Ranma was running again. He seemed to be doing that a lot today. It started with Hakufu oversleeping due to her hangover which made them miss the train. They had had to run to school to make it on time. That still boggled his mind how concerned he was about being on time for school.
"Me, an honor student, geez," Ranma commented as he leapt down a flight of stairs.
"Ranma! Wait!" Hakufu called out as she landed behind him and ran to follow as he took off down the corridor. "Why are we running?"
"The Yakisoba Cheese Roll!" Ranma explained. "It's the best and everybody wants it, but they don't make very many. It's known as the 'Legendary Lunch'. If we don't hurry, it'll be sold out!"
"Well why didn't you say so!" Hakufu declared as she stepped up the pace and drew even with Ranma.
Ranma smirked and increased his own pace, drawing ahead of her again.
"Hey, no fair!" Hakufu shouted, causing Ranma to look back and stick his tongue out at her. "Ranma! Look out!"
Ranma looked back to see a girl with short blue hair, an eye patch over one eye and a startled expression on her face standing directly in front him.
"Eep!" Ranma commented as he realized a collision was immanent.
He did the only thing he could do, which was grab her around the waist as they collided, spinning them around so that he would take the impact with the ground and she would land on him.
"Oh, geez, I'm sorry!" Ranma apologized to the girl cradled in his arms. "Are you okay?"
Ryomou Shimei lay on top of the guy that had barreled into her for a few moments as she struggled to regain her bearings after the world had gone sideways. As her inner ear settled, she pushed herself up until she was sitting, straddling his hips. His arms that had been wrapped around her so tightly released her as she did so, his hands falling unconsciously to rest on her hips.
Ryomou shook her head to dispel the remaining disorientation and looked down at the concerned face of the boy. However, when she caught site of the wild, midnight blue hair and his warm gray eyes, she froze. She knew of him. His name was Ranma Shuyu.
'But when did he get so...' Ryomou's thoughts trailed off as she continued to stare in fascination at the young man below her. 'He's so...'
"Hey, Ranma? Is this your girlfriend?" a strawberry blonde girl asked from beside them. A blush bloomed on Ryomou's cheeks as the idea of being Ranma's girlfriend penetrated her mind. "What's with the eye patch? Does she have pink eye or something?"
That snapped Ryomou out of it. She swiftly stood, shooting a glare at the blonde before walking away with all the dignity she could muster.
'Cute,' Ranma thought as he propped himself up on his elbows to watch Ryomou walk away. 'And dangerous,' his memories told him a moment later.
"Hey!" Hakufu shouted, kicking him in the side. "Are you ignoring me? I asked you a question!"
"Huh? What?" Ranma blinked, looking up at Hakufu before looking away as he realized he could see her panties quite clearly under her short skirt.
"I asked if she was your girlfriend," Hakufu repeated.
"Oh...ah...no," Ranma said flipping to his feet. "That was Ryomou Shimei, another of Nanyo's Big Four. She's supposed to be pretty good, even better than Gakushu."
"I got it!" Hakufu announced as if she had figured out a great mystery.
"Got what?" Ranma blinked. It was really difficult to follow his ditzy cousin sometimes.
"Well, there's the grubby headband guy, the bra salesmen, and the pink eye girl," Hakufu explained. "They are all members of the Big Four. Since they are called the Big Four, there must be four of them, right? That means there's one more!"
"Nothing gets past you," Ranma deadpanned.
"Why did you want to meet in a place like this?" Saji asked as he stood in the doorway of the gym equipment room. "It's like a typical setting for an erotic manga."
"What's going on?" Ryomou demanded, ignoring the innuendo in Saji's tone. "I heard that Enjyutsu ordered Kannei to execute Sonsaku."
"You have a good network as usual, Mou-chan," Saji commented.
"Why did he choose Kannei?" Ryomou probed.
"Kan-chan is one of the Big Four. So there's nothing unusual about him receiving the order," Saji pointed out.
"If he was still himself," Ryomou sniffed in disdain. "I don't know what's going on with him but he's not the same Kannei from a few months ago. He's not even a fighter anymore."
"So. What's wrong with that?" Saji shrugged as he turned to leave. "Kan-chan may have a screw loose, but he still has the same fighting skills. Truthfully, he could be even stronger than you, Mou-chan."
"Do you want to die, Saji Genpou?" Ryomou growled.
Saji turned and stepped up behind Ryomou, throwing an arm over her shoulder.
"Sounds good," he said seductively in her ear. "I'd love to die between your thighs." His hand pulled loose the crimson bow from around Ryomou's collar and unbuttoned her blouse before slipping inside to fondle her breasts. "Mou-chan, I guess she still has you scared, even though you claim you don't even care about her."
Ryomou, who up to this point had been ignoring Saji's actions, narrowed her eyes. Gakushu's words from the night before when she had confronted him and subsequently defeated him in a fight drifted back through her mind.
"I don't feel the same kind of fear as I felt when fighting Hakufu Sonsaku," the behemoth has said as he was succumbing to Ryomou's choke hold.
She reached up and grabbed Saji's wrist, ripping his hand out of her blouse and holding his arm out to the side with a joint lock.
"I don't understand why Enjyutsu would give the order to such a bonehead," Ryomou spat.
"A bonehead, eh?" Saji said in an amused tone. "Hey, did you hear that? She called you a bonehead!"
Ryomou gasped and looked up as a drop of drool hit her cheek. She quickly spotted Kannei clinging to the rafters above them and berated herself for not detecting him before.
"Kannei!" Ryomou hissed at the insane fighter.
Kannei giggled in an unhinged way and held out his phone, displaying the Imperial execution order from Enjyutsu.
"I'll kill you, Sonsaku!" he giggled.
Elsewhere in the school, other phones began to ring, signaling that their owners had mail.
Ranma stood in the athletic field thinking about what a ditz his cousin was. She had evidently forgotten something in her gym locker as they were leaving school for the day and had gone to retrieve it. He was seriously beginning to wonder if Aunt Goei had dropped the poor girl on her head when she was an infant or something.
Ranma looked up to see a large group of guys gathering around him.
"Something I can help you with?" Ranma asked.
"There it is!" Hakufu chirped as she grabbed her bead out of the bottom of her locker. "Found it! Now Mom won't have to beat me again like she did yesterday."
Hakufu quickly began fastening the bead to her ear with the hoop earring she had gotten for the purpose when she heard a crazy sounding giggle.
"Hakufu Sonsaku, I found you!" an unhinged voice giggled.
"So you guys got an Imperial Order to go get yourselves smacked down, huh?" Ranma smirked confidently.
"All the fighters in the school received the same orders: destroy you," the guy that had shown Ranma the message on his phone clarified.
"Well, okay, I guess I could use a light workout before heading home," Ranma shrugged, cracking his knuckles. "Who wants to be crushed first?"
Suddenly, Ranma heard glass shattering and looked to see the windows by the gym locker room blowing out.
"Hakufu!" he shouted, recalling that's where she had been going. "So that's it! This is a diversion to keep me busy while they attack Hakufu! Well it ain't gonna work. Sorry, guys, I'll have to kick your asses later. I got more important trash to take out."
With that, Ranma leapt into the air, bouncing off the heads of the guys that had been surrounding him and then streaking across the field at top speed toward the school building leaving his stunned attackers in the dust.
"Damn," Saji cursed as he watched Ranma practically ignore his carefully planned diversion. "I guess it's up to me now."
Except instead of heading for the stairs like Saji expected, he watched Ranma jump to the top of a fence, then to a tree branch, and then into the shattered third floor windows.
"Or not," Saji quipped, turning to run up the stairs himself as he found his ambush neatly bypassed.
"So what are you conspiring now?" Gakushu asked, blocking Saji's way up the stairs.
"What do you mean 'conspiring' Gak-chan?" Saji asked smoothly.
"I was suspicious of this order," Gakushu intoned. "It is uncharacteristic of Enjyutsu to make such a rash decision. Usually he is far more cautious."
"You think so?" Saji smirked.
"The only thing I can think of is that you are behind this," Gakushu declared. "This was your idea and you somehow convinced Enjyutsu to go along with it."
"No matter whose idea it was, En-chan gave the final order," Saji pointed out.
"That's not all," Gakushu continued. "You manipulated Ryomou to get involved in this too."
"I did no such thing," Saji laughed. "Mou-chan was already unstable to begin with. Girls have so many issues that make them unstable anyway."
Hakufu stood in a defensive stance, the top of her uniform shredded and exposing her bra. Kannei stood several feet away cackling madly as he licked one of his tonfa, covering it with drool.
"Gross," Hakufu commented in revulsion.
Suddenly, Kannei charged her again, his tonfa raised to strike, but an unexpected boot to the head halted his charge and sent him crashing into the wall of the locker room. Hakufu blinked and looked around to see Ranma's girlfriend from earlier standing on top of an intact row of lockers.
"Hakufu Sonsaku...right?" the girl said.
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(Posted Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:30)
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