Looking surprised for a moment, Ranma looked back behind him just to make sure he hadn't lost the petite Chinese girl following him. Spotting the familiar impish face, he felt a moment of relief that she hadn't wandered off again. "Ah, I haven't introduced Fei Ku have I?"
Having spotted Genma while looking for Fei Ku, he took a moment to turn to his father. "Hey pops, why don't cha go ahead and grab some lunch?"
Casting a last suspicious glance at his son surrounded by four girls, the portly man grumbled a bit but left with little fanfare as the grumbling of his stomach was louder.
Watching his old man go to hit a ramen stand, Ranma chose the opposite direction to lead the girls in. "It's kinda a funny thing, but I was training at her village, and I kinda saved some kids, so they've been treating me real nice."
Raising an eyebrow, Asuna caught what he was getting at. "They wouldn't happen to be a tribe of Chinese ninja would they?"
Chuckling at the image, Ranma continued on with his tale. "Nah, but pretty close. They and a buncha neighboring villages have a kinda Kung Fu war going on. They have these big battles and such, but it's mostly just showing off skill and stuff. 'Course there was a lot of other cool stuff there, like this whole mountain full of Tengu. Funny thing is we went there to train at this place called Jusenkyou, but we ended up just finding out it was cursed. Of course Pops didn't believe them, so he went there himself. Hehe, he wishes he had listened now."
Leading the girls into a restaurant, Ranma waited until they had a table and had put their orders in before getting back to the story. "Anyways, I was training at Fei Ku's village when..."
Looking at the short girl in surprise, Ranma had to wonder why she's suddenly grabbed his hand in a run and lead him to a house filled with children and a few old and injured people. "Is no explain now, Ranma stay here. Shelter for children is safe, so stay here until Fei Ku get back, okay?"
Blinking, Ranma wondered what the hell was up. Turning around and raising a hand to wave, he greeted the kids behind him lamely. "Uhm, hi?"
Looking up suddenly in surprise, Ranma snapped out of his boredom as the wall splintered apart.
After the wall exploded in a hail of chains and the dust settled, Ranma was posed between the wall and the children on one leg. Chains were wrapped around his raised legs, both arms and his body from where he had twisted and contorted through the air to catch them. Setting his leg down he turned his head and spat out the throwing knife he'd caught between his teeth.
Frowning as he grit his teeth he caught sight of the robed figure to which the chains were still attached through the gaping hole in the wall.
On her way to chew out Musu from getting lost, Shanpu paused as the robed idiot was suddenly yanked by his own chains from his roof-top perch. Not long after he came flying back over the roof, this time bound with his own chains.
As Musu thudded into the ground on the other side of the house, a young man alighted on the end of the roof opposite to Shanpu. Grinning at someone pounding Musu, but mostly at the thought of having a worthy opponent, Shanpu readied her ornamental maces. As they stared off, she eventually realized he wasn't going to attack despite the intense frown he was wearing.
Charging forward, she began what would hopefully be a fight worth being proud about. Heck he was cute, she might even keep him afterwards.
Leaping across various rooftops and into the street, Shanpu was growing confident in their running battle despite how good he was proving to be. Most impressive was the fact he was fighting her with only one arm, a throwing knife from Musu's barrage lodged in his left shoulder. Despite that handicap he was fending off both of her maces and making his own reprisals. She wasn't going to take pity on him for being injured by someone as pathetic as Musu, it was his own fault if he couldn't dodge something so simple.
Even if she couldn't press the advantage and get a win, she'd be able to outlast him easily. Once he passed out from the blood loss she could take him home as her spoils of war. It was almost a pity he spoke a foreign language, but in a way it just made him kinda cute with the way he uselessly shouted at her.
Passing a store front, Shanpu drew back as he dashed in to grab a weapon off the wall, not willing to let him get her by mere surprise.
Then to her surprise he grabbed a paper fan off the wall, folding it into the closed position before using it like a sword to deflect her maces. To her continued surprise, such a light weapon turned the tide of the battle as he was able to quickly deflect her maces and use the increased reach to get in jabs. Now she was really impressed with him as it took a lot of skill and strength to deflect her heavy maces with a fragile fan made of bamboo slats and paper.
Imagining what she was going to do with him once he was hers, she was almost caught off-guard as his expression changed to a grin. Going on guard, she was momentarily confused why he flicked the fan into the even more fragile open position.
Hearing the gust of wind it was so strong, Kolon looked up in mild surprise at the sight of her mostly naked grand-daughter sailing ungracefully through the air.
Bouncing over a few houses to get a better view, she was greeted by the sight of her heir laying in an unconscious and very undignified heap in the middle of their rival village. Most interesting though was that fact that her clothing was ripped almost entirely apart, despite there being a lack of corresponding damage to her flesh or hair. There were few techniques that could do so, and fewer still that would produce such a wind gust.
Looking up as a young man landed nearby, she noted that he was injured, yet wielding an open fan.
"I don't go easy on someone that'd attack kids like that."
Nodding sagely, Kolon poked her great-grand-daughter tocause her to flop into a less awkward position. "I agree, children should be protected. Are you saying she attacked the children here?"
Looking surprised, the young man snapped his fan closed, turning to the shriveled old woman. "Uhm, yeah, didn't expect to find someone that spoke Japanese. This guy threw a bunch of chains and almost tore the house apart, and when I came out to make sure no one else was gonna attack the kids, she attacked me."
Looking the boy over, Kolon was starting to get a few ideas as she pieced the events together. "Ah, that wound looks serious young one. Was it her or the man throwing the chains that did that?"
Grimacing at being reminded of the piece of steel sticking out of his chest, Ranma discarded the idea of pulling it out as the bleeding wasn't very bad despite all the moving he'd done. "Uhm, the guy with the chains. I kinda had my hands full with the rest of the crap he threw."
Nodding as she listened with a friendly nature, the ancient woman asked a question Ranma found a bit curious. "So tell me, did she even land a clean blow on you?"
Frowning in thought, Ranma actually considered that one as it had been a rather intense fight. "Uhm, no, not really. What's all this about Granny?"
Ignoring his question for the moment, Kolon allowed herself a grin that would do the cheshire cat proud, which coincidentally made the young man before her shy away. "Impressive."
Taking a moment to get some more food in his belly, Ranma let the story hang for a moment. Once his bowl of noodles was finished, he wrapped up the story. "Anyways they kinda wrapped things up afterwards. It's kinda like a rival village thing, so no one was going for blood or anything. That's why both villages kinda considered me a hero for saving the kids, because there woulda been real bloodshed then. Plus, that girl I defeated was the rival village champion, so I kinda won the battle. Oh yeah, they even had this funny law that if I defeated her she was honor bound to marry me, but 'cause I was just protecting the kids they let that slide."
Cheerfully raising her chopsticks into the air, Fei Ku cheerfully backed him up. "Is good to be proud of, was very strong and honorable!"
Raising an eyebrow, Asuna leveled a flat stare at the cheerful girl. "'Fake', 'Mousse', 'Shampoo' and 'Cologne'? Are you kidding me?"
Receiving a blank stare from the Chinese girl, the ponytailed girl relented. "You don't speak any English do you?"
Still puzzled, this time the Chinese girl managed to get a question of her own out. "Why English matter? You is Japanese, right? We is speaking Japanese."
Sighing, Asuna wisely let the issue drop.
As the issue of the bill came up, Kaede slid an envelope across the table to Ranma. "Your allowance Ranma-dono."
Picking up the envelope, Ranma glanced back towards the tall girl. "My allowance? I thought that was just for when I was at the village?"
Seeing Ranma's shock when he actually peeked in the envelope and started tallying the bills, Kaede cheerfully piped up. "You are a Lord of our village. Of course, most of it is just so we can eat."
Pulling out half the bills, Ranma divided that half up between himself and the four girls, giving them each 20,000 yen(~$200) for spending money. Making sure the other half was secured in the envelope, he slipped it back over to Kaede. "Okay, you hold onto the rest. If Pops saw me with that much money he'd freak."
Nodding happily, the lead kunoichi cheerfully slipped him two more envelopes in turn. "This is from Yukihiro-san, and this is from Konoka-san."
Opening the letter from Konoka, Ranma had a moment of amusement as the letter within was definitely cheerful with all the smiley faces on it. Making a note to write her back, he opened Ayaka's letter. As he expected from Ayaka, while it wasn't a love letter, it wasn't just something between friends either. Ever since he'd been named a Lord in their village, she'd been dropping some not so subtle hints that they should get married.
Quite frankly, the girl weirded him out a bit.
Sighing at the task before him, he turned to his lead kunoichi, telling her, "Alright just remind me to write 'em back when I get a chance."
One of the problems with the way Kaede was always smiling was that Ranma had trouble telling her smiles apart. Her next smile he placed somewhere between mischievous, amused and evil. His guess into her mood was justified as she slapped a bound stack of letters onto the table, followed by another stack. "The letters from the junior girls."
"From the senior girls." Another stack of letters joined the first two.
"Shizuna-sensei and the other teachers." Four stacks of letters now adorned the table.
"Gifts from the girls. The cookies were baked fresh this morning." Now the letters were buried under a stack of packages.
"Gifts from Ayaka." The pile of packages more than doubled, obscuring the diners from each other.
Raising his hand from behind the pile, Ranma weakly called out, "Check please."
Only to have Kaede put another letter in his hand. "Challenge letter from Hibiki-san, he wishes to reschedule the match."
Grumbling from behind the pile, Ranma pulled his hand back down. "Great. How late was he?"
Unruffled, Kaede continued smiling. "Four days after you left Ranma-dono."
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(Posted Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:15)
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