“I bloody well hope so,” Ranma muttered to himself in reply.
Sitting in small piles around him were an uncounted number of unconscious hornets. He had been forced to defend himself against these nasty beasts for weeks now, and had by this point gotten rather tired of it. Though it was good training, some of them had started to follow him back to the village for revenge.
And their sting really, really hurt.
“Hmm…” Cologne looked at him with a piercing gaze. “I think you’re ready.”
Ranma paused, looking over at her.
“Ready?” he queried. “Ready for what?”
“Come and have a cup of tea with me, will you?”
“Uh… sure…”
* * *
Ranma and Cologne sat across from each other in her small tearoom, a cup of hot tea warming their hands. The walls were made from heavy-grain wood, smoothed to a near mirror shine through years of cleaning and polishing. He knew, because she had him clean and polish it every evening.
Cologne closed her eyes halfway, gazing into the steam rising above the surface of her tea. Little wisps and streams of gray above a pool of dark amber, dancing in a timeless waltz with little thought or logic.
Her gaze rose from the tea, to meet with the unblinking cat-eyes of her pupil.
“I have been putting you through durability training ever since I started training you,” she began. “First it was with the harness, which made it so that you had to add muscle mass and density. Then I moved on to the boulder, which made it so that your body hardened against blunt impact. Then finally, I switched to the smaller boulders, and the iron clubs.”
She took a slow sip of tea, savoring its flavor.
“Now, can you tell me what makes it so that you can withstand the impact of the boulders, and not get crushed like a boiled egg in a sack?”
Ranma frowned at that disturbingly easy to conjure mental image, then focused on the question itself. And it was a good question, too. He knew that the human body could only withstand so much pressure on it before doing exactly what it was she had suggested.
Taking a slow sip of tea to give himself time to think, he pondered exactly what it was that kept him from going ‘squish’. Needless to say, this took several slow sips, and he needed a refill before he began to answer.
“Well, I know my body is stronger than it was,” he began. “But I also know that it’s not nearly strong enough on it’s own to withstand the boulders you swing at me on a daily basis.”
“That is indeed correct,” Cologne nodded.
“Then there’s the fact that it’s also impossible for the human body to move at the speeds that the Amaguriken produce, and yet I’ve been doing that daily as well,” he continued. “I am doing things all the time that defy the natural laws of physics, and yet am no worse off for it.”
“Very good observation,” Cologne said. “And do you know why this is?”
“My… Chi?” he tentatively answered.
“Correct,” Cologne said with a freakish smile. “Your Chi is more than just energy that keeps your body running. With proper training and focus, your Chi can be used to produce effects that break numerous laws of common physics and. Occasionally these effects even resemble magic.
“With your Chi, you can move your arms and body fast enough to beat back dozens of angry hornets, without pause. This is a feat that few fighters can accomplish, most of which live in this very village. I am one of them, and now so are you.
“Now, this energy can be used not only to increase your speed, but your strength as well. You already knew the rudiments of this when you arrived here, and could increase the strength of your blows through loosely focused Chi, nearly doubling the damage you inflicted.
“Through your constant exercise, the techniques learned, your daily meditation, your diet, and the pressure points I have been using, this ability has been greatly increased. The flows of your internal energies have been improved greatly, as well as the amount of energy you can both produce and use at any given time.”
Ranma nodded absently, staring blindly into his tea.
“Now, back to the boulders,” Cologne continued. “The reason that you are able to withstand the impact of the boulder without injuries both external and internal, is because your Chi has been focused throughout your body in a very special manner. I have aligned your flows properly, and removed any possibly detrimental blockages, which has made it so that you can move your energy to where it is most needed with a minimal of lost effort.
“When a blow strikes your body, your Chi moves to harden in that area. Thus your skin, bones, and organs are protected to no small extent against common damages. The repeated use of this ability has the same effect as does exercising a muscle, meaning that the more often it is used, the stronger it becomes.
“However, unlike a normal muscle, this one will not atrophy from misuse. At least, not without going for several years before you get struck with any heavy blow, that is.
“The pressure points and herbal concoctions I have been giving you have made it so that your body is hardening as well. This makes for an overall more balanced durability, where your body itself can take a heavy blow, and anything serious can be warded off by chi-hardening.”
Ranma sat back a little bit, unsure whether to grin or frown.
Sure, it would be nice to be able to, say, fall off a cliff and bounce at the bottom with little more than bruised pride… But to be able to shrug off most people’s attacks as if they were nothing would take some of the fun out of the fight. After all, it’s the thrill of the challenge, not the thrill of the fight.
“Isn’t that kind of like cheating, though?” he asked suddenly. “I mean, if I can take whatever they throw at me, then why bother even fighting?”
Cologne sighed heavily, looking askance of the heavens.
“Boy, you don’t know what kinds of powerful things there are out there, do you?” she asked quietly. “There are all manner of beasts and monsters that can punch a boulder in two just as easily as they could a human being, and would not hesitate to do either. It is up to a person such as you or I to bring down such beasts, before they can do the same to innocents.”
“I… I see…”
“With the training I’m giving you, you can do much more than fight the human monsters, Son… You can fight inhuman monsters as well, and it is those that cause the most damage.”
“I can argue that,” Ranma muttered. “But it makes sense now.”
“Good,” Cologne nodded. “Then we can get on with your training tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, but we still have daylight,” Ranma said, pointing towards the open door.
“I know.”
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(Posted Sun, 21 Nov 2004 16:49)
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