faint nod and a smile. “Would you say she has a chance against that father of your yet?”
“Honestly?” Ranma said, turning to her. “No, not yet.”
“Hmm… I think it’s about time I start training you in proper Chi focusing and manipulation now. That will make it easier for you to learn the techniques I would like to teach you next,” She told him. “In the mean time, you will spend one hour every morning training with the harness on, then two hours without it. After that, you will have breakfast, and then we will go to the forest where I will tie you up with rope and continuously swing a large boulder at you for the next three to four hours. After lunch, I will teach you Meditation and Chi, focusing on self-healing techniques.
“I think a month or two of that will do you some good.”
Ranma sweat-dropped, wondering if perhaps she was punishing him for something he had done. Then, looking towards the still unconscious and loudly snoring Dowel, he knew for a fact that she was punishing him for something.
But, as the saying goes, the life of a true martial artist is fraught with peril.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Gryphon Aerie
(Posted Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:58)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.