Akane scowled at the rock. It was a small stone, a bit smaller than a softball, fairly round. It was unremarkable, really, covered in dirty green moss and generally nothing that really deserves to be scowled at.
Except it was hanging in midair in a way a stone really shouldn’t. “What’s this supposed ta be?” the stone asked in a voice that almost couldn’t help to be sultry.
It was the time before twilight, the sun low in the sky, the shadows long, the air just beginning to cool. Dinner had been a civil affair with Ranma unavailable for his father to “train.” (Although Akane was studiously not thinking why Nabiki choked when Kasumi asked if Ranma was getting enough to eat. Nope, not thinking about that at all.) Nabiki was in the yard and had just lobbed the talking rock into midair.
“It’s training,” she said calmly. “I throw the rock, you catch it.”
“An’ how is this training?” the rock with Ranko’s voice asked dubiously.
Nabiki grinned evilly. “Well I’m going to make you run to catch it.”
Ranma sighed. “Nabs, if I couldn’t run ta catch the ghoul, why could I now?”
Because you stopped trying to run and worked on ambushes for hours instead. Because you were trying to run instead of fly. Because the locomotion of a spiritual being is based on will and practice, not muscle/mass ratios. “Because this is training,” Nabiki said easily.
Ranma raised an eyebrow at her fiancée. “Oh. Well that makes sense. Trainin’ doesn’t hafta make sense.”
Genma sneezed so hard Kasumi sternly put him to bed and went to fetch a thermometer.
The two girls trained until daylight had ended. Twice Nabiki had to break to get a new rock, as the moss that allowed Ranma to hold the object clung to her own hand, leaving the rock lifeless when she threw it back at the spirit.
Not that she ever threw it at the spirit. Always a different distance, never the same direction. Ranma had to fly up and dive to the ground as often as she had to bolt left or right. Nabiki didn’t think Ranma had gotten much faster in the short game, but she was catching rocks maybe half a meter further than she could when they started.
The coming of night ended the training, and the girls retired to the roof. Nabiki took Ranma’s usual place and Ranma lay down on her, tucking her shoulder under the larger girl’s chin and curling up in her lap, staring at the stars. “So how’d ya think of such a weird way ta train?”
Nabiki frowned at ‘weird.’ “Well, Hidel wrote that young spirits learned skills by playing games, like a cat pouncing- …hello?”
Ranma was now curled around Nabiki’s head. “What cat!?”
Nabiki blinked, about the only movement she could make at the moment with a spirit-girl clinging to her face. Sensing an opportunity, Nabiki opened her mouth and darted out her tongue.
Ranma’s eyes were wide, frantically looking for the fuzzy little demon of death doom and more death when her body registered a new reason to express shock. The little sex-spirit froze and instinctually accepted the ‘snack’ being offered.
The cats, and then everything else that resembled rational thought, were soon forgotten.
Nabiki snuggled the red headed beauty closer and smiled slightly. She wasn’t entirely sure when or how they got off the roof, or when they had started dreaming, but the lack of whipped cream in her hair suggested that was after they dozed off. “What time is it?” she mumbled.
Akane’s voice answered her. “Got a better question for you.”
Nabiki’s eyes snapped open and she looked around. “Eep.”
“What, exactly,” Akane growled, “are you doing here?”
“Um…”
“Nabiki no hentai!”
And there was much malleting.
“Your sister is psychotic,” Ranma observed.
Nabiki nodded absently, feeling the bruises on her head. “I’m just glad there’s no school today.”
“Yeah,” Ranma said brightly, looking around for a mossy rock. “We get ta train more!”
Nabiki smiled faintly.
Ranma found a suitable stone and tossed it to Nabiki. “Ya never did tell me why this would work better than jus’ runnin’.”
Nabiki tossed the rock back and shrugged. “Well Ranma, how much do you know about spiritual bodies?”
Ranma flew upwards to catch the rock with a completely unnecessary backflip. “Nothing.”
“Exactly.” Catch, throw. “You’d be focusing on how human bodies improve.”
Ranma missed this rock by a bare centimeter. “Okay, so how does this work?” Throw.
“It’s like a martial art.” Catch, turn, throw. “You’re not trying to be faster, you’re trying to catch the rock.”
“Gak!” Ranma yelped as Nabiki threw the rock in completely the wrong direction. Catching it she scowled at her fiancée. “What was that for?”
“You caught the rock,” Nabiki said with a smug, superior smirk that she had to have picked up from Ranma.
Ranma blinked, looked at the rock, looked at where she had been, looked at Nabiki. “I can’t fly that fast,” she said dully, tossing the rock back.
Nabiki’s smirk grew. “Apparently you can.” Catch, spin, toss, thunk.
“Pops is gonna be feeling that when he wakes up.”
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(Posted Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:29)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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