The trio rounded a corner towards Furinkan and ran into a familiar face. “Ranchan!”
Ranma smiled at his oldest friend. “Hey, Ucchan.”
The spatula-bearing schoolgirl walked over calmly and frowned. “Um, what happened to your hair, Ranchan? And Akane’s too.”
“Um,” Ranma looked to Nabiki. “Well this is as alone as we’re gonna get.”
Nabiki shook her head. “Not enough time. Trust me, Ukyo, you’re going to want the full story on the one.” She held up her hand. “No one got married or engaged, your engagement is as valid as it was before, Ranma’s not going to go running off, and we’re keeping the details quiet in case of Amazon Death Squads.”
Ukyo frowned at that last one. “That was a lot of free information, Nabiki.”
Nabiki shrugged. “I don’t know anything that Ranma and Akane don’t. I just want to control who else gets in on it as long as possible.”
“Okay, Sugar, but if you’re playing me, I will make you suffer. Anyway, Ranchan, Kuno is looking for you.”
Ranma rolled his eyes. Nabs had said Kuno was back home already. “What else is new?” he asked in a bored tone.
“He has the entire kendo club in full gear to keep you out of school,” Ukyo added.
Ranma blinked. “Wow. That is new. What is the moron doing?”
“I value my last shreds of sanity too much to listen too closely,” Ukyo said dryly. “He babbled something about your true form being revealed at last.” Her eyes flicked to Ranma’s hair.
“Later,” Nabiki stressed. “What do we do now?”
“It’s Kuno,” Ranma pointed out. “We bash him into a wall and move on.”
“But he might let something slip about what he saw.”
“It’s Kuno,” Akane repeated. “He could claim Ranma was the third cousin of a rock out to turn everyone into stone people and no one would bat an eye.”
“He actually did that once,” Nabiki reminisced. “Lots of betting about what rock themed martial art Ranma had learned.”
“I don’t remember that,” Ranma said, frowning.
“You wouldn’t. Turns out the heir to Martial Arts Sculpture has a pigtail.”
Ranma groaned. “And you think we need to be worried about this moron?”
“Well, you are making a good case for not,” Nabiki admitted, “but why risk it?”
“Good point. Well if we can’t get into school, time to go homerk!”
Akane held fast to Ranma’s collar as the retreating humanform tomcat tried to breathe. “Nice try, Ranma.”
Ranma pulled back so his shirt wasn’t threatening his trachea. “That wasn’t cute,” he grumbled.
Ukyo looked at Nabiki dubiously. “So how are we supposed to get inside then?”
“You and I go in the front, and Ranma and Akane jump over the wall,” Nabiki said simply.
Beat.
“That could work,” Akane mused.
Ukyo shrugged. “Whatever, I guess.”
Moments later, Ranma and Akane simply leaped over the wall to Furinkan High in a casual display of martial arts prowess and suspiciously feline grace, particularly suspicious from the often-clumsy Akane Tendo. Nabiki and Ukyo, on the other hand…
“Halt!” Kuno bellowed, standing in Nabiki’s way.
Nabiki scowled. “Excuse me?”
“You are in league with the feline demon who seeks to pollute our glorious school!” Kuno declared. “Begone from my sight, wench, and never darken these hallowed halls again.”
Nabiki stared, for once taken completely by surprise. “Kuno-chan, have you completely lost it?”
“Nay, I have found it! Sotori! Lindabeku! Escort this mistress of misery from my sight!”
Nabiki glared at the named kendoists. “Touch me and I call in every debt,” she warned. Her voice was glacial. “Gambling, loans, everything. Do you really want to do this?”
Ukyo calmly unhooked her battle-spatula from her back with one hand and drew a brace of throwing spats from her bandoleer. “Get behind me, Sugar,” she said warningly. She didn’t much care for Nabiki, but Kuno had entered uncharted waters. And by the looks of it, his kendo goons had joined him.
Nabiki didn’t move, calmly staring down the two kendoists. Crap. They aren’t bending. Well, not bending enough. Dammit, Kuno, what did you say to them?
Ranma and Akane saw the scene from behind the kendoists. The two martial artists were too short to see over the shoulders of the assembled sportsmen, but everything they said was coming through loud and clear. They also noticed they could smell the adrenaline in the air. That was new. They looked at eachother and nodded once.
The kendo team didn’t have any warning. Even humanform, Ranma and Akane were cheetahs on the inside. Like many big cats, cheetahs could get up behind their prey quietly, getting close enough that by the time they were discovered, it was too late for the poor beast to run away.
Fun facts. Human senses have atrophied in the millennia of civilization since being unaware of a big cat creeping up behind you was a critical survival skill. And heavy protective headgear really kills peripheral perceptions. Oh, and an angry girl, an armed girl, and a deluded kendo champion were extremely distracting.
Long story short, the first hint the kendo club had that their master plan had gone awry was when Ranma grabbed one of their arms, applied leverage, and forced him to flip head over heels to land painfully on his back. One down. At the same moment Akane took another by the arm, wrenched him into a joint lock, delivered a nasty punch to the side of his head, and pulled his bokken from his numb fingers. Now armed, she adopted a modified kendo stance of her own. The Tendo School was an expert at the use of weapons, and Akane had once defeated the entire Kendo club on their own terms.
Faced with an armed Akane, Ukyo, Ranma, two of their number out cold, and Nabiki promising her own painful retribution, they didn’t feel quite so confident. Kuno himself, on the other hand…
“Akane Tendo! You take your rightful place at my side at long last!” Kuno cried joyously. He flung his arms wide. “Come into my loving arms so that I may take you away from the feline demon!”
Akane twitched. It wasn’t a big twitch. Just a little spasm over one eye. “Kuno…”
“Yes my love?”
Akane swung her pilfered weapon in a most unkendoly way and caught Kuno under his chin. The legend in his own mind went flying into the distance to painfully impact the distant building of Furinkan High, head-first. “Just go away and die!” Akane yelled after him.
In the distance, Kuno struggled to his feet. “I…fight…on…” thud.
“No. You. Don’t,” Nabiki noted.
The remaining club members wailed “Captain Kuno!” and rushed to his aid, forming a defensive perimeter around the fallen fool.
Ranma frowned and looked to the two fallen club members. “This doesn’t make sense. They’ve never supported Kuno like that before.”
“And they’ve never been so dumb as to go after me,” Nabiki added grimly. “He said something to them. Or showed them something. Or threatened them.”
“Threats don’t buy loyalty like that,” Ranma said, keeping a wary eye on the ring of kendoists between them and Kuno.
“Maybe he had enough proof of this ‘true form’ nonsense that they really believe you’re a demon?” Ukyo tried. “You didn’t get your curse changed to something like Taro’s did you?”
“No, still just girl-type Ranma,” Ranma said glumly.
“Then what happened?” Ukyo demanded.
“Later, Ukyo,” Nabiki said firmly. She looked the chef over and sighed. “Okay fine. Kodachi will be here around lunch time to meet with me and Ranma. Don’t be late and don’t start any fights.”
“You were going to tell Kodachi before me?” Ukyo asked, absolutely shocked. “Ranchan, why!?”
“It ain’t like that, Ucchan. Kodachi just got something I need first.”
“Herbs,” Nabiki added. “Plants. It’ll make sense then, but she’s the only person in Nerima with what we need and we can reasonably trust.”
"Trust?" Ukyo asked. "You can trust Kodachi?"
"More than Happosai," Nabiki clarified.
"That's true," Ukyo agreed.
Just then the bell rang. "Great," Akane grumbled. "Late again."
"C'mon, let's get out of here before someone pelts us with exploding pineapples."
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(Posted Wed, 07 Sep 2011 08:07)
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