Yawning, Ranma reached his arms behind his head to rest back on the roof. Looking up at the starry night, the pigtailed youth let a soft sigh escape past his lips.
It had been a month now. One solid month since the first real attempt at getting married to Akane. He knew he cared for the Tomboy. He risked life and limb to save her from her fate as a dehydrated ‘doll’ because of some stupid, no-account jerk-face whom claimed he was a Phoenix God.
“Pfft! Phoenix God, my ass...” Ranma grumbled. True, it had probably been the toughest fight in his life, but c’mon! That Saffron jerk said he was a god! Weren’t gods supposed to be omipus... monipres… impotent... well, all powerful and unbelievably difficult to fight!?
Well, Saffron wasn’t. Sure, Ranma has a technique which gave him even footing, thanks to the superior Hiryuu Shoten Ha... but the Phoenix could have shrugged ONE off easily enough and kept on fighting. Instead, it tore through the bird-like jerk like a hot knife through butter, ending his fearsome presence, period.
Sitting up, Ranma rose his hands to almost eye level as he looked at them. He had killed with these hands. True, Saffron had come back as a baby, but the fact remained he had gone through with trying to take someone’s life, and had succeeded for the most part.
But even as he obsessed over that battle in China, other thoughts would come to Ranma, such as the reason he had thought Saffron in the first place.
Akane.
Realistically considering just how much time he spent thinking about that fight with what was calling itself a god would hit Ranma with a small pang of guilt. He was more obsessed over how he had won that fight rather than the fact something that should have been more important was kept to the back of his mind.
“Akane...” Ranma said her name softly. Closing his hands into fists and lowering them, Ranma had to think about the sadness his ‘uncute’ fiancée Akane had gone through this past month. That night when everything was ruined by his rivals and other so-called fiancées, Akane had locked herself in her room all night and wouldn’t speak to anyone...
But he could hear her crying.
These days, Akane wasn’t angry with him, something Ranma considered a good thing. But it was like the Akane he knew had become someone else. Gone was the constant yelling, the shouting, the blaming for stupid stuff, the name-calling... instead there was woman, matured by her past experiences who was giving her all into training to become a better martial artist.
Smirking a little, Ranma had to consider that she was still digging herself into a rut. Still, he couldn’t fault her for trying. She was even listening too some of the stuff he told her too. It made her spent less time in the Dojo...
...And outside jogging.
A sweat-drop rolling down his head, Ranma let out a sigh. At least the uncute tomboy was trying to balance out her skills instead of relying on brute strength. But still, there was really so much more she could be doing, and for the life of him, the pigtailed martial artist couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts of how Akane was coping with the situation, Ranma looked up at the sky, wondering where to go from here. “Like Akane, I’m getting myself into a freakin’ rut too...” he said softly. Damn, the truth could hurt.
Ranma then blinked his eyes as he saw the sight of a falling star in the distance of the sky. “Heh. I wonder if that old saying about wishing upon a shooting star has any truth to it...”
Closing his eyes, Ranma made himself a wish... for something, anything, to change the course his life was taking. He didn’t want to be stuck at some dead-end.
(------)
Looking over his fields one last time before he would turn in for the, Mr. Hoshino considered the simple life in Hokkaido as a Potato farmer.
After all, the majority of Japan’s Potatoes were grown mostly in Hokkaido, as well as where they were first introduced by Dutch traders, in Nagasaki in the late 18th century. Those crazy Dutch.
Still, this land, this farm, it had been in his family for seven generations now. Seven!
“Of course, if it’s to continue for an eight generation, I better get married soon,” the middle-aged Japanese farmer thought as he reached for a package of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. “I’m not getting any younger.”
Taking a cancer stick to his lips and using his other hand to take a lighter out of his pocket, the farmer was about to flick the lighter on, when suddenly there was a bright light behind him.
“What the...?” The Farmer turned to see a very spherical meteorite coming down from the sky...
... and right towards him.
His cigarette falling from his lips, the farmer’s last words were, “Oh fu-”
*BA-DOOM*!
With the explosive force of impact, dirt and fried potatoes flew up into the air as the falling heavenly body created a massive crater as it dug into the area of land smack dab in the middle of a potato farm.
Finally, when the destruction had ended, the meteorite at the center of the crater turned out to be a rather spherical metallic object, the surface sizzling slightly from the head of entry into the earth’s atmosphere. A spaceship?
Slowly, there as a humming noise and a segment of the pod began to open up. A six-foot tall, athletically built being slowly started to come out from the poke. This being that had come to earth was clad in a black sleeveless short-pants body suit with black boots and gloves that shone like polished leather, and an imposing set of black torso armor with thick and wide shoulder guards to add to the illusion of making him seem larger.
But noticeably were the smaller details. Like that he has a prominent diagonal scar on his left cheek, the same side of his head which he wore some sort of visor over one eye.
And most noticeable of all, was that his hair was done back in a pigtail.
Looking around, he didn’t see any sort of terrestrial life... still...
Raising his left hand to his visor, he pressed a button and frowned as he was getting numerous power readings. “So the inhabitants of this world are still alive...? Bah! You should never send a child to do a man’s job,” he snorted in disgust...
...and then caught a whiff of something that smelled good. Looking down, he saw these brown oblong things which were steaming. Reaching down, he ignored the heat and peeled back the skin to reveal nice baked starch goodness.
Taking a bite, the alien visitor considered the taste. Nodding his head for a bit, he ate the rest of the impact-baked potato with gusto. Licking his fingers cleaned, he looked around and saw that the tasty oblong objects were numerous and scattered all around the dirt field.
Grinning, the alien decided finding Ranma could wait a little longer. It had waited seventeen of this terran’s years, so what was one more day?
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(Posted Thu, 07 Sep 2006 16:54)
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