"Mou-chan!" Hakufu cried out, waving her arm wildly at the other girl. "Over here!"
Ryomou grimaced. She wasn't really in the mood to deal with the overly-cheerful ditz, but she followed Saji over to the group anyway.
"Saji!" Kokin exclaimed. "Where have you been?"
"Sorry I missed the tournament," Saji said, smiling slyly. "I was away visiting someone and lost track of time. And who have we here?"
Saji slid up to Kanu and began reaching for her breasts.
"Touch me and die," Kanu informed him icily, the spear point on the bottom of Seiryuutou just poking into the flesh under Saji's jaw.
"Don't be like that," Saji pouted. "I was just being friendly."
"Only one man is allowed to be that friendly with me—and you aren't him," Kanu replied.
"Well, he must be impressive indeed to have captured the interest of Kanu Unchou," Saji smirked.
"He is very impressive," Kanu sniffed in disdain. "Far more so than Saji Genpo."
"You wound me," Saji said melodramatically, placing his hand over his heart.
"I'm gonna wound you if you don't stop acting like an ass," Ryomou grated out.
"Oh, sorry, Mou-chan, did I upset you?" Saji asked, turning to Ryomou with a small smile.
"Saji, you're an idiot," Ryomou snapped curtly.
"And how is the Sho Haou?" Saji asked Hakufu.
"I'm great!" Hakufu chirped. "It's been a long time, Mr. Bra Salesman."
"And who are these two lovely ladies with you?" Saji asked, eyeing Goei and Nodoka appreciatively.
"This is Aunt Goei, Hakufu's mom, and this is Aunt Nodoka, my other cousin, Ranma's mom," Kokin introduced. "This is Saji Ganpo, one of Nanyo's Big Four fighters."
"Pleased to meet you, young man," Nodoka said a bit coolly. This young man rubbed her the wrong way for some reason.
"Hello there," Goei giggled. "Aren't you a cutie."
"So...what are you doing here, Saji?" Kokin asked hastily before Saji could start flirting with Goei.
"I heard there was a strong, new fighter fighting in the tournament so I wanted to come see for myself," Saji smirked. "I also heard he was your cousin."
"He's over there, about to fight Sousou Moutoku," Kokin said, pointing to Ranma.
"Well this should be interesting," Saji commented.
Sousou was deeply concerned. He really didn't want to fight in this tournament and had hoped that Kakoton and Kakuka would deal with it without his direct participation. It wasn't that he was afraid to fight; he was afraid it might come out and do something horrible...again.
He considered forfeiting the match, but then he looked at his best friends' battered, unconscious forms. They had fought hard to win the tournament and paid the price in blood to be here. If he forfeited without fighting, Sousou felt he would be letting his friends down. He couldn't do that, so he just hoped that he could stay in control, win or lose.
"I don't suppose there's any chance of you forfeiting without a fight," Sousou suggested to Ranma.
Ranma snorted in mirth.
"You can if you want, but I came to fight," Ranma replied with a shrug.
"Well, it was worth a shot," Sousou sighed. "I'm ready if you are."
"Let's do it," Ranma grinned.
In spite of his confident demeanor, inside, Ranma was wary. He sensed the same sort of power coming from Sousou as he did from Hakufu, seemingly contained for the moment but ready to explode at any time. If it happened like it had with Hakufu, then Ranma could be facing an intense fight.
"Match 3, Seito versus Kyosho. Begin!" the referee announced.
The brown-haired boy immediately moved in and threw a punch at Ranma. Ranma leaned to the side and countered with a light, by his standards, kick to Sousou's kidneys. Sousou grunted with the impact and quickly lashed out with his own kick. The kick blasted into Ranma's gut with surprising force and sent Ranma flying. However, Ranma managed to right himself in the air and landed in a handspring before flipping back to his feet. The younger fighter immediately charged back to his opponent and for the next several minutes they continued to probe each other's defenses, each occasionally landing a blow.
Then things changed. Ranma decided it was time to take it up a notch and suddenly Sousou began taking more than he was dishing out. The older boy was suddenly on the defensive, unable to counter attack as Ranma's attacks came in at an insane rate.
Ranma threw a sharp jab that connected with Sousou's mouth with a spray of blood. Sousou staggered backward, catching a kick on the shoulder which spun him around. Sousou desperately used the spin to lash out with a roundhouse kick, but Ranma dropped under it and landed a ki-boosted double palm strike to Sousou's gut.
A hump appeared on Sousou's back as the energy from Ranma's attack blasted into his body and then the ki strike detonated in a flash of light, blowing Sousou's shirt apart. The explosion sent Sousou flying only to slam into the much beleaguered wall that already sported two other craters left from where Kakoton and Kakuka had met it earlier. The wall finally failed under this third impact and Sousou was blasted through it in a huge cloud of dust.
Ranma sweat-dropped, instantly knowing he had overdone it and worried that he might have seriously hurt Sousou by underestimating the power he has put into the attack. He and the spectators held their breaths for several long moments as they waited to see if Sousou would emerge from the dust cloud.
Chou'un sucked in her breath as she felt it. There was a huge spike of energy from the building Sousou have disappeared into. Things were about to get very bad.
"Not good," Chou'un breathed.
"You feel it to, child?" Cologne asked nervously. "It's like the blonde girl yesterday only this feels far more malevolent."
"Sousou's dragon," Chou'un replied. "This is very bad."
On the ground, those sensitive to it, began backing away. The murderous intent was flooding out of the hole in the wall, washing over their senses like a tsunami.
"Oh man," Ranma muttered apprehensively.
Suddenly, a column of flame rocketed out of the dust cloud so fast that all Ranma could do was cross his arms in front of him as it slammed into him. He screamed as the flames incinerated his shirt and bit into his skin while driving him backward. Ranma's feet left furrows in the concrete as the shaft of fire blasted him back until he slammed into the wall of another building. It pinned him there for another moment before the flames dissipated.
"Ranma!" Kanu shouted in alarm.
"Ma-chan!" Hakufu cried out at the same time.
Nodoka gasped and put her hand to her mouth in fear for her son.
Ranma dropped to his hands and knees, yanking the smoldering remnants of his shirt off his body. His arms and chest were covered with nasty burns and his hair was smoking. Ranma stayed there for several moments, panting and assessing his condition.
Across the field, Sousou strode out of the hole he'd been blasted through. Though his bangs shadowed his eyes, it did nothing to hide the fact that they were glowing with a malevolent yellow light. Ranma looked up and saw Sousou. He quickly ignored the pain he was in and stood up. Sousou looked over at Ranma and began to walk towards him.
"Nice shot," Ranma remarked loudly. "Try mine! Mouko Takabisha!"
A meter in diameter ball of intense golden ki shot from Ranma's palms and streaked across the field toward Sousou. Sousou sneered as it approached and his flame-limned fist shot forward to intercept the ball. When they met there was a blinding flash and an explosion. When the dust settled, Sousou stood there grinning sadistically, clearly untouched by Ranma's ki blast.
"Oh shit," Ranma whispered, gulping uncertainly. "You've got to be kidding me."
Warily, Ranma set himself for battle and began to circle Sousou, slowly closing the distance between them. Once he was close enough, he leapt forward to pummel Sousou with an Amaguriken.
"Kachuu Ten—erk!"
Ranma's cry was cut off when he found himself grabbed around the throat in a burning grip tighter than steel and hoisted off his feet. Ranma's fingers scrabbled at the hand crushing and burning his throat at the same time. It was no use though; he couldn't budge Sousou's grip. Instead, Ranma grabbed Sousou's wrist so that all his weight wasn't hanging by his neck and kicked Sousou in the face. Sousou's head snapped around with the kick but his grip didn't budge.
Ranma tried it again, but this time Sousou caught Ranma's leg with his free hand and twisted the limb savagely. Ranma would have screamed as he felt his knee dislocate, but he couldn't with his throat being crushed like it was. Blackness began to creep in around the edges of his vision and Ranma knew he had only moments before he was finished for good.
Unfortunately, Sousou decided that strangling his opponent wasn't good enough. Moments before Ranma passed out, Sousou slammed the younger fighter down on the ground head first. The concrete cracked and cratered around Ranma's head. Sousou laughed madly as he hoisted Ranma up once more to slam him back down again.
Ranma's world exploded in pain right before blackness claimed him, his body going limp in Sousou's grip. Sousou didn't care. He lifted Ranma into the air once more, Ranma's body dangling from his grip like a rag doll, and prepared to continue bashing the boy's head against the concrete until his skull cracked open and splattered his brains across the ground.
Suddenly, Ranma's body exploded in energy and Sousou felt his own wrist grabbed in a crushing grip. Curious, he looked up at Ranma face to meet a pair of glowing, ice-blue eyes with vertically slit, reptilian pupils glaring down at him. Sousou barely had time to register what he was seeing before the other boy's fist came up, glowing with a frosty blue aura, and slammed into his forearm with impossible force.
Sousou roared in pain as the bones in his forearm snapped accompanied by a sensation of biting cold. His hand opened involuntarily and Ranma dropped to the ground. While his opponent dropped to his hands and knees, rubbing his throat and coughing, Sousou cradled his arm and examined the damage. About halfway between his wrist and his elbow, it was broken, with one of the bones just barely tearing through his skin on the opposite side. His flesh around where Ranma had hit him was black with severe frostbite and was covered with a thin layer of frost. Rage filled him at the damage Ranma had done to him and he prepared to incinerate the other boy in burning vengeance.
Unfortunately for him, Ranma had recovered first. A blast of bitter, freezing energy slammed into Sousou's chest and sent him rocketing into a stack of metal shipping containers. The containers exploded into the air as Sousou was driven back through at least three rows of them, only to rain back down on top of him, burying him in tons of twisted steel.
Ranma looked on coldly as the semi-trailer sized containers fell down around his enemy, a trail of frost marking the other boy's flight path as the humidity in the super-cooled air had frozen and fell to the ground in the wake of the blast. Ranma threw back his head and roared at the top of his lungs, his energy level spiking as an icy aura burst out around him. The concrete began to crack as it was flash-frozen. Amazingly, the burns and injuries he had suffered earlier visibly faded away and Ranma climbed back to his feet, his aura pulling back inside him.
Suddenly a huge fireball exploded from under the collapsed containers, blasting them away like toothpicks to reveal a very pissed-looking Sousou with his fiery red aura burning around him, and like Ranma's had, healing his injuries.
"We've got to stop them before they kill each other!" Cologne gasped, even from this vantage point able to see the feral, mindless look in Ranma's eyes.
"Yes," Chou'un agreed.
"Take this, child," Cologne said, handing Chou'un a bottle of water. "Splash Ranma with it and activate his curse. Quickly now, go!"
Chou'un didn't question the old woman. There would be time enough for that later. Right now was a time for action.
Sousou glared at his enemy as the other boy glared right back at him. Red hot rage, clashed against icy cold fury. Sousou prepared to fire another attack at the boy when the strangest thing happened. A streak of brown and silver passed over his opponent leaving a splash of water in its wake. The water hit the boy and abruptly, where the raven-haired boy has stood, there now stood a girl with vibrant red hair with her well-formed breasts standing out proudly on her naked chest. The icy-blue glow from the former-boy's eyes guttered and faded with the change before the girl's eyes rolled up in the back of her head and she passed out.
The incongruity of the situation was enough for Sousou to drop out of his own dragon mode. He blinked in confusion as the glow faded from his eyes and his power level receded to normal levels. He took a step toward the prone redhead but stopped when a silver-haired girl, in a brown school uniform he didn't recognize, and Kanu Unchou moved to put themselves in between the fallen redhead and Sousou. Kanu had her glowing polearm held at ready and the other girl pushed her katana loose in the saya with her thumb. The message was clear, if he came any closer they would do their best to slice and dice him.
"It's over, Sousou," Kanu declared loudly. "Seito forfeits the match."
Sousou looked from the prone redhead to the looks of determination on the faces of the two girls before nodding.
"Agreed," Sousou replied. "And...thank you for stopping this...before it went too far."
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(Posted Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:54)
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