"Tell me your name," Ranma Saotome whispered into the girl's ear as he stood behind her, "and your school."
He folded his left arm around the front of her neck to press into her jugular veins. His right hand pointed a knife into her back. The girl had to force her words through tightened airways. "Setsuna Sakurazaki," she said, "of the Gods Cry school of swordsmanship."
"Then Miss Setsuna, have your friends to come out of the trees."
The girl hesitated, but she reached out a hand and beckoned towards the end of the clearing. As rain continued to drop noisily through the canopy of the surrounding forest, three girls dressed in carelessly casual hiking clothes emerged from under the leaves.
They looked miserable, probably as miserable as this Setsuna girl must look if he could see her face. Ranma peered at them through the opening between the bottom of his hood and the scarf that covered his nose and mouth. Each girl was already soaked by the afternoon torrent, despite the one blue umbrella they held between them. They were obviously in no mood to fight as Setsuna did.
Ranma released his hold on Setsuna's neck, flipped the knife in his other hand, and pushed her forward with the hilt. The pressure at the Setsuna's back nearly sent her sprawling through the thick mud, but she was caught by a girl wearing a glaringly white hooded sweater. All four girls took in his appearance with widened eyes.
Ranma returned his knife to the cloth sheath at his waist. "I won't ask why you all are here. I'll overlook you coming into my camp. I just want you gone. Leave."
"Please wait," said the hooded girl. "We're campers who got separated from—"
"That's none of my business," Ranma said. "Get lost."
Setsuna stepped forward, shrugging off the help she had received from her companion. "These three haven't eaten or rested since this morning. It would be hard for them to walk back through the forest."
"The rest of our club probably has people searching for us," said the other girl. "Can you please let us stay here until they come to find us?"
Ranma took a second to figure how long his cache could feed an additional four people. "Of course not."
One of the two girls standing in the back, incidentally the shortest of the group by a large margin, changed her expression from wide-eyed surprise to a baleful stare. "It's already sundown. Can't you give us some hospitality for the night?"
"I'm don't have to help people who attack me." Ranma turned his eyes toward Setsuna for a moment, and she didn't meet his eyes. Though that could be because his hood prevented anyone from seeing them.
The short girl said with a scowl, "Look at that shady getup. You could be a swamp monster for all we could tell. Who wouldn't attack you?"
"It's my camp. I'll dress however I want."
"Yeah? Prove it's yours."
The last girl, standing next to the short one with her eyes obscured by a long fringe of hair, spoke in a quiet but urgent whisper. "Yue, you're not helping!" Ranma was surprised when the comment successfully made the short girl, Yue, quiet down.
The hooded girl who had supported Setsuna stepped forward again. "Please, sir. We really need help getting back home. We're tired from hiking the entire day, and we're all very hungry—"
"Why?" Ranma said. He glanced behind him, toward the dark entrance of the cave where he had set up his shelter, and where the girls had been sitting before he walked up. "You already ate."
Setsuna's jaw dropped, while the other girls all visibly cringed. He heard Yue swear under her breath. "How do you know?" Setsuna asked.
Ranma looked toward the distant tree-covered hills that were visible from the cave. "I've watched you for half an hour."
"Huh," Yue said, to that fringed girl's consternation. "That's pretty creepy."
Ranma glared at her, but she couldn't see it. "You can leave whenever."
His response left the four girls with no retort, and despite himself, their disheveled clothes and dejected faces touched his pity... and also his contempt, but he didn't indulge in that part. He grimaced, but no one else could see it. "Where are you going to meet the other campers?"
The sudden question surprised the girls, though Setsuna quickly answered. "There's a trail center at the foot of the mountains."
She pulled out a map, but Ranma knew the place without needing to look at it. That center was the same way Pops usually hiked from. "It takes days to reach the trail," he said. "What supplies do you have?"
All other eyes rested on Setsuna, which told Ranma that she was, in addition to the only fighter, probably the most experienced outdoorsman in the group. It made sense, because the other three looked like average schoolgirls while Setsuna held herself with a straighter, more confident posture.
Setsuna's posture sagged a little at the attention. "We have no food, about half a day of clean water, and no tools for raising a shelter."
"Do you think you'll survive the trip?"
Setsuna looked forward and spoke firmly. "Myself, undoubtedly, but I can't guarantee three additional people with these supplies."
"Please help us," said the hooded girl.
Ranma sighed into his scarf. "I guess."
The girls brightened. "Then you'll let us stay until we're picked up?" the hooded girl asked.
"Of course not," Ranma said, not knowing if repetition would get the point through. "I'm going to take you to the trail. You can find your way after that."
"What?!" Yue stomped through the mud toward him. "We weren't lost, you ass! We just want something to eat and a place to sleep!"
Was it her personality, Ranma wondered, or just the stress of the wilderness that set off this Yue girl's unnecessary attitude? He concluded she was a city girl new to the outdoors experience. "I'll give you those," he said, "while we're moving. We leave immediately." He turned toward the cave to start packing his tools.
Yue plopped down on one of the rocks lining the fire pit at the mouth of the cave. She put on a stubborn frown that not only dared Ranma to make her move, but also promised him a harder fight than Setsuna provided.
The girl with the fringe looked at him, and seeing nothing of his expression through his hood and scarf, she quailed at his imagined anger. The hooded girl laughed nervously, and said, "Well, we haven't eaten the entire day. Can't we start in the morning?"
Ranma felt his teeth grind.
As much as his teeth grounded together, starving and sleepy girls couldn't march, so Ranma took out his pans and cooked his uninvited guests a meal over the fire pit. It took a tense half hour, with none of the girls daring to approach Ranma.
Or, Ranma reflected, it could've just been the stench coming off of his hunting clothes. In addition to the splotches of brown and green that were the outfit's original colors, he had applied a couple coatings of brush and dirt, which had ripened in the five hours of overcast and seven hours of rain that day. It was nothing new for him, but from the repelled expressions, he smelled no better than if he jumped into month-old compost.
The smell didn't stop any approaching when Ranma served the meal though. The girls were as hungry as they claimed, each happily finishing her own large piece of roasted meat despite Ranma not having enough utensils for everyone. Ranma felt warmed by the contentment wafting from them as they ate, and also slightly relieved they didn't complain about the sauce he preserved his meat in.
Outside, the sky thundered and pelted the ground with rain, but the cave was warm and calm enough that the girls had already take off their wet outer gear.
"So, introductions." Ranma pulled off his own hood and began unwinding his scarf. "My name—"
Yue yelled, "You're just a kid!"
Ranma frowned at the interruption. "You don't look older than me."
The reply managed to make the girl blush, while the hooded one took up the conversation. "We thought maybe you were older."
"You can't tell by my height? Or my voice?"
Yue shrugged. "You looked scary. That can distract from the details."
The conversation was already moving in a useless direction, and Ranma stopped it. "Anyway, your names?"
"Yue Ayase," said Yue. Ranma noticed that when she didn't sound pissed, her voice's defining quality was a dull tone of apathy.
"Konoka Konoe," said the white-hooded girl with a smile. She had removed the hood now that they were inside, and was drying her long black hair.
"Setsuna Sakurazaki," said Setsuna. Of the four girls, she had watched Ranma with the most focus while he cooked. That kind of concentration must've been uncomfortable when she turned it on her friends, but Ranma already saw she was a martial artist, so he ignored it.
The last girl, sitting in the back, didn't speak on her turn. She shrank back when Ranma looked toward her. Ranma's impatient frown didn't make her open up either.
"This is Nodoka Miyazaki," Konoka said, pulling Ranma's attention away before his face grew more annoyed. "She's shy. Please don't be offended."
"Right," Ranma said, glancing at Nodoka one more time just to see her flinch. "And I'm Ranma. I'd tell you my family name, but your friend from the Gods Cry will just attack me again and I don't need that."
Yue and Nodoka seemed confused by that statement, while Konoka looked at Setsuna. Setsuna stared at Ranma, but she didn't respond. That was unexpected, but Ranma was fine with it since he only wanted to know that the only capable girl of the group had enough control not to find an excuse for further violence.
Ranma finally began peeling off the twigs and leaves from his clothes. "So tell me how you all got this far into the woods with one umbrella, no tents, but two backpacks worth of books."
"We're members of a library club," Konoka said with an embarrassed laugh. "The club was having sort of a practice survival expedition during the school break, so that's why we came along with all these books."
"I don't—" Ranma decided mid-sentence that informing the girls that they failed survival practice was unnecessarily insulting. "—think your library is normal."
"No, but it's interesting and fun."
"More than this trip," Yue said with a harrumph. "I can't believe they left us like that. It's like they didn't even bother to wait or look for us. If Sakurazaki hadn't lead us here we'd still be waiting by some dirty tree, getting rained on."
Konoka looked toward Yue and shook her head. "I'm sure it's because we lagged behind. Haruna and the others must be sick with worry about us." She turned back to Ranma. "Yue's usually not so cranky, but we've been pretty exhausted."
"Sure," Ranma said. "So how long have you been separated?"
"Since noon," Setsuna stated quietly. "When the rain started."
"And you hadn't eaten since then?"
"Since breakfast," Konoka said. "Thanks again for making so much for us. I didn't know I could eat that much. The sour stuff you marinated the meat in was good too."
That sour stuff was Ranma putting raw meat into soy sauce, then throwing in anything he could find to make the result less tongue-scouringly salty. Somehow the result was sour, and he had no idea what the hell happened.
"Things taste better when you're hungry," Ranma said. "But more importantly, did you have any problems since separating from your group? Animal bites? Bumps and scrapes?"
The girls looked at each other, and they all shook their heads. Ranma wasn't sure they weren't hiding a problem, or just not noticing, but he was quite sure that they would be angry if he examined them without a reason. Anyway, if they weren't already in pain, and they didn't eat anything, they probably had no infections or poisonings.
"Great," Ranma said. "Then all of you should get to sleep. We're up and out at dawn, if the weather cooperates."
"Wait," Konoka said to his surprise. "Tell us something about yourself too. Are you on break like us?"
Ranma didn't want to talk about himself, but figured he might use the girls' goodwill. "Yeah, in a way. This is kind of a vacation for me."
"So you're camping for fun then?" Konoka said it with a smile, which Ranma supposed was sincere interest, but given the girls' circumstances Ranma also figured that she, or at least Yue, found the idea new and strange. "Wow. How long have you been out in the wilderness?"
"Six months...ish."
That reply made everyone else snap to attention, and Ranma suddenly knew he should be keeping these details to himself.
"You've been here over the winter?" The incredulity was the first non-griping, non-indifferent thing Ranma heard in Yue's voice.
"Exactly this spot," Ranma said, despite moving to this forest only two months ago.
"Alone?" Konoka asked with impressed eyes.
"Yep." Except Pops, but Pops only came to deliver supplies and train with him twice a month.
"What have you been doing here all this time?" Setsuna asked.
"Well, I train." Ranma didn't think this would be unbelievable to Setsuna, since she was also a martial artist. "It's hard to find a time and place in city life to work on my fighting skills. Out here, I'm by myself and have all the time I can stomach."
"So that's why you could fight so well," Konoka said. She looked at Setsuna, but Ranma noted that Setsuna didn't return the glance.
"Well enough," Ranma said, not terribly gratified by the praise of someone who he suspected didn't know a thing about fighting.
"Don't get too cocky," Yue said. "Sakurazaki is probably a lot better with that bamboo sword she's carrying around all the time. I hear she's in the kendo club."
Ranma didn't reply to that comment, and he saw Yue's face fall in disappointment. He'd rather the girls all get to bed instead of playing the usual martial artist one-upsmanship game with some girl he just met. He had already beaten her once, so what more should there be said tonight?
"Lights out," Ranma said after that pause. "We have an early morning and you all need rest. I have spare blankets, but I don't have anything to cushion you from the ground, so you need to find comfortable positions or else it's going to be a horrible night."
As the girls arranged themselves within the small cave, and each drifted off to sleep—Setsuna being the last—Ranma sat against the uneven wall of the cave and reviewed the situation. Getting annoyed at the burden these girls foisted on him was pointless, so the best he could do was to send them on their way before they ate through even more of his supplies. The packaged food that they've consumed should have lasted an entire month under his usual rationing, but what's done is done. The bigger issue was how he could provide for the length of the trek back to... well, closer to civilization.
Stupid logistics. He'd have to work this out with the girls in the morning.
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(Posted Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:35)
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