"So slow," Ranma sighed tiredly as he nonchalantly leaned slightly to the left, effortlessly avoiding the hand that sought to strike him. Then it was back into standard Anything Goes opening stance, as Ranma kept his hands in his pockets, and looked to be completely open to any attack. "Man even panda's can move faster than you."
Neji on the other hand was anything but nonchalant as he tried to take down Ranma in their afternoon sparring session. A look of outrage filled the young teens face, with his jaw clenched tightly and Neji's eyes radiated fury. One could practically hear Neji's teeth grinding, and the vein throbbing on his forehead was pulsing along at furious pace.
"Not to mention little old ladies," Ranma added helpfully with a slight smirk on his face as leaned to the right this time to dodge Neji's follow up Jyuuken strike. "And by old I mean absolutely ancient shrivelled up crones."
A furious hiss was all that came out of Neji's mouth, his lips contorted into a frankly disturbing grin. The snap kick Neji then aimed directly at Ranma's head was casually voided once again by the pig-tailed boy.
Brushing a bit of dirt from the shoulder of his classic black kung fu tangs Ranma smiled cheerfully. Why that kick had almost been enough to use his hands, maybe if he taunted Neji just a bit more into turning things up a notch this might even be interesting. Nah, not really.
"Well Fate boy it's seem you're destined to lose once again in five." Ranma stated with absolute confidence.
Letting his hands do the talking for him, Neji launched himself forward firing off several blistering fast palm strikes as he went all out.
Not even bothering to block, Ranma simply kept shifting backwards, as his slipper clad feet seemingly floated over the dusty sparring ring.
"Four, three," Ranma counted down a wide smile forming on his face.
"Gaaaaa!" Neji cried out in frustration, as the very air started to shimmer around him from the boy's anger. Leaping ahead once more, chakra pulsed forth from Neji's finger tips as he sought to draw blood from Ranma.
Ranma's smirk grew even larger as he lightly tapped away the strikes Neji tried to land on him, with only the slightest of gestures.
"Two, one, and zero." Ranma stated as he caught Neji's outstretched right hand in between two of his own finger. Pulling back slightly to overextend Neji's arm, Ranma gave a self satisfied smirk fired his hand forward in a blistering fast strike.
Then with that Neji collapsed to the ground unconscious.
"Winner, Saotome." The Chuunin instructor declared.
-0o-o0-
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
"Ranma, Mihoshi's looped herself again," Nabiki complained from the kitchen table currently covered with a variety of books and scrolls. It took more than the latest nonsense from Mihoshi to disrupt Nabiki's studious efforts, months of living with Ranma had lead her to develop skills in what Nabiki liked to laughingly call 'Tendo Anything Goes Cramming'. Not even a full on fiancé fight complete with rivals and Happosai would disrupt her studies.
Chewing on the end of her eraser-less pencil, Nabiki's eyes glanced over the coded message she was currently trying to crack. Several other successfully solved coded messages filled the previous pages of her workbook.
"Again," Ranma complained as he finished putting on his house slippers at the entrance of their dingy little apartment. "Oh well let’s get this over with."
Rolling his eyes, Ranma strolled through the kitchen and into what was their living room complete with a worn looking kotastu complete with a plaid blanket currently pushed to one side and a second-hand television. On top of the TV was a purple shoe box sized device complete with blinking white lights in place of the usual rabbit ears.
Mihoshi had somehow managed to make it appear from her cube o' items. Both she and Nabiki had been ecstatic at its working, since it somehow let them watch their usual shows.
In front of the TV a glowing orange circle floated right on the surface of the tatami, a matching circle of bright blue was directly overhead stuck to the somewhat water stained ceiling tiles.
Mihoshi, flailing her limbs frantically in an attempt to defy gravity, was falling from the ceiling down through the orange portal and back out the blue one.
Ranma lowered himself into a very solid stance and with a blurring motion reached out and snagged Mihoshi in mid air.
"Waaaaah!" Mihoshi cried out in relief as she latched onto Ranma rather like a human octopus.
With that the two portals fizzled out of existence.
"Damn it, Mihoshi, you've managed to loop yourself three times this week already," Ranma grumbled.
"I'm sorry!" Mihoshi said sniffling a little as she slowly removed herself from Ranma. "I just got so excited when Tama-chan finally outraced Usagi-kun during the Bunta 5000 and went..." Throwing her hands up Mihoshi cried out cheerfully, "...Banzai!"
'Zoop' with that a burst of energy surged forth from Mihoshi's hands, creating an orange portal on the ceiling.
"Then," Mihoshi concluded cheerfully as she snapped her hands downwards.
'Zoop' a blue portal opened up beneath both her and Ranma's feet.
"I just began fallingggggg......"
-0o-o0-
"So what's your assessment of Uzumaki?" Nabiki asked from her perch on top of her bed. Even though the mattress was hard, and not to mention smaller than her own bed back home, it was still better than the futon Ranma used.
By mutual agreement they had left Mihoshi out of their plotting sessions on what to do about Naruto. Mihoshi was far more likely to screw up their plans and help them, plans two of the trickier teenagers in Nerima knew were going to be difficult to pull off as it was.
"Frankly the kid's a real mess." Ranma answered as he dipped down than back up again. It was a real shame that he was reduced one handed vertical push ups yet again, one finger push ups were going to be months away. "His basics are shoddy, or entirely non-existent."
Nabiki nodded at this, not expecting to hear anything different. The small blush that filled her cheeks however was easily hidden behind the manga she wasn't really reading. 'Damn it Ranma.' Nabiki thought to herself. 'Why the hell do you have to do push ups without your shirt. Kami’s damn my lack of emotional control.'
"Any upsides, beyond the whole practically limitless chakra?" Nabiki asked. Ensuring Naruto wasn't as much as a screw up was vital for their survival until Mihoshi grew skilled and powerful enough with the portals to get them back home. She after all had just read the bit where Pain levelled most of Konoha in one shot.
"Well he does have okay strength and speed," Ranma pointed out as he switched hands to begin another set of one-handed push ups. "Not to mention some actual skill at gymnastics."
"Maybe you should teach him Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics then." Nabiki quipped. "You learnt enough to take Kodachi on, not to mention in that leotard you wore was definitely skin tight in all the right places."
"Ha, ha, ha," Ranma dead-panned. "It is to laugh. But seriously I think I have an approach that could work out. Make him my kouhai and generally play it up as the "aloof older brother/sempai."
"Saotome you do now that the aloof older brother either ends the villain, dead or surpassed in the end right," Nabiki fired back.
"No duh, Nabiki," Ranma fired back. "By that point we should be getting back to the Dojo. So I'll give a cheesy speech and vanish off into the sunset."
Nabiki giggled slightly as the mental image of Ranma wearing a ridiculous pair of shades, tight pants and only an open haori giving a giant thumbs up raced through her mind. "But seriously what's the hook going to be?"
"Figured I'd give Uzumaki a challenge. Tell him if he beats it in three months time I'll take him on as my Kouhai." Ranma stated. "I'll write up a scroll with a bunch of basic exercises and drills plus an absolutely impossible test at the end of it. Then I'll challenge Uzumaki to beat the scroll."
"Not bad for a first pass at figuring out what to do. Of course he won't actually be able to beat the test but that's not the point." Nabiki pondered out loud. "The real challenge is Uzumaki sticking to the exercises and drills even though they won't give him any flashy techniques, not to mention cleaning up some of his glaring deficiencies."
"Yup," Ranma grunted. "Course that covers my end. What are you planning to do?"
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(Posted Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:28)
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