"Simply put, Nabiki, you should branch out into other magical disciplines and quickly," Nodoka said calmly.
Nabiki blinked. "Like what? Astrology? I doubt I could get proficient enough to break the wards of anyone who landed that strong an attack on my "
"I was thinking incantational magic," Nodoka said calmly. Nabiki gagged on her tea.
"Uh, whazzat?" Ranma asked, looking between the two women.
"Most of the magic I know is ritual," Nabiki explained. "Circles, candles, other props, and a fairly lengthy casting process. Incantational magic is much shorter, a few words of power or a gesture and blam, something happens." Nabiki's brow furrowed and she raised her hand sharply. A crack like an old flashbulb went off at her fingertips.
Ranma blinked to clear the flash from his eyes. "What was that?"
"Simple practice spell. You'd be amazed how many resemble stage magic tricks."
"It makes for a good disguise," Nodoka commented wryly. "Plenty of my friends think I'm an amateur magician."
Nabiki nodded. "I'm really not that practiced, though. A few banishment spells, that's all. Incantationals just aren't that useful."
Nodoka frowned. "Nabiki, what will you do if whoever tried to summon Ranma breaks your wards?"
Nabiki blanched. "Um, well, I guess I don't know."
"Thought so," Nodoka said, rising to her feet. "I have a book on spellbreaking for you. Wait here."
Ranma and Nabiki traded looks as the Saotome matriarch left the room. "So what's wrong with this stuff?" Ranma asked quietly.
Nabiki shrugged. "It's the least efficient of all magic," she said. "A ritual gets a much bigger payoff for the same effort. So incantationals are made that work off their unique strengths -- speed and immediacy."
"Like martial arts," Ranma said immediately. "In a fight ya don't have time to make diagrams or throw around incense."
Nabiki nodded. "Most incantationals are built for mages in some kind of danger."
"And you won't always have a spirit girl there to bail you out," Nodoka said with a fond smile, walking back in and handing Nabiki a small book entitled Awakening to Danger: Magical Defenses for the Novice.
Nabiki paged the book and nodded. "I've only seen bits of this kind of magic. This will really help, auntie."
"Nodoka, dear, Nodoka."
Nabiki winced. "Sorry."
Time marched on, as time must. Eventually Nabiki and Ranma returned home. Akane was waiting for them in her gi. "Ranma...I want to resume my training. Sensei."
Ranma traded a look with Nabiki. She nodded slightly.
Ranma smiled back and gave Akane a nod. "Okay. We'll start tomorrow. Upper body only; we're not risking your ankle."
Akane smiled. "Okay."
As the youngest Tendo went back into the house, Nabiki coughed quietly. "It's not over. There was enough suspicion in her aura to sour a pound of sugar."
Ranma nodded. "Thought that was too good ta be true."
Nabiki spent the rest of the day studying her book. The next morning she casually told the fathers she would be working some wards into the dojo to make it an effective mystic arts practice hall. The martial artists were skeptical, but eventually decided that Nabiki's interest in combat magic was her way of getting closer to Ranma.
Not that Nabiki was interested in their approval at all. She just didn't want them freaking out when they saw the runes around the floorboards. But that would keep to after school.
The inexorable passage of time led to lunch. Ranma was immediately beset by questions from Hiroshi and Daisuke.
"Was Ranko really in that fight?"
"Did you train Nabiki?"
"Can you get her into that leotard again?"
Ranma scowled at Hiroshi. "Yer talkin' about my fiancee."
Hiroshi laughed nervously. Ranma and Nabiki were the two most feared people in school, albeit for very different reasons. Annoying both at the same time was not healthy.
Things were only slightly better for Nabiki. The Ice Queen was rightly considered the hub of the wheel that turned the rumor mill, but just because she was the fastest way for gossip to propagate did not make her the only way. Unsurprisingly, yesterday's fight was the hotbutton topic. There was no stopping it.
But there was directing it. "Play down the rumors about how I fought. Focus on Kodachi's dirty tricks." She flipped through a few notecards. "Quash the rumor that I'm interested in Ranko. Again." That one was not pretty. "What's this? There are pictures circulating?"
One of her lieutenants nodded and produced a handful of photos. Nabiki looked through them quickly. Most were tame shots of her bouncing around in that leotard -- unexpected and relatively harmless. "Blow these off. It's a practical outfit for gymnastics, that's all. Yeesh, these last ones are bad." The last few pictures were really bad color quality. Nabiki's hair had red highlights and her eyes were blue in them, and everything else was just washed out. Then she got to the last photo and it took all her control not to clench. She was back to her natural coloration, and Ranko was floating next to her clear as day.
Nabiki's mind whirled. "Where did this last photo come from?"
"Gosunkugi is selling them. He's got several shots, selling at 5000 each. Something about 'spirit-sensitive film.' He claims that's Ranko."
"Damn, that was a good idea," Nabiki mused. "Start a rumor that spirit-sensitive film can see through clothing."
The girls shared shocked looks. "We're not discrediting the photo?"
"And risk my credibility?" Nabiki snapped. "Ranko is a family friend and attended the match. If Gosunkugi is desperate enough to sell pictures of a defenseless naked girl, that's his business."
Elsewhere, Gosunkugi felt the icy chill of doom creep over him.
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(Posted Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:34)
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