[Episode 223148] [Episode 223148]Ranma had just enough time to pull himself out of his depression to see the man who fired off the ki blast right before everything exploded. Then the world lurched and he was flying in the air.
Miu, still in control of her senses and not in a self-absorbed state, sensed the danger and turned around in time to counter some of the damage. Although the ki blast was easy for her to cancel out when it touched her, more than half of the car and the track below it had already been blown apart.
Niijima just grabbed into the closest thing he could and screamed. “We’re all gonna die!”
Pushed on by the force of the explosion, the car in front of the one Ryoga had been in was flipped forward and off the tracks. The connection between the car in front of that one snapped, and knocked the engine off kilter before falling to the ground below. The engine came to a turn and flew off the tracks, plowing through a nearby building like a missile, and all sorts of Michael Bay kind of destruction quickly followed.
The lurching car made Miu loose her footing for a moment and what was left of the car they were in fell off the track, pulling the others down with it. The blonde girl leaped up and dug her fingers in deep into the metal of the car that had been behind hers hard enough to warp it before grabbing onto part of the broken tracks.
She sent her ki through the object, and cried out as more of the train started to roll off the tracks, adding to the weight gravity was already putting on her body, without her grandfather’s advanced training, Miu knew she’d already have been ripped in half.
“Miu save me!” Niijima shouted as he clung to a handle for dear life. With the part of the train they had been in blown apart, Niijima was looking down at the that promised to shatter ever bone in his body if he let go.
“I KIND OF HAVE MY HANDS FULL AT THE MOMENT!” she shouted back.
Struggling as he was to stay live, Niijima didn’t have the opportunity to flinch. Oh right, she’s a Dou type. I forgot how murderous she gets when she’s in situations like this thanks to all that inner-strength training. Maybe it was just best to shut up and wait to be saved in good time.
Down on the ground, Ryoga fell to his knees in disbelief.
…
He did it.
He finally did it!
“I FINALLY KILLLED- OOPH!!” A sharp pain cut into the side of his head, and Ryoga went spinning along the ground.
Truly controlling one’s emotions in battle is a hard thing to do.
In war, soldiers get caught up in the ‘heat of battle’ and don’t feel things like fear, anger, hatred, or compassion for those they cut down. A small part of that survivalist mind takes over, and all those things just disappear in the adrenaline rush. But to say such a thing is controlling your emotions is an illusion, because during such times the more logical part of the brain also disappears, and people just follow though with their training and react to the world around them in defense.
When Ranma had been training under Cologne, she taught him a technique she called the Soul of Ice. It was a way of thinking that allowed Ranma to push his emotions aside without that rush or survival instinct seeping in. That was a trade-off, and a poor one at that. To trade the passion and determination that leads men to victory for a lack of fear or hatred was to walk the path of a defeated man. Such a man’s ki was weak, it had no strength do it, and to go into battle without fighting spirit or inner strength, was nothing but foolishness.
After studying at Ryozanpaku under Hayato, Ranma had learned the truth of it. For a man to truly master ki manipulation, the trick of it was… that there were no tricks or ‘special’ techniques. He had to be able to think clearly to properly perform the techniques that no amount of muscle memory would allow, and at the same time, let his emotions push him forward to gather the strength needed to carry them through. It was a line thinner than a razor that Ranma had learned to walk; and he did fall off it from time to time.
So despite the anger caused by the bodies of the dead, the self-loathing from how this could have all been avoided if he hadn’t been so distracted by feeling sorry for himself, and the rage at the man that caused all of this, Ranma quickly closed the distance between them. All without charging blindly ahead or shouting out a battle-cry.
The area’s too populated, I can’t have him throwing any more long-range attacks Ranma told himself before moving in to hand-to-hand range and waiting for Ryoga to get to his feet. Subduing attacks weren’t going to work unless Ryoga’s ki flow was extremely disrupted. So he decided on sticking to quick attacks and damaging grabs that weren’t going to hold him up too long.
“So this is what you’ve done with yourself,” Ranma said evenly as he strained to keep his emotions in their proper place. “Congratulations Ryoga, you’ve killed more people than I think I ever could. You must be so proud to finally beat me at something I‘ll never be able to top.”
Despite getting to his feet, Ryoga felt a little strange. He tried to plant his feet to steady himself, but it felt like the ground was still shaking beneath him. “Ranma,” he growled out.
“Just look at all the people you’ve killed, one… ten… should I count that pregnant woman who fell on top of the car over there as one, or one-point-five? What do you think Ryoga?” Ranma asked him between clenched teeth as he looked away from the carnage.
“SHUT UP!” Ryoga shouted as he charged forward. How dare he try and blame me for this. It’s his fault. HIS FAULT.
No, don’t bother with the taunting this time. You have more important things to do, Ranma told himself before he started slipping back into bad habits. In front of him, Ryoga charged forward and swung a wild hooked punch, throwing his entire body and momentum into it.
Reacting instantly with his entire body moving in response, Ranma slid back a bit to take his body out of range from the point of impact too late for Ryoga to alter his move. Then, Ranma caught the other man’s wrist as he started loosing momentum, and twisted around behind Ryoga while holding onto the grabbed appendage and continuing to apply force in the way Ryoga had been going and keeping him off balance. As soon as he was behind Ryoga, Ranma drew back his arm and planted his feet in position while he twisted Ryoga’s arm around while attacking.
Ranma’s open palm made contact with Ryoga’s arm right as his elbow turned around towards the attacking martial artist. Bone snapped, and Ryoga’s arm bent back at an unnatural angle before Ranma let him go. Ryoga screamed in pain. As the man with the bandanna stumbled forward, Ranma snap kicked the back of both his legs to bring him down to his knees, and finished with a double blow to the head from both sides.
“I snapped your right elbow and disrupted your inner ear with that combo, your life as a martial artist is over,” he told the boy laying on the ground.
Although with the pain Ryoga was in, Ranma doubt he heard.
Instead, the man looked back towards where Miu was holding up the train and thought about how to best help the situation. Since she was holding onto the car, there had to be people still inside. But adding another person’s weight, especially if he just ran up and jumped on, would mean her having to refocus the amount of ki she was sending into each of the things she was holding onto, and that moment of strain could cause something to be lost.
On the ground, Ryoga looked over to Ranma. He’s so close… I can’t loose, I can’t loose, I CAN’T LOOSE AFTER ALL THIS TIME! To help with the crippling pain, Ryoga bit down on his tongue, and tasted blood.
With his attention focused elsewhere, Ranma didn’t notice Ryoga’s activity. How many people were left back there anyway? Miu had been at the back of the car when everything happened, there wasn’t anyone behind us, he told himself. Well, except if she had seen the attack coming in time like Ranma knew she would have…
No, it didn't matter. Miu wouldn't be holding it up if there wasn't at least one person inside.
“RANMA! Turn around and fight me like a man!” Ryoga shouted.
Extremely surprised by the declaration, Ranma turned around and the hold on his emotions slipped. Like a man? LIKE A MAN? A MAN DOESN’T MURDER INNOCENT-Ranma cut the thoughts off and put himself back under control. “I don’t have time for you. Now shut up and stop bothering me, or you’ll loose more than your arm.”
“SHUT UP RANMA! This is all your fault!” Ryoga shouted as he saw all the people Ranma’s actions had killed laying behind them.
“It’s all your fault, and I’m going to make you PAY!” he screamed before coming at the other martial artist again. The world spun, he stumbled, but fought through it and continued on. Nothing would deny him his justice. For him, and all these people.
After fighting off the surprise that Ryoga could still stand, let alone move, Ranma controlled his breathing with Raisei and met the charge head on. When Ryoga stopped short and Ranma saw him altering his center of gravity with a kick, he adjusted accordingly and moved his hands together to block with the left while striking with the other, aligning his body with the attack and twisting his punch at the very end to increase its power and damage as well as lessen the effect of Ryoga’s defenses even further.
Once again there was the sound of bones shattering, and Ranma pulled his hand out of would could only be a hole in Ryoga’s ribcage by the feel of it. The blood he started coughing up a second after he hit the ground also told Ranma that a lung had been punctured.
“A friend of mine taught me that move, it’s called Mubyoshi,” Ranma told the man on the ground. If I hit you again, I'll be comming out the other side of your chest."
Control... he had to stay in control. He couldn't focus on the bodies. He needed to save the people he could.
For a moment Ranma found himself looking down at the pathetic man before him. When they first met all those years ago, Ranma had thought they were so much alike. Perhaps that was why they had never been able to get along for any amount of time. Looking at him now, Ranma felt a profound since of… relief.
Ryoga looked up and tried to say something, but it was covered up by the blood in his mouth.
“I said I don’t have time for you!” Ranma shouted before heading off.
A few seconds later, Miu looked up as she felt a familiar presence. “It’s about time you showed up!”
Ranma flinched as he held onto the track. “What do you need me to do?”
“Cut the connection between the broken car and the others, and save Niijima, he’s still inside,” Miu told him before she readjusted things to prepare for the act.
Ranma looked down to where the two cars where locked together, and nodded. With the strain and twisting, the metal had become warped and looked unable to open. He quickly focused his ki and sliced through it with a karate chop.
“DON’T CUT IT FIRST YOU DUMBASS!” Niijima screamed what would be his last words.
As Miu screamed, then had to let go of the car thanks to the added weight the lost support put on her, Ranma dove inside to grab the pointy-eared freak and rebounded off the seat to go out a window. “Relax freak, Spider-man’s got nothing on me,” he told the man in his grip before closing his eyes and smirking.
Unfortunately for Ranma, with his eyes closed he didn’t notice the trajectory of his fall was taking him into a large puddle formed by a broken water pipe in the building the monorail had crashed into… until it was too late to change it anyway. But, they did land safely.
“Ah, my hero,” Niijima said as he rested his head on Ranma’s soaking wet chest.
Ranma simply held up a kunai that had been concealed in her arm bracer as the demonic young man snuggled with her chest. “I could blame your death on Ryoga you know."
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(Posted Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:47)
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