The girls look up with wide eyes, then averted those eyes when Ranma pulled out a flashlight and shined its beam onto them. Setsuna, Yue, and Nodoka had slipped down the far side of the ravine onto a rocky ledge some six or seven meters away, while Konoka stood on a separate, much smaller ledge a little to the left of those three.
Setsuna was sitting and nursing her legs. She was recovering from his attack, but while the bruise on her eye had faded, she wouldn't be able to walk for at least a few more hours. Yue and Nodoka were standing so they could put their packs on the ledge. Konoka was also standing, but her own ledge had room for one foot to stand on. She was carrying her pack and clutching the steep ravine wall for support. The wall had few handholds for Konoka to grab, and climbing seemed beyond her ability.
Far below them, the walls ended at rock-littered dirt.
The girls weren't in terrible danger. Ranma himself could've jumped off and not thought anything of it.
"Hey!" Yue yelled up at him. "Hey, help us! We're down here!"
"I see you," Ranma said. He set his bow and the bundle of tools he carried from the river onto the stone behind him. Then he sat on the edge of the ravine above the girls.
A long moment passed with no sound but the whispers of the breeze and a few slight creaks from Ranma adjusting his leather gloves.
Yue's voice broke that tranquility. "So what? Just because we told you to leave, you're not going to help us here?"
Ranma pointed the flashlight at her, and she turned her face. "I'm amusing myself wondering how we got to this point."
"Well, we were—"
"I didn't ask for your damn story. If I assume you were chased here by a stampede of alien robot pandas here to conquer the world, that explanation would still make tons more sense than your actual reason for leaving a perfectly good camp by the river. At night. Dragging an invalid. You know, for a bunch of girls, you sure know how to cock everything up."
As Yue fell into angry silence, Ranma swept his gaze across the other girls. Setsuna was already glaring at him, and he decided it would be pointless antagonism to ask Setsuna if she realized by now why he didn't want to fight. The other girls squirmed in the cold as he watched them motionlessly.
"Fine," Yue said. "You don't like us and you think we're stupid. At least help Konoka."
Ranma shined the light at the long-haired girl. He still couldn't quite wrap his head around Konoka being related to Konoemon. "I helped you all before, yet here we are."
Konoka didn't meet his eyes.
"Then you're going to sit there?" Yue said. "Until when? Until we starve?"
Ranma didn't think the girls could stay awake long enough to be hungry, but anyway, he was returning them to Konoemon. While he couldn't ignore their pains completely, he didn't want to put in any more free effort. "I don't see why not. You're safe enough."
Yue stood to her full, unimpressive height and yelled, "How are we in any way safe? It's cold and damp and we could fall any second!"
"You've held it together this long. I'm sure somebody will come rescue you before that." Ranma would've caught the girls even if one of them did fall, but he didn't need to give them that reassurance. "I can save you, sure, but it's not worth my time, and I'm not charitable twice."
Of course, not helping the girls meant getting rid of them slower, and Ranma didn't actually want a reward for a task he already committed himself to. It's just that since Konoemon's people shouldn't take long to find the girls, Ranma only needed to prevent any unforeseen problems and they would go home safely. His obligation would be fulfilled, and they had earned no extra consideration.
"What do you want then?" Yue asked.
Ranma shrugged. "To see if you're willing to pay a fair price for help."
Yue's response was immediate. "I'll give you anything you want later, if you help us right now."
He felt a twinge of amusement at that kind of spontaneity. "Don't you think you should be a little careful about that offer?"
"Why? We can't pay you now, and once we're gone we'll never see you again anyway. Or what, you're going to follow us home? Hunt us down to collect?"
Ranma thought about it, and Yue had a point. "If I can't collect, then I can't help you. I want payment up front."
Konoka suddenly spoke, though with hesitation in her voice. "I can offer you something. My family has money—"
She was cut off by Ranma's sharp retort. "I said I want payment up front."
Or rather, Ranma couldn't go to Konoemon and call in that debt.
"We don't have anything to pay you with," Yue said. "Can't you see we're lost in the woods?"
"Then get creative." Ranma looked down at Setsuna, who was still huddled and sitting. "Gods Cry girl, you started all this. Think of something."
"I have nothing to offer," Setsuna said with an expression as hard as the ledge she sat on. "All I have is devoted to protecting another."
Ranma didn't know how to respond to that, and he noticed Yue and Nodoka looking at Setsuna with similar confusion. "Okay," he said, and he turned to Nodoka. "You then. The quiet one."
Under his gaze and the flashlight's glare, Nodoka started moving as if to hide behind something. Ranma scoffed. "Everybody else answered. You can't opt out."
Yue spoke up for the cowering girl. "What makes you think she's going to talk to you after you knocked her unconscious?"
Ranma thought back to how he carried Nodoka like a cement sack over the river. "She would've enjoyed consciousness less. And since that girl has been avoiding me the entire trip, I'm not letting her off." He looked down on Nodoka again. "Contribute."
Nodoka looked at Yue, then at Konoka. After a bit of thought, she fumbled with her pack and pulled something out.
Yue began to freak out at what the girl held. "Wait, Nodoka! You can't give that up. I know how much you paid for it."
Ranma squinted as he looked towards the two. "So? What is it?"
In Nodoka's hands was a large, thin brown book. Looked like a hardcover. "It's the most expensive thing I have with me."
"Looks pretty regular to me," Ranma said. "Is it rare?"
Nodoka shook her head. "It's a gift for Konoka. I'll give you this, if you'll help her. She hasn't been feeling well since the river."
Konoka stared in surprise at Nodoka's words. So did Setsuna, though all Yue did was groan. Konoka pulled herself together enough to ask, "Is that what you've been saving the entire month for?"
Nodoka nodded. "It's going to be your birthday, after all."
Ranma scanned the faces below him. Both Konoka and Nodoka looked nauseous at the price Ranma was asking. The gift was supposed to be a surprise, evidently.
That was... eh, good enough.
"Alright," Ranma said. "Toss it away."
Yue's eyes widened.
Konoka asked, "Why are you telling her to—"
His reply was curt. "Do you want help?"
"It's okay, Konoka. Yue." Before the two could answer, Nodoka took a deep breath and quietly dropped the book into the darkness beneath them. A moment later, Ranma could hear a light thudding noise. He could see Nodoka tense, but when he looked at her face, he was rather surprised that she wasn't even weepy.
It was a pleasant surprise, given his low expectations.
Ranma set his flashlight aside, hopped to his feet, and adjusted his gloves. With an exasperated sigh, he leapt the few meters across the ravine to the opposite's rock wall above Konoka, and he immediately began to fall.
As he slid to within arm's reach of Konoka to her left, he drove his left hand's fingers into the stone and broke his descent.
He extended his right hand to Konoka. "How can you be so heartless?" Konoka asked without any sign of accepting it.
Wonderful. Just what he needed. "Do you mind," Ranma asked lightly, "saving the indignation for later?"
In contrast to his calm, Konoka looked furiously defensive. "You are the most insensitive person I have ever—"
Anger. It was a new look for Konoka, Ranma thought as he interrupted her by swinging toward the ledge on which she was half-standing and crushing it with one loud stomp.
He climbed back to his original position, and asked. "What the hell is wrong with you? Don't you have the slightest sense of priorities? Your friend just gave up something precious so that I'd pull you out of danger. If you're not trying to spit on that, I shouldn't hear a word out of your miserable face until you're on safe ground."
Konoka was unnerved. Maybe because he had exerted enough force to shatter stone. Maybe because he had exerted such force, but his voice was still calm. Maybe because his voice was calm, but it carried so much more hostility.
No matter. He would send the girls back safely, but he no longer even tried to care about how they felt.
As Konoka pressed herself with all her might against the ravine wall, trying not to lose her precarious grip on her handholds or her pack, Ranma extended his gloved hand to her again. In the darkness, Konoka looked at his hand like it was a viper, but she hesitated only a second before grabbing on and clinging to his arm with her eyes squeezed shut.
Ranma hauled Konoka to the top of the ravine, and then without a word he did the same for the other three girls.
Nobody enjoyed it.
After rescuing the openly ungrateful girls, he set up a campfire and a shelter for them in a nearby clearing that was loosely surrounded by trees. The four went to bed without saying much, leaving him to sit at the fire by himself.
The book Nodoka threw away was about Western astrology, Ranma discovered when—on a whim—he went down the ravine to find it. He thought it was a strange gift, but he supposed girls of that age might like horoscopes, no matter how useless the things were. Regardless, he cleaned the book off and tossed it back among Nodoka's belongings. He didn't have a habit of returning payments, but as Yue said, they would probably not see each other again, and why not? He was still annoyed at these kids for wasting his time, but they were girls. Throw them a bone.
Ranma set that thought aside and stared into the flickering light of the campfire. Now that Konoemon was a day away, all Ranma needed to do was draw the old man's attention to their current spot and let those rescuers take care of the rest. He didn't want to meet Konoemon in person again. He didn't want to see the girls either, and the feeling was no doubt mutual.
What was the best way to get Konoemon's attention?
When the girls got up, the sky was awash with orange light. It wasn't a sunrise, though. They had only been sleeping for about two hours and the light came from a ring of trees that surrounded the campsite, the tops of which were now aflame. A faint stench of smoke filled the air, though none of the trees stood close enough to the camp that the girls risked inhalation. The loud crackles of branches burning probably did more to wake them.
Ranma watched the girls from a distance, hidden in the brush with his hunting garb properly camouflaged with greenery. In the night, he was invisible, a mirror to the spectacle he had unleashed. Ranma wondered if the spectacle was maybe overdone, but the girls wore expressions so boggled that he found it pretty funny.
He prepared to stop the girls from fleeing the camp, but before they could gather their possessions, a troop of the men that Ranma had seen with Konoemon burst into the clearing and led the girls out. He heard someone yelling at the girls about fire safety, and he would've let out a laugh if he was less professional about his stealth.
The men put out the fires, and as the gathering hiked back to the outpost near the road, Ranma followed them. The men took a break at dawn to rest and to eat some of those prepackaged meals that Ranma only kept around for slow hunting days.
Konoka, Yue, and Nodoka ate and talked, slowly brightening after all the emotional shocks they suffered in the last few days. From his vantage point on a hill nearby, Ranma saw Setsuna rise. She was recovering slowly, but not more slowly than he expected for a student of the Gods Cry school of Chi-manipulation. She could limp, which was more than a mundane person could do after one night of healing, and she used that ability to hobble off into the trees. No one seemed to notice her leave, which was a strange lapse for the rescuers.
Ranma followed Setsuna. She didn't go far, just out of sight and earshot of the rest of the group, and there Konoemon sat waiting in his wilderness-inappropriate but still unblemished robes. The old man was carrying a long wrapped bundle, which Ranma recognized as a sword.
As clandestine meetings go, Ranma thought this one was quite sad.
Setsuna bowed to Konoemon, and after Konoemon stared at her injuries in silence for a minute, he healed them with a few hand waves and sparkles. Ranma approached the two just enough to catch their conversation, and as he did so, Setsuna finished recounting the girls' wilderness adventure. He saw Konoemon grow red-faced, first shocked then livid at her descriptions of Konoka's trials.
"So you couldn't protect Konoka?" Konoemon asked. "You allowed Ranma to harm her and abuse her so? I did not expect such failure from you."
Setsuna kneeled and pressed her head down on the dirt at this admonition, accepting the rebuke in silence and humility. It looked like something out of an old samurai movie he saw, but it appeared genuine.
Ranma looked at Konoemon's angry face, and couldn't dodge the feeling that there was something very fake about it.
Konoe sighed at Setsuna's kneeling form. "Raise your head. What is your impression of Ranma?"
Setsuna looked back up with a disgusted face. "He is a cad, but he is a dangerous fighter."
"Can you best him?"
"I have felt him out," Setsuna said. "I think I know his limits."
Ranma almost snorted.
"Don't be overconfident," Konoemon said. "I hear he's quite good at hiding his capacity."
"Perhaps I am presumptuous, but I believe I would defeat him if I have the element of surprise."
Konoemon stroked his beard in thought. "Very well, then. If you think yourself capable, take back your sword and redeem yourself. Bring Ranma to me."
"At once, headmaster."
Setsuna bowed again in deference to Konoemon, then turned back toward the direction she came from and left with a new and unhindered vigor.
Konoemon watched her leave, then asked with a smile, "So, did you enjoy that, Ranma? Come out, I know you are here."
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(Posted Mon, 15 Nov 2010 06:29)
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