Ranma was quickly realizing a few things now, things most twelve year olds never considered.
The first was that when his current issues were over, he was going to spend five hours—no, a whole day—studying the Jupiter Path to learn a stronger lightning spell, all so he could really let into his Old Man about his current displeasure with the Elder Saotome’s actions.
Second was that if he needed to go anywhere for anything in particular, he was going to ditch his Old Man—preferably after sending a few thousand Watts of power through the fool to ensure he wasn’t followed.
The third…
“ROAR!”
Oh yes, he had a twenty meter demon to deal with that his Old Man and the caretaker’s grandson let lose.
And why would they do such, you might ask? Simple really, when you learn the story of the shrine.
Centuries ago, the caretaker’s ancestors took down the big demon Ranma was currently fighting. They could not kill him, but they could seal him away.
Said seal was well maintained by the family. The current incarnation was an old man and his grandson—said grandson being a very poor letcher who couldn’t get women if he was Fabio and who probably drove away more visitors than a bad economy.
This was probably why said boy had agreed to help Genma Saotome steal the seal, which just happened to be a nice plate or ornamented gold.
Ranma hopped backwards, barely avoiding a spike from the demon’s tail, a small amount of poison striking his clothes. Luckily, the magical protections he had layered upon all his outfits kept the poison from damaging him or eating away at his flesh. Though it probably explained why the early warrior who fought the demon preferred bow and spears.
Of course, those measures only gave some protection from kinetic forces, such as the demon’s follow-up kick that launched Ranma across the yard and into the house. But as he was flying, there was only one thought on his mind.
The Old Man is so going to pay for this.
Ranma looked up, his vision swimming from the strike. “Okay,” he huffed, slowly pushing himself off, glad for the small respite from the battle, “definitely need to research a bit more on taking hits like that.”
“Is it gone?” came a meek voice.
Ranma spared a moment to glance towards the voice, noticing that he was in the grandson’s room—the posters of scantily clad women were a good indication. Under the bed, he could see the shaded figure of the letch, hiding in the fetal position. “Yes,” Ranma replied sarcastically, “it’s gone; I just felt like seeing if I could fly through a wall.”
The room shook as the monster’s roar was heard.
“Guess the old priest kept up the protections on the home,” Ranma mumbled as he pushed himself up to a standing position. At least he had maybe a minute or more before Big & Ugly broke through them. “Now,” Ranma grunted, his foot lashing out and knocking the bed up and across the room.
Reaching down, he grabbed the grandson by his shirt and lifted him up. “You’ll either help me one of two ways.”
“What?” squeaked the boy, surprised that someone four years his junior was holding him up like that. Try as he might, he couldn’t free himself from Ranma’s grip.
“You can either make me an ofuda for sealing to try and reseal big and grumpy, or…”
“Or what?” the boy asked in a whimper.
“I can toss you out there and gather the time and energy I need to reseal him on my own as it picks the meat from your bones,” Ranma offered with a smile.
“Y-you can’t do that!” screeched the boy.
“You and my old man released him; you didn’t think you were gonna get off from that without punishment, did you?” Ranma replied, his smile forming a glare that further scared the older teen.
“Oh come on, man!” pleaded the teen. “I didn’t know that gold plate really sealed a demon in there!”
“Fine, tell me where your grandfather is? Maybe he might be interested in helping me stop this thing BEFORE IT GOES TO DESTROY TOKYO!”
“Um,” gulped the boy nervously, “your old man sort of sent him out to a call on the other side the ward.”
Ranma’s eyebrow twitched as the house shook again. “And my Old Man?”
“Oh, he ran after I removed the seal and we saw the demon,” said the boy excitedly. “Man, what a coward! He didn’t even have time to take the seal!”
Ranma twitched again. Gees, the Old Man left me behind again to deal with his mess. Why am I not surprised? “Then I guess it is just up to you and me, um … whatever your name is.”
The teen twitched. “Ichi.”
“Fine, Ichi,” Ranma said, carrying the teen over to a nearby desk—littered with several ‘adult’ magazines and a ofuda set that was covered in dust. Grabbing the set, he made his way towards the opening in the wall, the room shaking once again as the demon struck at the protections on the house. “Plan A or Plan B?”
“What? You’re serious?” bellowed Ichi.
“I smell it! I smell the body of the descendents of those who bound me! Give them to me, Mortal, and I shall allow you to leave unharmed!
“Plan A! Plan A!” Ichi yelled, as Ranma launched them out of the room, magic and chi giving him the boost he needed to clear the structure as the demon struck the barrier again, the light giving them cover as Ranma made their way to the other side of the house, hiding them behind the pitched roof.
“Now then,” said Ranma, “get making those ofuda before I decide it is easier to just feed you to this thing.”
“What?” yelled Ichi. “You can’t leave me here!”
“Well, someone has to go keep Mr. Grumpy busy,” he said, holding up the seal.
“Hey, that’s mine!”
“It belongs to the demon, wanna fight him for it?”
Ranma panted lightly as he avoided yet another attempted impalement of the demon. He had found out a few things.
One: hitting the demon was a very bad idea unless he boosted the attack with mana. The thing seemed to shrug it off if he didn’t. Of course, that didn’t matter if Ranma struck him with the seal. It was now bent slightly, but the demon sported several severe burns from where it had impacted, now only have three of its four eyes for use.
Two: mana attacks that he did know worked pretty well on the demon. Problem was Ranma had to save what mana he did have in reserves—including the Toueihouseki—for when he needed to seal this thing away.
And three: Ichi’s time was up. “Levitas!” Ranma yelled as the he summoned a lightning attack, stunning the demon enough for him to run underneath its legs, giving the ankles each a whack with the seal to buy further time. Leaping to the roof and ignoring the screams of the injured demon, he landed beside the boy. “Well?”
Ichi looked up, the area of the roof scattered with most of the blank ofuda, each one crumpled or messed up in some way. “Hey, I-I need more time!” he begged.
The roof shook as a barrier around the place lit up. “I’d have to say time’s up, which means we go to Plan B…”
“Here!” yelled Ichi, handing Ranma his finished ofuda, before darting towards the nearby ladder—Ranma had been paying for their stay by helping the old man replace the roof tiles in this section.
Ignoring him, Ranma glanced down at the ofuda. He didn’t pay attention to the characters—he figured it would be illegible given the letch’s fear—but to the power it contained. “At least his chi isn’t as useless as his skills,” he murmured. There wasn’t much, but it would provide enough of a focus for Ranma to add power to it. “Just hope this works,” he sighed, slipping the seal into his shirt and ensured it was in contact with the Toueihouseki. If he was going to pull this off, he was going to need every advantage he could get.
“Time to end this.” After all, he did have other plans that night.
“LEVITAS!” yelled Ranma, bringing his arms down as harshly as he could.
The effect was almost immediate, as several bolts of lightning appeared from the calm sky, striking the large demon, and delivering multiple amps of nature’s power.
“ARRRRGH!” it bellowed out, twitching and lashing about as it took the damage.
Nodding his head, Ranma grabbed the ofuda Ichi had created, wrapping it around his right hand. Closing his eyes for a moment, he opened the link to the Toueihouseki, allowing the small amount of energy it possessed to feed him and enter into the ward, his mind casting the strongest Light Attack spell he knew into the same hand to hopefully add to its effectiveness.
Bouncing off the nearby trees, Ranma gained altitude, mana and chi gathering into his right hand, empowering the ofuda even further.
The demon roared as the stunning effect of Ranma’s ‘Levitas’ attack. “Where are you, mortal? Where is the spawn of those who dared impede my desires?” it bellowed.
“Up here, ugly!” Ranma yelled, altitude maximized as he began his descent, wishing that he didn’t have to say the name of the spell to bring out its full power.
As he descended, he punched his fist forward as the demon looked up. “SPARKLER NOVA!”
As the fist connected between the demon’s wide eyes, a bright light erupted and consumed the two, stretching into the sky and spearing the clouded sky.
Soon the light faded, the demon’s screams silenced, as an odd thunder echoed in the sky.
When the light died down, the demon was gone, the earth around where it had been standing badly burnt and blackened. In the middle laid one pigtailed boy, breathing heavily as he mentally sealed off the Toueihouseki, hoping he hadn’t drained it too much.
Ranma growled as he forced himself to a standing position, looking at the blackened ground before him. “Okay,” he murmured, “I don’t think that was supposed to happen.”
Slowly unwrapping the ofuda from his hand, he looked upon the written characters on it.
“This isn’t sealing,” he sighed. “This is banishment.”
He lowered as he chuckled lightly, Ranma slowly made his way back to the house. “Well, hope this doesn’t ruin the old man’s tourism. But at least he can’t blame me for this.” Reaching into his shirt, he pulled out the gold seal and tossed it on the couch as he made his way towards the guest room he and his father were supposed to be staying in.
“Time to do what I came here for.”
“Lousy little brat,” murmured Ranma as he made his way to the ‘resident kami’ portion of the shrine. “He meets the old man and tells some bull, I’m going to hurt him worse than my Old Man,” he spat, finally spotting the area he had been searching for.
It had been the whole reason he had come to this shrine in the first place. There were a few spells he could use to ‘allow’ his voice to find the one he wanted to hear his pleas. With any luck, in a few moments, he’d be speaking with either the creator of or someone who could teach him the true Nekoken.
“Just lucky I ain’t scared of cats,” he shuddered, as he opened his backpack, pulling out a few candles and some prepackaged food he hoped would appease whoever the spell would contact. If it hadn’t been for the Book showing the details of the training—Genma had left it behind as Ranma was digging the pit—who knew what he’d be like now.
Of course, he had to spend the last few years looking for the perfect spot to try and contact a hopeful ‘positive’ force to teach him the true technique. Finding a shrine with a valid connection to a different plane was difficult at best, not to mention finding reasons to go there that his father wouldn’t halt. Otherwise, they probably would never have come to this shrine.
Oddly enough, Ranma hadn’t been able to find anything in the public record about such a fighting style. And the publisher of the book it was in had gone out of business years ago, about the time a certain nuclear weapon had detonated at where they were based.
Shaking past thoughts from his head, Ranma took a seated position and began casting the ‘Words Upon the Wind’ spell, something that ensured a person’s words would reach the one they sought.
Once that was done, Ranma lit the candles and made his speech.
“I seek the one or ones in the Heavens, I seek the ones who know of the Nekoken. I seek those who may teach me this technique to better protect this world and those on it!”
Man I hopes this works … or at least doesn’t make things worse.
He had no idea how true those words could be, as a light began shimmering within the portion of the shrine, coalescing into…
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