Ranma let out an exhausted sigh as he and Miu left Tokyo behind them completely out of sight. He sat down to catch his breath, and titled his head back to look at the sky. “Well, doesn’t look like rain today.”
Since it seemed they were stopping for a quick breather, Miu took the time to drop her stuff and started putting her hair into braids. She didn’t expect any fighting, but it would at least help it from getting too dirty. “So, we going cross country all the way? Oh, hold that for me, would you?”
After he took the hand mirror to let Miu mess with her hair, Ranma thought about the question. There hadn’t been any sarcasm so… “I’m… not sure. Would it be faster?”
Miu shrugged. “No idea. I never actually sprinted across Japan.”
The only response could do was give out a nervous laugh. It wasn’t his fault! Her grandfather was scary when he got like that. “Well it’s faster than a bus. Let me just catch my breath and we’ll go.”
“Okay,” Miu agreed, albeit reluctantly. “Let’s just pace ourselves, alright?”
It was a little after sunset by the time they made it to the other side of Japan. When they reached the western seaboard, the particular area they ran out of country to travel on was nothing but rocky cliffs and jagged rocks at the bottom. The trip itself hadn’t been very eventful either, just three wild animal attacks, a landslide on a mountainous road, and an old couple that needed help changing a tire.
“Hmm, kind of reminds me of our vacation spot,” Miu said as she looked at the crashing waves below.
Ranma came up behind her and looked down at the water. He glanced left and right, but didn’t see a beach anywhere in sight thanks to the fading light. “Can we even head out from here?” he asked. He supposed that detouring till they found a beach was possible, but that could take hours at night. Tomorrow, they’d just end up wasting time if they waited till the sun came up.
Miu crossed her arms and tapped her chin in thought. “Well… we headed strait west when we left Tokyo, so I know that if we head north from here we’ll hit China.”
“Ummm… isn’t China west of Japan?” Ranma asked.
“This is why you got a C- in geography,” Miu deadpanned. From what she could remember, there was a small bit of land that belonged to the major Asian country that was bordered by Korea and Russia. Of course if Ranma hadn’t insisted on running and just taken a train they could have left from a much better location, but she decided to keep silent on that point.
The comment made Ranma break eye contact. Okay, so he wasn’t good with schoolwork. More than half the stuff they taught wasn’t needed anyway.
Miu just rolled her eyes and looked to the waves below. From what she could guess, they could probably jump over the rocks, and if they blew up the raft beforehand and loaded all their stuff into it, nothing would get wet. “We can wait till morning to decide. Right now, I just want to lay down and get some rest. You take care of the tent, I’ll get some firewood and start dinner.”
Dinnertime was a reserved affair. Ranma complemented Miu on the food, but like usual it seemed like it was done more out of a need for manners than anything truly genuine like when he first stayed with them. Of course back then it seemed that he was surprised a girl so good at martial arts could also cook, which confused her later on since Ranma said that one of his former relationships had been with a girl that ran a restaurant.
Unfortunately, a full day of running, leaping over rivers, and dodging through trees had put Miu in the mood to relax in a way that didn’t involve more physical exertion. So, she simply pulled out one of the books she had brought along and read by the firelight.
“That thing again?” Ranma asked when he recognized the title. “What the heck made Shigure get you that anyway?”
Miu marked her place, and looked over to her husband. “She said Kenichi enjoys ‘how to’ things and relationship books a lot. I guess she thought that I would too.”
Ranma rolled his eyes at the explanation. He didn’t see why Shigure didn’t make her something the way she did him. Although he preferred his hands in a fight, the ninja-to he’d brought along was much more useful. Shigure didn’t like the things since they were ‘Hollywood’ weapons, and the one time Ranma asked why the kunochi wasn’t carrying it got him crewed out for five minutes by the female ninja about proper Japanese weaponry. It was actually the longest he’d ever heard her speak in a single day.
Still, the sword was useful to him. It was short enough to be fully used in close enough quarters that he could kick someone, and could also parry attacks made by swordsman skilled enough not to have their weapons turned aside by hands alone. Since Ranma changed sizes with cold water, he couldn’t use metal gauntlets, and although Shigure had given him a pair of leather ones that were flexible enough to fit him comfortably as a boy or girl with minor adjustments, they could still be sliced through given enough force or time.
When Miu looked up again to see Ranma lost in thought, she decided to try and keep the conversation going. “I think it’s also helped out our relationship a lot.”
“Like how?” Ranma asked, a little disbelieving.
Miu thought for a few minutes. She didn’t want to mention Nerima to him, so she needed some other examples. “Little things mostly, but they add up. It has advice on things like what to do on a date, sparring, how to help temper the male ego. That sort of stuff. I’m really looking forward to the next chapter too.”
Like most explanations, it only gave Ranma more questions. “What do you mean advice on the male ego and sparring?”
Miu smirked. “It doesn’t say I should let you win, if that’s what you’re hoping.” The book actually forbade that for several reasons, the top one being that the husband might find out one day, and THAT would be a blow to his ego. “Where I shouldn’t hit you if I want to… be together later that night.” It was more than just the crotch area. “Uh, what do to if my husband starts letting me win… actually, that does recommend kicking you in the balls. It’s all kind of complicated to sort out.
“There’s other things too,” Miu quickly added. “There’s a whole chapter about whose side I should take in a fight, even when you’re the one who’s wrong. Then it suggests what I need to do afterwards to smooth things over with the other guy without alienating you.”
Ranma blinked. “Oh… I kind of thought it would just be… I dunno, like that book Kensei gave me.”
“It has stuff about sex too,” Miu piped in, remembering the first edition copy of the Karma Sutra they’d unwrapped during their party, and Kensei telling Ranma how he’d enjoy practicing these techniques. “That’s the next chapter.”
Once again, Ranma found himself looking away from Miu, this time to hide a blush. “Um, speaking of which…”
Miu looked over to Ranma, and smirked. “I hate to say it, but… not tonight. Is that okay?”
“Oh yeah!” Ranma explained, then suddenly flinched. “Wait, was that too… I mean, I like it. It’s just… if you don’t want to…”
“I get your point Ranma,” Miu assured him. She’d done it enough times to know Ranma enjoyed it almost as much as she did. After she finished the last page of the chapter, Miu closed the book and waited for Ranma to get done cleaning up the dishes. “Come on, we get to sleep a little later than usual, but I want to have as much rest as possible for tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, back in Tokyo…
Kisara opened the door and took off the god forsaken shoes she had on before tossing them in the corner. She didn’t care what anyone said, high heels had to have been invented by men and made popular office wear by them in order to torture women. Especially since half of her day was spent walking around the damn building, running errands.
“Honey, I’m home,” the woman mumbled before being greeted by one of her cats.
Not that she expected either of her roommates to be there. Takeda was gone most of the time to train with that master of his, and only came back late at night to collapse in bed. Then there was Ukita, he’d been working late at his construction job… or was he doing roadwork now? Well, whatever the man’s current occupation, he usually came home an hour later than her.
Which was why it was a big surprise to find him on the couch in the living room, trying to shove a magazine of some sort under the cushions before she came into view.
“Oh h-hey, Kisara,” the bigger man stuttered before he sat down on the couch, and then closed his legs together tightly to hide the parts of some pages of his magazine that was sticking out. “What’re you doing home so early?”
“I’m always home this early,” she told him with a raised eyebrow. “And isn’t that something I should be asking you?” She hoped he hadn’t lost another job.
Ukita twiddled his thumbs nervously. “Oh… that’s nothing special. The boss said I’ve just been putting in too much overtime lately. So he sent me home with most of the other workers.”
Just what kind of constriction work is done at night anyways? Kisara wondered. “Is it just you?”
“Uh, yeah?” he replied in a way that also asked why she was curious.
“Good,” Kisara replied before she showed him. Without any apparent concern, the woman took off her jacket and tossed it on the coffee table, then proceeded to remove the rest of her clothes until she was down to her bra and panties.
Ukita’s mouth fell open. “W-What’re you doing?”
After she had gotten her pantyhose off and finished adding it to the pile, Kisara looked over to her boyfriend. “Oh, my room has too much cat hair, and if I have to wear this stuff for one more minute, I’ll go insane. It‘s nothing you haven‘t seen before anyway.”
Freed from her office/prison uniform, Kisara jumped onto the couch and stretched out, putting her feet on Ukita’s lap. “So, what’re you reading?”
“N-Nothing!” he replied a little too quickly for Kisara’s liking. She hoped it wasn’t porno. Okay, so she didn’t have the best figure in the world, but it was hardly the least attractive one around.
But before she could start prying, Ukita managed to dissuade any further questions with the perfect bribe for Kisara at the moment. “How about a foot rub?”
Damn, he knows just how to make me shut up, Kisara agreed. One one hand, she did want to know what Ukita was up to. But… her feet were killing her. In the end, Kisara’s physical needs defeated her mental ones. “Okay.”
A few minutes later, Kisara moaned in pleasure a the feeling of cool lotion on her aching feet. “So, you missed the last meeting.”
“Anything special?” Ukita asked.
Kisara blinked. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Niijima may have gotten a good idea for once.
Then again, Kisara had her doubts about the whole thing. “Maybe.”
“What do you mean?”
After enjoying the feel of her boyfriend’s hands for a bit longer, Kisara explained Niijima’s plan of tracking down the martial artists that weren’t really worth bothering Ryozanpaku. Then, she got to the part that was bothering her. “The thing is… well I’m pretty much on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to the captains. I don’t really know if I’m up for it. Hell, lately I’m wondering if I should even keep up with my martial arts.”
“Kisara-”
“Maybe I should just quit, get a real job,” she mumbled while looking up at the ceiling. It wasn’t the first time she had considered it either. Except for the underground martial arts circuit, which made her uncomfortable, there really wasn’t much money in being a martial artist.
The office job her father got her wasn’t something she wanted to have forever. It was really just something to do until Kisara figured out what she really wanted to do for the rest of her life. It was better than the usual college student that switched majors at least once in her opinion.
Ukita stopped with the foot massage to look at his girlfriend. “Hey come on, you’re way tougher than me.”
The complement didn’t help Kisara much. After all… “Yeah, but you’re a wimp.”
Ukita visibly slummed at the comment. “Well then, maybe you should… train more?”
“With Freya?” Kisara sighed. “That’s… not enough. It’s better than normal training but, there’s only so much I can do on my own.” She had been able to supplement her abilities by doing things like using steel-toed boots, but that could only help so much.
“Doesn’t Siegfried train on his own?” Ukita asked.
The Shinpaku captain looked at her boyfriend like he was crazy. “That guy’s barely human!”
Ukita tilted his head, and eventually nodded at that one. “Well… what about those Ryozanpaku guys?”
“Huh?” Kisara sat up and thought about it, then shook her head. “Nah. None of them know Tae Kwando.”
“But they do know other stuff,” Ukita quickly told her. “Look at what they did to Kenichi! Who said you had to learn techniques? Even if you did, it could only help, right?”
Kisara blinked. She hadn’t seen him before the supposed transformation from wimp to warrior… well, sort of. But Ukita had a point. Those weirdoes at his dojo did seem to be effective, and fast too. “Well…” Kisara supposed she could try stopping by tomorrow. “… okay, no harm in taking a look, I suppose.”
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(Posted Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:47)
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