“Well then little boy, I’ll just have to kill you, and your cow of a girlfriend too,” Cologne said as she took up her stance.
The cow designation went forgotten by Miu when her status went from cow, a comment that she had learned to get used to and kind of like since it meant the person who called her that was jealous of Miu’s figure, to girlfriend. She and Ranma were just too cheap… err, traditional to buy wedding bands.
For his part, Ranma sighed and set up his defense by mentally marking the space of his reach. “I should tell you before we start, you really don’t have a chance against me old woman. But if you want to be humiliated by a little boy, then come on you old bitch. By the time I’m done, you’ll bee needing that cane just to stand up.”
“RANMA SAOTOME, PREPARE TO DIE!” Cologne shouted as she came at him.
Miu watched from the sidelines as the old woman came at Ranma. From the first attack, she could see how this fight was going to end and started to finish setting up camp since Ranma had left plenty undone.
On the battlefield, Ranma was pushed back by Cologne’s first jab as it shot through his defenses when a drag on his arms kept him from blocking in time. He stumbled back, then took up a defensive stance again.
Oh crap, he thought with a frown while looking at his arms to realize what had gone wrong. Ranma frowned as the face of that sadist of a physical trainer popped into his head. He had bean wearing a freaking resistance suit for so long, he’d forgotten to take it off before Cologne had shown up.
“Still as slow as ever child,” Cologne laughed as she went at Ranma again. She frowned at the fact the boy was still standing. She had struck him right underneath the ribs, the blow should have stopped his heart. Well, if he was wearing some form of protection, she’d just crush his throat.
As Cologne came at him again, Ranma tightened up his defenses to avoid being hit again at the cost of the range of his reach. This time, she went for his throat. To counter he bent his neck to avoid the attack before bringing his arms back to lessen the pull and caught the old ghoul’s staff. Before Cologne could react and jump away, Ranma picked the weapon up and brought it around in a wide swipe to make her let go and fly a few meters. Then, he broke it over his knee. “That’s all you got?”
Cologne frowned as she reached into her robe and pulled out her spare cane. It seemed this was going to take a bit longer than she had thought it would. “What’s wrong child? You’re not acting like your old self,” Cologne mocked.
“Shut up and fight already you old bat,” Ranma grumbled.
Instead of doing so, Cologne chuckled and gave an evil grin. “What’s wrong, you so liked to talk to your opponents. Of course, they were all idiots who couldn’t hold themselves back when you goaded them. Now that I think about it, that’s how you won all of your fights, wasn’t it? You attack a superior opponent, and your meager skills would only score the slightest victory by throwing them off balance in some way instead of doing it honorably.”
Ranma curled his lip and inched closer. With the suit on, he’d need to get close enough for his legwork to surprise Cologne. “You’re one to talk about honor.”
“But you’re the one such words get to, aren’t you?” Cologne asked, ignoring the comment. “Your view of the world won’t let you ignore the view of someone stronger than you. And I am stronger than you, you know.” She let out another laugh as something else came to mind. “That must really get to you Ranma, an old, wrinkled, little woman is so much stronger she can beat you with just a beaten up old stick.”
Instead of just telling her to shut the hell up, Ranma let out a long breath and calmed himself down. “So you’re saying that you’re the one who’s so outclassed she needs her opponent to loose his cool?” Ranma rolled his eyes.
“Oh you should have said that boy,” Cologne told him. “Now, after I get done crippling you, I’ll leave you alive long enough to see me beat that woman of yours half to death before I deflower her with my cane. You can go to Hell knowing that she’ll only follow after starving to death.”
Cologne came at him again, and Ranma tightened his defenses. This time, Cologne went for his knees, and Ranma crouched to deflect the three jabs by slapping them away with his hand by using his wrist. On the third strike, he managed to knock the weapon off balance enough to grab hold. When he felt Cologne try and lift him this time, Ranma pulled the staff forward and the old woman with it to kick her in the gut before tossing the second stick away.
The blow sent her flying mach only a meter before Cologne regained her footing. “Well, at least your legs have gotten better. Plenty of practice running away?” she asked with a frown. So far, this battle hadn’t been going the way she had thought it would be. When she met the child a few years ago, all he had going for him was a good amount of coordination and some acrobatic skills. The stupid male was all flash, jumping around to avoid attacks and wasting energy on other moves that left the crowd cheering at him while exposing himself.
Now, he planted his feet and kept to one area. It was almost as if…
Cologne pulled out a trio of knives and sent them one after the other towards the boy’s stomach before rushing around to take out her final staff and attack him from the side just as quickly as the thrown objects flew through the air. As she predicted, Ranma stopped the deadly attack by catching the knives and throwing them at his feet, but could only bring his right am up to intercept the staff in a block with the time he had remaining.
This time, Cologne was unable to hide her surprise for a whole second. Instead of flying into a nearby rock, Ranma was planted firmly on the ground. It shouldn’t have mattered that he blacked the hit, the force of the blow should have sent him into the air.
“So, you’ve learned the sphere of defense I see. How many beatings did it take you to come up with that?” Cologne said as she backed away to confirm her suspicions.
“The what?”
“Oh, I’m sure you have some special name for it, every fool that figures it out and thinks themselves a genius does,” Cologne told him. “Whatever the name though, it’s always the same. A fighter marks off all the area within his reach and uses his experience to judge an attacks position. Using this method, he forms an invisible shield around himself to quickly deflect attacks.”
Now that she knew what she was dealing with, Cologne decided to put an end to this fight. It was still a mystery as to how Ranma kept himself from being sent flying that one time, but Cologne wasn’t one to hold out on keeping her promises.
Once again, Cologne charged at Ranma. She threw her staff at his head with enough force behind it to bore through his skull, but Ranma moved his head to dodge. As he did, Cologne came up under his reached his jumped inside his sphere with her fingers together and her sharp claws reinforced with her ki. She would rip open his belly and then head for the woman before Ranma died.
Two sharp pains erupted in her body, and she felt her breath get forced out of her lungs before Cologne could get within an inch of striking distance, and she found herself suspended in the air.
“Did you really think I didn’t know the weakness in my own Seikuken?” Ranma asked her in a serious tone. Ranma removed his knee from Cologne’s gut and dropped back a step before bringing his other leg around in a kick to nail the old bag before she hit the ground, and sent her bouncing across the grass field.
Knocked completely senseless, Cologne forced herself up with the help of her arms. “How did you-”
Ranma couldn’t help but smirk at the old bat as he put up his defenses again. “Oh please. The Seikuken is an almost perfect defense, but it does have a problem protecting anything below the waist. While you can crouch down to protect the knees, someone can still slide under your guard and get through with an upwards diagonal kick, or break the whole stance with a fast sweep,” Ranma said while a diagram of the whole thing appeared in his head. Anyone can see that!
“But that only applies to people who form their defenses with just their arms. While some people say their whole body is a weapon, the fact is they just use their hands and feet. I’ve learned to use my arms, hands, feet, elbows and knees in both offense and defense. So in my case, it’s true. I told you when we started that there was no way you can beat me, and this is one of the reasons why.”
Cologne flared her aura in anger at the child’s impudence. “You may have learned a few new tricks boy, but I’ve got three hundred years on you,” Cologne said before she took out her final staff and came at him. It seemed she would need to wear him down a bit before finishing Ranma off.
“That’s reason number two,” Ranma told her as he deflected her weapon and its ki burst. Cologne struck at him again and again with attacks that would have shattered rocks and sent him flying a couple of years ago. Today, he simply redirected the flow of the attacks to make the force behind them slip by to harmlessly dissipate in the air. When Cologne came strait at him in frustration, Ranma dropped his defense to twist his body around the thrust while grabbing onto the body of the cane with his hands, and letting the tip send the ki at he end off into the air.
“YOU’RE OLD!” Ranma shouted before trusting at the woman with her own weapon to bring her feet off the ground, and her back slamming into it. “Look at yourself!” Ranma jabbed at her again. “You’ve clung to life so fucking desperately that you’ve become a wrinkled old hag!”
He founded her again hard enough to knock the woman’s breath out from her before backing off to give Cologne a physical respite while he continued to berate her. “You need to blast ki out of the bottom of your stick just to get around half the time! Your body has become so shrunken and puny that you can’t even fight anymore without something to give you extra reach. I’ve met martial artists who’ve extended their lives, but you’re clinging to it so desperately at the exclusion of all else that it’s pathetic. You can’t even beat me with your three hundred years of crappy tricks.” Not that Ranma thought she could do it even in her prime, from what he’d seen of Amazon techniques, he was no longer so impressed after seeing the wider world of martial arts.
Cologne groaned at the accusation. She rolled onto her back and tried to stand, but a crushing blow from her staff that Ranma had taken away forced her back down.
“Now give up, or I’ll start really hitting you till those defenses crumble and my last hit turns your bones to paste,” Ranma threatened.
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(Posted Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:14)
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