He climbed to his feet, hoping that the task of cleaning would be sufficiently daunting to distract him from any actual conversation. Ranma's best thinking typically occurred in tense situations, and while he didn't really enjoy all the stress, he did admit that the ability came in handy. For a moment, when Ranma surveyed the aftermath of Akane's cooking attempt, he almost smiled.
The room was destroyed, nearly beyond recognition. Ranma had no idea how Kasumi had kept the smoke out of the rest of the house, but scorch marks and char covered nearly every surface. Kasumi stood before the sink, looking at a bit of ... egg? That had been baked onto the ceiling speculatively.
Ranma shifted his perceptions, and decided to make a game of it. The ash soot, and general ... mess ... would be the enemy. This thought in mind, he attacked.
Kasumi gave a quiet startled noise when Ranma snapped the tablecloth off the kitchen table and swirled it once around his shoulders, before seeming to melt into the shadows. All around her, the kitchen seemed to ... breathe quietly, as though it were moving beneath the edges of her perceptions. "Ranma?" she asked tremulously, turning around at a noise behind her.
A mixing bowl clattered into the sink, and Kasumi whirled again. Now the small kitchen table sparkled, wobbling slightly, as though it had been bumped. When Kasumi dizzily fell down from the spinning, she found herself caught, and gently placed in the chair before the table. She closed her eyes, and just settled in to wait for the kitchen to finish cleaning itself.
"Ranma?" she asked again. "Are you there?"
"Yeah," he said, his voice subdued and faint, seeming to come from all directions at once. "I'm just cleanin'."
"Ah," she said, not yet trusting herself to open her eyes. "Are you using the Umisen-ken?"
"Yeah," he admitted, a tinge of embarrassment in his voice penetrating the Thief's Mantle.
Kasumi couldn't help but giggle. "I think you've found a fine use for such a terrible thing, Ranma-kun." Then she turned her voice serious once more. "Ranma, may I ask you a question?"
After a moment of pause, he answered, "Uh ... sure, Kasumi. What would you like to know?"
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(Posted Thu, 14 Jul 2005 19:00)
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