Ranma ½ [Interview] The Billion Yen Grand Prix Arc

[The Ero-Sennin]

To support the growth and prosperity of TFF, I'm once again giving first dibs to TFF for all my works before it goes up on FFN and the like. Interview is also getting an update to reflect my growth as a writer, and will be reposted on an arc by arc basis.

Also, expect extra stuff that won't fit in story. Omakes and other treats that will start popping up.

All other works currently writ by me and mine will also be getting this treatment (though only Interview will get threads for dedicated arcs).


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Disclaimer: This is the first chapter written entirely on Google Docs. Yay, I guess?


The Key to A Successful Interview is a Good First Impression!
Gentlemen, start your engines


What would you do, for a Billion Yen? Would you lie? Would you steal? Would you… fight?


[30.]


Lately, or at least in the few weeks since Pantyhose Taro was utterly destroyed by Tatewaki Kuno and Shampoo, Nerima was seeing an influx of martial artists coming into the ward. From casual self-defense practitioners, to self-proclaimed Grand Masters, they were arriving by the bus, boat, plane, and trainload, and coming from as far away as the other side of the world to roam the narrow streets of the city, fill its hotels, and even camp out in the parks. They were all here for the same reason, answering the same open invitation that went out the very day Taro got his shit ruined.

“This Billion Yen Grand Prix thing is getting a bit out of hand,” Akane complained as she, Ranma, Nabiki, and Tatewaki ate lunch on the roof of the school. “Nobody even knows what it is besides that they’re giving away a billion yen to the winner, and already people are starting fights in the street, waving their dicks around like it’ll improve their chances.”

“Ah, so it’s come to that now?” Nabiki asked. While the allure of a string-free billion yen got her panties soaked, Nabiki knew she wasn’t a martial artist and was comfortable enough with the idea of having family or friends win it for her to not invest much interest into it.

Akane shoveled some rice into her mouth. “The worst part is that most of these people are just awful. Those douchebag friends of yours, Hiroshi and Daisuke, could beat them up,” she said to Ranma. In fact, they were already 4-0 against these losers.

“Those douchebags aren’t my friends. They just hang out with me because I’m cool as fuck,” he replied.

Nabiki hummed. “Not cool enough, if that’s the quality of friends you attract.”

“Dude, I have the best friends, they’ve all just got their own things going on, or are you guys.”

Kuno was frying some ground beef on a hotplate. “You know, Ranma. Nabiki does have a point; beyond myself, Ukyo, and Shampoo, you don’t regularly hang out with others. You don’t have many friends.”

“I don’t need friends, just comrades,” Ranma said dramatically with a clenched fist.

“That’s what Lenin said,” Nabiki pointed out.

“At the rate he’s going, he’s going to be one of the girls,” Akane noted. Ranma glowered at Akane as she continued, “When he’s not filling his man-quota with Kuno and Ukyo, he’s hanging all over me even when I’m going out with my friends. You know, my real friends who’ve had my back since middle school?”

Ranma grew petulant. “Oh yeah, and what am I supposed to do. Just pick up the phone and say ‘Hey Scott, would you mind swinging by and hanging out at my house? Wait, you’re in Canada? That’s cool. Maybe next week’?”

Nabiki shrugged her shoulders. “For a shot at a billion yen, he’s probably here right now.”

“That would be nice,” Ranma said before a commotion at the front gates of the school caught everyone’s attention. “What could that be?”

It was a gang of about two dozen men, maybe even more. Judging by their looks and attire, they were all wannabe gangsters and thugs and they were all brandishing weapons and looking like they were here for business. At the middle of the crowd, his arms folded across his chest, was a particularly hefty-looking guy with spiky blonde hair, sunglasses, and the physique of a guy who hit the gym hard at least three times a week and took karate lessons by correspondence.

“This is certainly new,” Nabiki said.

Kuno got up. “I’ll have Okamada release the hounds-”

“ATTENTION FURINKAN HIGH SCHOOL!” a smallish dude with a megaphone who looked like he came straight out of the Gal-O Sengen music video called out. “WE WANT RANMA SAOTOME TO COME OUT RIGHT NOW, OR WE GONNA TRASH THIS BITCH!”

Akane looked at Ranma. “What did you do?”

“Nothing I didn’t do anything,” Ranma quickly replied as he stood up. “Best head down there to see what’s up.”

Kuno sighed. “This had better be good, I just finished browning the taco meat.”

Ranma headed for the stairwell. “Chill, I’ll be back up in a second.”

Akane got up and followed, as did Nabiki. By the time the three reached the courtyard of the school, a crowd of students had gathered, a number of them club members armed as well in order to defend their school from these mysterious accosters.

“Stand down guys, I got this,” Ranma reassured the other students as he reached the crowd. “I’m Ranma Saotome, what’s up?”

“Yo, for real? You’re Ranma Saotome?” The annoying guy with the megaphone said. Behind him, and around their supposed leader, the rest of the gang started throwing up gang signs, hooting, hollering, and yelling “yo” like a pack of monkeys.

Nabiki pulled out a camera and began filming. “It’s not every day a pack of monkeys shows up looking for a fight.”

“Yeah, and who are you guys?” Ranma asked.

“We’re the the Wild Bulls, the baddest motherfuckers from Kyushu! We came all the way here, to the big city, to burn the name of our boss into it!” The megaphone guy yelled as he pointed back at the spiky-haired burly blonde. “Word on the street is that Nerima is home to a real badass, a guy stronger than two hundred men put together. The baddest motherfucker in all of Tokyo. A man named... Akane Tendo!”

Akane’s hair fell over her eyes, hiding them in the shadows of her bangs. Ranma glanced her way as wisps of blue light began to rise from her body, before he returned his attention to the gang. “Then why are you looking for me?”

“Well, rumor has it that you’re Tendo’s underling, and if we want Tendo, we have to go through his right hand! So we wanna send a message!” the megaphone idiot responded... through the megaphone.

Nabiki, keeping her camera on the confrontation, looked over to Akane and saw that she had a smile of barely contained rage on her face, and her hand still not encased in a cast was so tightly clenched that blood was seeping from between her fingers.

“I think you got your information wrong. First, Akane Tendo is not the baddest motherfucker in all of Tokyo, she’s third at best. Second, I’m the baddest motherfucker in all of Tokyo,” Ranma said with no small amount of indignity.

“Third baddest?” Akane growled at Ranma, still smiling.

“Yo, dawg, you talking some of that real shit, huh? Well turn in your title because our boss Bull is here to cop it!”

Ranma tilted his head. “Who now?” He looked towards their sunglasses-wearing boss. “That guy?”

“Don’t show disrespect to our boss!” The entire crowd of hoodlums yelled.

Ranma rolled his eyes. “I’ll show disrespect to all of you idiots. Go away before you die.”

“The only one who better recognize is you, city boy! Our boss is no mortal dude, he’s fought the strongest in Japan, and was even trained by an instructor at the legendary Ryoubu University!” The loud idiot’s megaphone was suddenly shoved into his mouth, silencing him, before Ranma pushed him onto his back.

“The legendary what now?” Ranma asked.

Nabiki was already checking Wikipedia on her smartphone. “It’s apparently some college on Kyushu that majors in the study of martial arts. It’s really just a place for egghead try-hards who want to act in martial arts movies or start cheap third-rate dojos in shopping plazas.”

“Ha, if only you knew the true horror of Ryoubu, of Juuzenji!” the man they called Bull suddenly declared as he stepped up to the front of his cheering crowd.

Ranma looked back. “Juuzenji?”

“The neighborhood where Ryoubu is located, all the way over in Kumamoto,” Nabiki replied.

“It’s a whole different world from the rest of Japan, where even little girls can take down entire crews without breaking a sweat! If you were from, where I was from, you’d be dead!” Bull boasted.

“Good for you, scout,” Ranma replied.

Bull clenched a fist. “Don’t you dare talk down on me! Even I, a man who could summon a thousand loyal soldiers in an instant, was no match for that place. But I endured, and I flourished... we all flourished!” As he spoke, his gang began crying manly tears, the sort men cry when they recall their hardships.”Thanks to the teaching of my master... I’ve come to burn my mark into legend and to do that... I need to take out the biggest and the baddest in Tokyo!”

He pointed at Ranma. “That’s why I’m here to kick your ass!”

Ranma slowly nodded. “Yeah... no.” He turned around and walked away.

Bull’s hand dropped. “What? No?! You’re just going to walk away from a challenge?! Coward!”

Surprisingly, Ranma didn’t stop. “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood. It’s Thursday, and Thursday is taco day, and despite being far too cool for such a menial task, Tatewaki Kuno makes some damn good tacos.”

Bull folded his arms, and smirked. “It’s okay if you’re intimidated because I brought all my boys. But I promise you it’ll be one on one!”

Ranma ignored him entirely now, as he went back inside the school. Seeing this, Bull let out a laugh. “Did you see that? Akane Tendo’s right hand ran off crying like a baby! This town is as good as ours!”

Nabiki cleared her throat, grabbing the crowd’s attention. “Uh, Bull-san? I really hate to rain on your parade, but...”

Actually she did, as she directed their attention to Akane, who was flexing and popping the joints of her blood-dripping hand as she gave the gang of hoodlums and their boss a gleefully murderous look.

The Gal-O Sengen reject finally spat out his megaphone and stood up as they stared at Akane. “Boss? That chick looks like she wants to fight!”

“Remember, we ain’t in Juuzenji anymore! We don’t fight girls like that!” Bull declared.

“Good,” Akane said. “Because I really hate it when the dumb ones struggle!”

“Akane, stop!” She stopped mid-lunge at Ranma’s voice, and looked back to see him leaning over the edge of the school’s roof, shaking his head disapprovingly. “They aren’t worth it.”

“But-!” Akane snapped back.

Ranma shook his head. Akane bristled at his further denial. “They called me a-!”

“There aren’t enough ambulances in all of Nerima for these guys,” Ranma said.

Akane stopped at that, and then looked at the group. She then looked back up at Ranma. “Fine, I’ll just beat up their leader then.”

Ranma immediately gave her a thumb’s up. “Just don’t kill him, okay?”

“Okay!” She turned to face the gang again. Bull removed his sunglasses and arched an eyebrow.

“You don’t want to fight me, I stepped out of what even Grand Masters would call Hell!” he boasted as his crew cheered him and jeered her. “You don’t want to mess with a dude like me at full health, let alone with a broken arm-” Akane disappeared from Bull’s sight. “W-what the?”

Bull disappeared from his gang’s sight.

“B-Boss?” They looked around the courtyard, seeing no sign of their boastful leader at all. Ten seconds passed, still nothing, and by thirty seconds the gang was calling for their boss or arguing for others to be quiet when they thought they heard the sound of blows being struck or screams of pain.

After exactly one minute, one of the thugs suddenly pointed. “Look!”

Akane was right back where she had been standing before, almost every inch of her body save her cast-covered arm splattered with blood. “Stepped out of Hell, huh?”

She turned and kicked upward, catching a heavily beaten and bloodied Bull on her foot. He lay face up, all but impaled on her foot, twitching and gasping as bloody foam trickled from his mouth. On seeing this, his entire gang recoiled in horror and disbelief.

Sporting impressive flexibility, Akane reached up and caressed Bull’s face as she spoke in his ear. “Well this is God’s domain.”

She slammed his ravaged body to the ground at the feet of his men, prompting applause from the students of Furinkan.

“BOSS!” Bull’s crew screamed in unison.

“Yo, Akane... I didn’t get any good film at all, what a waste.” Nabiki lamented.

“Next time use a high speed camera,” Akane boasted as some of them rushed to Bull’s aid, while the others moved to confront her with bats, swords, and other weapons ready.

“Y-you! Who do you think you are, doing that to our boss?!” the megaphone guy yelled.

“Who? I’m sorry, allow me to introduce myself.” Akane took her skirt, and performed a curtsy. “I am Akane Tendo.”

The fight quickly left Bull’s men, as the horrifying realization dawned on them. Grabbing their boss, the gang left, screaming in terror of Akane’s violence and their inability to comprehend it. Akane watched them go, flicking excess drops of blood from her hand.

“Is he going to be okay?” Nabiki asked.

“Oh yeah, I held back on him. He was all doughy and soft, if I hit him too hard, my hand would’ve gone clean through him,” Akane replied.

Nabiki nodded. “I guess they don’t make ‘em in Hell like they used to.”

“I’m sure they do, that guy was a manufacturer’s defect for sure.” Akane clapped her hands together. “I’m gonna get cleaned up and have some tacos.”

As Akane and Nabiki headed back inside the school, a very annoyed panda watching from some nearby trees shook his head and growled.


On the other side of Tokyo, in the gleaming metropolis of Minato a solitary figure stood in front of a skyscraper, his head bowed, his shoulders slumped, and tears running down his cheeks. Overcome with depression, Ryoga Hibiki choked back a sob, before he held up his hands. His life, he told himself, was misery. Everything he struggled, strived, and fought for was out of his reach. No one cared about his feelings, no one loved him, no one wanted to see him happy. He was devoid of light, of joy, of even a modicum of happiness!

“I’M IN DESPAIR!” he screamed. “BEING ME HAS LEFT ME IN DESPAIR!”

Lifting his hands, he screamed in anguish as he fired off the Shishi Hokodan, the massive beam blasting a wedge-shaped hole through the bottom floor of the skyscraper. With a great and terrible rumble, the 50 story building came down, crashing into a pile of rubble neatly where it stood and sending a tremendous cloud of dust scattering everywhere.

A great gust of wind then blew up, blowing away the dust and clearing it... revealing a dust-covered Ryoga grinning like an idiot to a crowd of cheering spectators who came to see an old, condemned skyscraper meet its end in a truly awesome fashion.

Stepping over, also covered in skyscraper dust, was a tall, older dark-brown haired woman, well-built from years of construction duty. “All clear! Well done Hibiki, that’s the fifth successful demolition this month! I swear you make us pros look like jokes without even trying!”

Ryoga bashfully rubbed the back of his head. “I’m just doing my job, boss; I’ve got mouths to feed and all.”

The demolition crew’s foreman, Nanami Sakana, put her arm around Ryoga and hugged him to her side. “Don’t be so modest! You should be proud of the work you’re doing. After all, you can’t build anew if you don’t tear down the old. You’re leading the drive of progress in this city!”

Contrary to what he had been telling himself before he leveled an entire building with despair, Ryoga’s life had actually been going really good for these past eight months or so. Despite being married literally at gunpoint to a girl he’d gotten pregnant under circumstances he refused to disclose to anyone, he and his wife were happy, their child was adorable and he loved her to bits, and he had not only a well-paying job... but a well-paying job that he was good at and liked to do!

However, pride–despite Nanami’s insistence–was a bit of a problem. As much as he was content with the hand that life has dealt him so far, a very small part of him was resentful towards it. A small part of Ryoga, ignored except in the briefest moments of introspection, that asked why he was satisfied with the silver medal of life when he could have more.

“What’s next on the agenda, boss?” A tall, broad man carrying a croquet mallet over his shoulder and sporting a bright green mohawk, asked as he walked over.

Nanami smiled. “Well, since we’re ahead of schedule, I say we call it quits early and celebrate. We’re already paid for the day’s work after all.”

The man, Hagane Kuma grinned broadly. “I got the booze if you got the fish!”

Nanami’s smile blew up into a grin. “I’ve always got the fish.” She turned and called over to two more individuals, a pair of women who, unlike Nanami, appeared sorely out of place on the deconstuction site. “Oi! Kyoko! Jo! Party time!”

Jo Nezumi, a blonde-haired woman who looked like middle schooler despite her age of twenty-nine, tilted up her yellow safety helmet and grinned. “Oh yeah? Great!”

“I just hope we’re not having more fish,” an elegant and attractive violet-haired woman with a body and face better suited for modeling and acting, Kyoko Taka, groaned.

Nanami laughed as the group left the site. “Too bad, I caught an entire barrel this morning!”

Kyoko groaned. “Oh joy of joys.”

Nanami, Hagane, Jo, Kyoko, and Ryoga... these were the rising stars of Japan’s demolition industry, Nihon Break Kogyo.

Within a half hour of leaving the site, the group was hanging around a picnic table and grill in a nearby park. At the grill Nanami skillfully gutted, cleaned, and seasoned fish before throwing them over the hot coals. Kyoko, not at all shy about her dislike for fish, was eating a cheeseburger at the table, one of a plate of a dozen all for her. Next to her, Jo was browsing the internet on a smartphone, and ignoring the occasional and loud growls of hunger that emanated from her stomach. Ryoga and Hagane were a short distance over from the table and grill, the latter brandishing his croquet mallet as the former steeled himself.

“Ready?” Hagane asked. “It’s not too late to back out, kid!”

Ryoga nodded. “I’m telling you it’s okay; just hit me with all your might.”

Grinning, Hagane reared back and swung the seemingly harmless mallet with all his might and a great yell. On contact with Ryoga’s stomach, the young man was all but knocked on his feet, but managed to catch himself and stagger backward. Placing a hand over his stomach, Ryoga coughed as he tried to catch the wind knocked out of him.

“Hoo! You’re a monster, sempai,” Ryoga admitted as he rubbed his stomach.

“I’m the monster? I’m amazed I was finally able to move you,” Hagane said with a laugh. “You weren’t holding back on my behalf, were you?”

Ryoga shook his head. “No sir, in fact I’ve been training to be able to take everyone’s hits better. With all the work pouring in, I want to be at my physical peak.”

“That’s a good attitude to have, Ryoga-kun!” Nanami shouted as she tossed him a cooked fish on a stick.

As Ryoga caught and chowed down on the fish, Hagane shouldered his mallet. “So, why aren’t you dominating the martial arts circuit with your power? You’re built like a tank and can probably bench press two.”

Ryoga shrugged his shoulders. “I want to say that I’m retired from martial arts. Getting into fights all the time is too troublesome, and it doesn’t pay the bills like tearing buildings down.”

“Still, you could do it for fun,” Hagane suggested. “The old ball and chain isn’t going to let you go?”

Ryoga shook his head. “Osaka actually thinks it’s really cool.”

In fact, Mrs. Hibiki had frequently expressed a desire to see him fight Godzilla. “But she’s fine with me wanting to put the family first, you know?”

“It couldn’t hurt to give it a shot,” Jo said. “In fact there’s a big martial arts thing being held in Nerima a billion yen.”

Kyoko nodded. “Yeah, it’s been all over the news and the net. You guys have TV, right?”

Ryoga and Hagane turned towards the tiny woman in surprise. “A billion yen?!”

“If you ask me, it’s a bigger waste of money than Battle City,” Kyoko said with a mouthful of hamburger.

Nanami took the smartphone from Jo, prompting a yelp from her. She read the screen and shook her head. “How strange, it doesn’t give any details about the competition other than it’s an open invitation for Martial Artists of all skill levels and styles, and the prize itself.” Nanami kept reading. “Oh... further details regarding the tournament will be revealed at sunset in the Nerima Ward.”

Hagane sneered. “It’s like something out of a fighting game. It must be a scam.”

“I don’t know, it is a Nerima thing and you know how those folks are.” Kyoko tilted her head towards Ryoga. “No offense.”

“Some taken,” Ryoga replied gamely.

Nanami was still checking it out. “Well it really is legit... all the major outlets are covering, even foreign news networks have people here.”

“That depends, who?” Hagane asked.

“CNN...” Nanami replied.

“Semi-legit,” Hagane conceded.

“... And the BBC,” she finished.

Hagane’s eyes widened. “My God, someone’s just giving away a billion yen.” He looked to Ryoga. “You should enter it!” He then turned to the entire group. “We should enter it!”

Jo blinked. “We? As in all of us?”

“The rules say that entire schools and martial arts organizations are welcomed to take part, with a maximum team of fifty members,” Nanami said of the entry rules.

Kyoko hummed. “It’s been forever since I used my style against human beings. I kind of miss the thrill, you know?”

Jo grinned. “Me too!”

“Last time I fought another living creature was a bear in Hokkaido, kind of a letdown,” Hagane said. “But you see? That’s why we should enter! Heck, think of all the advertising we’d get if we won!”

“Precisely! The billion yen to buy more equipment and serve as our off-season reserve fund!” Fire burned in Nanami’s eyes as she held up her fist. “Nihon Break Kogyo! As your foreman and CEO, I declare that we shall enter the Billion Yen Grand Prix!”

“Yes!” Jo and Hagane cheered.

“Woo-hoo,” Kyoko drably added.

Ryoga frowned. A competition in Nerima would only bring him into conflict with Ranma again, and honestly he wanted nothing more than to avoid it. “Uh... would it be fine if I sat out?”

Jo patted Ryoga on the side. “Nonsense, you’re one of us, Ryoga-kun! Wherever there is a challenge, we must be there as a team to break it!”

“The four of us are pretty strong, but when the five of us combine our strength... no building, bridge, or martial arts challenge can withstand our might!” Hagane added.

Kyoko nodded. “Besides, you can take hits better than all of us combined.”

Ryoga rubbed the back of his head as he shook it slowly. “... I’m sorry guys... the fight’s just not in me anymore, you know? Back when I was fighting... there was one guy I wanted to beat more than anything, I was obsessed with it and only thought of myself beating him.”

The group stared at Ryoga intently as he told his story. “I was a terrible person because of it, and it took me losing to him again and again for me to finally get it in my head that I wasn’t a martial artist because I wanted to walk that path, but because I just wanted to beat that guy and rub it in his face... and that’s no reason to want to be martial artist, you know?”

Hagane nodded sagely. “That’s right, kid.”

Kyoko let out an impressed hum. “For an aimless kid, you’ve got some wisdom ahead of your years.”

“Well then,” Nanami said, “If it means that much to you, you’re free to sit out. The rest of us will sign up.”

Ryoga’s brows rose. “You will?”

“Remember, before you joined we were the ‘Four Heavenly Kings of Deconstruction’! Even without your power, that prize is as good as ours! Besides, the exposure will be great for the company,” Nanami said before she rested a hand on Ryoga’s shoulder. “More to the point, Ryoga-kun. We owe you for allowing us to expand our business so much and turn this company into a real competitor in the heavy demolition industry, so we’re all more than willing to fight for your future.”

Ryoga blinked. “Me... my future?”

“Yes! You’re still high school age, your young wife is still attending classes with your child in her arms-”

Not too far away, Yukari Tanizaki prayed for strength as her student, Ayumu “Osaka” Hibiki (née Kasuga), insisted on breast-feeding her daughter in the middle of English Class.

“You still live with her parents, in fact!” Nanami said. “With that prize money, you could focus on enjoying your job and providing your family’s day to day, while the future is ensured!”

She put her arm around Ryoga and swept her arm out before her. “Envision it! You’d be able to put some money aside for your daughter’s education...”

Ryoga’s eyes widened. “... A p-pre-paid education...”

“You could purchase a car, and a house on land you own!” Nanami continued.

Sparkles appeared before Ryoga’s eyes. “... My own land...”

“Most importantly, it would be the perfect start to your retirement fund!”

The sparkles were now in Ryoga’s eyes, as he imagined a life where he didn’t have to worry about the future, and could retire decades down the road with his loving wife, children, and grandchildren! “It’s... it’s beautiful...”

Nanami nodded. “We’re willing to help make it happen, Ryoga-kun! After all...” She winked and a gleam appeared on her perfect teeth.”We’re comrades!”

“Yes!” Hagane shouted.

“Yeah! A kid like you should enjoy life!” Jo added.

Kyoko nodded. “Living without a care, always moving forward... that’s the Nihon Break Kogyo way, right?”

Tears of gratitude poured down Ryoga’s cheeks. “You... you guys...!” He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. “I don’t deserve comrades like you!”

He hugged Nanami, lifting her off her feet. “You guys have been so kind to me! I can’t thank you enough!”

Nanami laughed and returned the hug. “Think nothing of it, rookie!” When Ryoga set her down, she spun around and then pointed fabulously towards the direction of Nerima. “Let’s finish our lunch, and then go... to the Nerima Ward!”

“YOU GOT IT, CHIEF!” the others cheered.

They then smelled burning fish. Letting out a yelp, Nanami ran back to the grill. “Oh God, my fish!”


Her club activities done for the day, Akane waved farewell to the other members of the Kendo Club as she left the gates of the school with her bag over her shoulder. Outside the gate waiting for her was Ranma, sitting on a bicycle he’d taken up using for deliveries after Shampoo graduated to a motorcycle. On seeing him waiting, Akane smiled and jogged over. “Hey, Ranma! Taking a break from delivery?”

“I just got finished with one, yeah,” Ranma said as he gestured to the handlebars of the Flying Pigeon that Cologne had gifted him at the start of spring for his exceptional service. Akane hopped up onto the handlebars, and situated herself comfortably before Ranma began pedaling for home. “So, did those idiots give you guys any trouble after I left?”

“No, it’s been quiet all day. I think they got the hint and skipped town,” Akane said.

Ranma let out a snorting laugh. “Yeah right, those idiots are probably plotting their revenge. Guys dumb enough to come to this town without knowing the pecking order are too dumb to live.”

As a matter of fact they were, but that was moot. “How did the club go today?”

Akane sighed. “More of me taking it easy thanks to this.” She held up her cast. “I’ve been thinking a lot about how it broke, and I’ve got a solution for it.”

“What, using a bokken?”

“No, that won’t solve my problem. Praying Mantis Glass Cutting is very powerful, but the problem is that it while the edge is sharp my blade itself is easy to break.” Akane gestured to her arm for emphasis.

Ranma nodded. “So you want to make your ‘swords’ stronger so they won’t break.

“After the cast comes off, I’m gonna start training with Granny to raise my durability. I don’t want to break my arm on a really strong opponent again.”

As they reached the Tendo home, Ranma hopped off the street and landed on the wall surrounding the compound. Balancing on the back tire, Ranma hopped again, setting down in the back yard.

“The breaking point, right?” Ranma asked as he thought of Ryoga’s unearthly resistance to damage.

“In my head I have a fighting style envisioned. One where not just my fingers, but my hands, arms... my entire body is a sword. I wouldn’t need a sword, because I’d be able to cut through one with my bare hand.” Akane raised her uninjured hand and clenched it into a fist with that.

Ranma whistled before he climbed off the bike. “That sounds ridiculously awesome.” When she suddenly hugged him, he let out a hum of surprise. “Akane?”

“It’s all because of you, you know,” she said as she nuzzled his neck. “I keep getting stronger and better as a martial artist, so much that it scares me when I think about how powerful I’ve become in just a year.”

She lifted her gaze to his face, smiling. “I’m making the most of my potential thanks to you.”

Ranma smiled back to her and returned her embrace. “Yeah, you’re gonna be the strongest woman in the world.”

Akane giggled. “After you?”

He lightly bopped her atop her head. “Hey.”

“Ow!” she yelped cutely before she gave him an amorous look and kissed him.

The tender moment was interrupted by Genma kicking Ranma and launching him into the pond, sending a geyser of water shooting from it. Folding his arms, Genma shook his head disapprovingly. “Exactly as I suspected, you’re getting sof-”

Akane furiously kicked him in the chin, jumped over him as he accelerated upward, grabbed him by the face, and slammed him head first through the large rock by the pond, splitting it in half. “WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM NOW, PANDA BASTARD?!”

Ranma, leaning against the edge on the pond, regarded her father with annoyance. “Yeah Pop, what is your problem?”

Getting up, Genma shook his head as he tried to regain his motor controls. “My problem, Ranma... is that lately you’ve been lacking in motivation!”

Ranma raised an eyebrow. “Motivation?”

“I’m saying... that you are having it far too easy, boy, and your growth as a martial artist is suffering for it!” Genma declared.

Ranma climbed out of the pond and whipped off her shirt to wring it out. “Too easy? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”

Genma’s eyes narrowed. “Oh is that a fact? When was the last fight that you and you alone won decisively?”

“When I kicked the shit out of Ryoga,” Ranma immediately replied.

Genma turned away from Ranma, his nose turned up despite the blood pouring down his head from Akane’s attack. “It is as I thought! Boy, you’re not putting in any effort into the art!”

“I’d argue that the beating I took in figuring out Ryoga’s little secret qualifies as effort,” Ranma replied.

“I’d argue the irony of your Dad talking about effort,” Akane noted.

“Since then, you’ve been coming up short. Sure, your little Love Love Kamehameha is flashy and cool, but that’s not done much about the thrashings you’ve been getting lately!” Genma snapped at his son-currently-daughter.

Okay, what was this silly shit coming out of his Father’s soon to be fist-filled maw? “Pardon me, but when have I been getting thrashed?”

“Both times you fought Pantyhose Taro!” Genma responded.

Ranma laughed at that. Briefly. “Okay, setting the record straight on that, except for when he poisoned me, there was not a time that Pantyhose Taro was anywhere near beating me. Even then? The poison would’ve worn off fast and I would have destroyed that fucker. That said, Shampoo and Kuno both had priority to that guy’s ass on a silver platter, because that shit was more your problem to start!”

“My problem? How dare you insult me like that? How was I supposed to know of all the Master’s dirty laundry? If you had not been there, I would’ve gladly handled it myself.”

“But of course, I was there. So when Pantyhose got all pissy, you were quick to disappear,” Ranma pointed out.

“Can I kill him?” Akane asked as she brandished her non-cast hand.

“You should be grateful I gave you such a strong opponent... that you squandered and handed off to your friends.”

Ranma would be glad to give the order for Akane to go to town, but she’d rather do it herself. “There was nothing strong about Pantyboy except for his body odor! He was a bitch with a chip on his shoulder and got ruined forever by two people I could beat at the same time one-handed!”

A gleam shone in Genma’s eyes, prompting his glasses to go opaque. “You sound so confident in that strength of yours, boy. How about proving to your old man that I’m full of shit?!”

“What, fighting you? Nabiki could probably beat you in a straight fight just with all the stuff she picked up watching me and Akane!” Ranma retorted.

“No, entering that Grand Prix!” Genma snapped back.

Ranma frowned... Ranma frowned deep and hard. “No.”

“Don’t think you can cut it?” Genma taunted.

Ranma folded her arms and turned away from him. “Oh, I can cut it. I can dissect it. I could go out there into town and beat every person who signed up right now, and be declared winner by default the moment it actually started. But that’s the thing, it’d be too easy.”

Genma nodded slowly. “Is that what you think?”

“Pretty much what I know. Besides, what would I do with that much money anyway... aside from give it to you?” Because really, that’s all Genma wanted and seeing through that was no problem for her.

Genma grew smug. “Well then, boy, prove it. Go down and sign up or we’ll go down and do it for you.”

Akane looked to Ranma. “Let’s burn the dojo down with our fathers locked inside.”

Ranma nodded. “Sounds like a deal.”

At that moment, there was a horrible shriek from inside the house. Ranma and Akane turned to see Kasumi run out of the house, a horrified look on her face and a kettle in hand. “Ew! Ew! Ew!”

“Kasumi, what is it?” Akane asked as Ranma took the kettle, doused herself male again, and prepared to savagely attack whatever it was (as long as it wasn’t some manner of cat). Both stopped and recoiled in disgust, however, when Old Man Daikoku emerged from the house, wearing his blue suit and that god-awful red beret.

“Ah, sorry, I let myself in again,” Daikoku said cheerfully.

“Oh man, not you again. What do you want?” Ranma demanded.

The only reason Ranma and Akane weren’t viciously murdering the man (besides the fact that they did not want to come in physical contact with his fashion sense) was honestly because after their last encounter he hadn’t personally messed with them or had any overt ties to Kaori’s efforts at messing with them. He was a semi-reasonable guy, if completely oblivious to his daughter’s feelings. Much like their fathers really in the latter regard.

“I’ve come in regards to my daughter, and the engagement,” Daikoku said as he took a seat on the patio. “It’s been over six months now since we last spoke on the arrangement and seeing as there’s no dialogue I wanted to open a new one.”

Ranma laughed. “Oh yeah, because I am interested in marrying a woman who wants to kill me outside of in her sleep.”

Akane flushed in embarrassment and slapped him in his side.

Daikoku nodded somberly. “If you mean Kaori’s vendetta, well... I wasn’t made aware of it until recently. When I found some curious expenses of hers in the allowance I’ve given her.”

“What kind of expenses?” Akane asked.

“She’s been doing a lot of extensive investigation into both your families, and going on lengthy trips to various places, looking for individuals related to you. Just last week she went off to Israel, and it was budgeted much in the same manner.”

Ranma looked to Genma. “So who’d you piss off in Israel, Pop? Hamas? Hezbollah? The Mossad?”

Genma immediately shook his head. “You think I’m stupid enough to get involved with those kinds of people? What do you think this is, bad fanfiction?!”

Ranma gestured to his eyes, and then pointed at Genma, before returning his attention to Daikoku. “Okay, old man. So you know about Kaori’s hate-on for us, how does that change the engagement?”

“Well, it means that obviously you can’t get married.” It was easily the second greatest thing anyone had ever said to Ranma, right after Akane asking him to let Yuka join them for a threesome because it was Yuka’s birthday and she “wanted to experiment”.

So of course, he broke into euphoric cheers. “YES! YES! I’M OFF THE HOOK! WOO-HOO! SHE HAS NO REASON TO WANT TO KILL ME ANYMORE! AW YEAH!”

The word “but”, however, carried a tremendous weight whenever the greatest things ever told were told. And much like Akane’s caveat being that Ranma had to be a girl for their “experiment” with Yuka, Daikoku’s use of the word drained all of Ranma’s initial excitement.

“But... there’s still the matter of resolving the debt owed.”

Ranma was next to inanimate now, a blank look on his face. “What do you want instead.”

“Something of equal value, of course. The reason I agreed to Genma’s deal was because he promised you to Kaori, so that you could produce an heir worthy to carry on our school. Thus, I will ask for that from you.”

Ranma gave him a sidelong look. “What do you mean by that?”

Daikoku did not mince words. “I want you to sire a child with Kaori.”

The muscles in Ranma’s jaw relaxed and his mouth just hung there, open, as he stared at the man in disbelief. Kasumi let out a gasp, while Genma’s eyes bugged out enough to push his spectacles off.

Akane let out a loud, sardonic laugh. “Oh! This is a much better solution! Instead of marrying a crazy bitch, he wants you to stick your dick into a crazy bitch and expect her to have your child! That is the perfect solution to everyone’s problems and there is nothing wrong with that AT ALL!”

It was Daikoku’s turn to give a flat stare at the borderline hyperventilating-with-rage Akane. “Alternatively, you can provide a monetary compensation and you would never have to hear from us again for the rest of natural life’s existence on Earth.”

Akane smiled brightly. “Of course, how much?”

Daikoku cleared his throat. “You would have to simply compensate for Kaori’s bride grooming expenses over the last ten years, and expenses regarding arrangements for and after the wedding, which totals out to exactly eight hundred-ninety million yen.”

Akane dimmed much like Ranma. “Oh.”

“Why is nothing ever easy?” Ranma asked.

“Hard times help you appreciate them better when they’re easy,” Kasumi suggested.

Akane rolled her eyes. “That’s bullshit.”

Kasumi nodded assent. “No one ever said it wasn’t.”

“So, my options are to either somehow pony up near nine hundred million yen, or have sex with your daughter until she’s pregnant,” Ranma said. “Either way, you’ll get what you want, and we’ll never see any of you people ever again, even in the unlikely event that we wanted to?

“Yes,” Daikoku replied.

Ranma looked to Akane. “We have to win that tournament.”

Akane nodded. “Let’s go sign up now.”

Ranma grabbed Genma by his collar. “Where do we go to sign up, Pops?”

A distant hum, gradually growing in volume throughout the discussion, became a loud droning buzz that could not be ignored. The window-rattling sound caused everyone in the yard to search for the source.

“What the hell... is...” Ranma and Akane grew wide-eyed, as they both stared up at the sky as a shadow fell over the Tendo Dojo.

All over Nerima, residents and visitors alike turned their eyes to the sky, as a gigantic, all-white painted Zeppelin-like airship entered the airspace over Nerima, escorted by several helicopters. It had to be thousands of feet long, bigger than four Hindenburgs and big enough to carry an entire city within its gondolas.

“Whoa...” Ranma and Akane said together,

“My goodness,” Daikoku said, “That’s the Ars Poetica...”

Ranma looked to him. “The what?”

Daikoku provided a little exposition. “It’s the first Zeppelin in over seventy years, a flying palace for the wealthiest of the wealthy. Someone must’ve acquired it for the Grand Prix.” As he spoke, the racket drew Nabiki and Soun out to the backyard.

“Sheesh, you hear it too? What is...” Nabiki had enough sense in her to not drop her phone as she looked up at the. “Oh my fuck-”

“-ing God,” Shampoo said on the other end of the line as she looked up at the airship from the front doors of the Cat Café. Alongside her, Cologne let out a hum at this ominous arrival.

At a nearby park, where many of the competitors were already gathering for last-minute sign-ups, the team of Nihon Break Kogyo stared up with the rest of the amazed crowds. As its massive engines began to turn in reverse to slow it, brightly colored messages began to appear on the sides and belly of the craft, welcoming all competitors and spectators to the Billion Yen Grand Prix.

“Amazing...” Ryoga said in awe of the ship.

“And ‘lo someone said ‘Seto Kaiba is small time’,” Kyoko lamented.

Hagane chuckled. “Showing up in something like that, these guys are definitely showing off how rich they are.”

“That’s basically a giant flying dick, just like the owner,” Kyoko snorted.

“You should never judge how a person compensates for their shortcomings,” Nanami admonished.

“I’m not judging, I’m making an observation. And I observe this guy must have the tiniest penis ever.”

“Well if it’s an observation, I’m not going to argue on that,” Nanami said with a smirk.

As the helicopters turned away and ascended to a much higher altitude to lessen their noise, the crew aboard the massive airship’s cruise ship-sized gondola got to work. In one room, a large High Definition monitor came to life before dozens of technicians, displaying a map of Nerima and a boundary laid around its limits. Numerous green markers then appeared on the map, displaying the dozens upon dozens of competitors for the contest.

In another portion of the ship, members of the media, reporters, cameramen, and other representatives were quickly briefed by the professionally uniformed and polite crew of the ship, as they explained the coming events.

At the very fore of the gondola was the theater-like observation deck, massive its panoramic windows covered with tall black curtains. In the pitch darkness a solitary figure sat on a giant throne, a hand over its face. Leaning forward, the figure clutched at its face tightly with the hand over it... before tilting its head back and resting against the back of the throne.

A single spotlight came on, revealing a woman dressed professionally, like a lawyer or a business woman, except for the large stone column as long as she was tall slung on her back by a heavy strap. In one hand, she held a tablet, and in the other a stylus.

“The target number of entrants has been reached, right on schedule and we are due to begin the competition. Are you sure you do not wish to take a part in the opening ceremony?”

“I am. I leave it to you.”

The woman nodded. “Very well, we shall begin shortly.”

The figure lowered its hand, and grinned broadly.

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

RE: The Billion Yen Grand Prix Arc

Splitting this bad boy because it's hefty!

= = =

Arriving at the park, the Saotomes and Tendos looked around the the park, and found it transformed into a festival-like setup. There were booths and kiosks offering food, drinks, and of course advertising dojos from all over the world. There were also martial artists everywhere, from ninjas to boxers to sumo wrestlers. In every open space, martial artists were either demonstrating feats of incredible strength, like wrecking a luxury sedan with their bare hands, or having practice matches that involved afterimage-inducing feats of speed.

Ranma had to admit... he was a little impressed. “Huh, neat.” It didn’t improve his mood though. “All right, where do we sign up?”

Kasumi looked around and then pointed. “The kiosk over there.”

Nabiki was giving a passing look towards an especially unkempt vagrant’s tent advertising itself as the “Kashao School of Martial Arts”, and just shrugged her shoulders. “Just about everyone’s come around for a shot at a billion, huh?”

“It’s the kind of wacky shit I wanted to avoid, I mean... do you see that?” Ranma gestured towards a group of Cheerleaders performing a routine that looked almost like a group kata if one squinted.

Akane frowned as she watched one particularly spirited group of martial artists demonstrate lifting barrels full of water while straining at the task. “Most of these people are on Bull’s level, we’ll probably kill them.”

“Come on! It’s a billion yen, guys, an easy win!” a blonde-haired girl with her hair done up in bunches wailed as she was carried off to the park exit by a very tall brown-haired girl with a ponytail. With them was a priestess with long black hair, a blue-haired girl, and another blonde girl who had an especially large Highland Claymore strapped to her back.

“For God’s sake, Usagi, no!” The ponytailed girl snapped back.

As the Tendo and Saotomes reached the main registration kiosk, the crowd hanging around the counters was even more ridiculous. Most looked far too serious for their own good, standing around trying to look intimidating and give off a presence of unbelievable badassitude. Some were trying far too hard, with a particularly large dude easily eight feet tall and covered in muscles and scars giving Ranma a particularly evil eye. Ranma had already determined 934 different means of incapacitating him non-lethally.

“Look at these dregs of humanity,” Nabiki said as several more individuals gave the Tendo sisters leery looks. “What do you suppose is the ratio to idiots and actual martial artists?”

“About a thousand to one, and that’s being generous,” Ranma replied.

“This is exactly why we wanted no part in this,” Akane lamented.

At the front of one of the many winding sign-up lines, a pair of late-comers, a man and woman, were stuck behind one of those idiot hero archetypes slowly making his way through the forms, and in front of a morbidly obese man drooling over the miniskirt-wearing young woman’s shapely legs and fine behind. Grinning, the profusely large man reached down with a fat hand, and smacked the woman’s backside, eliciting a startled yelp from her.

“How rude!” she yelled at the man. “And how ugly! Go away!”

Akane heard the shout, and looked over. “Wait, was that...?”

The large man grinned down at an indignant Azusa Shiratori, who folded her arms over her chest. “Keep your hands to yourself, or I’ll beat you up!”

Lecherously grinning, the man rested a hand on Asuza’s shoulder. “Don’t be like that, ain’t it like saying hello in this country? How about I make it up to you by teaming up with you for the tournament? A frail little thing like you wouldn’t last very long in this kind of game.”

The man was immediately rapped on the knuckles by a cane, and he recoiled in pain.

“Funny, I could say the same for you,” Mikado Sanzenin said as Akane finally caught sight of them.

“Hey, Ranma look... it’s the Golden Pair.”

Twirling his cane, Mikado set it down and leaned on it as he looked up at the large man. “Apologize, my girlfriend doesn’t like when filthy people touch her.”

The man, resting his hands on his stomach let out a jolly laugh. “My apologies. You and your lovely woman are so cute together. I would hate to upset you further.”

He kicked Mikado’s cane from under him, causing him to wince and growl in pain as he stumbled on his feet. “Oops.”

Ranma frowned as he watched this. “Are you telling me he’s still recovering from his injuries?”

“You did fuck him up pretty badly,” Akane pointed out.

When Mikado gave him a glare and reached for his cane, the man kicked it further away. “Better go get it.”

Mikado, his legs shaking slightly where he stood, took a deep breath. “It’s my turn to apologize, seeing as you won’t be able to compete now.”

The jerk recoiled as Mikado grabbed his arm. “What?”

Suddenly both of them were a blur, the man’s scream becoming lost in the whirlwind that blew up around them. The swirling wind knocked others waiting in the line or caught them up in powerful winds, except for Azusa, who went over to get Mikado’s cane and noticed Ranma and the others.

“Akane! Ranma Saotome!” she said cheerfully. “Mika-chan’s ended his therapy early!”

Ranma raised an eyebrow. “Is that a good idea? He was looking pretty bad on his feet without his cane.”

Azusa waved it off. “Oh, that’s fine. It’s not nearly as bad as when he first started walking, he can manage small stuff like this.”

The whirlwind ceased and would-be competitors fell to the ground around where Mikado stood posed like an elegant flamenco dancer. “Again, my many apologies. If I win this tournament, I’ll settle your medical bills.”

The large man fell to the ground behind Mikado head-first, becoming embedded in it up to his waist.

“Good to see that you guys are still monsters, I guess,” Ranma said as Azusa hurried to Mikado and handed him his cane.

Taking it and sighing in relief when he could put his weight on it, Mikado looked to Ranma and smiled. “Ranma, it’s finally good to see you once again.”

“Uh... thanks, you too.” Ranma said as he looked around the mowed down crowd. “You’ve improved your technique.”

“Well, Martial Arts Figure Skating is very limited, and with it being banned anyway I decided to apply my style outside of the ice rink and incorporate it into my therapy. As you saw, the results have been more than satisfactory,” Mikado said as he and Asuza stepped up to the counter, as the man behind it welcomed them and handed them their forms. “Are you guys just signing up now?”

“Yeah,” Ranma said. “Not that we wanted to.”

Mikado was surprised. “You weren’t going to participate?”

Akane glared back at her father, who was standing aside with Genma, Nabiki, and Kasumi. “We were going to sit it out, but circumstances beyond our financial control mean we have to participate.”

“Is that the case? Then, I propose we team up.” Mikado said.

It was Ranma and Akane’s turn to be surprised. “Team up?”

Mikado nodded. “Under the rules, a team can have up to fifty members. If you must win the contest because you need the money, than Azusa and I will be glad to participate alongside you rather than opposing you.”

“That’s right, we owe you after all!” Azusa said cheerfully.

Akane smiled and hugged Azusa. “Thank you! This means a lot to us!”

Ranma was certainly impressed, Mikado had certainly changed, his air of arrogance and buffoonery was nonexistent. He was actually carrying on like a human being rather than some rage-eating revenge monkey. “Yeah,” he said, “This really means a lot.”

Akane looked over from Azusa, who was still cuddling her. “Hey, if we can have a whole team, then maybe we should-”

“Way ahead of you,” Nabiki said as she gestured to Shampoo, and the siblings Kuno.

“And like that, we all get pulled into this silly display,” Kuno said with a bit of a smile.

Kodachi bristled briefly as she saw Azusa hugging Akane, but put it aside. “We are students of the School of Indiscriminate Grappling, are we not? I am honored to take part in this battle, Akane-sama, Ranma-sama.”

“I knew this is going to happen, but if it means having some fun during this whole thing, then I have no complaints.” Shampoo’s definition of fun was definitely going to come in handy.

Ranma nodded. “All right, let’s sign up and get this stupid debt cleared once and for all.”

Akane let go of Azusa and hugged Ranma. “Yeah!”

He stepped up to the kiosk, and spoke to the man behind the counter, “I’m Ranma Saotome and I would like to sign up the School of Indiscriminate Grappling for the Billion Yen Grand Prix.”

The young man behind the counter nodded, and handed Ranma a tablet PC. “Fill out the digital form and press send, and we’ll get you in.”

As Ranma began filling out the form enrolling the School of Indiscriminate Grappling into the Grand Prix, sun’s rays began to recede across the skyline to the west, the brightly flashing messages on the airship began to flash brighter, the words “GET READY” suddenly flashing all over the length of its body as a timer began to count down from ten.

“What could be happening now?” Kasumi asked.

Akane looked up as Ranma finished the form, and hit the send button, confirming their membership. “I guess this show’s finally about to start.”

High powered spotlights, shining from the high flying helicopters, suddenly illuminated the twilight sky and converged upon the top of the Airship. The counter reached zero and disappeared, and the marquee display was then replaced with a shot of the top of the airship. Standing there, at the center of the lights was a beautiful young woman in a very short, sleeveless white dress, and black thigh-high stockings. Her long black hair blowing in the breeze, the woman winked and then turned around before holding out her arms.

“Gentlemen! Start your engines! This is, the Billion Yen Grand Prix!” Idol singer and the official spokesperson/mascot of the Billion Yen Grand Prix, Kira Takemikazuchi, declared brightly to the spectators below as her words appeared stylishly over her image on the sides of the Zeppelin.

In another part of the park, Ryoga blushed at the sight of the attractive young woman. “Who is that? Is she the one in charge of this?”

“That’s Kira Takemikazuchi,” Kyoko said. “The World’s Strongest Idol.”

Ryoga looked over to his usually dour associate. “The World’s Strongest...?”

“She’s only a few years older than you, but she lives up to her name, she’s the sort of girl you’d never expect to have a demon’s strength.” Nanami smirked. “Before Kyoko came to work with us, she and Kira worked at the same talent agency. They were friendly rivals.”

Ryoga raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You used to be an idol, Kyoko?”

“She was a second rate race car girl,” Jo teased, prompting Kyoko to bop her on the head. “Ow!”

“I was more than a race car girl, I was the greatest race car girl! The Goddess of Race Car Girls!” Kyoko was uncharacteristically emotive with that.

Jo then quipped, “But then the scandal happened and she had to quit the company.”

“It was truly my darkest day,” Kyoko said, before she grabbed Jo and began grinding her fist into her hair. “THAT YOU SHOULD NOT TELL THE NEWBIE ABOUT!”

Well now Ryoga was plain ol’ curious about the story about that. Back atop the Ars Poetica, Kira held her hand high. “The Billion Yen Grand Prix is a King of the Hill Single Elimination Tournament!”

The crowd below was a little confused.

“King of the Hill?” Ranma asked.

“How is that supposed to work?” Ryoga asked his coworkers, who were similarly confused.

Fortunately, Kira was more than happy to explain the concept, as a graphic appeared, showing a line of smiley faces, representing the competitors of the tournament. Kira grinned as her face appeared in the top corner of the graphic, pointing to the front of the line. A crown appeared over the face at the front of the line. “In the Grand Prix a competitor is chosen as the ‘King’ and the goal of all the other competitors is to defeat the King!”

The other smiley faces then became angry faces, and began moving towards the King, with the angry faces jumping over one-another to get a closer shot at the King. “While other competitors may battle one-another to gain a better position to face the King, only the King can eliminate Competitors from the tournament.” To demonstrate, the King grinned evilly, as one by one, the oncoming competitors were crossed out and vanished.

“However, once a competitor defeats a King...” A competitor reached the King, and the King became a sad face before vanishing. The victorious competitor became the new King. “The competitor becomes the new King and the contest continues until finally... the last man standing wins!” The other faces vanished, leaving the King smiley face sitting atop a pile of x-eyed faces.

“That’s crazy,” Akane said.

Ranma folded his arms. “Sounds interesting, it means we can avoid the worst of the stupidity until the end.”

“It’s still weird, don’t you think?” Tatewaki asked.

Across the park, Nanami frowned. “What a peculiar way to run this tournament.”

Hagane nodded assent. “With this many competitors, a traditional tournament setup would be faster and less stressful on any individual fighter or team.”

“Whoever’s the first King is going to have to fight everyone if they want to win, it’s a guaranteed loss,” Ryoga realized.

“Unless they’re strong enough,” Kyoko pointed out.

Nanami nodded. “That’s right.”

Ryoga frowned. “Then... who’s going to go first?”

“Now then!” Kira said, as sparkles gleamed around her. “The rules of the Billion Grand Prix are simple! Competitors cannot leave the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, and there is no killing.”

Silence ensued, as if the crowd below was waiting for more. Kira then grinned. “And those are the only rules!”

Ranma frowned. “Wait... that’s it? We can’t kill or skip town?”

Akane grimaced. “This is gonna be one of those tournaments, isn’t it?”

“Beyond that, do whatever you have to do to win! Remember, it’s One Billion Yen on the line! Yay!” Kira cheered as she hopped up and down waving her arms like a cheerleader. Ceasing her hopping around, Kira winked to the cameras. “And now... it’s time to choose the King!”

The display of the Ars Poetica switched to a rapidly cycling display of every team and individual competitor in the competition. On the ground below, the thought of being the first King was met with both fear and bravado. While some openly welcomed the challenge and many more immediately began hoping to not be chosen, everyone had the same thought: whoever was chosen was doomed.

“And the very first competitor, the King of the Billion Yen Grand Prix’s hill is...!” Kira trailed off as the cycling names slowed down. It then finally stopped... on Nihon Break Kogyo.

“Oh boy,” Ryoga said.

Hagane grinned. “Yes, looks like we’re going to run the greatest gauntlet of all!”

Within the airship, the shadowy figure atop its throne stared at the screen before it, its bloodshot eyes widening as a low, wheeze like laugh escaped its throat. The display flickered, and displayed the very next name.

Kira read the name and listened to a message in the headset she wore, before she pointed down at the park, as the helicopter’s spotlights quickly swept over to where her finger was pointed.

“THE SAOTOME/TENDO SCHOOL OF INDISCRIMINATE GRAPPLING!”

“You’re kidding me, right out of the gate?!” Ranma yelled as he, Akane, and their team fell under the spotlight.

“I knew it, I fucking knew it!” Akane groaned.

They suddenly felt many, many eyes on them, and looked around to see almost all of the other martial artists staring at them, with the unmistakable of hunger of ambition, delusions of wealth, and a desire to test their strength.

Across the park, Ryoga shook his head. “Those poor bastards.”

“Friends of yours?” Hagane asked.

Ryoga slowly shook his head. “Not really, but they don’t stand a chance.”

Jo grinned. “Then let’s get them out of the way!”

Nanami held her hand out, stopping her. “He wasn’t talking about our new King, were you Ryoga-kun?”

“We need to get out of here,” Akane said.

Ranma nodded. “Yeah.”

Nabiki looked to Shampoo. “Would you mind, hon?”

Shampoo was already twirling a drum-fed grenade launcher before pointing it at the crowds. “Done.”

She opened fire with the weapon, launching smoke grenades that quickly obscured the School of Indiscriminate Grappling. When the smoke cleared, the entire team, members new and old, were gone.

Up on the airship, Kira was surprised. “Oh! It looks like our Kings are shy! Well no matter, from this moment on... the whole city of Tokyo is a battlefield! Everyone get out there and FIGHT FOR YOUR PRIZE!”

Launchers mounted along the sides of the Ars Poetica opened, and began spewing countless salvoes of fireworks that showered out above and to the sides of the Zeppelin, filling the sky with thousands of brilliant and colorful explosions.

The Billion Yen Grand Prix was on!


As the sky lit up with fireworks, Ranma, Akane, Nabiki and Kasumi bolted for home. Right behind them were the Kunos, Shampoo, and Azusa carrying Mikado. They had abandoned Soun and Genma, leaving them behind to take whatever beating they were sure to get at the hands of the crowd, which meant little in the contest scheme of things.

“You didn’t put them down as members of our team?” Akane asked.

“Hell no, if anyone’s winning that money and keeping any that we have after paying off the Kaori debt, it’s us!” Ranma replied.

Shampoo moved up to the front of the pack. “Kaori debt? What that bitch want now?”

“If we want Kaori off our backs forever, we have to pony up eight hundred-ninety million yen,” Akane quickly explained.

Tatewaki nodded. “I see, so that’s why you changed your mind about competing.”

Kodachi was a bit confused. “Is that all? We could easily cover that for you, Ranma-sama.”

“No way! We’re clearing all our debts, and we’re not taking on new ones to do it. My old man-”

“And mine!” Akane added.

“-Got us into this mess by promising these idiots the moon and stars and doing nothing about it until they came to collect! We’re not cleaning up their messes anymore after this!” Ranma declared angrily.

As the Tendo Dojo came within sight, the group found a large crowd gathered around the wall, and the streets leading to it blocked with heavily modded street racers and vans. Like the gang that showed up this morning, it was a crowd of wannabes dressed like amateur rappers and brandishing all manner of weapon. Some were trying to climb the wall, others were clearly within the wall and inside the house–the sound of smashing glass and other havoc could be heard going on. Some were on the roofs of the house and dojo, tearing into the shingles with various implements

The jogged to a halt, Kasumi covering her mouth in horror as these people ransacked their house. “Oh my God.”

“Those monkeys are in our house,” Nabiki said in a voice trembling with rage.

“It’s as if everyone on Earth wants to DIE!” Akane screamed.

Standing on the roof of one of a particularly modded van painted in pastels and with cute anime girls on the sides and back, one of the gang members, a particularly buff-looking dude wearing a red bandana on his head and a blue handkerchief hanging out his right back pocket spotted the group and pointed at them. “Ohhh! Yo! They here!”

Word spread through the mob, and soon the Tendo home was quickly abandoned as a crowd over two hundred strong swelled into the street between it and its residents shouting “Yo” and dancing and posing like they were wannabe martial artists or street dancers. At the front of the crowd, the bloody crip pulled out a poorly kept katana and pointed it at Ranma. “Ayo! We be the Raging Bulls of Kyushu First Battalion! Only a fraction of our boss’s true power! You put our boss in the hospital, and we gonna put you in the morgue!”

Ranma ran his fingers through his hair, and groaned as he drummed his fingers on the back of his neck. “You came to the wrong neighborhood, motherfucker.”

“What was that? You want a war man? We only two hundred! Our boss has two thousand men ready to die for him in an instant! How many people you got?” Bloody Crip demanded as the others hooted and hollered like he’d just said something cool.

Ranma counted the group, and subtracted Kasumi and Nabiki. “Seven.”

“You think seven of you are gonna beat two thousand of us?” The clearly ignorant of American gang culture hoodlum asked as his crew laughed.

Ranma let his hand drop from his neck. “One of us could beat two thousand of you. The way I see it, you’ve only got one thing on us, homeboy.”

“Yeah, what?” Bloody Crip asked before Akane was suddenly in front of him, her eyes gleaming red as she drew her fist back.

“YOU. ARE. BETTER. AT. DYING.” With that, Akane delivered an uppercut that launched him out of his socks, shoes, and pants and sent him rocketing into the sky.

The other gang members stared in disbelief at Akane as she lowered her fist and stared down at them, her eyes glowing a threatening red before a blur shot into the air above her. In midair Kuno raised his bokken over his head and swung downward, the massive wave of air pressure hitting the ground like a bomb and sending bodies and cars alike flying every which way.

“You idiots,” Ranma lamented.

Akane hopped off the roof of the van and into the middle of a group of the punks. One immediately pointed at her. “Attack her all at once, there’s no way she can get all of us!”

One industrious attacker swung a baseball bat at Akane, and the weapon was sliced to pieces with just a swipe of her hand. “Huh?”

Akane immediately grabbed him and used his face as shield from another punk’s iron pipe. As the pipe wielder tried to yelp an apology, Akane appeared behind them both and walked away while blood sprayed from narrow cuts on the face, chest, and back of both men. She spun around the sloppy sword slash of another hoodlum and elbowed him in the back, sending him flying knocking and over three other people before his body crashed into the side another car and flipped it over.

From different directions charged ten guys, all armed with machetes, bats, and even a scythe. Kodachi landed in front of Akane and met their charge, armed with only a ribbon. In a flash, soon all they saw was a rapidly swirling ribbon that sliced through their weapons like a knife through butter and sent them hurtling back on impact.

“Rejoice, vermin! This is the closest to Heaven you shall ever experience!” Kodachi declared madly.

Ranma rolled his eyes as he watched bodies fly over cars, into other attackers, and crash through the wall of the Tendo compound to the tune of Kodachi’s demented laugh. “This is embarrassing.”

Some of the Raging Bulls, the smart ones, were getting the hint and running for their lives away from Akane and the Kunos... only to find Shampoo blocking their only escape route, armed with her chúi. “Oh no, none of you are walking away from this.”

Screaming in a panic, the guy leading the retreat swung a sledgehammer straight into the side of her head with all of his adrenaline fueled might. The wooden handle of the sledgehammer snapped from the impact, and Shampoo just smiled at him as the sledgehammer’s head fell harmlessly to the ground.

“No sell.”

She cheerfully crushed him into the street under one of her chúi, leaving him face down at the bottom of a crater. She then charged the other cowards, viciously striking them with both hammers, breaking limbs, or simply leaving them in more holes in the pavement.

“Monsters! They’re all monsters!” one who managed to get away from Shampoo screamed before Akane grabbed him by his neck and smashed him into and through the concrete wall that surrounded their house.

“How cruel!” Azusa said in amazement of the violence.

Mikado looked to Ranma. “Going to join in?”

“Nope,” Ranma said. “Anything more than this would be murder.”

“This isn’t murder!” Akane shouted as she flipped a car end over end, sending it landing on another fleeing punk. “This is pest control!”

“She has a point,” a much less yet still enraged Nabiki said. “Filth like this off the streets is good for everyone.”

It took only a few more minutes, but it was over. With several mighty swings of his bokken, Kuno struck down the last of the punks, the last one falling among the scores savagely beaten by the School of Indiscriminate Grappling. Walking among the piles of beaten wannabe gangsters, punks, and thugs, Ranma looked around in disappointment as a fretting Kasumi headed into the house with Nabiki to survey the damage done by the mob. Those who weren’t unconscious were immobilized by their injuries, but none of them were dead. Had they not torn up their house, he’d feel sorry for these idiots.

“What a pain.” He reached out and caught the mix-matched flag wearer by his leg before he hit the ground headfirst. “So, why the Hell?”

Bloody Crip, or Bloody this time because his blue flag was still in his pants which were... somewhere, stared at the ground he’d nearly been splattered all over. “W-why...?”

Ranma clarified. “Why did you idiots come here? This ain’t some playground fist-fight or MMA or Pro-Wrestling. This is Nerima, dude. In Tokyo. Anybody with an internet connection or their ear to the fucking ground in Tokyo knows better.”

The wannabe let out a sob, as tears began to drip onto the ground. “O-our Boss, Bull, he took over all of Kyushu’s gangs with his incredible strength. None of us could even touch him, no matter what we did. He has a dream, you know? He’s gonna take over all of Japan’s gangs with his moves-”

“Don’t care.” Ranma hit him against the ground, knocking him out, before throwing him onto a pile of punks.

Akane walked over. “What was he going on about?”

“That Bull guy learned some special move that helped him beat a bunch of idiots and he used it to make himself an army. Guess he thought his sauce was hot enough to pour on Tokyo,” Ranma replied.

Akane folded her arms. “Remind me to find what hospital he’s staying at and kill him.”

“He’s not even worth it, we have bigger problems.” Ranma turned to Akane and the rest of the team. “Like how we’re gonna get the house fixed up while dealing with all of these people coming after us.”

Shampoo, Kuno, Akane, and Kodachi all replied by suddenly assuming fighting stances. Ranma took a step back. “W-what?”

He bumped against someone, and then whirled around to find a tall woman dressed smartly in a business suit... the stone pillar she carried on her back kind of clashed with the ensemble, however. “Hello and good evening. I am Lucretia Piera, I am your liaison and assistant for the duration of your run as King of the Grand Prix.”

Ranma stepped back to her and bowed, put off by her noted lack of presence. She’s kind of like Tofu, and what’s with that pillar? “Okay, so you’re here to help.”

“Correct, given the nature of the tournament, you will need assistance in matters not pertaining to maintaining your position, so that you may concentrate your efforts in competing.” She handed him a phone. “You will use this to contact myself or any staff member you need; is there anything we can assist you with now?”

Ranma looked around at all the beaten up punks, then back at the house. “These idiots trashed our house, could you... clean it up?”

Lucretia nodded. “Of course.”

A military transport helicopter, painted white like the airship overhead, came to a hover over the dojo. And men and women in white overalls and caps descended onto the house, armed with trash bags, cleaning implements, tools, and building materials.

“Ranma, I feel funny,” Akane said as the cleanup crew began to quickly tidy up the house and repair the damages. “Something weird is happening, and I’m not angry.”

“I think it’s because for once something weird is happening that isn’t trying to screw us over,” Ranma replied.

Akane wasn’t so sure about that. She looked to Lucretia. “Is this going to cost anything?”

“It is the King’s Privilege. All services are gratis,” Lucretia replied.

Akane hugged Ranma. “This is really happening! I’m actually happy!”

Ranma hugged Akane back and then returned his attention to Lucretia. “So, how many people have signed up for the competition?”

“There are exactly one hundred and fifty one teams signed up for the Billion Yen Grand Prix, including yours,” Lucretia replied. “As per the rules, they will challenge you to defeat you.”

“And how is a team eliminated?” Akane asked

“If the team’s leader is defeated, then that team is eliminated.”

Akane grimaced. “We have to fight that many people, huh? Nothing is easy at all huh?”

Ranma nodded slowly. “Do they have to challenge us, or can we go after the challengers?”

“How you approach the challenge is your prerogative. There are no rules but the two you were told.” Lucretia smiled some at that.

“Hey, Nabiki, can I borrow your phone for a second?”

Nabiki tossed her phone to him. “Yo.”

Ranma fiddled with the phone as he reached down to one of the face of one of the beat down hoodlums. Music suddenly began to play from the phone. “I was right. You guys, this tournament really is gonna be cake.”

Shampoo, Tatewaki, Kodachi, Mikado, and Azusa gathered around. “You’re confident, I like that,” Mikado said.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Shampoo asked.

Ranma stood back up and flicked open a pair of sunglasses. “Yeah, a hundred and fifty teams are all we have to put up with? It’ll be easy, we just...”

He put on the sunglasses. “... Gotta beat ‘em all.”

“YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Nabiki’s phone screamed.


On the observation deck of the Ars Poetica, as the repairs carried on the Tendo Dojo below, the figure on its throne stared at the screen projected in front of its throne, clutching at its face with one hand. On the screen showed images and statistics of the School of Indiscriminate Grappling team members. Beside his throne, his assistant adjusted her glasses.

“The fight was against the Wild Bulls Team First Battalion. It has been eliminated,” the woman, Leonora Piera, reported to the benefactor of the contest. Her employer let out an annoyed sound, but said nothing of the report.

“Wow already? I wasn’t even finished with the fireworks,” Kira said as she walked over to the other side of the throne. “This School of Indiscriminate Grappling, what’re they like?”

She saw the pictures of its members. “Oh, and is their leader single?”

“It’s not worth it, he’s engaged and even if he weren’t... such a man would bring a girl like you nothing but trouble.” Kira and Leonora turned towards the person who spoke. He walked from the darkness of the curtained observation deck and into the light emitted by the projector, the light gleaming off his glasses.

“A real troublemaker, Mr. Mousse?” Leonora asked.

Mousse smirked. “The worst.”

Leonora nodded. “At the very least, they’ll provide a good show.”

Chuckling, Mousse held out his arms as he stared up at the screen, which changed to the map of Nerima, and the hundreds of green markers denoting individual competitors arranged in a ring around the Tendo Dojo and slowly converging on it.

“The greatest show on Earth!”


= = =


HERE! WE! GO!

 

[Deathwings]

Oh wow. Mousse of all peoples ? Well, he definitely got an upgrade. If MOUSSE of all peoples is implacated in this, then don't even want to imagine what Herb will be like when he finally show up.

 

[seitora]

Mousse was upgraded in the regular part of Successful Interview @[Deathwings]. You should give it a read.

Anyways, awesome fic is awesome. Any main plans for crossovers that you don't need to keep up your sleeve for sleight of hand tricks, Ero? I already saw Azumanga Daioh.

 

[Deathwings]

I meant that as "He's been upgraded EVEN MORE" actually, but you're right that I should give the story a reread, it's been a while since read it last and I've been forgetting stuff about it.

 

[seitora]

I'll agree, I had to reread to remember who Ryoga's fiancee was (somebody named Osaka, that might be a cameo crossover or an OC, I don't know which).

 

[seitora]

Something else I also realised.

How many people will recognise Ranma's girl form?

If they don't, they don't know that she's the person they need to beat to become King. Good enough if Ranma needs to take a breather.

Conversely, Ranma could challenge them, beat them up and then kick them out. That would only last a few times perhaps before she gets outed (unless her opponent is Ryoga who can't tell the difference between Ranma-chan and Ranma-chan with a hairbraid, twintails and fangs).

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

To answer your questions, Osaka is the same Osaka from Azumanga Daioh.

There will be other crossovers and original enemies weaved into this tournament. May as well, you know? But expect mainly enemies pulled from the anime to fill the roster of opponents.

Speaking of crossovers, here's some side fights involving characters from the manga AIKI.


= = =


It was not easy being king, as Ranma discovered the next day at school.

It was the middle of English class, and the teacher was going over the proper method and etiquette of getting directions from Americans. Ranma of course was paying rapt attention, while Akane was gazing out the window, having learned plenty enough English in order to appreciate the works of George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry in their purest forms. Up at the front of the class was Hiroshi, helping the teacher demonstrate.

“Very good, Hiroshi-kun,” the twenty-something American teacher said after Hiroshi asked him for directions in stilted, accented English. “Now, what do you say if the American refuses to give you directions?”

Hiroshi looked at his flash card and then to the teacher. “Man, I’ll suck your dick, man!”

“Again, very good, Hiroshi-kun.”

Akane clutched her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing hysterically, as the other students wrote down their notes. She liked this teacher, he was an asshole.

Looking out the window again, Akane blinked a few times when she suddenly saw several men swinging on ropes suspended from… somewhere… straight for the classroom windows. “Eh?”

The men slammed into the windows, obviously hoping to break through them and make a dramatic entrance, but these windows were reinforced and strong enough to withstand nearby explosions, so they smacked flat against them and fell to the ground two stories below.

The other students looked towards the sound, but only saw the ropes swinging against the windows as Akane got up and opened one. She leaned out and looked down “Hey, are you guys all right?”

A cacophony of groans sounded from below.

“Are you… are you here to challenge us?” She asked.

More groans, this time affirmatives, radiated from the ground.

“Oh, um… how about we call this one a draw?”

More affirmative groans, and with that Akane closed the window. She looked over to Ranma and shook her head. “I understand that we’re open season but seriously, this is ridic-”

The classroom door was knocked off its track and across the room, flattening the backmost row of students against the wall, as six hollering martial artists sporting shaved heads and karate gis stormed in straight for Ranma.

Picking up his pencil Ranma stopped one with a tap to his nose with the eraser end, breaking it with a wet crunch. Twirling the pencil, he then struck another karate guy in the groin, and he fell to the ground crying at a high pitch. As Ranma took note of a mistake in his notes and went to correcting it, Akane hopped over him and swiftly trounced the remaining challengers in a beatdown better not described for the sensibilities of the reader.

Akane leaned back against the desk, drenched in blood and tears. “… As I was saying, this is ridiculous.”

“Meh,” Ranma replied.

The JET stared at the carnage, and decided that maybe the rest of the period would be for study hall, while he went to the faculty and got a drink. What a first day.

= = =

High over Nerima, from her perch atop the Ars Poetica, Kira sucked on a popsicle as she looked down at the city below. Inside the ship, Mousse and Leonora watched a green blip turn red.

“The Lungs of Rage School of Ambush Arts has been eliminated,” Leonora reported.

Mousse rolled his eyes as he replied, “What a surprise.”

Leonora stared blankly at him.

A gasping laugh interrupted the silence, and both looked back at the throne. Mousse smiled some. “Our Benefactor thinks its funny.”

“Our Benefactor has no sense of humor,” Leonora whispered back.

“It’s an improvement over being perpetually depressed, though,” Mousse pointed out.

The woman adjusted her glasses. “I suppose.”

Speaking of no sense of humor, Kuno was not laughing at the scene he found at the Dojo of Furinkan High School’s Kendo Club. A good dozen members of its team were sprawled about the floor, either groaning in pain or completely unconscious, and the source of this one-sided beatdown was sitting on a pile of bokken with a smug look on his face.

“Furinkan High School’s Kendo Club isn’t exactly what I was expecting. Impressive yes, but not very strong,” the mysterious accoster, a young pony-tailed man dressed in a dark colored haori and hakama identical to Kuno’s usual style, declared.

Kuno frowned. “That’s because these were first-years, and hardly fit for combat outside of competitions.” Drawing his bokken from his hip, he pointed it at the trespasser. “Identify yourself.”

Rising from the pile of bokken, the swordsman entered a drawing stance. “I am a humble practitioner of the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Style of swordsmanship, Akifumi Wado.”

Kuno looked the young man over. The katana he was using was certainly a real sword, but what he found unusual was that he was wearing sneakers instead of the traditional footwear or going barefoot. “You’re the sort who needs every advantage he can get, aren’t you?”

Akifumi smirked. “Maintaining a high efficiency is key to victory.”

Kuno adjusted his sunglasses. “Quite. I suppose you’re here for Ranma Saotome?”

“Yes, but I heard a rumor that if anyone wants to have a fair shot at him, they should measure themselves against you, first. That’s the hierarchy of the School of Indiscriminate grappling, isn’t it? Defeat the second strongest and then you’re free to battle the master of the school!”

Akifumi attacked with impressive speed, lashing out with a drawing strike that Kuno quickly ducked under to slip past. Turning around to face his aggressor, Kuno stepped back to avoid a swift vertical slash aimed for his chest. Akifumi stayed on him, slashing at Kuno with unearthly speed.

“Huh, you’re quick!” Kuno declared as he jumped a distance away from him. Akifumi was in perfect step with him, and slashed for his neck, the swift movement of the air leaving a mark on Kuno’s neck as he barely avoided decapitation.

Kuno took another step back, as he watched the light gleam off the sword he wielded. “What speed, you must be quite strong to wield a katana with the same speed as a bokken.”

Akifumi smirked and took his katana in both hands, the blade pointed towards Kuno. “The is the finest sword one can buy, specifically tailored to my style. While not as sharp, its lightness makes up for it, and allows me to cut even through concrete with ease.”

Kuno frowned and prepared himself. “Sneakers to provide better traction on any terrain, a custom sword to maximize your swinging strength. You’re practical, but not even remotely worth my time.”

Akifumi recoiled. “What makes you say that?”

Kuno walked up to Akifumi, and then swung his bokken from five paces outside the reach of Akifumi’s sword. The challenging swordsman stared at Kuno, puzzled, before the blade of his katana separated and fell to the dojo’s floor.

“W-what?” Akifumi stared in horror at his bisected sword. “Impossible, this blade is made of titanium alloy, it shouldn’t even be able to bend!”

“Had I used any more power, I would’ve cut you in half as well,” Kuno replied before he pointed at his arms and stomach. “Look.”

Akifumi looked down, then opened his haori. To his horror, he saw a thin red line across his stomach that seeped blood. “How?’

“Another thing, while the rumor is true that beating me will get Saotome’s attention. I am not the second strongest in the School of Indiscriminate Grappling.”

Akifumi’s eyes widened as the bokken’s demonic aura manifested and completely enveloped Kuno, giving off a brilliant, intimidating glow.

“I’m the weakest.”

Suffice to say, Akifumi ran from Furinkan High School screaming to the sky (and the Ars Poetica) above that he quit.

= = =

“Challenger Akifumi Wado has withdrawn from the competition,” Leonora reported as a green icon turned yellow.

“Two in the span of ten minutes,” Mousse said before another team’s indicator went red. “Three.”

Surrounded by all manner of weapons, electronics, and parts of various machines, Shampoo was sitting in the garage adjacent to the Cat Café, wearing on her right arm a gauntlet with a white emitter in its palm. As she ran the gauntlet through its range of motion and took notes with her free hand, there was a knock on the garage door.

“Who is it?” She called.

“Your defeat! Come out and meet it, Xian Pu!” a woman called from outside.

Sighing, Shampoo pulled several USB cables from the gauntlet connecting it to a computer, and walked to the garage door. Opening an access door next to it, she stepped outside and found a blonde foreign girl, wearing skintight suit and armed with a pair of hook swords. It was enough to warrant some colorful Chinese from the Joketsuzoku girl

“Allow me to introduce myself, I’m Chamonix, a weapons master who specializes in Chinese weaponry.”

Shampoo nodded. “Okay?”

Chamonix smiled “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh?” Shampoo asked.

“A master of weapons of all types. Famous not only in your village back in China, but in Thailand as well as here. Everywhere you go, a trail of destruction miles long follows. You are a walking disaster, an unstoppable beautiful beast-” Chamonix noticed Shampoo was pressing buttons on her gauntlet. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”

Shampoo looked at her gauntlet. “Oh sorry, I’m busy trying to test this repulsor I put together.”

The swordswoman stared blankly at Shampoo, before she asked, “A what?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Shampoo pointed the gauntlet at the girl. “Hold still for test, yes?”

A blast fired from the palm and threw the woman back and into a brick wall. As the woman fell off the wall, unconscious, Shampoo shook her head in disappointment

“Output too low, should’ve put her through the wall.” Muttering some Chinese in annoyance, Shampoo went back inside her shop.

= = =

“How many more are going to be wiped out?” Mousse asked, before he looked back at the throne. “I hope this is entertaining for you, because it’s rather boring to me.”

In the back garden of the St. Bacchus School for girls, the president of St. Bacchus' Avian Enthusiasts Club was overjoyed as she sat in a very special aviary set up on the school. The aviary was special for it contained one species of bird that was impossible to find in Japan.

“They’re like tiny helicopters!” Rei Hino gasped as she watched the Hummingbirds, imports from the US, flit about the sugar water feeders and flowers set up throughout the massive aviary, which covered the area of a football field and was almost as tall as the school itself.

“I have to admit, Rei-chan, it’s something,” her friend and visitor Usagi Tsukino said as she looked around. “Where’d your school get the scratch for this?”

“Oh, Kodachi-sempai paid for it out off her own pocket, out of gratitude for some advice I gave her a while back,” Rei replied.

Usagi tilted her head. “Wait, the chick who got fucked with a steamroller?”

“Ah… is that really the first thing you can remember about her?” Rei asked.

“Dude, she got smashed under a steamroller, you don’t forget something like that.” Usagi looked around again. “How’s she been since?”

At that moment, Kodachi leaped over her and Rei’s heads, spun through the air, and landed on the branch of a tree. She was in her leotard, and was carrying a ribbon in one hand and three clubs between the fingers of the other.

Letting out a huff, she leaped up towards the ceiling of the aviary as a blur that shot past two other intersecting blurs. Kodachi landed behind Usagi and Rei, now holding one club as her opponents landed on the other end of the path.

“Ah?! What’s going on, why are you fighting in the Aviary?!” Rei demanded.

Kodachi turned to Rei and bowed. “Forgive me, Hino-san, it can’t be helped; they challenged me.”

Her opponents were two girls her age, one with long red hair that was bright yellow and spiked at the top of her head in a revealing leotard that showed off far too much of her front, and the other a short-haired girl in a plain white t-shirt and shorts that may as well have been painted on.

“Yeah, sorry about that!” the short-haired girl, Chie Ouei, said happily as she adopted a Karate stance.

“It will be over quickly,” the slutty-leotard girl, Kiku Keichou said as she tossed aside one of the clubs that Kodachi had thrown at her.

Usagi bit her lower lip. “Rei-chan, do fights between hot women in skimpy clothes break out all the time around here?”

“More than the national average,” Rei replied.

Kodachi twirled the last club and jumped to attack, unleashing her ribbon. Kiku jumped above the ribbon and spun through the air, as Chie side-flipped out of its zigzagging path. As Kodachi landed, she dodged a kick from Kiku, and then parried several punches with her club. Catching the leotard girl’s foot with the ribbon at the last second, she swung her into the air before using her club and the ribbon’s baton to parry Chie’s punches.

“Geh!” Kodachi ducked down and swept Chie off her feet with the club, before she rolled out of the way of a falling kick from Kiku.

“I’ll admit, you’re amusing,” Kodachi said. “You’re fine acrobats, but your skills in hand to hand combat are meager.”

“It’s more than enough for a one-trick pony such as yourself,” Kiku replied.

“And you’re at a disadvantage using just those weapons,” Chie taunted. “Rhythmic Gymnastic Wrestling is really only good for fighting Rhythmic Gymnastic Wrestlers. If you can’t fight without a weapon, what good are you?”

Kodachi threw her last club at Chie, who expertly caught it and chuckled. “And now you’re down one more.”

“You might want to cover your mouth and nose,” Kodachi said to Rei and Usagi, as the club opened and unleashed a rapidly spreading cloud of red smoke that enveloped both of her challengers.

As both opponents began to cough from the dense pepper-laden smoke, Kodachi snared Kiku around her legs and snatched her off her feet. “You were amusing.”

Chie tried to back away from the cloud, but her partner was swung into her, sending them both into and through a tree. Watching the tree topple over, Kodachi twirled her ribbon around her and then over her head before letting out her boisterous laugh.

“But even insects can be fascinating.” Walking up to both girls as they laid in a pile Kodachi lifted up her next weapon, a very large mallet. “From how pretty they are, to how they splatter all over the ground when crushed.”

She swung the mallet down, and aboard the Ars Poetica two more indicators went red.


= = =


Special thanks to AIKI for nothing.

 

[Deathwings]

The inclusion of AIKI characters was pretty awesome. Man, I love AIKI.

You know, I've seen you boast about the fact that you managed to make peoples like Akane. But, really, that's small potatoes.

Your real accomplishment is that you managed to make peoples like KUNO of all characters.

 

[MilesMortim]

Gotta admit that this ficlet is rapidly growing on me. A Tony Stark-esque Shampoo, a competent Kuno, a less than insane Kodachi, and Akane being serious? That's fuckin' gold.

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

Just something for Chapter 31 I wrote for fun. It's "theme song"


= = =


[video=youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3kOnowk704[/video]


Title: Golden Time Lover
Artist: Sukima Switch


[Cue Music!]

The song opens to the roof of a worn down building underneath a cloudy sky as the Ars Poetica hovers just under the cloud ceiling. Lying on the middle of the roof on his side, is a badly beaten up Ranma.

[The Billion Yen Grand Prix]

Shuuchuu dekite nai na mada karada ga mayotte iru 'n da

Catching his breath, Ranma coughs up blood and swears.

Furuete ita 'n ja KONTOROORU shitatte bure 'n da

He turns over before looking over to his side at Nanami of Nihon Break Kogyo watching him with her oversized, blunted broadsword resting across her shoulders.

Taiyou mo tsuki mo nan mo kanzen ni kocchi muite inai ga

He gets up, and faces Kira Takemikazuchi, who smiles cheerfully at him while stars shine in the centers of her eyes .

Yaru shika nai 'n da iikikaseru you ni sou tsubuyaita

With fists clenched Ranma runs straight for Kira, his face twisted in anger.
=

-Quick montage of Ranma being punched, slammed through the roof, and then levitated out a window by a glowing, ecstatic Kira-

=
Joukyou wa warui ga tada nigedasu 'n ja konjou nai na

Looking down at her now healed arm inside the Nekohanten, Akane slowly nods and then looks back at Cologne, who returns the nod.

Tenbou wa nai ga dokyou de KURIA suru shika nai ya

Plum cheerfully bounces a ball then throws it to Temari Kaminarimon, who catches it and develops a blank look as she finds herself standing in an alley full of bodies.

Shoudou wa osaeta mama TAAGETTO to no kankaku sagure

Mousse walks away from Kaori as she stands by her idling private jet, watching him leave with a stern glare. He does not look back as he is engulfed in shadows.

Hitsuyou na mono wa katsu PURAIDO wo

He emerges with a smirk on his face on the bridge of the Ars Poetica, stopping before the Piera Twins standing at the flanks of a spiky-haired man who looks back at him from the shadows.

Ajiwau no wa shouri no bishu ka

A condensation cloud surrounding her arm, Akane slashes through the razor wire Temari attempted to shred her with.

Sore tomo haiboku no kujuu ka

Blood dripping to the street beneath her from various wounds, Ranma-chan slowly looks at Kira with determined, wild eyes.

Sono subete wa...

Temari clutches the sides of her head, looking hysterical.

Futatsu ni hitotsu...

The stars in her eyes spinning, Kira grins as an invisible force crushes everything in the street immediately around her.

Ayatsuritai unmei no ito

The benefactor of the Billion Grand Prix watches the battles in the city below with bloodshot eyes and a sickening, toothy grin.

[Chorus]

Zekkou no GOLDEN TIME kono te de tsukame

Wearing roller blades Mikado spins his cane and deflects beanbags thrown at him by a man in a Panda Mask, before Asuza drops down upon the masked man with a falling axe kick.

Konshin no POKER FACE kimete shikakeru yo

Using his bokken, Kuno deflects marbles shot at him by a man in a doll’s mask, as Shampoo fires a rifle shot that explodes a soccer ball kicked toward her by a man in an Ultraman Mask.

IRYUUJON no sekai e hikizuri konde

As the explosion casts the street in an orange glow, Akane and Temari both hesitate as a crying Plum stands defiantly between the two of them to keep them from fighting.
=

-Walking under an umbrella in the rain with his wife and child, Ryoga smiles down at his kid, before Osaka looks up and smiles back-

=
Saigen nai PRESSURE GAME sururito nukete

Ranma dodges the rapidfire slashes of Nanami’s sword before parrying the strikes, the air pressure of each swing damaging the rooftop they battle upon.

Eikou no BODARINE tobikoeru tame ni

Dodging a slash, Ranma stops when Nanami suddenly withdraws and turns her back to him, shaking her head.

HOW MANY? dore kurai no daishou ga iru?

She suddenly snaps out something at him and turns around to give him a pitying look, before she suddenly looks up and grows wide-eyed. Surprised, Ranma looks up as well.

Tebanashitaku nai no wa dore?

He sees Kira hovering in the air directly beneath the Ars Poetica, stars spinning in her narrowed eyes as she stared down at him.


= = =


Interview 31 has begun production.

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

Disclaimer: This one goes out to Djclyve, this chapter would not be possible were it not for him and the resources he made available for hacks such as myself. So, you know who to direct your hate mail to.


The Key to A Successful Interview is a Good First Impression!
Good Ol’ End of Days Part 1


“Kids are cruel. All people are, by nature–they just lose touch with it as they get older.”
-Sundowner, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Chapter R-04


[31.]


“W-what is this?”

Standing in the doorway of the dojo of Furinkan High School’s Kendo Club, Kuno’s shock turned to anger as he beheld the sight before him: A dozen members of its members were sprawled about the floor, either groaning in pain or completely unconscious, and the source of this one-sided beatdown was sitting on a pile of bokken with a smug look on his face.

“Furinkan High School’s Kendo Club isn’t exactly what I was expecting. Impressive yes, but not very strong,” the mysterious accoster, a young pony-tailed man dressed in a dark colored haori and hakama identical to Kuno’s usual style, declared.

Kuno schooled his fury and gripped the bokken on his hip. “That’s because these were first-years, and hardly fit for combat outside of competitions.” Drawing it, he pointed it at the trespasser. “Identify yourself.”

Rising from the pile of bokken, the swordsman entered a drawing stance. “I am a humble practitioner of the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Style of swordsmanship, Akifumi Wado.”

Kuno looked the young man over. The katana he was using was certainly a real sword, but what he found unusual was that he was wearing sneakers instead of the traditional footwear or going barefoot. “You’re the sort who needs every advantage he can get, aren’t you?”

Akifumi smirked. “Maintaining a high efficiency is key to victory.”

Kuno adjusted his sunglasses. “Quite. I suppose you’re here for Ranma Saotome?”

“Yes, but I heard a rumor that if anyone wants to have a fair shot at him, they should measure themselves against you, first. That’s the hierarchy of the School of Indiscriminate grappling, isn’t it? Defeat the second strongest and then you’re free to battle the master of the school!”

Akifumi attacked with impressive speed, lashing out with a drawing strike that Kuno quickly ducked under to slip past. Turning around to face his aggressor, Kuno stepped back to avoid a swift vertical slash aimed for his chest. Akifumi stayed on him, slashing at Kuno with unearthly speed.

“Huh, you’re quick!” Kuno declared as he jumped a distance away from him. Akifumi was in perfect step with him, and slashed for his neck, the swift movement of the air leaving a mark on Kuno’s neck as he barely avoided decapitation.

Kuno took another step back, as he watched the light gleam off the sword he wielded. “What speed, you must be quite strong to wield a katana with the same speed as a bokken.”

Akifumi smirked and took his katana in both hands, the blade pointed towards Kuno. “The is the finest sword one can buy, specifically tailored to my style. While not as sharp, its lightness makes up for it, and allows me to cut even through concrete with ease.”

Kuno frowned and prepared himself. “Sneakers to provide better traction on any terrain, a custom sword to maximize your swinging strength. You’re practical, but not even remotely worth my time.”

Akifumi recoiled. “What makes you say that?”

Kuno walked up to Akifumi, and then swung his bokken from five paces outside the reach of Akifumi’s sword. The challenging swordsman stared at Kuno, puzzled, before the blade of his katana separated and fell to the dojo’s floor.

“W-what?” Akifumi stared in horror at his bisected sword. “Impossible, this blade is made of titanium alloy, it shouldn’t even be able to bend!”

“Had I used any more power, I would’ve cut you in half as well,” Kuno replied before he pointed at his arms and stomach. “Look.”

Akifumi looked down, then opened his haori. To his horror, he saw a thin red line across his stomach that seeped blood. “How?’

“Another thing, while the rumor is true that beating me will get Saotome’s attention. I am not the second strongest in the School of Indiscriminate Grappling.”

Akifumi’s eyes widened as the bokken’s demonic aura manifested and completely enveloped Kuno, giving off a brilliant, intimidating glow.

“I’m the weakest.”

Suffice to say, Akifumi ran from Furinkan High School screaming to the sky (and the Ars Poetica) above that he quit.


Surrounded by all manner of weapons, electronics, and parts of various machines, Shampoo was sitting in the garage adjacent to the Cat Café, wearing on her right arm a gauntlet with a white emitter in its palm.

As she ran the gauntlet through its range of motion and took notes with her free hand, there was a knock on the garage door.

“Who is it?” She called.

“Your defeat! Come out and meet it, Xian Pu!” a woman called from outside.

Sighing, Shampoo pulled several USB cables from the gauntlet connecting it to a computer, and walked to the garage door. Opening an access door next to it, she stepped outside and found a blonde foreign girl, wearing skintight suit and armed with a pair of hook swords. It was enough to warrant some colorful Chinese from the Joketsuzoku warrior.

“Allow me to introduce myself, I’m Chamonix, a weapons master who specializes in Chinese weaponry.”

Shampoo nodded. “Okay?”

Chamonix smiled “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh?” Shampoo asked.

“A master of weapons of all types. Famous not only in your village back in China, but in Thailand as well as here. Everywhere you go, a trail of destruction miles long follows. You are a walking disaster, an unstoppable beautiful beast-” Chamonix noticed Shampoo was pressing buttons on her gauntlet. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”

Shampoo looked at her gauntlet. “Oh sorry, I’m busy trying to test this repulsor I put together.”

The swordswoman stared blankly at Shampoo, before she asked, “A what?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Shampoo pointed the gauntlet at the girl. “Hold still for test, yes?” A blast fired from the palm and threw the woman back and into a brick wall. As the woman fell off the wall, unconscious, Shampoo shook her head in disappointment

“Output too low, should’ve put her through the wall.” Muttering some Chinese in annoyance, Shampoo went back inside her shop.


In the back garden of the St. Bacchus School for girls, the president of St. Bacchus' Avian Enthusiasts Club was overjoyed as she sat in a very special aviary set up on the school. The aviary was special for it contained one species of bird that was impossible to find in Japan.

“They’re like tiny helicopters!” Rei Hino gasped as she watched the Hummingbirds, imports from the US, flit about the sugar water feeders and flowers set up throughout the massive aviary, which covered the area of a football field and was almost as tall as the school itself.

“I have to admit, Rei-chan, it’s something,” her friend and visitor Usagi Tsukino said as she looked around.

“Where’d your school get the scratch for this?”

“Oh, Kodachi-sempai paid for it out off her own pocket, out of gratitude for some advice I gave her a while back,” Rei replied.

Usagi tilted her head. “Wait, the chick who got fucked with a steamroller?”

“Ah… is that really the first thing you can remember about her?” Rei asked.

“Dude, she got smashed under a steamroller, you don’t forget something like that.” Usagi looked around again. “How’s she been since?”

At that moment, Kodachi leaped over her and Rei’s heads, spun through the air, and landed on the branch of a tree. She was in her leotard, and was carrying a ribbon in one hand and three clubs between the fingers of the other.

Letting out a huff, she leaped up towards the ceiling of the aviary as a blur that shot past two other intersecting blurs. Kodachi landed behind Usagi and Rei, now holding one club as her opponents landed on the other end of the path.

“Ah?! What’s going on, why are you fighting in the Aviary?!” Rei demanded.

Kodachi turned to Rei and bowed. “Forgive me, Hino-san, it can’t be helped; they challenged me.”

Her opponents were two girls her age, one with long red hair that was bright yellow and spiked at the top of her head in a revealing leotard that showed off far too much of her front, and the other a short-haired girl in a plain white t-shirt and shorts that may as well have been painted on.

“Yeah, sorry about that!” the short-haired girl, Chie Ouei, said happily as she adopted a Karate stance.

“It will be over quickly,” the slutty-leotard girl, Kiku Keichou said as she tossed aside one of the clubs that Kodachi had thrown at her.

Usagi bit her lower lip. “Rei-chan, do fights between hot women in skimpy clothes break out all the time around here?”

“More than the national average,” Rei replied.

Kodachi twirled the last club and jumped to attack, unleashing her ribbon. Kiku jumped above the ribbon and spun through the air, as Chie side-flipped out of its zigzagging path. As Kodachi landed, she dodged a kick from Kiku, and then parried several punches with her club. Catching the leotard girl’s foot with the ribbon at the last second, she swung her into the air before using her club and the ribbon’s baton to parry Chie’s punches.

“Geh!” Kodachi ducked down and swept Chie off her feet with the club, before she rolled out of the way of a falling kick from Kiku.

“I’ll admit, you’re amusing,” Kodachi said. “You’re fine acrobats, but your skills in hand to hand combat are meager.”

“It’s more than enough for a one-trick pony such as yourself,” Kiku replied.

“And you’re at a disadvantage using just those weapons,” Chie taunted. “Rhythmic Gymnastic Wrestling is really only good for fighting Rhythmic Gymnastic Wrestlers. If you can’t fight without a weapon, what good are you?”

Kodachi threw her last club at Chie, who expertly caught it and chuckled. “And now you’re down one more.”

“You might want to cover your mouth and nose,” Kodachi said to Rei and Usagi, as the club opened and unleashed a rapidly spreading cloud of red smoke that enveloped both of her challengers.

As both opponents began to cough from the dense pepper-laden smoke, Kodachi snared Kiku around her legs and snatched her off her feet. “You were amusing.”

Chie tried to back away from the cloud, but her partner was swung into her, sending them both into and through a tree. Watching the tree topple over, Kodachi twirled her ribbon around her and then over her head before letting out her boisterous laugh.

“But even insects can be fascinating.” Walking up to both girls as they laid in a pile Kodachi lifted up her next weapon, a very large mallet. “From how pretty they are, to how they splatter all over the ground when crushed.”

She swung the mallet down, and aboard the Ars Poetica two more indicators on a map of Tokyo turned from green to red. Watching the monitor, Leonora Piera shook her head. “Three competitors within as many minutes.”

“How boring,” Mousse dryly replied rom where he stood beside the base of the Benefactor’s throne.

Turning away from the monitor, Leonora adjusted her glasses. “It has been one week since the start of the Grand Prix, and this has been the quality and result of every fight so far.”

“Well, that’s what happens when you let any old jack-off who thinks they can throw a punch into this sort of thing.”

Mousse and Leonora looked towards the curtains covering the observation deck’s windows. A skeevy-looking man in his late 20s was leaning against them with his arms folded. The man sported a low-fade haircut and spiky black-dyed hair, and was dressed in a simple business suit and tie much like Leonora.. He could be barely seen in the dark, but the light from the projector reached enough for Mousse and Leonora to see the smug, twisted look on his face.

“Well, you’re free to participate at any time, Mr. Master,” Leonora replied with a hint of disgust that elicited a smirk from Mousse.

The ne’er-do-well looking fellow grinned predatorily. “Right when it’s about to get interesting?”

“Interesting, hm?” Mousse asked.

“The reason why all these weaklings have been jumping into the meatgrinder is because the interesting competitors want to go as late as possible into the fight. With half of the losers gone, we’re going to start seeing some real fights.”

Up on the Throne, the Benefactor wheezed deeply, before laughing.


Far below the Ars Poetica, Ranma and Akane walked from Furinkan High School and towards the Cat Café, joined by Nabiki who trailed behind them with her nose buried into her smart phone. They had left school early because today was the big day! Akane would finally get to remove her cast, and they were going to the restaurant in order to celebrate it’s removal and Akane’s official entry into the tournament.

“After all these weeks, it’s finally coming off! If I have to wait any longer to get this thing off I’m going to lose my mind!”

Ranma nodded after Akane indicated the cast still wrapped around her arm. He wrapped his arm around her waist. “I know, that stupid thing gets in the way of everything.”

“Yes, it’ll be so nice to be able to use both hands to-”

Nabiki couldn’t help herself. “Spare me the details of your weird sex with Ranma, please?”

Akane whirled on her sister. “I WAS GOING TO SAY PRACTICE MARTIAL ARTS!”

“Just practice safely, okay?”

Akane glared at her sister and hugged Ranma back. A blush then bloomed across her face when she conceded that she was right about that too–the stupid cast got in the way and was definitely unsexy. She looked up at Ranma, who was blushing from having the same thoughts, and giggled.

Inside the Cat Café, as Ranma and Akane approached, Cologne and Plum were engaged in a battle of wills and monsters.

“Granny! Come on that’s not fair!” Plum cried out as she watched on the screen of a Nintendo handheld her pocket monster get outrun and knocked out by her opponent. Seated across from her, Cologne chuckled at the young girl’s dismay from behind her own handheld.

“I told you child, I’m no slouch at these children’s games. My Garburias’s stats are maxed out perfectly, including IV and EV spreads,” Cologne smugly explained.

Plum stared at her. “I don’t even know what any of that means.”

“With age comes knowledge, dearie,” Cologne replied before Plum sent out her next pocket monster. Her bugged out eyes bugged out bigger. “Arceus? How did you get one?”

It was Plum’s turn to laugh triumphantly. “With youth comes resourcefulness, granny!”

The doors opened and both Ranma and Akane walked in. “Granny, we’re here!”

Cologne looked over, disappointed that Plum destroyed another monster of her team. “Hello children, did you hear?”

Akane nodded. “Yes, three in three minutes.”

“That makes seventy-four, we’re about halfway through!” Ranma declared. “Those guys must’ve been jokes.”

“They were. I literally beat my opponent with a push of a button,” Shampoo called as she emerged from the kitchen, carrying trays of her painstakingly prepared lunch with her.

Akane brightened at the sight of all that food. “Oh, it looks so good! And in a few minutes I’ll get to eat it properly!”

“We’re here!” Kasumi happily cried as she entered with Dr. Tofu at her side.

“I’m glad we won’t keep you waiting any longer, removing a cast can be like finally getting out of jail for some people,” Dr. Tofu said.

“More like an asylum, this thing won’t stop driving me crazy!” Akane looked from her cast to Dr. Tofu. “Please can I take it off now?”

Dr. Tofu sat down with Kasumi and both were served plates by Shampoo. “There’s no time like the present. As your Doctor I give you permission to remove it.”

Akane didn’t need to be told twice. With a single swipe of her fingers, she ran her good hand from end to end of the cast along the underside of her forearm, around her thumb, and then over the top. The room went silent as everyone stared at the cast, and with a single flex of her forearm’s muscles Akane popped the halves of the cast fell to the ground with a clatter.

“Haha, yes freedom!” Akane shouted as her audience applauded. Her jubilation was short-lived, however, when she got a good look at her formerly broken arm and realized that it was hairer her Dad’s arms. “Oh ew! Cast hair!”

Nabiki quickly snapped a picture with her phone. “What a scoop!” When her little sister glared at her, she snapped another picture of her face. “Don’t be mad.”

Getting over it, Akane looked up at her fully functioning hand, and smiled as she moved it through its range of motion. “Now I can actually fight in this tournament!” She looked over to Cologne. “And train to get the Breaking Point.”

Cologne nodded assent. “But first, you should enjoy your lunch.”

She whipped a pair of chopsticks at Akane, who snatched them out of the air between her middle and pointer fingers of her healed hand. Grinning, she twirled them around her thumb before she sat down with Kasumi and Dr. Tofu. “Let’s eat!”

She had just speared some Sesame Chicken when the front wall of the café exploded, sending wood and drywall scattering everywhere and filling the room with dust.

“Oh, what the fu-” Akane stopped mid-profanity and swung her chopsticks, catching between them a red-tufted tranquilizer dart that otherwise would’ve gone into her neck. “Well, now this is happening.”

She and Ranma both jumped from the table to avoid another dart. Standing up, Ranma scanned the clearing dust, before snatching another dart out of the air aimed at him. “Not even impressed.”

He threw the dart with such force that it scattered the dust that was obscuring the view from outside. The dart narrowly passed over the shoulder of a rifle-armed, balding foreigner wearing decked out in a pair of camouflage-patterned trousers, army boots, several bandoliers of tranquilizer darts, and a tactical shoulder holster equipped with two more tranquilizer pistols and what looked like tear gas grenades and flash bangs.

Ranma blinked once. “Okay and you would be?”

“Ivan Mikhailov, big game hunter, outdoorsman, and survivalist! I’ve come to hunt the most dangerous game!” the Russian man introduced himself before he fired again.

Ranma smacked the dart out of the air. “You ruined my lunch. I’m about to reenact the entirety of Tsushima all over your face.”

He crossed the street between himself and Ivan, but the Russian had already tossed forward a flashbang and rolled clear, the powerful concussion weapon’s flash and noise whiting out and deafening Ranma long enough for him to point his tranquilizer rifle at the pigtailed boy’s chest. As he squeezed the trigger, he caught movement from his side and jumped back at the last possible second he had to avoid the table Akane attempted to crush him with.

“Spirited game, a fearsome boar and an equally fierce sow!” Ivan declared as he fired another dart from his rifle.

With an uppercut, Akane sliced the dart in half down its length and deflected both halves up and away from her. Her eyes were now as red as her vision. “Did you… just call me… a sow?!”

Both she and Ranma shot forth and respectively punched and kicked the Russian, who crossed his arms at the last second to block it. The force of the impact traveled through him and down the street, tearing apart pavement, knocking over light poles, and overturning a parked car. Despite this, the Russian laughed and quick drew the tranq pistols in his shoulder holsters to point into his preys’ faces.

The guns promptly disappeared from his hands, before he was hit across his body with more punches than a champion boxer experienced in a lengthy winning career over the course of ten seconds. When Ranma’s barrage stopped, Akane kicked him in the chin, launching him into the air and down the street. Tumbling over and over, Ivan crashed into the street face first, cracking the pavement underneath him.

Akane twirled the tranq pistols in her hands, as Ranma held up his fingers in the shape of guns and blew the steam that rose from them off. “It’s good to have you back,” the latter said to his fianceé.

“It’s good to be back,” she replied as she holstered both tranq pistols on the shoulder holsters she now wore.

Slowly but surely, Ivan managed to get back up, standing upright. His face was bloodied, his body was covered in bruises, and in addition to his holsters and pistols, everything else he wore had been stolen clean off his body except for his boots and a bright red speedo.that had been pulled up and over his shoulders.

“Lewd,” Nabiki said from the side of the street as she took a picture of him.

Ivan regained his bearings and stared in disbelief at his prey after realizing his near nudity. “What the fuck?!”

“This makes four in less than an hour, wouldn’t it?” Akane asked.

Ranma nodded. “It’s a shame we can’t even claim this one.”

“Yeah, it may have been our lunch, but it was her restaurant.” Akane looked past Ivan as she said that.

Her restaurant? Ivan stopped and grew wide-eyed, before slowly turning around to find Shampoo standing there, her purple bangs hanging over her eyes as she gripped her chúi so tightly blood seeped from between her clenched fingers.

“Son of a bitch!” His dismayed yell became a scream of horror as Shampoo tore into him with such a ferocity that even the game he claimed to hunt would weep in sympathy. All the while, Nabiki snapped picture after picture, leaning in close and moving from side to side to get as many angles as possible.

“This is going into the scrapbook,” she declared.

As Shampoo beat the Russian to as close to clinically dead as the contest rules would allow, Ranma and Akane walked back over towards the blown open Cat Café. Cologne was already assessing the damage done and calculating what it would cost.

“It doesn’t look too bad, Granny,” Ranma said as Cologne prodded the edge of the damaged wall.

“It isn’t, child. I’ve long gotten the Café properly insured for these kinds of things.” Cologne nevertheless shook her head and sighed. “But we’ll be selling out of cart and doing deliveries for a few days while we repair, what a pain.”

“I can help with deliveries!” Akane volunteered.

“That won’t be necessary, but thank you dear,” Cologne said to Akane.

Shampoo and Nabiki walked over, both splattered with blood that the latter was wiping off her camera. “All of Shampoo hard work, ruined by dumb Russian.”

Akane pouted. “I didn’t even get to try that Sesame Chicken.”

“Still, a win’s a win,” Ranma acknowledged before he noticed Ivan getting back up. “Are you kidding me?”

His body trembling, Ivan wiped the blood from his face. “Zaroff, come here!”

The ground shook, when another three times the size of Ivan came crashing to the ground behind it. The heavily muscled and bearded Russian wore a huge black ear-hat, a Black Bear pelt for pants, several Arctic Wolf pelts for a shirt, and a Siberian Tiger pelt as a cape. He glared at his much smaller opponents, his dark eyes filled with anger.

Zaroff laughed. “Allow me to meet my partner and man-servant, Zaroff! He has successfully hunted more prey than I, but has never held a gun! Every animal he wears, he has killed with his own two hands and nothing else!”

“I’d be intimidated if that wasn’t so awesome,” Ranma lamented. “So you’re saying if we beat you, we can keep your clothes?”

Akane broke into a grin.. “I will mount his head on my wall and wear his skin as a kimono.”

The muscular Russian bellowed loudly and lifted his hands above his head in response, before leaping to crush Ranma, Akane, and Cologne under his mass. As his shadow fell over him, Ranma smiled. “Thank you for making this easy for me.”

He performed a high kick, his foot going straight into Zaroff’s crotch, causing his roar to go up astronomically in pitch. Balancing him on his foot, Ranma bent his leg and the tossed him into the air. “Hey Hunter-san, see if you can catch this!”

Jumping into the air, Ranma flipped and smashed another kick into Zaroff as he fell, launching him like a shrieking missile into Ivan. On impact, both went skipping down the street, across an intersection, and into the side of a dilapidated building, causing it to collapse with a roar.

Ranma landed dusted his hand. “Victory number seventy-five.”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Ranma jumped and took a step when he heard the shout from the rubble. That certainly was no Russian who shouted that out. “Huh?”

The collapsed building began moving again, shifting and rumbling, before a large portion exploded in a familiar pillar of bright red light that was joined by a familiar roar of despair.

Akane gasped in surprise. “That’s…!”

“The Shishi Hokodan…” Ranma finished.

The beam faded and the dust cleared, revealing an annoyed Ryoga dusting himself off. “Jo why did you set off those charges early?! I was still in there!”

“What kind of amateur do you think I am? I did no such thing–the building got hit from the outside!” Jo Nezumi shouted back from a now overturned table of equipment connected to wires leading into the collapsed ruins. Letting out a few choice words that could only be spoken in the company of Good Demo-Men, she got up and headed over to the ruins.

Ryoga finished dusting himself. “From outside?

Both Ivan and Zaroff landed in a heap next to him, making him jump. Staring at the groaning, singed men, Ryoga blinked several times and then looked up at the sky. “Huh…”

“Oi, Ryoga!” Ranma called as he and Akane jogged over. “Sorry about that!”

Seeing the two, particularly Ranma, Ryoga’s expression became pure deadpan. “Of course it would be you.” He looked to Akane and became much less acerbic. “Hello Akane, what was going on?”

“We just had another match,” Akane replied.

“Our seventy-fifth victory,” Ranma boasted.

Ryoga’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Seventy-five? You’re already halfway through?!”

“Just about, you think we’d slouch for a minute?” Ranma asked.

“I see, so are you looking forward to breezing through the rest of the tournament?” Ryoga asked.

Ranma shook his head. “I don’t know, if we have to go through anymore fights like these… I’m going to die of boredom.”

Jo, who was disarming the charges that Ryoga hadn’t destroyed with the Shishi Hokodan, looked back.

“The Kunos and Shampoo beat three teams at like the same time. We beat this guy and his boyfriend without taking an actual hit from either of them,” Ranma lamented of their opposition. “These people are scrubs.”

Ryoga looked down at the two Russians again. “Scrub is a bit harsh, don’t you think?”

“I had more fun getting kicked around by you,” Ranma admitted.

Akane had finished divesting Zaroff of his clothes. “The tiger is going on my bedroom floor, and then you and I are going to ruin it, Ranma.”

Ranma saw the amorous look in Akane’s eyes and flushed. “Huh… okay…” He quickly looked back towards Ryoga, and saw him just snickering a bit. The only thing honestly weirder than Akane being openly affectionate in front of Ryoga, really, was Ryoga being so cool about it.

“Still, I don’t think you should let your guard down,” the former admirer of Akane warned. “There are good teams who want to win, really good teams.”

Ranma shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

The yellow safety helmet Jo wore hit the ground with a strong clatter, quickly catching Ranma, Akane, and Ryoga’s attention. The youthful blonde-haired woman stooped down to pick up her helmet, and affixed it back over her tied-up blonde hair. “Sorry, helmet slipped off.”

Akane blinked in surprise at the surprisingly cute young lady. “Oh hello, are you a friend of Ryoga’s?”

“I’m his senpai, yes,” Jo quickly replied. “Jo Nezumi, you’re Akane and the stud here is Ranma, yes?”

She offered her hand to Akane, who took and shook it gently. “Yes, it’s nice to meet you. Ryoga said he was working with an interesting company.”

“He’s said a lot about you to us, too.”

“Nothing bad, I hope?”

“Not about you in particular…” Jo looked towards Ranma, who had sidled over to Ryoga’s left. “Hey pigtail, since you made this mess you can help clean up, right?”

Ranma nodded. “Sure thing, kiddo.” At Jo’s dark look, he quickly scooted off with Ryoga. “Testy, sheesh! So how’s the wife and kid, man? It’s been a while since we seen ya last.”

“Oh, they’ve been fine. Osaka wants to finish high school, and has been taking Yoiko with her,” Ryoga said as they walked over to the remaining rubble of the building. “The other girls help take care of her… she’s become a class project, almost.”

“Sheesh, you’re all over town doing this demolition stuff, and she goes to school. Don’t you have any time for each other?”

“Of course we do! I don’t work every day… just… most of them.” Ryoga sighed.

“Why all the hard work? Didn’t Osaka’s parents like you and stuff?”

“They do, and they really want to help, but Osaka didn’t think it was fair to her parents to take care of her and their granddaughter, so we moved to an apartment closer to her school… in Juuban.”

Ranma whistled. “Juuban? The rent must be through the roof.”

“It’s why I work.”

Reaching another pile of ruined building, Ranma’s hands became blurs and chunks of concrete were pounded into dust, wood to splinters, and rebar became scraps of metal. As Ranma punched his way through the rubble, Ryoga took a step back and folded his arms.

“So what’s the deal?” He asked over the buzzing sound created by Ranma’s movements.

“Deal?”

“You and Akane hate having to deal with these kinds of people throwing themselves at you day in and day out, but now you’re doing it for a quick buck. What’s going on?”

Ranma picked up a large block of concrete and crushed it into dust between his hands. “You remember Kaori, the one who taught you your special technique, right?”

How could Ryoga forget? “Yeah.”

“Her old man almost came around to breaking the engagement… but being the bourgeois he is, he invested way too much into making her the perfect wife, and he wants us to pay off on his loss. We win the tourney, we’ll have the money to opt out and she’ll have to leave me the hell alone and move on with her life. So the easier this whole farce goes, the better.”

“How much do you owe her old man?”

“Eight hundred-ninety million yen.”

Ryoga nearly fell over. “Who the hell invests that much in an engagement?!”

“I know!” Ranma shouted as he punted the last chunk of debris, sending it flying into the nearby river. “Oops.”

Ryoga nodded slowly. He has a good reason for being in the Grand Prix…

“What about you? A billion yen is a lot of money for your family, why didn’t you join?”

Ryoga looked at Ranma quietly for a moment, before he answered plainly. “I have a job doing something I love to do that lets me take care of my family, I’m happier here than fighting anyone.” He smiled proudly with that.

Ranma slowly nodded, it was hard to not feel admiration for Ryoga. “Gotta say, Pig-boy, I’m impressed.”

“Thanks. You know, Sunday Osaka and I both have the day off. If you’re not busy busting heads, you and Akane should come by and have dinner.”

“That sounds good to me, we’ll definitely be there,” Ranma replied with a grin. “It’ll be nice to have a night out with Akane.”

Ryoga nodded and then called over to Jo. “Hey Jo-senpai, we’re done early here!”

“Okay! I’ve already got our stuff packed up,” Jo called as she and the ever helpful Akane finished loading her equipment onto the the back of a sky-blue pickup truck with the letters “N-B-K” painted on the doors. “Thank you, Akane-chan.”

Giving a passing glance to the side door of the truck, Akane nodded to Jo. “Sure thing, Jo-chan.”

Jo immediately gave her a brief, sour look. Shaking her head, she opened the driver’s side door and climbed in as Ranma and Ryoga walk over.

“Hey Akane, we’re having dinner over at Ryoga’s new place Sunday,” the former announced.

Akane looked from Ranma to Ryoga. “You moved out?”

Ryoga nodded before he rounded the truck to the passenger side. “Sure did, Osaka’s looking forward to seeing you again.”

Akane smiled brightly. “I look forward to seeing your new place! It was nice seeing you again, Ryoga!”

“You too!” Climbing in, Ryoga banged on the dashboard. “Let’s get going, Mousie.”

“Call me that again,” Jo warned before she waved to Ranma and Akane. “See you soon enough, you guys!”

With that, the two pulled away from what was now an empty lot, bare except for Ranma, Akane, and the two unconscious Russians. Ranma looked to Akane. “Ryoga’s doing pretty good.”

Akane was a little more focused on the retreating truck. “Yeah… I wanna talk to Lucretia-san.”

“About what?” Ranma asked as they turned and headed back towards the Cat Café.

Akane looked back again towards the truck, now out of sight. “I think Ryoga’s company is in the Grand Prix, too.”

Ranma grew wide-eyed. “What makes you say that?”

“Those letters on the truck, N-B-K, I’m pretty sure I saw them on the airship when they were showing the names of the competitors to pick the King of the Hill.”

Frowning, Ranma slowly nodded just before a familiar white transport helicopter passed overhead and came to a hover over the Cat Café. “Yeah, let’s go ask Lucretia to be sure.”


“We’re not going to be paying for this out of our pockets when this is over, are we child?” Cologne asked Lucretia as the two watched the repair staff get to work making it like the damage to the Cat Café’s front never happened. Next to the old woman, Lucretia adjusted her glasses.

“As I explained to Mr. Saotome and Miss Tendo, these services are gratis, Ms. Lon,” she replied.

Cologne laughed. “Well, as long as it’s no money out of my pocket, can I get some renovations in?”

Lucretia nodded. “Do as you wish, but don’t be too ridiculous.”

“Oh, of course.”

As the cacophony of carpentry commenced, Ranma and Akane returned to the Cat Café and immediately approached Lucretia and Cologne. “Hey, Pillar Lady!” Ranma called out to her.

“Mr. Saotome, Miss Tendo,” Lucretia curtly replied with a nod. “Congratulations on reaching the halfway mark of the tournament-”

Ranma quickly cut her off on his way to the chase. “Yeah, yeah, we’ve been keeping count. I wanted to ask about one of the other teams.”

Lucretia’s eyebrows rose briefly. “What did you wish to know?”

“Is there a team called N-B-K, Nihon Break Kogyo, in the tournament?”

Lucretia nodded. “Yes, it is a four member team.”

Ranma and Akane looked to one another, their concerned expressions identical.

“Ryoga wouldn’t do that, would he? Lure us into a trap?” Akane asked. “I don’t want to think he would…”

Folding his arms, Ranma shook his head. “Nah. If he says he’s done fighting and just wants to have dinner then I believe him. I’m gonna give him the benefit of the doubt.” But stay on his guard just in case, he added to himself.

Akane nodded. “I don’t think Osaka would like that anyway, ruining their new home with a fight.”

“It’s in Juuban, too. Last thing I want to do is aggro Sailor Moon.”

Akane nodded again, much quicker, at the prospect of avoiding that terrible life decision.

Lucretia cleared her throat garnering their attention. “As you have reached the halfway point of the tournament, you have been granted additional benefits.”

Ranma and Akane grew surprised. “Wait, there’s more?”

“Yes, but I will not be explaining them.” She looked up to the sky as the transport helicopter turned and flew away. When Ranma, Akane, and Cologne looked up, their eyes grew large at the sight the departing helicopter revealed.

Kira Takemikazuchi hovered in the air with her arms folded and the biggest smile on her face.

“Is she floating in the air?” Akane asked.

Ranma nodded. “Yeah, she is.”

“A Grand Master of her art, no doubt…” Cologne surmised.

Upon getting the surprised reaction she desired, she dropped to the ground and smoothed out the short cut, tightly fitting dress she wore. “I just flew in from the Ars Poetica and boy are my arms tired!”

Akane blanched in disgust at that horrible, horrible joke, while Ranma attempted, awkwardly, to laugh at it. Still smiling, Kira walked up to Ranma and took his hands into her own. “Congratulations on making it to the halfway point, Ranma-kun! As MC for the Billion Yen Grand Prix, I want to personally tell you about all the wonderful things you’ll be getting for the second half of your tenure as King of the Hill!”

She stopped and looked aside to Cologne and Lucretia. “However long that may last.”

“Quite,” Lucretia said as she adjusted her glasses while Cologne just hummed.

Kira put her arm around Ranma’s shoulder to hugged him close, prompting a “Hey!” from Akane that went ignored. “Ranma-kun, as you’re halfway through, people are now super hyped for you! You’re popular, you’re famous, Twitter is exploding over you.”

She held up a phone and took a selfie of herself cuddling him. “#RanmaIsSoHot!”

“Hey!” Akane yelped.

Ranma was increasingly uncomfortable. “Uh, could you not-?”

Kira kissed him on the cheek and then pulled away. “So! We’re going to give you a palace worthy of your status!”

She pointed to the distance, at one of the newly constructed buildings that sat on the Nerima Skyline, right next to the skyscraper that Kasumi had nearly dropped on Shampoo’s head in fact. It was a much taller, more extravagant building than those around it, and had only been built over a month ago, setting a world record for completion time. Just two weeks.

“You, your family, and the other members of the School of Indiscriminate Grappling Team will be whisked away to the Imperial Penthouse Suite of the newly-built Tokyo Renaissance Hotel! An extravagant thirty room mansion that takes up the top two floors and includes the latest in technologies for comfort, security, and connectivity to and from the world below!”

Nabiki was suddenly at Ranma and Akane’s side. “Oh. My. God. Yes.”

Ranma looked at her. “Huh?”

“A penthouse suite? How wonderful!” Ranma whirled around to look at an equally enthusiastic Kasumi, who was standing behind him along with Dr. Tofu.

“Sheesh don’t sneak-”

“SON I’M SO PROUD OF YOU! YOU WON YOUR OLD MAN A PENTHOUSE!” A sobbing Genma suddenly bellowed as he caught Ranma up in a crushing hug. “WITH A BIG SCREEN TV AND AN OPEN BAR AND-” He stopped and looked at Kira. “It’s got servants too, right?”

Kira saluted him. “Maids and butlers, all highly trained and motivated.”

“AND SERVANTS TOO! I’M FINALLY PROUD OF YOU, M’BOY!” Genma howled before Ranma punted him into the air.

“The only place you’re living in is a gutter!” he yelled as his Father accelerated to transonic speeds.

Soun appeared, lamenting Genma’s ejection. “It’s only fair, Saotome. Ranma-kun is only in this situation because of your foolishness, it’d be wise of you to accept that you will not be permitted to stay in the-”

Ranma grabbed Soun and pitched him into the air as well. “You’re not staying either!”

“We are though, yes?” Cologne asked.

“Of course, Granny, you’ve never done anything to us that wasn’t legally forgiven,” Ranma replied.

“Are you super hyped for this or what?” Kira asked.

“Well now that I’ve determined who isn’t coming, yes,” Ranma replied. “What else do we get?”

“Increased benefits include armed security for non-competing family members of your club, to prevent other competitors from using hostages to gain an advantage in matches.” As she said that, two men in black suddenly stepped up to either side of Nabiki and scanned the area for threats.

“Oh man, I’m going to abuse the hell out of this,” Nabiki said.

“A personal yacht to enjoy on Tokyo Bay with the weather heating up.” She held up a picture of a hundred meter long Luxury yacht currently sitting in Tokyo Bay.

“I’ll bring the autotune, if you bring the Pashmina Afghan,” Shampoo said.

“We’re not doing that anymore,” Akane darkly warned the Amazon.

“And the biggest perk of them all.” Kira beckoned for Ranma to come closer and he did… completely against his will. She leaned forward to him, as his eyes grew wide and he attempted to struggle against the force that was drawing him to her. “… Is a night, with me.”

What in the actual hell? Ranma tried to pull back, to get free of the force holding onto him, but his body refused to obey him, he was completely held still as Kira rested a hand on his shoulder. As he stared into her brown eyes, he immediately noticed that at the center of them was a golden star that spun slowly.

“That’ll be super swell, won’t it?” She cooed. “There’ll be dinner, dancing, and whatever may come after?” She bit her lower lip briefly. “Well… that’s between us, right?”

“That does sound nice but I have a girlfriend,” Ranma managed to reply, keeping as calm as he could given the terrifying helplessness of his position.

Kira stopped. “Huh?”

Akane then grabbed Kira’s hand and wrenched it from Ranma’s shoulder. “Yes. He does.”

Kira got one look at Akane, and then jumped back from her with such speed that the streetlamp she backed into bent. In the space of that jump, she had transformed from cheerful and energetic to completely terrified–her face was pale, and her chest was heaving like she had just narrowly escaped a close brush with death.

Cologne, Dr. Tofu, and Kasumi all muted their surprise at the bizarre shift, and looked between Kira and Akane as the former lifted her hand and pointed at the latter. “W-who are you?”

“His girlfriend, Akane Tendo… the Tendo in the Saotome/Tendo School of Indiscriminate Grappling?” Akane replied, feeling both satisfied and confused at Kira’s reaction to her.

Kira was still shaking, as she looked Akane over like she was face to face with a Shoggoth. “I see… I didn’t realize that Ranma-kun’s taste was for strange women.”

Akane narrowed her eyes. “Strange doesn’t even begin to start with it, Takemikazuchi-san.”

The tension rose exponentially between both Akane and Kira, with even Nabiki even being able to see the air rippling and warping around them as Kira pushed herself off from the light pole, which suddenly and violently straightened itself out.

Ranma was suddenly between them, pushing Akane back and holding his other hand out towards Kira in a gesture to back off. “All right, that’s enough!”

The tension bled away, as Kira relaxed and brought her hands to her mouth. “Oh my… that was… weird.”

Akane looked to Ranma. “She started it…”

Ranma nodded and whispered back, “Yeah, and I wanted you to finish it, but she’s the MC. As easily you could walk all over her–I’d rather we not start a fight with the guys in charge of the tournament.”

“At least until we win,” Akane whispered back.

“Yeah, after that do whatever you want to her.” Ranma chuckled. “You’re really pent up, huh?”

“I want the next fight to be a really good, long, cathartic one,” she hissed back.

Kira’s expression darkened ever so slightly, as she lowered her hands to her sides. Just as quickly, she brightened up. “Well! That’s it for the benefits! The offer for dinner and dancing is still on the table… but feel free to bring your girlfriend, all your friends! It’ll be a party!”

“That sounds much better,” Dr. Tofu then cut in before anymore mouths could shoot off. “There’s much I feel we could discuss, Takemikazuchi-dono.”

Kira clapped her hands to her cheeks. “Ahn! No need to be so formal with me, Doctor!” She turned to Lucretia. “I leave moving our King and his court to their new swanky digs, Ms. Piera! Do what you do best, okay?”

“Of course,” Lucretia replied as Kira lifted off the ground and began to ascend into the air.

“Yay!” Kira twirled around. “Well, until the next time we meet! See you around, King!”

Wreathed in a golden battle aura, Kira blasted off like a rocket, leaving a looping and twirling trail across the sky towards the Ars Poetica.

Shampoo shook her head as she watched the golden light fade. “Someone that strong working as an idol.”

“It’s more common than you think; I was trained by Donny Osmond,” Akane replied.

“It’s still weird, it’s like if the Sailor Senshi started a musical group.”

Ranma hummed. “That would be the greatest hardcore metal band ever.”

“Like GWAR but with miniskirts, yes,” Shampoo agreed.

“So like GWAR, then?” Kasumi asked, warranting stares from everyone. “Come on, you do remember that I asked if Ranma’s cursed form still had a dick, right?”

“I’m taking away your computer,” Nabiki immediately said.


As the beam of light of Kira’s ascent shot overhead, Plum sighed and walked down the street from the Cat Café and towards the park. With everyone else now taking care of more important things, it was time to amuse herself with the neighborhood kids.

“School’s over too, finally,” she murmured to herself before she overheard cheering from the park. “Eh?”

There were some kids fresh out of school gathered in a small crowd around a pair of masked men doing some kind of street performance on the path. One of the men, wearing a yellow sweater and blue pants sporting a octopus’s mask, was holding a single Duel Monsters card in his hand.

“These Children’s Card Games used to be so simple a long time ago…” Octopus Mask shook his head. “But now it’s all holograms and mindbreak. What next… motorcycles?!”

With his cry, he slammed the card he held into the center of a circle of cards arranged on the ground, the impact of the foil card actually cracking the ground as the shockwave launched the other cards around it into the air.

As the same card bounced back into the air, the other man, a doll mask wearing man dressed in a green shirt and brown pants caught and swung it, creating a small tornado that quickly sucked up the other thrown cards, to the amazement of the gradeschoolers.

Plum stopped dead in her tracks as she watched the card tornado. “Huh!”

Standing back, Octopus Mask let out a boisterous laugh. “You don’t need a hundred thousand yen in equipment to play a Children’s Card Game!”

He was cut off from laughing again by the shrill chimes and hot-blooded singing of multiple ringtones. Stopping, he stared as each child pulled out a smart phone and looked at it. Suddenly busy schedules had called to the children, and they quickly scattered.

“Ah, Mom’s wondering where I am!” one cried.

“I’m already late for cram school!” another gasped before turning and running off.

“It’s that late?”

“Nobody plays Duel Monsters anymore anyway, Pocket Monster for the win!”

“N-nobody…?!” Octopus Mask slammed his cards on the ground. “Dang it to heck! What is with kids these days?! Do they like anything?!”

“Nothing real, just zeroes and ones on a tiny little screen,” Doll Mask lamented.

As the last kids left, Plum sighed. “Maybe I should ask Granny about enrolling. Japanese Grade School must be really fun if they’re willing to do it all day.”

“It’s not really.”

Jumping, Plum turned around to find another gradeschooler, a little girl in a pink shirt and red skirt, holding a ball. The girl watched one of the students run by. “School is really boring. They spend all day filling their minds up with boring stuff, it turns them into zombies and salarymen.”

Plum giggled. “Aren’t those the same thing?”

The other girl shrugged her shoulders. “My Dad says so.” She smiled to Plum. “My name’s Temari, do you want to play?”

Plum quickly nodded. “Sure!”


By sundown, the residents of the Tendo Residence and Dr. Tofu were overlooking the spacious and western-furnished living room and adjacent kitchen of the Tokyo Renaissance’s Imperial Suite. Against the sole wall not providing a spectacular view of the Tokyo Metropolitan area, was a massive flatscreen TV that could’ve only been air-lifted into the building, with three white couches set up in a semi-circle in front of it on the white wall to wall carpet.

In the kitchen area, a young chef looked up and tilted his chef’s hat in greeting. Also bowing in greeting were the half dozen servants, three maids and three butlers, who stood before them.

“Welcome, Kings of the Hill,” they all chimed at once.

“Heh, maids,” Akane whispered aside to Ranma, who shook his head and laughed.

“Oh God, I want to live here forever,” Nabiki said as she walked down the steps and across the carpet of the living room. She sighed dramatically and threw herself onto the couch. “This is the freaking high life!”

“It is nice,” Akane said as she walked over to the window.

Kasumi bowed politely to the servants and dismissed them back to their duties. “It feels a little too much, if you ask me… I’m not sure what I’ll be able to do with myself while we’re here…”

Nabiki sat up. “Shopping, bitch!”

This was exactly the sort of thing Nabiki saved money for, after all.

Kasumi beamed to her younger sister. “Well, there are some dresses I would like.”

“Fuck some dresses, we’re buying Roppongi,” Nabiki replied.

Ranma was a little unnerved, this was the most excited he’d ever seen Nabiki over… well… anything ever. Akane stepped away from the window, catching upon the feeling she smirked to Nabiki. “Easy, Nabiki, I think you’re scaring Ranma.”

“I’ll buy him some therapy,” Nabiki joked back before someone came walking up from the spiral staircase in the corner of the room leading to the lower floor. “Huh?”

Azusa, who had been drawn by the voices, immediately brightened when she saw the Tendos and Ranma. She bounded over and hugged Akane. “Akane-chan! Ranma-chan! We’re already moved in!”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s going to be great having you here!” Akane cheerily replied as she hugged Azusa back.

The elevator doors opened, revealing the siblings Kuno carrying their bags and accompanied by a short man dressed as a Ninja. Kodachi, upon seeing Akane and Azusa embraced, immediately bristled as she had the last time she’d caught sight of this. “Akane-sama, Ranma-sama, we have arrived!”

Akane looked over, and smiled. “Hey you guys!”

Kuno couldn’t help his amusement at his sister’s jealousy. “Easy, Kochi.”

Kodachi brightened and went to Akane’s side as Kuno joined Ranma’s. “Akane-sama, this is an honor, living under the same roof as you.”

As Akane became all atwitter about living with two girls who had graduated from pains in the ass to people she’d easily kill for, Ranma smirked to Kuno. “So, what do you think of the digs, a step up or down from what you’re used to?”

“More to the right if anything, but it’s still nice,” he replied before he noticed Mikado make his way up the stairs. “Mikado Sanzenin…”

“Tatewaki Kuno,” Mikado replied with a nod, before doing the same for Ranma. “Ranma, we probably would’ve done to have more team members, there’s still plenty of room downstairs.”

“The crew we’ve got is more than enough,” Ranma and Kuno met Mikado over by the couches and sat down on the couch to the right of Nabiki, who was eagerly planning out her shopping adventures with Kasumi now. “You been doing all right?”

Mikado looked at his cane and then back to Ranma as he and Kuno sat on either side of him. “Even with my condition, defeating opponents was easy. Most took a single strike.”

“What about the rest?”

“I wouldn’t know, Azusa got to them before I could even introduce myself.”

Ranma folded his arms and sat back. In front of him was the window showing an excellent view of the setting sun and the Ars Poetica and it’s flashing marquees. “That’s how it’s been this whole time for all of us.”

“Are you concerned that the competition is too easy?” Mikado asked.

“Nah,” Ranma replied as Ryoga’s warning and the fact that N-B-K were competitors echoed in his mind. “I’m just annoyed that there might actually be competition.”

Kuno nodded. “We aren’t actually here for the fun of it, no.”

The last thing Ranma wanted out of all of this, was to come so close to actually winning, only for some strong as nails opponent like Kira to just swoop in and take the prize out of his hands. He had no doubts about his ability, hell he was even more certain of his abilities after the earlier encounter, but he wasn’t about to take anything to chance.

“No, and the longer we have to plod through these weaklings means the more time any really strong opponent has to find a way to beat us.” Ranma rested his elbows on his knees and steepled his hands together in front of his mouth. “We need a change of approach.”

“Going on the offensive, then. Seeking out the other competitors and defeating them,” Mikado said.

“Yeah. We jump ‘em, beat ‘em before they can even throw a punch, and get out.”

“Admirably ruthless,” Mikado complimented.

“A grim necessity, circumstances considered,” Kuno added.

Ranma looked between the two of them. “Man, if you guys are going to hang out with me, could you tone down the sophistication? I’m poor, you know.”

“Speak less like you were raised in a barn in Osaka and maybe we’ll pretend to not be Toudai-bound,” Kuno replied smugly.

“Hmph!” Mikado snorted with equal mock smugness.

Dr. Tofu sat across from them. “A strong offense will negate their advantage of coming at you as their leisure. And if you take out a suitably strong opponent first, you’ll shake the morale of the other competitors waiting in the wings.”

“Exactly,” Ranma said. “Which is why I’m going after N-B-K on Sunday.”

Akane looked over. “Ranma, no!”

“I’m not going to fight them at Ryoga’s house, relax!” Ranma reassured her then. “But I am going to challenge them through Ryoga, and they can’t refuse a challenge from the King of the Hill.” He stopped briefly. “Right, Pillar Lady?”

Everyone looked over towards the kitchen, where Lucretia stood with the chef, who leaped from her in surprise. “That’s correct, as the Challengers have the right to take on the King of the Hill, the King of the Hill reserves the right to challenge any opponents to a fight at any time.”

“I’m going to put a bell on you, if you don’t stop that,” Nabiki warned.

“You are welcomed to try,” Lucretia replied with an uncharacteristically catty smile.

“Done deal.” Nabiki looked around. “Where’s Shampoo? I need her to hold the Pillar Lady down.”

“Still packing up at the Café, last I heard,” Ranma said.

Akane frowned and looked to Ranma. Even if a fight wasn’t going to break out, she didn’t like the idea of Ranma going to Ryoga’s with ulterior motives after affirming he trusted Ryoga to have none of his own. She just hoped that Ryoga and Osaka didn’t think less of Ranma for it.


Down below, in Nerima’s park, Genma and Soun sat on a bench, lamenting their plight. The kids had all moved out, albeit temporarily, and were now living in luxury while the two patriarchs had nothing but an empty home waiting for them. Frankly, it was hardly fair.

“I was the one who put him up to joining the tournament! He could at least acknowledge that by leaving some of the perks for being top of the pile for the both of us!” Genma grumbled.

Soun was smoking a cigarette to stave off the edge of being ditched by his daughters, but it was not doing it for him. “All we can do is endure, Saotome, and hope for their swift victory.”

Genma snorted loudly. “Such impudent brats, no sense of gratitude at all! No respect for their elders.”

“A common thing these days, isn’t it?”

Genma and Soun looked over to see a man in a green kimono, wearing an Ultraman Mask walk over. Taken aback by the man’s odd choice of attire, they sat aside when he stood at the bench and allowed him to sit down regardless. “They’ve got their faces stuck in tiny glowing screens, and don’t even see the beautiful world around them, and they think they know so much because of them that they don’t need to abide by old timers like us.”

Soun took a drag of his cigarette, while Genma nodded in agreement. “My son is the worst offender! I’m not perfect, not by a mile, but he could at least respect his old man!”

“I’ve two sons and a little girl, myself. My boys went through their rebellious phase, but they straightened out just fine and took well to the art. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake with my daughter, and I’ve kept her away from the glitz and glam of those provocative little distractions.”

Genma and Soun both became much more interested. “A martial artist you say?” The latter asked. “What’s your style?”

The masked man simply waved his hand. “Oh, it’s an old family thing no one’s heard of. It’s embarrassing to even go into detail about it. What about you sirs? Do you practice?”

“The School of Indiscriminate Grappling,” Soun replied. “We are the masters of separate branches. Mine specializes in swordsmanship and Saotome’s in bare-handed combat.”

The old man let out a surprised hum. “When you say Indiscriminate Grappling, do you by chance mean the school founded by Happosai?”

Both Genma and Soun blanched, before Genma nodded. “You’ve… heard of him?”

“There are very few who haven’t. Judging by your reactions, I assume you are his students then. Last I heard he’d taken up two young wild men as his students and beaten them into fine martial artists.”

Not sure how to take what sounded like praise for their master, but assuming that it was only because this man had no idea what Happosai was truly like, both men puffed their chests a bit with pride.

“Well, our old Master–rest his soul–certainly did a number on us,” Soun replied.

“As ruthless as he was, he did know what he was doing.” But Genma would still hate him forever.

Ultraman Mask gasped. “Happosai’s passed?”

“Yes, it was a great tragedy,” Soun quickly said. “He was buried deep underground in a cavern filled with lit dynamite.”

“Or at least that was the last anyone had heard of him…” Genma added. “It’s been just over a decade since we last saw him.”

Silent for a moment, the man shook his head. “It feels… just like yesterday.” He looked out at the setting sun. “Those old days, where men like Happosai ran wild, practicing and spreading the arts from town to town, land to land… and women too. The greatest Martial Artists in the world.”

He sighed wistfully as in his eyes, the skyscrapers, gleaming lights, and fixtures of these modern times faded for wooden roofs and tall tree. Simpler, nostalgic days. “Those were days of uncertainty, when Japan was strong and independent, and the strength of the fist and the blade were revered. Where only strong warriors like Happosai, or Hina Urashima, or Josef Joestar, or Kenshiro Kasumi were certain that they would see another.”

“Who?” Soun mouthed to Genma, in regards to the latter three.

Genma shrugged his shoulders.

“To think it’s been so long, that the years have even caught up to Happosai…” The clearly old man shook his head. He then slipped his hand under his mask and over his eyes, as he began to weep.

As Genma reached out and patted the old man on the shoulder to console him, Temari caught a soccer ball against her chest and began dribbling it, bouncing it from one foot to another as Plum stood ready in between two trees, ready to block her free kick.

“Are you ready?” She asked.

“Born ready, you won’t get by me! I was taught some moves!” Plum replied as she hopped from one foot to the other.

“Here it comes!” Temari shouted as she kicked the ball at Plum, the spin causing it to corkscrew through the air towards Plum. Plum, however, wasn’t intimidated and leaped into a forward flip to heel-kick the ball straight down into the ground. The ball struck the ground and left a crater as it bounced high into the sky and out of sight.

Temari looked up into the sky, with wide eyes, as the ball disappeared. “Whoa… that was so cool!”

Plum folded her arms. “The people who work at the Cat Café taught me all sorts of cool stuff! This is nothing.” She proceeded to jump into a complex set of moves, striking into the air like a much slower version of the Chestnuts Roasting over an Open Fire fist, before swaying her hands in Mantis Style, much like Akane’s Umisenken movements.

“That’s really good!” Temari praised. “I know some stuff too!”

Before she could demonstrate some of her moves, she noticed the old men on the park bench and frowned. “Oh no…”

“What?” Plum looked over, and frowned. “Oh, the Panda and the Crybaby… what are they doing here?”

“It’s my Dad,” Temari lamented. “It looks like I have to go.”

Now that Plum noticed it, it was getting very dark now. “Oh shoot, I have to go home soon too…”

Temari pouted, right as she heard a voice behind her. “Temari-chan!”

She looked back, as Octopus Mask and Doll Mask walked up. “Oi, it’s time to go,” the latter said.

Octopus Mask looked over at the man crying on the bench and groaned. “Pop is crying again, great.”

“Plum! We’re going to the hotel now!” Shampoo then called out as she rode up on a new bicycle. Seeing her, Temari’s red eyes widened slightly, as both Octopus Mask and Doll Mask pointed their masks in her direction.

Shampoo come to a halt, just as she dismounted from her bike. Both he and Doll Mask looked intently at her, as she regarded them with curiosity. “You street performers or something?” She asked.

Both masked men stood straight, and then posed. “Of course!” Doll Mask replied before he pulled out a frisbee. “We’re just harmless street performers!”

“Yes, we perform tricks with simple toys!” Octopus Mask added as he pulled out his deck of Duel Monsters cards and began shuffling them.

Shampoo stared blankly at them, and shrugged her shoulders before looking to Plum. “Let’s go, you can play with your friend tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure thing, battle sister,” Plum replied before she looked back at Temari. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Temari looked at Shampoo, and then back to Plum with a sad look. “No, you won’t.”

Confused, Plum began to ask what Temari meant by that. Shampoo herself had started to reassure her she would, when an overwhelming killing intent nearly froze her where she stood. Nearly, but she was able to throw herself out of the way of the frisbee thrown at her by Doll Mask, which went on to slice clean through her bicycle.

She slid back and immediately drew a shotgun she leveled and fired at Doll Mask, the bean bag round missing as the man moved just before she fired. Shampoo turned around and slamfired the weapon, the beanbag merely being caught in Octopus Mask’s hand as he faced her.

Shampoo grinned. “Oh, this is interesting.”

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

She tossed the weapon aside and her hands became blurs, catching out of the air the three Duel Monsters cards Octopus Mask threw at her. She then turned around and weaved her head around several bare hand strikes from Doll Mask, before she palm-thrust him in the chest to push him back and round-house kicked him to send him spinning back through the air.

She turned around and ducked beneath another set of thrown cards, and rushed Octopus Mask low to the ground, picking up her shotgun on the way. She thrust the weapon in his face, but Octopus Mask batted it out of the way before she fired. Using the recoil of the weapon, she flipped it over in her hand and smashed Octopus Mask in the face with the butt of the weapon.

Twirling the gun in her hand, she turned around and used it to catch the length of jump rope Doll Mask lashed out at her with like a whip. She let the weapon go, and as Doll Mask yanked it back, she produced a sawed off shotgun and shot him in the stomach with another bean bag, dropping him onto the ground, clutching his gut in pain.

Shampoo huffed. “I am no one’s Worf.” She turned around and fired at Octopus Mask as he got up, likewise giving him the worst tummy ache in the world with the weapon. “Plum, we are leaving!”

Plum was still in shock as she stared at Temari. “Your family are competitors too?”

Temari bowed her head. “Yes, sorry…”

Soun and Genma, rushed up to the scene, unsure of what had just happened after just witnessing it. “Another opponent?!” Genma asked.

“Another two losers,” Shampoo grumbled as both men got up despite their injuries. “Who both should stay down!”

“Hey, big brother,” Doll Mask said with a pained laugh. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah… I almost forgot what this sort of thing was like…” Octopus Mask replied with his own laugh.

Shampoo rolled her eyes. “I’ll give you credit for being good, but you’re not going to win against Shampoo.”

“Young lady, we’re going to win… you’re still fifty years far too young to beat any of us!” Doll Mask produced a handful of marbles and threw them to Shampoo’s feet. Seeing them simply regular marbles and nothing explosive immediately Shampoo aimed her shotgun as Doll Mask aimed a final marble at her.

“Miracle Fire!” Doll Mask shouted as he shot the marble at the marbles on the ground like a rifle shot. On hitting one marble, it ricocheted off, sending the marble it hit straight at Shampoo, who narrowly dodged it. The fired marble hit another marble, also sending it flying at Shampoo, and then another and another, until Shampoo was dodging and weaving to avoid the projectiles as they came at her from different directions.

Octopus Mask was on his feet, taking his card deck and simply throwing them up into the air except for one. Holding up the last card, a Blue Eyes White Dragon, his eyes narrowed behind the eyeholes of the mask. “Good Ol’ Days Secret Technique!”

Genma and Soun heard that loud and clear.

“Tendo, he said Good Ol’ Days!” Genma realized.

Soun actually grew serious. “This is dangerous! Why would these men be in a mere game?!”

He leaped up into the air above Shampoo and his scattered cards, and Plum immediately recognized what he was going to do. “Shampoo! It’s a tornado attack!”

“Lightning Flip Blast!” He threw the card onto the ground in a tight spin, which created a large dust-filled tornado that swept up Shampoo into the mass of razor-sharp cards.

Buffeted by the winds for only a second, Shampoo caught herself and rode the wind right up to Octopus Mask. “You have no idea who you’re up against!” she yelled as she swung a kick into Octopus Mask’s chest, that he blocked. As she leaped back from Octopus mask and towards the opaque wall of the windstorm, she immediately noticed a pair of glowing yellow eyes lunging for her.

A second later, the tornado exploded outward, and Shampoo landed in a crouch before looking up into the air to see, of all people, Genma in Panda form blocking a strike from a baseball bat with one of his signs. The wielder of the bat, Ultraman Mask, kicked off Genma’s chest and landed on the ground between Doll Mask and Octopus Mask as Genma landed on his back next to Shampoo.

“Hey! No interfering, you’re not in this!” Shampoo said as she kicked Genma in the side.

Genma flipped around the sign to read “You should be more grateful that I just saved your life!”

“You didn’t do anything!” Shampoo snapped back as she kicked him again.

“You have no idea what he did, not yet,” Soun said as he imposed himself between the combatants with arms outstretched. He glowered at the masked men. “I should’ve realized it when I saw first saw it… but you… all of you have no reason to compete here, not if you intend to win like that.”

Shampoo didn’t know how to take the Crybaby and the Panda talking like they knew something she didn’t, even moreso when Ultraman Mask let out a laugh confirming it.

“You certainly are Happosai’s students, if you were able to recognize our style at all,” Ultraman Mask replied to Soun.

Shampoo’s expression darkened, as she immediately got over her ignorance. “Who are these guys?”

“The Good Ol’ Days Arts, a school of Ninjutsu that specializes in improvised weapons and techniques for assassination… and it is without question one of the vilest arts in existence,” Soun explained. “Even Master refused to have any part of it.”

Shampoo nodded. “I see…”

Soun looked at Temari, and then back to Ultraman Mask, and he actually trembled with anger. “You didn’t…”

“You know well enough about our school to know the answer to that,” Ultraman Mask replied.

“Truly, a vile school,” Soun spat. “Shampoo, a battle is not decided in this tournament unless someone is defeated, is that correct?”

Shampoo nodded again. “That’s right.”

“Then take Plum and leave, you won’t beat all of them on your own. Especially with their strongest present,” Soun advised.

Shampoo turned around. “I guess it can’t be helped, if these guys are making you grow something resembling a spine it must be good advice. Don’t die, okay Crybaby? Panda?” She picked up Plum, who was still staring in disbelief at Temari. The other young girl just looked away, unable to bring herself to look back. “You’re the last people I want to avenge.”

She sprinted off, and then took to the trees to put as much distance between her and the the battleground as possible. As she went into the distance, Soun faced the Good Ol’ Days practitioners as Genma got back up, rubbing his side.

“Well, you spoiled our fun… shame there isn’t a rule against that,” Ultraman Mask lamented.

“The only rule is to not kill,” Genma’s sign read before he flipped it around. “And you can’t even follow that one!”

“We intended to follow it to the letter,” Ultraman Mask replied. “So long as the heart is beating, and the respiratory system is functioning, it is not considered death.”

“I have always considered Master to be evil. We need to invent an entirely new word for what you are,” Soun replied.

Ultraman Mask sighed. “You can ponder it while my boys and I pay you back for interfering.”

He lifted the bat against his shoulder, as Doll Mask prepared some marbles, and Octopus Mask drew more cards.

“Do not worry, out of respect for your Master, we’ll let you live wide and awake,” Ultraman Mask added as the mask’s eyes began to glow a bright yellow. “But it will be a very painful existence.”


= = =


Real evil appears in Interview. Who will win it all? Who will lose everything?

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

Preview time.


= = =


The shining sun and unlimited stretch of blue sky of yesterday was gone, replaced by a dense, low overcast that threatened rain. Sitting on the river’s edge, Nanami Sakana couldn’t ask for better weather as she cast her line–the fishing was always better on dreary days like these.

“Good working weather yesterday, great fishing weather today. Life is good, eh Kyoko?” she said cheerily as she sat down on the edge of the embankment.

Sitting higher up on the concrete embankment, with absolutely nothing better to do with her day off, Kyoko Taka enjoyed a stick of dango, pulled from a box of over three dozen of the treats. “The dango’s not half bad, so it’s not a terrible day.”

“You won’t catch any fish from up there you know,” Nanami chided.

Kyoko tossed away her stick of dango and grabbed another from the box. “Challenge accepted.”

She got up and walked away towards their nearby parked truck as Jo came walking down the embankment to join her CEO. “She’s such a stick in the mud.”

“She came out to play when she could be doing something else with her free time, so… progress?” Nanami replied as Jo sat down next to her.

Jo begrudgingly agreed, and watched the rhythmic bobbing of the float. “So I saw Ryoga’s friends, the Kings of the Hill, yesterday.”

“What are they like in person?” Nanami asked.

“You’d like them, they’re interesting.” Jo leaned back. “Young, strong, full of fire…”

“But?” Nanami asked.

Jo frowned, and then shook her head. “You’d have to meet them for yourself.”

Nanami smiled broadly. “An outspoken woman without words to speak, now my blood’s starting to boil.”

“Your blood’s always boiling. I could probably fry an egg on your abs,” Jo pointed out.

“Well now it’s superheated!” Nanami jumped onto her feet and laughed. “It’s been years since I’ve been this excited! This fired up! People cut from the same cloth as Ryoga, unparalleled monsters… It’s too perfect!”

She sat back down, and adjusted her line, as Jo hummed. “The King and his Queen are having dinner over at Ryoga’s house tonight you know.”

Nanami calmed down on the spot, and stared down the line at the bobber. After a few moments, she pulled out a flip phone and hit the speed dial. “Hello, Hibiki-san. A little mouse told me you and your husband are having guests for dinner. Well it just so happens that I’m down by the river about to catch the biggest fish in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. What do you say to me gutting it, cleaning it, and bringing it for you to fry up?”

Nanami’s eyes slowly moved to the left, and then to the right, before they widened in amazement. “Huh, well said. I’ll be over at 18:00.”

She flipped the phone closed and smiled to Jo. “Well, today just keeps getting better and better.”

It was then that a block of explosives splashed into the river right in front of them. Jo blinked as she watched it go under. “Is that one of my-?”

The ensuing explosion answered that, and created a geyser over 30 meters high that came down in a torrential shower that soaked both the women. They turned around and looked up at Kyoko, who was sitting on the sole dry spot on the river bank with a broad, smug smile. A salmon big enough to eat Jo landed next to Kyoko and her smile got even bigger.

Staring up at Kyoko, silent, Nanami broke into snickers and then threw her head back in laughter. Jo, was less pleased. “Old newbie I swear to God, I will come up there and shove your head up the boss’s ass!”

“Come catch me,” she said before she turned and bounded off. Bellowing with rage, Jo charged after her, her footsteps leaving deep holes in the embankment.

Still laughing, Nanami pulled out a fishing knife and twirled it in her hand as she advanced upon the giant salmon. “It’s another peaceful day, for Nihon Break Kogyo.”

Above the clouds the Ars Poetica sat on the tops of the low clouds like a ship on the sea, enjoying unabated sunshine. Standing atop the back of the ship, Kira looked across the endless expanse of white, watching the higher clouds tops pass by the ship. In both of her half-closed eyes, a star slowly spun.

“What was…” she whispered aloud. “… That thing…”

She tilted her head back and looked up at the sky overhead. “What was… That… Thing…”

The stars began rotating faster, as Kira’s eyes became dull and glassy. “That… Thing…”

For a brief moment, she saw the face of Akane Tendo in her mind. Her eyes shot wide, and her entire body went stiff. The tower of clouds the Ars Poetica was passing violently exploded, stuck by a massive invisible force.

She turned her head, and stared at the scattering clouds. “It wasn’t alive. It was just… There.”

Her head lolled forward, and she stared down the nose of the Zeppelin as it parted the clouds like a ship’s bow through the waves. “How can it exist but not be there?”

“Umisenken.”

Kira turned around and saw Mousse walking towards her. The stars in her eyes stopped spinning as she stared at him. He looked normal, in that she could see him and everything that made him alive. She could see the magenta of his battle aura, the beating of his heart, the blood pumping in his veins through his skin, his muscles pulling his bones to position his movements, the synapses firing in his brain, everything.

“Umisenken?”

“Proof that Genma Saotome on his worst day is one of the best teachers in the world and he doesn’t even know it,” Mousse replied. “It’s a silly technique meant for breaking into houses quietly. But in the hands of even a halfway competent martial artist it’s one of the deadliest skills in the world. A perfect technique that renders the user invisible to that sixth sense we all have.” Mousse pointed at the side of his head. “And Akane Tendo is a genius who has taken it even further.”

Kira’s eyes shot wide as she realized what it was. “… Emptiness. That’s why…”

“Hm?” Mousse leaned forward a bit, clearly curious about her train of thought.

Kira pulled the brake on it. “Nothing.”

Mousse smiled. “You want to know how to beat it? It’s pretty easy.” His glasses went opaque as they reflected the bright light of the sun. “Well, easy for you. I’ve only seen one other person actually beat it… And it takes a lot to do it.”

Kira held out her hand, and beckoned him over. Mousse was promptly dragged into arm’s reach and she grabbed him by his robe. She stared at him, the stars in her eyes spinning. “What do I do. To make that thing go away?”

Mousse’s smile remained on his face. “You take Ranma Saotome away from it.”

Kira let go of Mousse, but he remained floating in the air. She managed to smile again. “You must really hate me, huh?”

“It’s nothing personal, really. There’s just something I need to see,” Mousse replied. “But come on now, that’s not a problem for you is it?”

Kira’s smile grew, the stars in her eyes spinning so fast they almost looked like solid circles. Mousse was dropped onto the Zeppelin’s skin. “Nope! That’ll be easy; I know exactly how to do it, too.”

Although he did his best to conceal it, Mousse shook as he regained control of his body. What a terrifying power, wasted on such a stupid girl.


= = =


Look at these motherfuckers...

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

Interview 32~!


= = =


Temari Kaminarimon: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Please support the official release!


The Key to A Successful Interview is a Good First Impression!
Good Ol’ End of Days Part 2


“Like I said, kids are cruel, Jack. And I’m very in touch with my inner child.”
-Sundowner, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Chapter R-04


[32.]


The elevator doors opened and Shampoo stepped out, carrying Plum under her arm as she walked into the Penthouse. Looking around, she smiled her approval of their new setup. “Oh, this is nice! I already want to live here”

Nabiki, who was lying back on the couch, let out a sigh. “Too bad a billion yen wouldn’t even give us six months worth of rent. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

“Welcome home!” Akane called to Shampoo from the kitchen, where she, Azusa, and Kodachi were cooking under the chef’s supervision. Well Azusa was cooking, Kodachi was shooting murderous looks the oblivious ice dancer’s way.

She frowned when she saw Shampoo’s disheveled appearance. “What happened?”

“I got into a fight; your Dad and the Panda got in the way, though,” Shampoo nonchalantly replied.

Akane was… confused. “Why?”

Shampoo’s expression became a lot less nonchalant. Not worried, not angry, excited. “These guys were different. They tried to kill Shampoo.”

Akane sputtered. “They tried to–what?!”

Shampoo pointed at the side of her head. “They tried to kill Shampoo brain, leave rest of body still alive, yes? It’s a very good way to assassinate, kills the target and leaves no mess.”

Nabiki sat up, intrigued and something else that she wasn’t sure she could put her finger on. “And a perfect way to break the rules and get away with it. Holy shit, who are these guys?”

“Old guys, wearing masks,” Shampoo said.

She looked to Plum. “Plum was playing with their leader’s daughter.”

Plum gripped the hem of her skirt. “Her name was Temari.”

“Oh, that’s a cute name!” Azusa chirped.

Shampoo sniffed. “Fitting name for a bunch of toy fetishists.”

Akane stared at her. “What…?”

Shampoo clarified. “Kids toys.”

“That does not make it any less sick,” a still plenty revolted Akane said.

“Where’s the boss lady? This sounds like something she’d know about,” Nabiki asked.

A ding sounded and the elevator doors opened, revealing Cologne standing in the doorway atop a dazed and heavily beaten Soun and Genma. Nabiki smirked. “You make a better entrance than the Pillar Woman, that’s for sure.”

Shampoo strolled over. “Are they brain dead?”

“There was a time they weren’t?” Nevertheless, Cologne hopped off the two of them and rapped them sharply with her staff, eliciting groans of pain from them.

Both Patriarchs were soon seated on the couch. Genma, in human form, had his arm in a sling and bandages across most of his body, while Soun had his left leg in a splint and his right eye covered by the bandages wrapped around the top of his head. Dr. Tofu, finished with providing first aid, sat down next to Kasumi and Nabiki.

The entire gang was now gathered, Ranma sitting with Akane between the Golden Pair and the Kunos. “So,” he said, “these guys… who go around fighting with kids toys… are some of the deadliest assassins on Earth. Seriously?”

Genma snapped at him, “It’s no joke, boy! The Good Ol’ Days school has a five hundred year history soaked in blood. From Samurai to Shogun.”

Shampoo bit her lower lip and chewed on it, looking more eager than ever to go back out and look for these people. Ranma was more agitated than anything else. “Five hundred years, huh?”

Akane huffed. “We’re better so it’s not like it’s an issue.”

Kodachi clenched a fist and nodded. “Yes! We can easily defeat them, Akane-sama. In fact, it won’t be a problem at all for me to handle it by myself.”

Shampoo nodded. “Yes, it’s not like you have much of a brain to lose anyway.”

Kodachi brushed off Shampoo’s playful remark. “Let’s go right now! I’ve always yearned for a duel in the shadows.”

Soun nodded assent. “You must go immediately, there is more at stake than ensuring your victory. That girl with them, she is in terrible danger.”

Ranma folded his arms. “Go on.”

Soun clenched his good hand into a fist as he explained. “The Good Old Days School is an unspeakably evil one. Though those men were extremely proficient at it, it was developed to best be used by very young children, Plum or that girl’s age.”

“It’s one thing to train a child in the way of the martial arts, it’s another thing entirely to simply turn one into a killer who cannot discern between murder and playing a game. Not even Master could stomach that,” Genma added grimly.

Kasumi, aghast, covered her mouth and looked back and forth between Plum and the two men. “Those monsters…”

“Let’s go right now! We have to save Temari-chan!” Azusa declared to Akane.

Mikado, in full agreement, hoisted himself up off his seat with both hands on his cane. “Saving a child from that… eliminating competition is just a bonus now, really.” He looked to Ranma. “What’s the word, Team Captain? Do we go looking for trouble now?”

Ranma nodded. “It’s best to nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand.”

“But having a plan of action would work for our favor better,” Kuno suddenly said. “While we can all boast that we’re better martial artists, we have to actually apply it.” He looked to Shampoo. “And to be very fair, were it not for Tendo-san and Saotome-san’s interference, you would be dead right now, Shampoo. Let’s call it a night so we can forge a plan for taking these people down quickly and easily”

Shampoo smirked. “Maybe bend the rule ourselves a little bit, yes?”

“Real talk? The bloodthirsty Shampoo is kind of arousing,” Nabiki admitted.

Ranma grimaced a little bit, but the suggestion was sensible enough. “All right, guys let’s figure out a plan. Anyone have any suggestions?”

Shampoo immediately raised her hand.


As the marquees of the Ars Poetica shut off for the night, the members of the Good Ol’ Days School sat huddled around a small fire in their hideout–underneath a bridge spanning the river that ran through Nerima, the Shakuji. Hidden in the darkness, just outside the reach of the low flames, Ultraman Mask removed his mask and chuckled.

“A lively bunch, Happosai’s students. I didn’t expect them to put up the fight they did,” he said to his two sons, who laughed in turn despite their own obvious injuries. Doll-Mask, had claw slashes in an X pattern across his chest, while Octopus Mask’s shirt was shredded and his chest and arms were covered in bruises indicative of bokken strikes.

At the very edge of the river, completely beyond the light of the fire, Temari created String Figures with a length of narrow black wire.

Ultraman Mask smiled, the light of the fire reflecting off his teeth. “The rest of them will be even more fun. It’s been too long since I’ve felt this alive.”

He directed his attention to Temari. “Na, Temari-chan, you’ve been awfully quiet.”

Temari pulled the wire taut. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Octopus Mask laughed again. “It couldn’t be helped, I wanted to fight one of them.”

“You’ll forgive us, right?” Doll Mask asked.

Temari looked back at them, and then back at the river. “I just want to make friends, I’m tired of playing by myself.”

Ultraman Mask nodded. “Don’t you worry bout a thing, Temari-chan. Nothing will come between you and your new playmate, I promise.”

Temari nodded, before looking over to the side as a figure walked under the bridge. The three men looked over, as Lucretia Piera entered the light of the fire looking stately and reserved as usual.

Seeing the King’s liaison standing before him, Ultraman Mask just chuckled. “I suppose we’re in trouble for what we’ve done today, na?”

Lucretia adjusted her glasses, which brightly gleamed in the light of the fire.

“No.”


“We’re still going to have dinner at Ryoga’s house, right?” Akane asked Ranma at the breakfast table the next morning. Everyone else except for Kodachi was still asleep from a late night of strategizing.

Ranma finished eating and held up his plate for one of the maids to refill. “Yeah of course.”

“The Vagabond? Is he not participating?” Kodachi asked.

“Actually, no,” Akane replied, “he’s not interested in the slightest.”

Ranma nodded. “Dude’s literally gone home and become a family man. It’s not surprising, the only reason he actually got into the arts was because he wanted to beat me up.”

Kodachi raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me, what?”

Ranma nodded. “For real, the only reason he got serious about Martial Arts is because I kept kicking his ass and getting the last sandwiches at lunch. It just figures that when he was done with it that he’d put that crazy dumb strength towards something else.”

Kodachi just stared, wide-eyed at him, before returning to her food, a shaken look on her face. “I did not realize that.”

“I can’t wait to finally see the baby, the pictures they posted online were too cute,” Akane said with an envious sigh.

Ranma rolled his eyes. “You’re not going to get any ideas, are you?”

Akane smirked and leaned closer to him. “Ideas like what, hm?”

Ranma grinned as his plate was set down before him. He reached up and ran his fingers through her hair. “Oi, you know what ideas. You were almost baby-crazy forever after the wedding.”

Akane practically purred as she nuzzled his hand. “But they were so happy!”

Kodachi tried not to swoon. She was closer than ever to the two people she admired most, under the same roof and enjoying a peaceful breakfast. There were almost no barriers between them, and both Ranma-sama and Akane-sama were happily flaunting it.

Oh, how I wish to be where you are… Kodachi lamented inwardly before Azusa walked up the stairs and for the table.

“Good morning, everyone” the young woman sang sleepily, as Ranma, Akane, and Kodachi gaped at her appearance. She was still in her sleeping clothes, which composed solely of a completely sheer pink nightgown.

“Good morning,” Ranma said as he quickly averted his eyes.

Akane continued staring. “Azusa-chan, your clothes…”

“It’s too early to dressie-wessie…” Azusa replied.

She sat down at the table. “Can Azusa-chan have some cereal please?”

A maid, hardly minding a thing, complied and poured Azusa a bowl of colorful, sugary cereal that she immediately began scarfing down. Kodachi, hostility emanating from her body, sat up from her chair.

“You could at least show some decency, Shiratori-san!” she snapped at her.

Akane finally tore her eyes from Azusa finally to address Kodachi’s outburst. “You are really one to talk.”

Kodachi, after all, was wearing the very same sort of nightgown, though black.

“I at least wear underwear!” Kodachi was actually quite proud to display the black undergarments that went with the gown. In truth she was more upset that Azusa had the nerve to go commando entirely.

Ranma completely removed himself from the conversation by looking down at the plate and shoveling as much food he could into his mouth as slowly as he could. He knew better than to enter a battle he would only be a casualty in.

“I don’t really mind it at all. I… I sleep in the nude,” Akane shyly admitted.

Kodachi blinked several times, her face coloring. “R-Really?”

“Yeah, Shampoo turned me on to it.”

Shampoo?! Good Lord, Kodachi didn’t want to compete with that curvaceous demon too! “But that’s sleeping, this is breakfast!”

“You can come to breakfast completely naked if you want, I wouldn’t mind that at all either.”

Kodachi’s face turned a bright red, as Ranma reached up and grabbed the top of Akane’s head. “Oi… You’re just reveling in being a pervert, huh?”

“I’ve just gotten well-used to having it both ways,” Akane replied, prompting a blush to appear on Ranma’s face as well.

Azusa, still mostly asleep, evaded the ribaldry. “Thank you Akane-chan. Azusa-chan doesn’t get dressed until she has put food in her tummy.”

“And that’s perfectly fine,” Akane reassured her.

Ranma suddenly looked up, and shot up from his chair to stare at the door. Lucretia stood in front of it, smirking a bit.

“Yeah, we’re definitely getting that bell,” he muttered.

Lucretia pulled back her sleeve, revealing several bells wrapped around her wrist. “They don’t work.”

She lowered her arm and walked over without her bells making a sound. As Ranma sat down, Akane spoke. “So what brings you?”

“I come with an official challenge from the Good Old Days School, they wish to do battle with your team this evening a 18:30 at a location of your choosing,” Lucretia replied.

Ranma frowned. “How inconvenient.”

“I was instructed by the Captain of the team to tell you to get any affairs you have in order beforehand, as today is your last… whatever that means,” Lucretia replied.

Ranma snapped his chopsticks in half. “Tell them we’ll be at the park they tried to ambush Shampoo in yesterday. Also tell them that when we’re done with them that they’re all going to wish today was their last.”

A small smile creased Lucretia’s lips. “Very well. I’ll set that up right away.”

As Lucretia departed Akane looked to Ranma. “What about dinner with Ryoga and Osaka?”

“We’re still doing that.” Ranma reassured her.

He looked to Kodachi, and then Azusa. “You guys can handle these Good Old Days chumps without us, right?”

Kodachi huffed haughtily. “I will personally bring their Good Old Days to an end, Ranma-sama!”

Azusa, her sugar tanks full, woke up on the spot. “Of course! Azusa-chan is ready to save Temari-chan!”

Ranma smiled to Akane. “See? We’ve got it covered.”

Akane nodded. “All right, then. Promise me for when we go, that there’ll be no fighting at their place okay?”

“I promise I won’t start anything,” Ranma replied.

But he’d finish anything in a minute, and Akane accepted that much. “Good.”

“Azusa! We’re not at home, don’t eat at the table dressed like that!” an aghast Mikado yelled when he came upstairs and saw Azusa’s state of dress.

“Akane-chan said it was all right so nya!” Azusa made a face at her partner.

“Just because you have permission doesn’t mean you should! Show a little decency!” Mikado argued.

Kodachi basked in satisfaction, as Mikado scolded and Azusa defiantly bickered back. She looked over to Ranma and Akane. Akane-sama, Ranma-sama… as per your will, I will defeat your enemies, and save that little girl.

Her smile became one of wild determination. I will not let anyone come in the way of your freedom!


Above the overcast blanketing Tokyo, the Ars Poetica sat on the tops of the low clouds like a ship on the sea, enjoying unabated sunshine. Standing atop the back of the ship, Kira looked across the endless expanse of white, watching the higher clouds tops pass by the ship. In both of her half-closed eyes, a star slowly spun. Her head lolled forward, and she stared down, trance-like, at the nose of the Zeppelin as it parted the clouds like a ship’s bow through the waves.

“Is everything all right, Kira?”

Kira turned around and saw Mousse walking towards her. The stars in her eyes stopped spinning as she stared at him. He looked normal, in that she could see him and everything that made him alive. She could see the magenta of his battle aura, the beating of his heart, the blood pumping in his veins through his skin, his muscles pulling his bones to position his movements, the synapses firing in his brain, everything.

She smiled. “Oh I’m fine, now.”

“Now?” he asked.

Kira cast her gaze downward. “I finally met the King of the Hill.”

“Not exactly a pleasant person, is he?”

“He’s a lot more pleasant that most men I’ve had the courtesy to know.” She eyed him with that, but he remained serene as he adjusted his glasses. “I was just a little bummed out by it.”

Mousse smirked slightly. “He didn’t want to go on a date with you?”

Kira grew distant, for only a moment, before she weakly confessed. “Yeah, I really wanted to get to know him. He’s an interesting guy.”

“You’re not missing much,” Mousse reassured her.

Kira let out an amused huff. “You’re just saying that because you hate him or something. That Chinese girl he hangs with, right?”

She saw his hands clench into fists, his heart rate skyrocket, and the muscles of his face tighten. “I thought so.”

Mousse adjusted his glasses. “Personal feelings aside, there really isn’t much to him. He only has one of two conscious thoughts in his head at any time, martial arts or Akane Tendo.”

He saw Kira tense up, her left eye twitch at the mention of Akane. “It’s a shame, isn’t it. The best ones are always taken.”

Kira turned away from him, and looked out the corner of her eye at Mousse. She smiled. “Yeah, but I’m over it.”

Mousse’s own smile faded. “You are?”

Kira looked up at the endless expanse of blue sky, her smile unwavering and the stars in her eyes gleaming. “Even if he is the King of the Hill, he’s just another cute guy in the end and I’m an internationally acclaimed singer, songwriter, and actress. No point in dwelling on it when I can have a dozen cute boys on the Poetica in a second.”

“I see. Well as long as you’ll be able to continue doing your job.” Mousse turned and walked away towards the hatch, frowning in his own disappointment. It would’ve been so nice to play the world’s strongest idol against those idiots, but it seemed he didn’t have very much to work with.

As Mousse left, Kira continued to stare at the sky overhead, her eyes becoming dull and glassy, the stars in them rotating faster–before they stopped and flashed brightly.

“He’s just one worthless guy,” she muttered.

The sea of clouds surrounding the massive airship suddenly and violently cleared in a quickly expanding circle, interrupting–if only for a moment–the dreary day for people below.


“London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down… London Bridge is falling down, my fair Lady.”

In the park, Ultraman Mask sat back on the bench he’d met Soun and Genma on, watching Temari as she played with her string figures while singing the song. Octopus Mask and Doll Mask were waiting idly under one of the park’s lamps, watching with derision children sitting on under park shelters, playing with handhelds or enjoying Children’s Card Games with holograms and possibly mindbreak.

“Build it up with wood and clay, Wood and clay, wood and clay, Build it up with wood and clay, my fair Lady.”

“They may as well be getting fat in their living rooms, what a worthless generation,” Doll Mask grumbled.

Octopus Mask agreed. “They’re only going to become more deplorable as big money keeps throwing flashing screens and shiny toys in their faces.” He held up a deck of Duel Monsters cards, their edges gleaming. “We should be doing more for these poor kids, before they become fat Americans.”

Ultraman Mask pulled a thermos from the sleeve of his kimono and opened it to pour into the cup some soup. As he lifted the cup to his lips, a man in a suit, looking to be in his late twenties or early thirties sat down next to him.

“You should really let the Old Days go, you can’t really compete with progress,” he said without looking at Ultraman Mask.

“You say that, with such a hair cut,” Ultraman Mask replied before he took a sip from his soup. “Are you with the Grand Prix?”

“Yeah, the Pillar Woman had things to sort out business involving a competitor, so I’m here to watch from the shadows in her place.”

Ultraman Mask pointed to some trees. “The shadows are over there.”

The man put on a nasty smile. “Nah, unlike that frigid bitch and her equally frigid sister, I enjoy a good show.”

Ultraman Mask studied the sinister man and nodded slowly with recognition. “Well, now I’m somewhat curious.”

“About?”

“What would compel a legendary monster like Joukyuu Kunitoshi to be a mere referee over actually taking part for the money.”

The suited man gave his older masked counterpart a sidelong look, and leaned back in his chair. “The offer they gave me was too good.”

Ultraman Mask nodded. “You won’t interfere, will you?”

“Probably won’t have to, you guys know better than to break the rules don’t you?”

“Of course, we know what we signed up for.” Ultraman Mask offered his thermos. “Mushroom soup?”

Joukyuu raised his hand dismissively. “No thanks.”

Ultraman Mask shrugged his shoulders. “Would you happen to have the time?”

“18:13.”

Ultraman Mask nodded. “Plenty of time to enjoy dinner.”

Joukyuu looked up, then rose from his seat and walked away from the bench. “Yeah, you’d think that.”

He made it not three steps away when Azusa, thrown like a missile, smashed into the bench and created an explosion of splinters, dirt, and pieces of pavement. Ultraman Mask landed outside the cloud created by the explosion and between Doll and Octopus Mask, who were already in fighting stances. When the cloud cleared, Azusa rolled out of the dust cloud on roller blades and dusted off the frilly miniskirt of her dress.

The dust cleared behind her, revealing Kodachi, Tatewaki, and Mikado. Mikado leaned on his cane, Tatewaki adjusted his sunglasses, and Kodachi pulled her ribbon taut, as all of them scowled at the old martial artists.

“You brats came early,” Octopus Mask said, impressed.

Ultraman and his boys looked around. “Where are the rest of you?”

“We are enough,” Kodachi said as she pulled her ribbon taut.

Ultraman Mask laughed. “You shouldn’t treat this so seriously! After all, it’s only a game.”

Kodachi nodded assent. “That’s true. However…”

Her brother lifted his bokken from his shoulder and pointed it at their opponents.

Mikado tightened his grip on his cane.

Azusa loudly cracked her knuckles.

Kodachi smirked. “… We are playing to win!”

She swung the ribbon, creating a massive tornado of black rose petals that spun straight for the three Masked Men. As Octopus Mask jumped away from it, Kuno shot from the center of the storm and swung his bokken, his opponent making like his mask’s slippery namesake and narrowly avoiding the strike. The air pressure from Kuno’s second strike, an uppercut, launched Octopus Mask into the air.

Doll Mask watched his brother get hurtled upward out the corner of his eye, before Azusa hurtled towards him at high speed. He pulled out a handful of marbles and casually tossed them into the air before catching them and whipping them at Azusa with the speed of buckshot from a twelve gauge.

He missed. Azusa ducked down, practically sliding on her knees like a limbo dancer clearing the bar at high speed. She swung her leg to sweep Doll Mask off his feet, but he jumped, spun and swung his heel down for Azusa’s head as she slid under him.

Slamming a hand down, she swung herself around and spun around swinging her legs around her like a breakdancer and kicking Doll Mask away from her.

When Doll Mask smashed into a tree, he ducked down and narrowly avoided a powerful kick from Mikado that sliced clean through it. The next kick–a straight on blow that hit like a rifle shot–uprooted the bisected stump.

Doll Mask barely avoided it as well. He quickly drew and threw a hand of playing cards at Mikado,

Spinning to avoid the cards, Mikado spun straight for Doll Mask and fired another kick that the masked man parried with a raised arm. With a grunt, Mikado snapped his leg back and the two began exchanging and deflecting one another’s blows in a whirling dance.

As if oblivious to the violent battle occurring around her, Temari continued to sing to herself and create her string figures. “Take the key and lock her up, lock her up, lock her up… Take the key and lock her up, my fair Lady…”

Plum then took her hand, gaining her attention. “Plum-chan.”

“Shh! Come on, Temari-chan, let’s get out of here,” Plum hissed to her before leading her away from the fight. Confused at first as she was lead away, Temari glanced back at the fight and then back to Plum as she smiled with genuine happiness.


Kodachi’s ribbon sounded like a blade as it whipped through the dense trees of the park, neatly slicing through all the wood in its path effortlessly and sending them toppling to the ground.

Emerging from the kicked up dust and leaves, Ultraman Mask drew his baseball bat and raised it as Kodachi leaped out of the last falling tree and swung down a club. The two weapons met with a loud crack, before Ultraman Mask tossed a trio of beanbags at Kodachi that exploded in her face.

As Kodachi tumbled backward, Ultraman Mask lashed a jump rope around her neck and yanked her back toward him. Halfway to him she skipped off the ground and leaped over him before slashing through the rope with her ribbon. Spinning faster, she landed behind Ultraman Mask and held the ribbon taut between her hands.

Ultraman Mask chuckled. “A rhythmic gymnastics wrestler, and you’re very good!”

“Thank you, but I would rather you shut up,” Kodachi reminded him.

“Isn’t the banter part of the fun?” Ultraman Mask asked in return as he patted his bat against his shoulder.

The two began slowly walking parallel to one another, back up the warpath of shattered trees, bent streetlamps, and torn up path they had created. Kodachi released her ribbon and began coiling and uncoiling it as one would a whip.

“I’m not having much fun.” Kodachi stopped, Ultraman Mask did the same. “I won’t even enjoy beating you to within an inch of your wretched life.”

Ultraman Mask laughed again and pulled out a baseball. He then pointed the bat at Kodachi as if he were pointing where his home run was going to go. “Youth these days, taking even the basest act seriously. There’s really no hope for you kids.”

He tossed the ball and swung the bat with both hands, on impact, the ball shot towards Kodachi at such speed that it left several condensation rings behind it that tore up the ground in its wake. The younger Kuno’s eyes grew large, and it was all she could do before the ball reached her. A large explosion followed, sending up a great column of dirt like a bomb had gone off.

Resting the smoldering bat against is shoulder, Ultraman Mask turned away from the explosion and chuckled. “Good Ol Days Secret Finishing Technique… Home Run Blowout.”

His triumph ended as quickly as it began when Kodachi’s ribbon wrapped around him, binding his arms and legs together. On the other end of the mallet, Kodachi herself hefted a mallet.

“Come now, Young Miss, at least smile for a hopeless old man?” Ultraman Mask pleaded in a gamely tone.

“Act your age and die.” Kodachi said before she braced her feet and yanked hard on the ribbon, yanking him straight towards her at high speed before taking the mallet in both hands.

At the very last second, at least, she grinned as she swung the mallet into his face. The force of the ensuing impact sent a shockwave and a rumble through the entire park.


Nearby, Octopus Mask appeared to be in a panic as he wildly evaded the pressure waves of Kuno’s bokken, the slashes barreling on to take apart anything else that was unfortunate enough to be in their path. Landing on a lamppost, he let out an enthusiastic laugh as his opponent slowly walked through the devastation towards him.

“So, tell me! Do you wear the sunglasses because they’re cool or what?” he asked.

“Trash like you doesn’t deserve to know my reasons,” Kuno replied.

Octopus Mask took offense to Kuno’s attitude. “No sense of humor and a chip on your shoulder. Didn’t your parents teach you to respect your elders?!”

Octopus Mask pulled out a pair of yoyos, and quickly attacked with them, the first projectile smashing against and grinding against Kuno’s bokken when he blocked it. The second, much faster yoyo aimed straight for his glasses, but a slight shift in his position allowed him to block that yoyo as well, only to be sent flying back by the impact.

As Kuno landed, he smartly deflected both yoyos with quick, barely perceptible swings before he blocked a descending heel strike from Octopus Mask.

Backflipping off the blade, Octopus Mask swung the spinning yoyos down on Kuno, who narrowly rolled out of the way.

Octopus Mask recovered his yoyos and landed in a crouch as Kuno slowly stood to full height. “Respecting my elders, hm? An odd request coming from a man who refuses to grow up.”

“Refuses to grow up?!” Octopus Mask repeated.

Kuno nodded. “A manchild, that’s all you are.”

He rushed Octopus Mask and struck out at him, the bokken loudly and sharply slicing through the air as Octopus Mask avoided the strikes. It took everything he had to avoid the wooden blade, the speed and mastery of Kuno’s attack quickly catching up to his ability to dodge. With a swift blow to the chest, the old man was sent flying onto his back, a large bruise visible through the cuts made across his shirt.

“All of my life, I’ve known your kind. Men who refuse the responsibility of adulthood and retreat into their delusions regardless of how it harms those around them. Men like you disgust me more than anything else,” Kuno said as the man slowly got back up.

Octopus Mask tensed. “Hah, the problem isn’t me. It’s you.”

“Beg pardon?” Kuno asked.

“Kids these days are boring, unimaginative slobs. They don’t even want to come into physical contact with each other anymore. They’re content to trap themselves in their own electronic bubbles, fed colorful cartoons and video games, while stuffing themselves with sugary snacks and sodas.”

Octopus Mask let out a sarcastic laugh. “But worse than them are your kind, the children who think that putting on dark sunglasses and acting esoteric will make them cool. The kids who don’t even want to be kids, you’re the worst of them all!”

Kuno turned away from Octopus Mask, looking down at the tiny glowing screen of his cell phone. “Huh! A young woman that’s been courting me online just sent me a picture of herself in lingerie.”

Recoiling in disgust, Octopus Mask clenched his yoyos in his grip. “You…!”

He leaped above Kuno, targeting the back of his neck with his yoyos. “It’s you wastes of youth that don’t deserve to grow up at all-!”

In the next instant, Kuno’s bokken slammed into his stomach in an uppercut. And then in a flash the kendoist landed behind Octopus Mask, flecks of blood and the flickers from the demon bokken’s battle aura drifting past him like fluttering cherry blossom petals, before a cross-shaped geyser of blood erupted from the still-airborne Octopus Mask’s chest.

“Pardon my generation when I say whatever, old man,” Kuno replied as blood fell on him and his glowing blade like rain.
[hr]
And the other half!

= = =

Running for his life, Doll Mask huffed and puffed as he tried to stay ahead of Mikado and Azusa, the former casually strolling on his skates as he came up on his left flank. Over the course of the last few minutes, he’d come to learn a few things about his opponents that was causing him great consternation. First, despite being obviously crippled and roller blading on grass, Mikado Sanzenin was frighteningly strong and unnervingly quick.

“Whoa!” He narrowly ducked another kick from Mikado, and then threw himself away from the leg sweep the former figure skater attempted. Spinning through the air, he landed a safe distance from Mikado and confronted the second thing he learned in the last few minutes.

“Got you!” Azusa called as she performed a somersault kick that connected with Doll Mask’s chin and launched him into a tree. He could’ve dodged, blocked, or anything to avoid the hit, but that second thing was that Azusa Shiratori was wearing a criminally short skirt and the man got an eyeful of her panties whenever she attacked him.

Pushing himself from the tree, he glowered at Azusa. “A girl your age shouldn’t dress like that! It’s lewd!”

Azusa gasped, offended at the very thought. “Azusa-chan’s dress isn’t lewd, it’s cute!”

“It doesn’t even reach the middle of your thigh! Show a little decency!” Doll Mask demanded. “Do your parents even know you dress like this in public?!”

“Mama and Papa let Azusa-chan do as she pleases! So nyah!” Azusa stuck her tongue out at him.

That just annoyed Doll Mask further. “You rotten brat!”

Given his reaction to Azusa coming to the breakfast table in next to nothing, it was safe to bet that Mikado wasn’t a fan of Azusa’s self-described “cute” dress, either.

However, it did such a good job of distracting their opponent–like right now, as he swung his shin into the side of Doll Mask’s head and launched him like a missile into and through another park bench.

Landing on his rollerblades, he skidded to a halt as Azusa launched herself at the old man next. Clearing the broken bench, she lunged at Doll Mask in a forward flip, becoming a human buzzsaw that tore through the ground leading up to him. Getting up, Doll Mask quickly produced a pair of Clackers.

“I’ve had enough of you, you spoiled brat!” he shouted as he threw both clackers like a pair of bolas, the two toys spinning straight for Azusa. Both pairs were sliced clean through by the tumbling girl, who continued on and drove her heels down onto Doll Mask’s shoulders, and he was drilled face first into the ground.

Landing hands first onto Doll Mask’s back, Azusa sprang off him, twisted gracefully through the air, and landed beside Mikado, who had skated over to the destroyed bench.

“That outfit is pretty lewd,” he noted to Azusa.

Azusa just swung her hips towards him, giving him a teasing flash of her underwear. “If you don’t like it, you can remove it later darling.”

Mikado blushed slightly and put on a small, goofy smile before turning his attention back to their opponent. He frowned at Doll Mask. “How disappointing, with how you engaged Shampoo I was expecting something more impressive. Not an old man preoccupied with toys.”

Standing over Octopus’s mask prone body, Kuno was of the same thought as he turned away. “Perhaps Saotome-san and Tendo-san did more damage than even they expected to.”

“How about that, I did enjoy it… a little,” Kodachi admitted to the heap that was once Ultraman Mask, her mallet utterly destroyed by the force of the impact.

Overseeing the devastation, Joukyuu slipped his hands deep into the pockets of his suit pants and looked up at the darkening sky overhead. He smirked.

Near the park’s gates, Plum continued to lead Temari hand in hand towards the exit, occasionally looking back towards the sounds of savage combat and the occasional explosion. Beside her, Temari was as sunny as the cloudy day wasn’t, smiling brightly as she went along with the Chinese girl.

“So what did you want to do today, Plum-chan?” she asked.

Get Temari as far away from those creepy old men as she could was at the top of her to-do list, but Plum wasn’t about to say no to anything that got the job done. “I wanted to take you to where I’m staying. We can play there.”

Temari brightened even more. “Ah! We can?!”

“Yeah, I just got a bunch of new toys and everything just today.” From what Plum had come to know about Nabiki, this was generous indeed.

Temari tittered in delight. “I can’t wait to get there!”

Just as they reached the edge of the park, however, Plum stopped and looked back as the sky over where the others had been fighting grew… dark.

“What?” she asked, as Temari turned turned and stared at her back, her bangs falling over her eyes as the same darkness engulfed her. Without another word to Plum, she began walking back towards the fight. “T-Temari-chan?”


Underneath a now dark sky, Azusa and Mikado stopped and stared as Doll Mask began laughing from where he lay in the shattered bench. He lifted his head from the ground and grinned a toothy, bloody smile.

“Ring around the roses…” he began to sing.

Kuno’s eyes shot wide behind his sunglasses, as Octopus Mask limply rose to his feet, blood still seeping from his wounds. He reached up and grasped his mask, chuckling behind it.

“A pocket full of posies…” he sang as well.

Kodachi leaped back to land a safe distance away from Ultraman Mask as he too stood up. With the mallet, the broken mask fell away and revealed the weathered face of the Master of Good Old Days Martial Arts, Kumajirou Kaminarimon.

“Ashes… Ashes…” he continued.

Doll Mask and Octopus’s masks shattered as well, before they shouted at once.

“YOU ALL FALL DOWN!”

And then there was silence, as all three men fell limply back to the ground. Watching safely where he stood, Joukyuu regarded the ritual with curiosity and waited for the next part. When nothing happened, he shrugged his shoulders and sniffed loudly.

“Is that it?” he asked, before a tree fell over. He looked towards the falling tree.

Then more trees quickly fell over, starting from the park’s entrance and falling over towards the battlefield.

Azusa went rigid, as she heard something amidst the falling trees. “Do… do you hear that?”

“Yes,” Mikado replied, “it sounds almost like…”

A blade moving through the air, Kuno recognized the sound immediately. He tightened his grip on the bokken, as more trees toppled, their shed leaves being cleaved neatly by the blades he couldn’t see.

The last tree to fall fell in chunks, the neatly sliced sections of the log rolling away and revealing Temari walking towards them, her red eyes blank, and her expression a cherubic smile.

“Will you play with me?” she asked happily, as her unfurled string figure wire waved around her body.

She flicked her wrists, and the ground tore itself apart as the wires lashed towards her four opponents.

Mikado and Azusa moved swiftly, the former jumping left and then spinning rapidly to avoid the wildly erratic wire while the latter went right, cartwheeling and twice before jumping far back.

Kuno took a more active defense, lashing out against the wires with his bokken and deflecting them as his sister’s ribbon scattered the wires away from herself. They quickly retreated from the reach of the wires before they settled down.

Surrounded by tree trunks, chunks of overturned Earth, and her taut-stretched wires, Temari hopped up and onto her wires, springing from razor sharp strand to razor sharp strand. She looked like she was walking on air as she moved, until she stopped–standing over them.

Behind her, Plum caught up and stopped when she saw the nightmarish landscape. “Temari-chan!”

Holding her hands up, Temari quickly formed a new string figure from the wires interlaced between them–creating the shape of a dog in the wires. “Running Dog.”

“Running dog?” Joukyuu asked before a massive, werewolf like construct made of branches, boulders, and dirt lifted itself out of the ground and leaped straight for Temari’s opponents. “Well, well!”

Its arm bulging Running Dog punched straight for the closest of its targets, its fist smashing into Kuno’s raised bokken. The blade stopped the fist, but Kuno was pushed back before Kodachi’s ribbon wrapped around the arm and she lifted it away, allowing Kuno to avoid the string-golem’s other fist.

Kuno charged forward and lowered his blade before performing a rising uppercut. In a flash of red light, Running Dog split in half. Temari hurtled between the two pieces, kicking Kuno in his chest and knocking him off his footing.

Recovering, he ducked and spun around Temari’s slicing wires. He thrust the bokken back for her stomach, but her wires pulled them and his arms up. “Geh!”

Kodachi’s ribbon sliced through the wires, before wrapping around Temari’s arms, and the girl accelerated upward, yanked into a high arc before Kodachi swung her down into the ground at full force.

Instead of hitting the ground Temari landed on her feet, hard, atop the head of a snake-shaped string-golem. “Sea Serpent.”

Loosening her hands from the ribbon, she jumped back as the snake struck at Kodachi, who jumped gracefully over it. When it came around for a second strike, Mikado came flipping from above and drove his heel into the top of its head, slamming it down into the ground.

Azusa jumped past him and skated up and down the thrashing body of the string-golem, leaping at Temari when she reached her. Her flying kick, however, was blocked by the little girl forming a cat’s cradle and using it as a shield.

Untangling the wires, Temari swept and swung her arms, lashing out at Azusa and driving her off. Turning around, she blocked and parried Kuno’s strikes, before quickly formed another string figure between her hands, and Running Dog appeared again to scoop up and throw Kuno far.

Kodachi’s ribbon neatly sliced apart Running Dog, and she quickly threw a trio of gymnastics clubs through the falling chunks of earth and wood at her. Deflecting all three of the clubs, Temari jumped back and back-flipped rapidly away from the pursuing Black Rose.

Landing, she giggled as she formed a new figure. “King of Crabs!”

Kodachi took to the air in another leap, waving her ribbon around, until a crab claw made of stone and wood snapped down on it and yanked her hard into the ground. The rest of the string-golem crab then lifted its other claw to swing it down on her.

Laid out on her back, Kodachi lifted up her feet, stopping the crab press before it could crush her. “So, this would be the evil power of this school…”

Azusa and Mikado fell upon Temari, furiously smothering her focus with lightning fast and well-choreographed kicks that pushed her further and further back.

Blocking Mikado’s well-aimed kick for her neck, Temari wrapped her wires around his leg before turning to block a leg sweep from Azusa. She looped more wire around her, and grinned.

“You lose,” she said as the Golden Pair looked on in shock at the gleaming wires wrapped around them.

Thinking quickly both suddenly moved with her yanking motion, leaving the wires slack enough for them to drive their knees into her. The force of the blow freed both from the wires, before trench-gouging slash from Kuno sent Temari flying through the air.

The girl struck the side of one of the mounds her wires raised, hard, and limply fell to the ground with a thud. Looking back, Azusa and Mikado saw Kuno lift his bokken from the slash delivered.

“Are the two of you okay?” he asked.

“We’re fine,” Mikado replied before Azusa let out a squeak of fright. “Hm?”

He turned to where she was looking, and gave a start when he saw Temari pushing herself back up onto her feet and standing up. Mikado looked back at Kuno. “Did you hold back?”

Kuno adjusted his sunglasses. “No, I did not.”

Temari was covered in injuries, blood dripped freely from the lacerations across her body and off her fingertips, running down along the wires wrapped around them. However she was still blithely smiling, and giggled as she moved her injured body back into a fighting stance.

“Temari-chan…” a horrified Plum whispered, before she saw Kumajiro Kaminarimon standing atop the mound, directly above Temari.

“Consider yourselves very fortunate to witness the true power of the Good Ol’ Days School. Very few have survived this long to see a true master of it,” he said to them. “We old practitioners may still grasp the skills and the toys of the art. But there is something we all sorely lack.”

He grinned down at Temari. “The purity of a child’s heart, unable to understand concepts old men like us know too well. Like hatred, sorrow, or pain.”

Kodachi stepped forth, ribbon curled up. “So this is what evil looks like.”

“You call her heart pure, but it is nothing but empty,” her brother said as he pointed his bokken at Kumajiro.

“Empty?” Kumajirou repeated, mockingly. “Temari-chan’s heart is full of nothing but joy.” He looked down at her. “Aren’t you?”

Temari held out her arms and waved them, sending coils of wire wrapping loosely around Kumajirou’s body. He went limp, before the wires snapped taut around his body. Temari giggled and held up her hands like a puppeteer.

She twitched her fingers, and Kumajiro was a blur, rocketing towards the group much faster than when he fought Kodachi before. The group managed to scatter to avoid his punch, which cratered the ground before it exploded, sending all four of them flying.

Azusa landed first, fire practically blazing in her eyes. “You… you… unbelievable meanie!” she yelled before she barreled straight for Kumajirou.

The old man laughed as Azusa jumped and slashed at him with a kick. He blocked the blow, and then the rapid kicks and punches that Azusa tried to strike him with. “Hardly, I’ve given my Temari-chan the freedom to play to her heart’s content!”

Blocking a final punch, his body twisted around and he backhanded her hard. The blow struck her across the face and Azusa hit the ground hard.

Face down, Azusa clawed at the ground as Kumajirou raised his hand to dive it down into her neck. “How is that mean?!”

As he swung, he saw a twin flash of orange as Azusa quickly got up and countered his chop with a blow that caused several loud snaps in Kumajirou’s arm.

Behind him, Kuno had only one mission in mind as he readied his bokken and rushed Temari: Slice through every wire connected to her hands. Seeing him charge, she giggled and waved her fingertips towards him.

“Hm?!” Kuno reacted quickly, blocking the open palm blow of the man behind the octopus mask, Tatsukichi Komagataya. Seeing more wires tight around his body, Kuno quickly moved his blade to block the middle-aged man’s tiger strikes. Each blow hit like a quake, the strength behind them incredible… but not insurmountable.

Parrying another strike, Kuno slammed his sword down upon Tatsukichi shoulder. “No more interest in playing with toys?!”

He jumped back when Tatsukichi swung a kick for his side. “No point in that, boy, we’re the toys now!”

As palm and bokken met with a loud crack, Kodachi hurled a baton at Temari, the weapon spiraling over and under the many wires strung around her before the maskless Doll Mask, Torahachi Kachidokibashi, caught it in his hand.

Kodachi huffed and leaped, springing about on the wires as Temari did, as Torahachi crushed the baton in his hand. “You’ll have to do better!”

“Very well!” Kodachi replied before she threw yet another baton, this time like a spear, straight for Torahachi’s face.

With Temari’s lightning reflexes, he chopped the baton out of the air, but the baton quickly exploded in Kodachi’s signature paralytic powder. Catching a wire in hand, Kodachi swung herself up and over it before diving at Temari with another baton raised above her head.

Looking up, the girl pointed her thumbs to the left, and Kodachi heard a yell of pain before Torahachi landed between her and the little girl. Unnerving, muffled snaps sounded, as he wrenched his hands up to clap the swung down baton between his palms.

Kodachi recognized the sound, and the agony on the old man’s face confirmed what it was.

“Remarkable,” she said before she broke the baton with a quick motion and jumped back.

As she landed and lifted her ribbon, Torahachi–now completely asleep–emerged from the cloud of powder as Temari retreated. Kodachi’s ribbons blocked several of his strikes, as she glanced towards Temari, who laughed and resumed her puppet play.

Close by Kumajirou recoiled, and saw another flash of orange before MIkado drove a kick into his ribs. Blood came from the old man’s mouth in a mist as he was sent back towards Temari. Before he could crash into her, Temari lifted her hands and a net of wires came up, for him to crash against. She then let Kumajirou fall forward onto his feet.

The master of the Good Ol’ Days school looked at his ruined left arm, and laughed. “Ho, ho! This blinding pain! Now I’m beginning to have real fun myself.”

The Golden Pair, going at full tilt, closed in rapidly upon him. Temari giggled, and both Torachachi and Tatsukichi came flying in from the sides, to attack their flanks, but Mikado and Azusa saw them first.

“Azusa!” Mikado shouted as he took her hand, and promptly spun around, swinging her into both marionette men, sending them flying back. Lifting and throwing Azusa upward, he blocked Kumajirou’s punch with an upraised arm.

Laughing, Kumajirou raised his broken arm, and caught Mikado with a punch to his jaw, knocking him down. As Mikado went back, Azusa came down, her spinning kick coming down like a hammer.

Kumajirou didn’t go down, and Azusa realized why when she saw the glint of many wires straining to cushion the blow beneath Kumajirou.

Then Temari struck, running up the bowed Kumajirou’s back to somersault kick Azusa in the chin and throw her to the ground next to Mikado. As she landed, she pulled the wires taut and Kumajirou stood upright, laughing uproariously.

“What a fun game this has been!” he declared as he reached over and rubbed the top of Temari’s head. “Isn’t this fun, Temari-chan?”

Temari nodded as she summoned Torahachi and Tatsukichi to her as well.

Kumajirou then shook his head. “It is such a shame, that this game now must end.”

Azusa and Mikado got up, as the Kuno Siblings edged closer to the enemy.

“We seem to be of one mind,” Kodachi said.

“Indeed, this insanity is well overstayed,” Mikado added.

Kumajirou nodded and continued to rub Temari’s hair. “Temari-chan? End it.”

Temari nodded and suddenly held up her latest string figure, the shapes of four people suspended in wires, before she pulled them tight. “Hanged Men.”

The numerous wires spread across the battlefield snapped tight, grabbing the necks, arms, and legs of the four teenagers and held them taut.

“Eek!” Asuza cried out as the wires dug into her skin, beside her, Mikado strained against the wires but found no range of motion.

“Even wrapped our joints…!” Kodachi hissed as the wires clung tightly to her body.

Tatewaki was rather calm about the sudden turnabout, snorting as the wires held him stock still. “So this was your plan from the beginning with this maneuver?”

Kumajirou chuckled again. “It’s not particularly elegant, but this technique is a very complex one. Temari’s mastery of it is the very reason she sits as the scion of our school.”

To the side, Plum covered her mouth as she watched Temari tug on the wires a little tighter, causing the wires holding her friends to tighten.

Next to her, Joukyuu strolled over and squatted down to watch. “Hm, shame how this turned out,” he said with disinterest bordering on disgust. “I was hoping to see something worth watching, but these old guys are the lowest rung.”

Plum looked over at him, then back to the fight. “Lowest?”

“Messing up a little girl’s head to make her an unstoppable weapon you can point at people is nice and all, but any weapon is only as good as the wielder, and while these guys are plenty evil… they’re not very good,” the Grand Prix judge replied.

He then looked over at her. “So, where’s the hot one?”

Plum cocked her head curiously. “The hot one?”

The metallic thunk of a grenade launcher firing was followed by grenades landing around the besieged school of Indiscriminate Grappling.

Seeing the grenades, Mikado grew wide-eyed. “Are those-?!”

The grenades exploded nearly all at once, the blast obliterating the wires. As the blast wave rippled over them, Joukyuu grinned.

“There she is.”

Kumajirou stared in surprise at the explosion and the smoke it left. As it began to clear, however, his surprise turned into a frown, when the form of Shampoo came into view. In her hand, she let a revolver grenade launcher hang off her finger by the trigger, before dropping it to the ground.

“Hm… you showed up,” he said darkly.

As the smoke cleared, revealing the others dusting themselves off, Shampoo smirked. “Of course I showed up, what did you think I was scared or something?”

Kumajirou grew tense. Beside him, Temari seemed more excited to have a new playmate.

“You’re lucky we’re as tough as we are,” Mikado groused at Shampoo.

“That is exactly why I did it,” Shampoo said before she cracked her knuckles. “So, old guys. I am going to render your school extinct.”

Kumajirou, still plenty tense, just laughed. “Even if you are fresh, the advantage is still in our capable hands.”

He looked to Temari. “Temari-chan, we have a new playmate.”

“Yay!” Temari shouted as she immediately sent Tatsukichi and the still asleep Torahachi to rip her apart.

Torahachi reached Shampoo first, and reared back to punch her. The punch collided solidly with Shampoo’s face, but she didn’t budge. “Breaking Point. 1,500 year old technique.”

She then quickly jabbed Torahachi in the temples, and the man woke right up. “Remote Acupressure: 2,000 year old technique.”

As Tatsukichi lunged to strike, Torahachi suddenly whirled around and palm-thrust Tatsukichi in the chin, launching him into the air.

“Geh! Hachi! what’s the matter with-!” he was cut off when Torahachi speared him in the gut, bringing him to the ground.

Temari blinked in surprise, as her marionette disobeyed her input.

Kumajirou’s eyes widened as Shampoo began walking towards him and Temari, a growing smile on her face. “Five hundred year old art, ne? If you’re going to try to put five hundred years worth of bloodshed against over three thousand, don’t bring toys to the fight.”

Kumajirou stared at the girl, and then at Temari, who quickly assumed a more eager fighting stance. “Temari-chan!”

Temari obeyed the unspoken command, and Kumajirou was sent hurtling for Shampoo, practically a blur in his own right. The wires connecting him to Temari gave him his speed, his strength, at the grievous cost to his body being unable to keep up with the girl’s twitch reaction time and her punishing commands.

Shampoo’s fist plunged into his face, stopping him cold. The punch was followed by hundreds more in quick succession. The barrage felt like a hail-storm, or a rockslide. Each blow striking came with nearly greater force than the blows he absorbed from the Golden Pair and Kodachi. The precious wires giving him his greater strength snapped easily under the barrage, releasing with loud twangs until the only thing keeping him standing were his own pulverized two feet.

With Ranma-esque flair, Shampoo snapped her fists back, but let out a disappointed sigh when she saw no steam rising from them. She looked back to the all-but-dead on his feet Kumajiro. “This is a relatively new one. Chestnut Roasting Over an Open Fire Fist.”

Kumajirou staggered back, and hacked up more blood. “What…? W-what…?”

Temari, impressed, laughed again and yanked Torahachi and Tatsukichi apart, before pointing them at Shampoo. Shampoo looked at both men and then smirked. “Now then, back to rendering your whole school extinct. I’ve only used this technique on one other person before, so consider yourself honored for the short time you’ll remember it.”

As she said this, she pulled from behind her back in one hand a comb, and in the other a bottle with the numbers “411” emblazoned across the front.

Temari squealed and crossed her arms, sending both Good Ol’ Days masters at Shampoo. When they reached her, however, she became a blur that drew in both. Within a second, both men were sent crashing to Kumajirou’s feet, their hair neatly washed and styled.

“W-where am I?” Torahachi moaned. “Why does my everything hurt?”

Tatsukichi looked over at Torahachi, and groaned. “I don’t know… who are you?”

Kumajirou stared down at them and then looked up, slowly, at Shampoo as she twirled the comb between her fingers. “No… you… you…!”

Shampoo, her eyes practically glowing red, lifted her hands up and grinned as Kumajirou fell onto his backside. She grinned.

“Kids are cruel, old man, that is why you should never pick a fight with them,” she said before she brought her hands down upon Kumajirou’s scalp.

Kumajirou didn’t even have the time to scream.


The Ars Poetica arrived over the park, Lucretia and Leonora both looking down at the swath of destruction. On the monitor behind them, the name of the Good Ol’ Days school lay crossed out. Further back, the Benefactor wheezed dismissively and looked off into the shadows of the ship.

On the ground, Joukyuu watched as Shampoo finished gently massaging a restrained Temari’s scalp. Using the Formula 411 and her intimate knowledge of Shiatsu to wear away the girl’s memories and skillfully modify them with soft whispers into her ear.

Pulling her hands away, Shampoo dumped a bucket of water on Temari’s head, and a quick burst of the Chestnut Fist left it neatly styled with her hairband back in place.

“I got into wrong business,” Shampoo admitted as she admired the hairstyle.

“Why not do both, after today I will need a long hair washing,” Kodachi said. “Just keep that vile concoction away from me.”

Shampoo smiled. “I’ll try not to… forget.”

She and Kodachi shared a throaty chuckle, before Azusa raised her hand. “Ah! Azusa gets it!”

“Temari-chan? Are you okay?” Plum asked as the .

Temari opened her eyes. She smiled at Plum. “Why does my whole body hurt?”

“Oh, your grandfather and his friends were all evil, and brainwashed you to try to kill my friends,” Plum said as Shampoo instructed.

Temari gasped. “Ah! Are they okay?”

Plum nodded. “Oh yeah, they’re fine, and Shampoo made sure the bad men wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone ever again.”

She gestured over to the three old men, sitting around at Joukyuu’s feet. All three of them had handheld video game devices in their hands.

“So this is Pocket Monster, hm?” Kumajiro asked.

“This isn’t so bad,” Torahachi admitted.

“Ha, ha, I think I should get this for my grandson!” Tatsukichi said as he was already well into starting his game.

“So don’t you worry about anything, okay?” Plum reassured her before taking her hand and holding it.

Temari looked down at Plum’s hand and smiled. “Well, as long as no one’s hurt… do you want to play Pocket Monster?”

Plum smiled bigger, and nodded.

“Score another win for us,” Mikado said as Plum helped Temari up to the first of the emergency vehicles to arrive.

“Yes, interesting opponents this time, as well,” Kuno said as he slid his bokken into the loop of his hakama.

Mikado nodded and rested on his cane. “I’m going to start paying closer attention to these competitors. The better ones should start trickling down, now.”

Shampoo, Kodachi, and Azusa joined them. Kodachi produced a cell phone. “We should inform Akane-sama and Ranma-sama of our triumph post-haste.”

The phone rang for a moment, before Akane answered the phone. “K-Kodachi?”

“Akane-sama, we defeated the Good Ol’ Days with no serious injuries to report. The plan went flawlessly, though Shampoo was late procuring the Formula 411.”

Shampoo stuck her tongue out at Kodachi.

Akane didn’t immediately reply.

Kodachi blinked. “Akane-sama?”

“Oh no…”

Kodachi tensed. “What is happening?”

On the other end of the line, under the pouring rain in Minato City, Akane stood on the shoulder of a freeway. Next to her, Ryoga stood with an umbrella over both their heads. In front of them, Ryoga’s black and white dog sniffed at Ranma’s neatly bisected shirt, and the diluting bloodsplatter that was being diluted by the rain.

“… Ranma…” Akane shakily spoke. “… He’s missing.”

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

Kumajirou Kaminarimon: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Please support the official release.

The Key to A Successful Interview is a Good First Impression!
Dinner with the Hibikis


Now with 150 percent more Azumanga Daioh


[33.]


Sitting on the river’s edge, underneath the overcast sky, Nanami Sakana couldn’t ask for better weather as she cast her line–the fishing was always better on dreary days like these.

“Good working weather yesterday, great fishing weather today. Life is good, eh Kyoko?” she said cheerily as she sat down on the edge of the embankment.

Sitting higher up on the concrete embankment, with absolutely nothing better to do with her day off, Kyoko Taka enjoyed a stick of dango, pulled from a box of over three dozen of the treats. “The dango’s not half bad, so it’s not a terrible day.”

“You won’t catch any fish from up there you know,” Nanami chided.

Kyoko tossed away her stick of dango and grabbed another from the box. “Challenge accepted.”

Picking up the box, she got up and walked away towards their nearby parked truck as Jo came walking down the embankment to join her CEO. “She’s such a stick in the mud.”

“She came out to play when she could be doing something else with her free time, so… progress?” Nanami replied as the tiny blonde sat down next to her.

Jo begrudgingly agreed, and watched the rhythmic bobbing of the float. “So I saw Ryoga’s friends, the Kings of the Hill, yesterday.”

“What are they like in person?” Nanami asked.

Jo leaned back. “You’d like them, they’re interesting. Young, strong, full of fire…”

“But?” Nanami asked.

Jo frowned, and then shook her head. “You’d have to meet them for yourself.”

Nanami smiled broadly. “An outspoken woman without words to speak, now my blood’s starting to boil.”

“Your blood’s always boiling. I could probably fry an egg on your abs,” Jo pointed out.

Nanami jumped onto her feet and laughed. “Well now it’s superheated! It’s been years since I’ve been this fired up! People cut from the same cloth as Ryoga, unparalleled monsters! It’s too perfect!”

She sat back down, and adjusted her line, as Jo hummed. “The King and his Queen are having dinner over at Ryoga’s house tonight you know.”

Nanami calmed down on the spot, and stared down the line at the bobber. After a few moments, she pulled out a flip phone and hit the speed dial. “Hello, Hibiki-san. A little mouse told me you and your husband are having guests for dinner. Well it just so happens that I’m down by the river about to catch the biggest fish in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. What do you say to me gutting it, cleaning it, and bringing it for you to fry up?”

Nanami’s eyes slowly moved to the left, and then to the right, before they widened in amazement. “Huh, well said. I’ll be over at 18:00.”

She flipped the phone closed and smiled to Jo. “Well, today just keeps getting better and better.”

It was then that a block of explosives splashed into the river right in front of them. Jo blinked as she watched it go under. “Was that one of my-?”

The ensuing explosion answered that, and created a geyser that came down in a torrential shower that soaked both the women. They turned around and looked up at Kyoko, who was sitting on the sole dry spot on the river bank with a broad, smug smile. A fish big enough to eat Jo landed next to Kyoko and her smile got even bigger.

Staring up at Kyoko, silent, Nanami broke into snickers and then threw her head back in laughter.

Jo, was less pleased. “Old newbie I swear to God, I will come up there and shove your head up the boss’s ass!”

“Come catch me,” she said before she turned and bounded off. Bellowing with rage, Jo charged after her, her footsteps leaving deep holes in the embankment.

Still laughing, Nanami pulled out a fishing knife and twirled it in her hand as she advanced upon the giant salmon. “It’s another peaceful day, for Nihon Break Kogyo.”


Digging his hand into his pocket, Ranma pulled out his phone and checked the time. It was 17:55, and they had just gotten off the train that took them to Minato, specifically one of the better known and more expensive neighborhoods in all of Tokyo. He looked around at the strangely peaceful streets, as if expecting something to happen in the next second.

“It’s hard to believe that this whole neighborhood was just a war zone a few months ago,” Akane said.

“Still is, if you believe the internet,” he replied.

They walked down the street and looked up at the high rise apartment that loomed in front of him. Ranma immediately recognized it. “Wow, they really do live here.”

Akane looked from the building to Ranma. “Eh?”

“This was the delivery I had to beat Shampoo to. It’s ridiculously expensive to live in the dumpster behind it.”

Akane folded her arms and waited. Sure enough, Ranma walked towards the alley way leading to the apartment’s garbage dumpsters. “Oi, Ryoga-!”

Akane grabbed his ear, causing him to yelp. “I was joking! I was joking!”

“What is it?” Ryoga asked as he emerged from beside the dumpster.

Ranma and Akane both stared at him in shock.

“Seriously, what?” Ryoga asked again

“Nothing, um… what are you doing back here?” Akane said quickly before Ranma could open his mouth.

“Oh, I was walking Shirokuro,” he said as he walked over to them, leading behind him a dog that was half black and half white in color.

Akane immediately melted at the sight of the dog and bounded over to pet her. “Oh! Look at you!”

She looked up to Ryoga. “Where’d you get her?”

“I’ve had her for years, she used to live at my parents house until she tracked me down here. Osaka uses her to find me whenever I get lost,” Ryoga replied.

“Does that still happen?” Akane asked after Shirokuro licked her face a few times.

“Not as often, I don’t really go anywhere by myself anymore. I’m either with Shirokuro or one of my coworkers when I’m out.”

“What about Osaka, does she hel-”

“No.” Ryoga’s tone denoted a deep, unfathomable trauma. Ranma and Akane looked to one another and shrugged their shoulders.

“So,” Ranma began, “are you going to take us up to the Hibiki residence or not?”

Ryoga nodded and waved them along. “Come on, we haven’t started dinner yet. We’re waiting for a salmon.”

Ranma chuckled as they entered the apartment and followed Shirokuro to the elevator. “Salmon, huh? You don’t need to go all out for us, man.”

“Well Osaka got it for free so why not,” Ryoga replied as they boarded the elevator, and Shirokuro hit the fifth floor button.

“Wow, where did you get all of this good fortune?” Akane asked.

“It’s amazing how much better your life is when you don’t direct all of your energy towards a pointless vendetta,” Ryoga replied.

“Yes,” both Ranma and Akane replied (and nodded) in unison.

On reaching the seventh floor, Shirokuro trotted out with Ryoga directly behind her and Ranma and Akane trailing behind him. “I heard you were busy yesterday.”

“Yeah, some assholes challenged us, but they’re going down in a little bit. Shampoo and the rest of the team are taking care of that.”

Akane beamed. “So we’re free and clear to enjoy the night.”

“That sounds good to me,” Ryoga said with a smile as he opened the door. “Ranma and Akane are here.”

Ayumu Hibiki (born Kasuga), or better known simply as Osaka, looked over to Ryoga from her schoolwork and smiled. “Hey guys!”

Sitting next to her at the living room table was that tall imposing girl who had restrained Ryoga back when Osaka had first come to reclaim him, Sakaki. She was gently rocking the newest addition to the already young household, Yoiko Hibiki.

“Yo,” Ranma coolly greeted the two young women. Sakaki nodded politely back to the new arrivals and went back to attending to the baby.

Akane became positively giddy upon seeing the baby, and made a beeline straight for the table. “Yoiko-chan~!”

She sat down next to Sakaki and Osaka. “Can I…?”

“Oh, go right on ahead. She’s already eaten and been burped. She’ll be out like a light for the next few hours,” Osaka said with a smile.

Akane nodded and held out her hands expectantly to Sakaki.

Sakaki stared at Akane.

Akane beckoned for Sakaki to hand Yoiko over.

Sakaki looked down at the adorable bundle in her arms, and then back up at Akane. She then leaned back a bit, holding Yoiko closer to her.

Akane grew a bit puzzled.

After a moment, Sakaki reluctantly handed the baby over to Akane and immediately began to fret. “Be sure to keep her head elevated… and uh… rock her, she likes that.”

As Akane nodded and followed Sakaki’s instructions, Osaka was more than happy to exposit. “Sakaki’s super overprotective, but she’s the best nanny ever.”

“That’s really nice of you, Sakaki-san,” Akane said to the tall girl, who flushed slightly at the praise.

“It’s nothing,” she quietly, humbly replied.

Ranma and Ryoga sat down at the table as well, the former couldn’t help but admire the apartment. It wasn’t extravagant or fancy like the place a few floors up was but it was comfortably spacious and nicely furnished with a mishmash of new furniture and stuff obviously handed down to the family. It’d only been a few moments, but felt as much as a home as the Tendo residence did.

“So, who are the assholes you’re going after?” Ryoga asked.

“Che, pretty awful guys, assassins,” Ranma replied.

Osaka looked up from her schoolwork, shocked. “Ninja?!”

Ranma waved his hand. “No, nothing like that.”

Osaka hummed. “Huh, if they were Ninja, you could beat ‘em with Pirates. They’re the Ninja’s natural enemy. Though it really depends on the species. If they’re Somali, North Atlantic, or Sky Pirates then they don’t stand a chance. But Chinese Pirates? Yeah, they eat Ninjas up.”

Akane stared at Osaka. “Sky Pirates?”

Osaka nodded. “You know, Pirates. But in the sky.”

Akane blinked. “Huh.”

“Are they actually tough or just obnoxious?” Ryoga asked.

“A bit of both, they made Shampoo work for it a bit, but Pop and old man Tendo got all scared and they interrupted the fight,” Ranma replied.

“They’re not on your team?”

“And entitle them to a single yen?”

Ryoga nodded. “Good point, but what would get them to exert that much effort?”

Ranma glowered a bit. “Because these assholes aren’t even here for the money, they’re just here to kill people in creative ways.”

Sakaki and Osaka both gasped. Ryoga clenched his fist. “Isn’t that against the rules?”

“Yeah, but they know how to get around that, or at least they tried, These guys though, I don’t think they’ll care if they can’t,” Ranma replied.

“And you’re not there?!” Ryoga demanded.

“Shampoo’s got it covered,” Akane reassured.

“If she couldn’t, we wouldn’t be here,” Ranma agreed.

Akane clapped her hands. “So! Let’s have a wonderful dinner.”

Sakaki was agape; how could they be so carefree in a life or death situation?!

Osaka wholeheartedly agreed. “That sounds good to me!”

Sakaki snapped her gaze towards Osaka. Seriously!

“So you’re having salmon, can I help you out with that? There are some recipes I want to try out.”

“Oh yeah, definitely!” Osaka gestured to Sakaki. “Sakaki usually does dinner for us. Me and Ryoga can’t cook worth a damn!”

Akane cuddled Yoiko and returned her to Sakaki. “Well, let’s get started! When’s the salmon going to get here?”

The door swung open and banged loudly against the wall. Ranma and Akane looked at the doorway and saw Nanami standing there, holding paper-wrapped slabs of salmon. “The salmon is right here!”

Ryoga stood up, startled. “Ch-Chief?! What are you doing here?!”

“I told you Nanami was bringing the salmon.” Osaka paused. “I did tell you that, right?”

A bolt of lightning shot through Ranma and Akane as they both stared up at her. Chief?

Akane’s eyes widened in realization. Ryoga’s boss…

Ranma’s narrowed. N-B-K’s… Boss…

“You’re Ryoga’s boss?” a bewildered Akane asked the woman sitting where she and Osaka had been just moments before. In all honesty, for a company that tore down buildings regularly, she expected the person in charge to be some sort of giant of a man on a quest to become huge.

“President and CEO of Nihon Break Kogyo, Nanami Sakana at your service,” Nanami said proudly to Akane, who was in the kitchen with Osaka preparing the salmon for dinner.

Osaka quickly covered her mouth to repress her laughter, while Akane just rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t expect you to be a… Er…”

“Woman? Bah! NBK was three fourths a Taco Party until Ryoga-kun walked through my door,” Nanami revealed.

Osaka collapsed onto the counter, pounding her fist onto it as she laughed into the crook of her elbow.

Ranma leaned back a bit onto his hands. “How did Ryoga end up working for you guys, anyway?”

“Same way everyone else ends up working for NBK: Ryoga answered my ad on Craigslist.”

“Aw, I was expecting something a little more dramatic,” Ranma admitted. On the other hand, Ryoga attempting to navigate the Internet was probably an epic in itself.

“Life isn’t all finding sad boys in the snow crying about their inability to find work and supporting their expecting families. Sometimes shit just happens and it’s the break you need.” Nanami smiled to Ryoga.

Ryoga smiled back. “Yeah.”

She looked back to Ranma. “What about you, Ranma? Got any aspirations for the wonderful world of demolition? Ryoga’s been very upfront about your ability.”

“Nah, I’ve already got a job that makes the most of my skills.” Ranma had been chomping at the bit for a chance to segue into this, and Nanami didn’t disappoint. “What about you, are you a martial artist?”

Akane looked up from the salmon she was instructing Osaka how to cut, and watched carefully as Nanami’s focus sharpened.

The head of NBK let out a small laugh. “I am, actually, I practice kenjutsu.”

Ranma nodded. “Huh! Any particular school?”

Nanami hummed. “Well I was trained in the Yagyu Shinkage School style, but I left the school when I was very young.”

“Old school, huh? So what, they couldn’t keep up with you?” Ranma asked.

Nanami shook her head. “No, I just learned everything I could and went on my way. ”

Ryoga smiled. “The Chief used to be like me, traveling everywhere. Though she at least had some idea where she was going.”

“I don’t know, I’ve gone plenty of places where I’ve had no idea where I was until long after I’d left,” she admitted. “I’ve hiked across Europe, stayed for about a month in Rwanda, and lived in Brazil for about ten years. There were a few other places, too…” She pounded her fist in her palm. “Ah! Holland, Michigan! I’ve been there, too!”

Ranma and Sakaki glanced to one another, silently and bemusedly sharing the mental image of Windmills and dikes overlooking America’s auto industry.

“Oh, I know all about that place!” Osaka said. “It’s home to the world’s largest pickle factory!”

“Pickles, too?” Ranma and Sakaki asked together, as the image of pickle factories and cucumber farms joined alongside the auto industry, dikes, and windmills.

Nanami laughed. “Yeah! I worked there for two years and had no idea where I was!”

Akane was starting to find it hard to focus on preparing dinner. As cheerful and domestic as the scene was, the tension in the room was all-encompassing. She looked over to Osaka. “Is Sakana-san always like this?”

“Oh yeah, Nanami’s always full of pep. I have a friend at school named Tomo who’s like her, but really, really dumb.” Osaka hummed. “I wonder if she sneezed right now. I hope she isn’t doing anything important, she’d probably mess up.”

“Right,” Akane said with a slow nod.

Osaka resumed chopping her salmon, and quietly dropped the conversation.

Akane, shrugging her shoulders, prepared to go back to her part of the food prep-

“She’s probably dead by now,” Osaka casually surmised.

Akane snapped her head back up to stare at the other girl.

“So! What about you? Where’s the art taken you?” Nanami asked.

Ranma shrugged his shoulders. “Besides China, I haven’t been many places. But it’s not where you’ve been, it’s what you’ve learned while you were there, right?”

Nanami nodded assent. “That’s right…” She leaned forward a bit. “And to be frank, I’m dying to find out what you know.”

It was then that Ranma noticed it and wondered in disbelief how he hadn’t before. Nanami was shaking. Not like she was having a seizure, it was a slight vibration like a tuning fork. The woman was trembling from head to toe like it was taking everything she had to sit still–a starving predator lying in ambush with her prey right in front of her. And as Ranma realized it, the entire context of this unexpected get-together became starkly clear…

She came here looking for a fight, and she’s not going to leave without one.

Watching his expression subtly shift with his realization, she confirmed it. “So you get why I’m here now.”

Akane stopped cutting up her last piece of salmon and watched with Osaka as Nanami stood up and gestured to Ranma.

“You and me, let’s step outside so we don’t cause a mess,” she quietly offered.

Ryoga frowned. “Chief, this is why you came over?”

“Sorry for the ulterior motive, Ryoga, but I can’t resist. From the moment you first told me about this guy, I’ve been dying for this.”

Ranma narrowed his eyes at Nanami, before looked over to Akane. When she reluctantly nodded her consent, he looked back to Nanami. “As long as we don’t miss dinner.”

Nanami tried not to squeal like a girl half her age, and failed. “Better make extra helpings, ladies, we’re going to work up huge appetites.”

“I’ll get out the extra rice cooker!” Osaka called.

Ranma got up. “Well, looks like we both got what we came for.”

Ryoga stood up as well, looking back and forth between them. “Got what you came for?” He sagged. “You wanted to fight her tonight, too.”

“He’s good at hiding it,” Nanami complimented as she walked over to the apartment’s windows overlooking Minato to slide one open. She looked back at Ranma. “See you down there.”

Sakaki, swept up in all of this tension, gave an alarmed but silent gasp as Nanami put her foot up on windowsill. She was really about to jump out the window, seven stories above the ground.

Ranma nodded. “Ladies first.”

Nanami smiled and jumped out the window, and Ranma turned to the others. “We’ll be back up, this shouldn’t take long.”

“Be careful,” Akane advised.

“I’ll be okay.” When Ranma turned to climb out the window, walking past an increasingly alarmed Sakaki trying to overcome her shock to stop him or remind him there were stairs, Ryoga grabbed his shoulder. “Eh? What?”

“Because we’re friends now, Akane’s right to warn you… The chief is really strong.”

Ranma glanced at Ryoga’s hand, and up to his face. “Thanks, but I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I could mop the floor with her, no offense.”

Before Ryoga could reply with “some taken” there was a loud bang and the apartment shook. Alarmed, Ranma and Ryoga both looked out the window to see a cloud of dust rising from the sidewalk below.

“The hell was that?” Ranma asked.

“Probably the body of the crazy woman that just jumped out of the window,” a more liberal Sakaki would say.

“Sounds like Nanami didn’t stick the landing,” Osaka observed. Sakaki nodded in thanks to her.

Ranma rolled his eyes. “Way too excited for her own good…”

He vaulted out the window, and slid down the side of the apartment. Halfway down, he hopped off the face of the building and landed in front of the cloud of dust as it began to clear. “Oi, you didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”

“Oh no, I just had to slip into something more comfortable,” Nanami replied as the dust cleared enough to reveal that she’d changed her clothes. The blue coveralls and her yellow hard hat were gone. Instead she wore a pair of light blue trousers two sizes too large for her held up by a pair of sturdy suspenders. Aside from the suspenders, she wore cloth chest wrap and an armored brace that completely covered her left arm.

She finished tying up her waist length brown hair, freed from under her safety helmet, into a high, messy ponytail as the dust finally cleared out, revealing a massive zanbato-style sword as large as she was tall and possessed two hilts–one offset from the other, embedded into the sidewalk next to her.

“Okay…” Satisfied with her preparations, Nanami pulled the giant sword out of the ground with one hand and swung it with the same ease Ryoga would wave his umbrella, the blast of air displaced by the weapon buffeting Ranma. As he lowered his arms, Nanami took the sword in both hands and assumed a fighting stance, fire burning brightly in her eyes as a large, yellow battle aura radiated from her body.

“… Let’s dance!”


= = =


Cue "The Only Thing I Know For Real" kids.
[hr]
Memories broken, truth going unspoken, etc.

= = =

When Nanami pulled out that giant sword and waved it around like a twig, Ranma already knew what to expect from her fighting style. She was sword wielder with a disproportionately large sword–she was going to be disproportionately fast, just like in every anime ever. When Nanami launched herself at him, her body becoming a blur, he rolled his eyes in confirmation and sighed.

“Here I come!” Lifting the sword, she swung it down straight for him, and Ranma smartly sidestepped. She was fast, but he was–wait.

“What the?!” Ranma suddenly sprang away, avoiding Nanami’s sword as it seemed to come at him from fifty directions at once. The air displaced by the many swings hit him like an explosion, and sent his already airborne body flying away from her, to land at the end of the street unharmed.

And then there she was, already in lethal range to strike, and there was the strike in the form of the square-shaped tip of the buster sword plunging for his chest. Instinctively Ranma vaulted onto the blade and sprang off it, rightly avoiding another barrage of swings that launched him further into the sky.

“Wait a minute,” he realized aloud. “That’s not even a sword!”

A sword implied a cutting edge, the rectangular hunk of metal was just that, a blade shaped hunk of metal with smooth rounded edges and a pair of hilts sticking out of one end. Nanami was suddenly in the air with him, and he quickly twisted and contorted himself in creative ways to avoid her slashes before kicking off the weapon and slamming to the street hard.

Landing in front of him a distance away, Nanami switched the sword from her right hand to her left. “Don’t just let me swing at you, Ranma. I want to see what you can do!”

She charged him again, and when she swung he obliged, ducking under the swing and weaving around the two follow up blows to get in close. He struck fast, palm strikes to her face that she in turn avoided before she brought her “sword” between them and blocked the spin kick he fired for her chest.

Ranma immediately noted that his kick didn’t send Nanami flying, but he was too busy dodging her counterattack to voice his confusion at the mockery of the natural order he always knew.

He backflipped and then side-flipped to put distance from her, before he zigzagged towards her. When she swung for him, he jumped and ran up the blade to knee her in the face. Again, Nanami defied him, flipping him up and over her.

As he landed, Nanami faced him and tightened her sword in her grip, the entire blade was shaking. “You… You really are an amazing guy!”

Neither hesitated, dashing towards each other and attacking. Nanami’s swings went avoided as Ranma attacked with his arms a blur. She seemed to flow around his punches before coming around and slashing horizontally, the blade cleaving Ranma’s afterimage. He appeared behind her, swinging a kick for the side of her head.

She ducked under it, and swung her sword for his planted leg–but he already vaulted over the blade and swung down an axe kick for the top of her head.

Up in the apartment, the ensuing explosion made everyone jump. Ryoga leaned out the window and looked down towards the plume of pulverized asphalt rising from the end of the block. “What was that?”

Akane leaned out over him, nearly knocking him out the window entirely, while Osaka peeked out beside her.

“Wow, they’re really going at it!” Osaka said in amazement before the cloud of dust was neatly bisected from the ground up. At the center of the split cloud Ranma had blocked the sword with the open palm of his hand.

The two became a tornado of movement again, her strikes being either deflected or parried by Ranma’s bare hands. They circled each other, their blows failing to penetrate their defenses even as they became faster and faster.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Nanami yelled as they continued to clash. “This is amazing!”

Ranma caught the edge of the blade in both hands and did the swinging for once, throwing Nanami into the air before launching himself after her with a flying kick that created several condensation rings in its ascent. His foot plowed straight into the flat of her sword–and that was that. No cataclysmic explosion, no shockwave.

“Okay what the hell is that thing?!” he snapped at her as he twisted and dodged a swing. The spin-kick he fired off to counterattack was blocked by the gauntlet of Nanami’s free hand, and this time she was launched into the ground, crashing through a stoplight before hitting the middle of an intersection.

“Wow!” Osaka cheered.

“Get up, chief!” Ryoga yelled.

Akane wasn’t having any of that. “Ranma! Kick her ass!”

Lying on her sword, Nanami shook her head and stood up on it. “Whoa, you definitely hit harder than Ryoga.”

Ranma landed in front of her, popping his knuckles before he lunged straight for her, before suddenly rocketing away from her and clung to the side of a building. The sword, held by Nanami’s right foot, had been swung up in a surprise spin kick.

She tossed the sword into the air and caught it in her free hand, before resting it across her shoulders. She looked up at him, steam pouring out of her mouth with her panting.

“Damn… no one’s hit me that hard in a long, long time!” she panted.

“Would you like another?!” Ranma asked.

Nanami charged, running to the building and up its side, straight for Ranma. “Please sir, may I?!”

Swinging the sword around she tried to launch him with the air pressure off the swing, but Ranma kicked through it and connected with her armored shoulder. When he rebounded off her, she swung at him again but he sharply spun out of the way and swung another kick, this time creating his own pressure wave that hit Nanami like a brick wall had been thrown at her.

As he fell, he flipped himself, creating a second pressure wave that Nanami sliced through as she fell back towards him. “WAHOOOO!”

He landed on the roof, and flipped back, avoiding her slash–which she stopped short of the roof lest she tear down the entire building. As she pulled her sword back, Ranma appeared from behind it, and she threw herself clear of the punch for her face.

She spun around, tearing through his afterimage with the sword, before his kick did the same to hers. The two continued this way, and overhead Osaka had to rub her eyes.

“I… uh… can’t see them anymore,” she admitted.

Ryoga clutched the windowsill, tension growing. They were moving so fast that he was having a hard time seeing them too.

“They’re both so fast,” he murmured.

With a rush of wind, both came to a stop, Nanami sliding backward, a dark bruise on the side of her face, as Ranma appeared on the other end of the roof, steam rising from his fists.

Ranma… I gave up and accepted that the gulf between you and I was wide a long time ago. But… it’s not even that anymore… it’s an ocean!

Ryoga looked down and saw his hands were trembling. It wasn’t fear though… or anger…

What? My whole body’s shaking… my blood’s rushing…

“I’m a little dizzy after that one!” she congratulated him before steadying herself.

Ranma flexed his fingers, as he and Nanami began to walk in a circle. On the street below and in neighboring buildings, bystanders on the street and in neighboring buildings began gathering to watch the battle.

“Is it a youma?” a girl trying to get a camera phone picture asked.

“No, I think that’s Ranma Saotome!” an older man pointed out.

“Oh thank God it’s just a contest!” a relieved bystander said.

Nanami giggled a bit at the noise from below, before she spoke. “The School of Indiscriminate Grappling’s taught you well. But still…”

She suddenly enveloped herself in a bright yellow battle aura, and raced straight at Ranma leaving a trail of yellow afterimages behind her.

Her powerful horizontal slash was quickly parried, but before Ranma could counterattack, he quickly had to cross his arms and block the powerful kick she aimed for his throat, the force of the blow sending him flying over several buildings.

“Ranma!” Akane yelped before she scrambled to jump out of the window herself.

Ryoga lunged after her and ended up falling out himself. “Hey, wait!”

As both of them fell out of the window, Sakaki gaped in disbelief out it, and then at Osaka–who was leaning precariously out it herself. Much to her relief, Osaka pulled back and walked away from the window.

“Well shoot, Ryoga might get lost out there,” she realized aloud.

Osaka then came back to the window carrying Shirokuro in her arms, causing Sakaki to turn deliriously pale. “Go get ‘em girl!”

She tossed the two-tone dog out the window, and Sakaki took the care to put Yoiko down before falling into a dead faint.


Opening his arms Ranma slowed his descent, flipped gracefully, and landed on the roof of a semi truck speeding down the freeway, skidding a bit as he caught himself. There was a heavy clang behind him, and he turned around to find Nanami had landed near the front of the truck.

“… Your technique lacks something,” she finished.

Ranma took offense to that and leaped, swinging a backfist that Nanami blocked with her sword. He dropped down, kicking Nanami’s legs from under her before shooting a kick into her stomach that she likewise blocked. She continued to parry or dodge his punches and kicks, before a sweep of her sword got Ranma off his feet.

Flipping back, Ranma landed in a crouch and growled before launching himself toward her. His gunshot-fast punch stopped with a crack inches from her face, caught in her unarmored hand.

“Now I see,” she said grimly before she looked from his captured fist to his face. “You deny yourself the thrill of the fight!”

Upon the accusation, Ranma hesitated. “What?!”

Nanami let go of his hand and kicked him in the stomach, knocking him tumbling towards the very edge of the trailer. Smartly, he managed to recover and crouched on the trailer’s edge, his eyes narrowed at the woman.

Nanami lifted her sword and rested her the blade on her free hand as if examining it. “Your conviction is strong, but that’s all you have. The will to win is there, but you have no excitement, no thirst for blood!”

Slowly, Ranma rose to his feet. “You’re wrong,” he said firmly, “It’s not that I have no excitement… it’s that there’s nothing to be excited about.”

That offended Nanami, who let out a snort. “You’re a big fish in the sea, kid, but you’re no Orca.”

“I’m a bigger fish than you!” Ranma moved like lightning, Nanami blocking his strike.

The two circled each other, Nanami twirling her sword to parry Ranma’s strikes before he suddenly kicked for her face. When she blocked the blow, he suddenly grabbed her sword at the center hilt and wrenched it from her grip turning and throwing it into the wall of the freeway.

Nanami looked past Ranma at her sword as the truck sped on away from it, then back to Ranma. She then looked down at Ranma, who was already cocking his fists, the raw force of his presence enveloping them both before he unleashed his avalanche of punches straight into her.

The first, second, and the following hundreds of blows didn’t connect. To Ranma’s disbelief, Nanami’s hands met his at every strike, deflecting and parrying his blows with speed that rivaled his. Her face a mask of determination, she went strike for strike with him, the fast-moving air around cracking and booming as their blows met.

Gritting his teeth, Ranma moved faster, the thunderous roar becoming a steady hum. Underneath them, the truck’s roof began to warp and then buckle while strips of it were torn away entirely. Then, suddenly, Ranma had to parry a strike from her. then deflect another blow even as he sent one to her. She was counterattacking!

Their hands moved in fluid, untraceable motion, attacks and counterattacks foiled again and again as their speeds only kept increasing… until finally their fists met with a thunderous crash.

The split second that followed felt like five, as Ranma recoiled from Nanami, his footing lost. Wide-eyed he stared at her, as she followed through, her fist lancing past his broken guard and straight for his unprotected face.

And then there was nothing, her fist stopped a shaved hair’s breadth away from his lower right jaw. Frozen, he stared at her… feeling the heat of the steam rising from her forearm against his face.

She then kicked him off the roof of the truck, sending him spilling onto the shoulder of the freeway before jumping herself and landing in a crouch as he tumbled to a stop.

Ranma slowly got up, as she dusted herself off. He looked at his trembling hands, steam still rising from them, and then up at her. “You…”

He clenched his hands into fists,

“This is the only time I’m throwing you back, kid,” she said. “You still got a lot of tournament, a lot of opponents, to learn to love to fight again so you’d better take advantage of it.”

She walked past him, back down the road towards where her sword was embedded in the wall.

Ranma turned and watched her, his hands still shaking. She… let him off easy?

He narrowed his eyes, that was her big mistake.

Reaching her blade, Nanami jumped up and used her weight to pull the sword out of the wall. As she landed back on the shoulder of the freeway, she noticed a glow in the direction she left Ranma and looked. There he was, bathed in his yellow battle aura, his body a radiant gold.

She blinked. “Ah?”

“I got something more than the love of the fight!” he declared as he thought of Akane, ballooning his power considerably.

He crossed his arms over his chest, the brilliant glow expanding and stopping traffic on the freeway in both directions. He then brought his hands downward, a ball of energy forming between his hands.

“I got things worth fighting for, and that’s worth more than all the bloodlust in the world!” he yelled before he raised his hands and pointed them at Nanami. “YUUJIN BAKUHA!”

The tremendous beam of yellow energy surged forth from his hands and straight towards Nanami, who turned to face the beam. Holding the sword up in front of herself perpendicular to her body, she took her left hand and grabbed the second, smaller hilt just as the beam reached her.

Everything after happened in an instant. There was a tremendous roar, as the surging beam of ki energy split vertically right down its middle all the way back to Ranma. And just like that the beam dissipated into nothing.

Releasing the second hilt, Nanami tucked her hand into her pocket and hoisted the sword up onto her shoulder. “Having things to fight for is perfectly fine, but if you’re not going to have your heart in that fight, then you’re never gonna beat me.”

Blood sprayed from a gash that spanned across Ranma’s torso from his right shoulder down to his left hip, as his shirt fell away. His eyes wide, he quickly pressed his arm over it as he staggered backward several steps. Pale, and breathing raggedly, he stared in shock at Nanami as she turned around and resumed walking.

“I’ll see you at the top, kid,” she called back over her shoulder to him. “If you decide it’s worth staying there.”

Ranma looked down at his chest again, and the blood seeping out from under his arm. He began to feel the first cool droplets of rain fall upon him, and he shut his eyes. This wasn’t over, he wasn’t beaten! Not as long as he could draw breath!

Squeezing his shut eyes tighter, he fought the pain in his chest and urged himself to move forward, and attack!

But when he opened his eyes. He was still standing there, staring at Nanami as she kept walking.

He couldn’t move.

He didn’t want to.

Why?

As the rain began to fall upon his head, Ranma’s eyes widened as the realization finally hit home.

“… I’ve gone soft,” she said aloud.

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

Osaka: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Please support the official release.

Osaka: *Reads title* I suddenly have a strange craving for bat.


The Key to A Successful Interview is a Good First Impression!
No More Tears


Mama I’m comin’ home


[34.]


As a rain fell in sheets on the streets of Minato City, Nanami strolled heedless of downpour or the people who stopped and stared at her. She was on the phone, talking to Jo, balancing between the conversation and the sword she carried against her shoulder.

“I didn’t lose, don’t worry your pretty little head, but I didn’t win either. I let him off,” Nanami revealed.

“Why?” an exasperated Jo demanded. “You could’ve beaten him and we’d be on top of the game.”

“His heart wasn’t in it, Mousie. I can’t in good conscience beat up a guy who doesn’t want to fight.”

There was a moment of silence. “Come again?”

“He’s soft; don’t get me wrong he’s amazing, but he has no bloodlust.”

“A guy that good? How is that even possible?”

“It happens. Some guys fighting is a means to survive, there’s no pleasure to be gained from it other than from winning; sometimes you’re so good that fights become a chore you don’t want to do; others convince themselves that they’re not in it for the rush and intensity because they think they’re above such skullduggery.”

Jo hummed. “You don’t think the whole team is like that, do you?”

Nanami stopped walking. “Maybe, but some of them have that fire. Meet me over in front of Game Center Crown and we’ll discuss the rest of them, okay? I gotta handle something real quick.”

Ending the call, she put away her phone and properly addressed Akane, who stood in front of her at a street corner. “Hey there, kiddo, don’t worry about your boyfriend… we called the fight off for now.”

Akane, her fists clenched, glared death at Nanami. It wasn’t anger in her voice when she replied, however. “Then where is he?”

Nanami lifted her right eyebrow above the level of her left. “What do you mean where? I left him at on the freeway, you were following us, right?”

The dread became utterly palpable on Akane’s face. “He wasn’t there, he’s not answering his phone…” She held up the ruined remains of his shirt. “… And this is all we found.”

Nanami stared at the shirt, and shut her eyes in a grimace.

“Ah geez kid,” she growled, “you picked the wrong answer.”


In an affluent, suburban neighborhood of the city of Nishitokyo, just west of Nerima, a cloak-wearing Ranma walked slowly past the high walls and sturdy gates of homes not unlike the Tendo Dojo–old, traditional looking homes with dark roofs that were considerably larger. Ranma’s expression was as stormy as the weather overhead; the revelation that came with the fight against Nanami had shaken the normally boastful and confident martial artist to the core.

The last thing Ranma ever wanted in the world was to admit that her old man was right about something, but he was, she had gotten soft in the past year. Not just soft, she’d slacked off; her fights against Nabiki, that Pantyhose freak, and now Nanami underlined her fall. Where had she gone wrong?

“You deny yourself the thrill of the fight!”

Ranma clenched a fist.

“The will to win is there, but you have no excitement, no thirst for blood!”

Stopping, Ranma punched at the wall, stopping short of hitting the wall but cracking it from the base to the ceiling. “I’m not some mindless berserker!”

Ranma let her hand drop to her side. “Or what, am I just supposed to look at every scrub I meet and say ‘Oh boy, I totally want to waste my time with you!’ Is that what you want? Is that how I’m supposed to act?”

She sighed and shook her head. As she mulled over this, a trio of curvaceous shadows, one short, one thinner but considerably taller, and one gigantic and voluptuous, appeared on a nearby rooftop. Adopting ninja-style poses, all three silhouettes sprang off into the dark skies and hopped from roof to roof to wall towards her.

Ranma sensed them coming from twenty meters back, but kept her head down as all three landed around her. They were kunoichi, all wearing black, skin-tight gi and full masks that hid everything but their expressive eyes. Aside from their vastly different body shapes, they were distinguishable by the flowers they wore on their heads. The tallest and most well endowed of the kunoichi wore a pair of hibiscus flowers like hair buns, while the tall curvy one had a single daisy. The shortest one, who appeared to be their leader, had no flowers.

“Ranma Saotome,” the shortest Kunoichi spoke, “you are a tough nut to track.”

“You mean to crack, right?” she replied.

The kunoichi recoiled when he heard her voice. “Eh? You sound like a woman.”

Ranma removed the hood of her cloak. “Because I am a woman, you clods.”

The three kunoichi recoiled again from the redhead, and then looked to each other.

“Hey,” the biggest one said, “This is Ranma Saotome, right?” She looked down to the tall, thin one. “Koueda, you idiot! You said you tracked him here!”

“I did!” the kunoichi addressed as Koueda shouted back. “I didn’t take my eyes off him for a moment, Koume! It’s not like there are a bunch of martial artists walking around wearing cloaks in the rain!”

“You’d be surprised,” Ranma replied. She had passed like eight during her walk.

The shortest ninja hummed. “Are you Ranma Saotome or not?”

“Do I look like him?” Ranma snapped back before opening her cloak and revealing her bloodstained, sliced t-shirt and the breasts it barely contained. “Do these look like something Ranma Saotome would have?!”

The short kunoichi hummed and looked at the two bickering kunoichi behind her. Then back to Ranma. “It seems we’ve made a mistake then, young lady.” She then closed her eyes and hummed before opening one to gaze pointedly at her. “You know, with a body like yours, you’d be a fine kunoichi.”

Ranma snorted. “I’d make a fine lots of things. I’ll pass.”

She turned to cross the street, but the short kunoichi quickly intercepted her. “I am Koutetsu, master of the Red Hot Tea House Kunoichi. We are an ancient and storied clan, known throughout Japan for our beauty and skill. You seem lost, and you are wounded. Please, tell me what we can do to aid you.”

“You can fuck off, I’m not interested in sharing my troubles with ninja,” Ranma muttered as she turned back to her original course.

The ninja appeared to be slighted, which did not surprise Ranma in the least. Koutetsu glowered at Ranma. “Such rudeness in the face of our kindness. Such disrespect will not be tolerated!”

Ranma bristled as the three ninja knuckled up. “Oh please, do not make me do this. Last thing I need to do is splatter you women all over-”

She stopped, nearly stumbling over her own words.

“You deny yourself the thrill of the fight!”

“WE STRIKE!” Koutetsu actually meant they, as she pointed for Koume and Koueda to attack Ranma together.

Ranma snapped out of her momentary recollection long enough to easily avoid the giant metal club that Koume attempted to splatter her with. Landing atop the wall of the nice house she’d been walking past, she quickly dodged several shuriken thrown at her by Koueda before jumping up onto a telephone pole.

“Damn it…” she muttered as both ninja leaped and balanced nimbly on the phone line in front of her. They were pretty fast, especially that big one, but Ranma could crater them with minimal effort.

Koueda launched herself at her, drawing a straight-bladed sword and slashing at Ranma. The slashes were easily evaded, Ranma switching from one foot to the other atop her narrow purchase like a gymnast to avoid them. She then hopped onto Koueda’s back when she overextended a slash and kicked off her, launching her into the sidewalk below with tremendous force.

She landed this time on the middle of a set of three power lines, and looked towards Koume, who was sure enough swinging the metal club down at her. Stepping back off the power lines, Ranma fell to the street below. On contact with two of the wires, Koume and her metal club were immediately subjected to thousands of volts of electricity and launched through the air to land atop the other fallen ninja.

Ranma landed on the sidewalk, her cloak’s hood falling back as she stared expectantly at Koutetsu. “Are you happy now? Or should I come over there and slap the stuffing out of you as well.”

There were two puffs of smoke, and the two fallen kunoichi had transformed into logs. Rolling her eyes, Ranma looked up and there were Koueda and Koume, standing atop the streetlamps, trying really hard not to look like they’d been damaged by the punishment they’d subjected themselves to.

Koutetsu chuckled. “You are truly a formidable foe, you remind me of a stepchild I once had. Still, you know not the terror of the Red Hot Tea House Kunoichi!”

“The Red Hot Tea House? I’ve heard of that place!”

Ranma blinked and looked around, where had that voice come from? The ninja were similarly confused by the sudden outburst, and likewise scanned the area. There seemed to be no one around, however.

“Yeah, allegedly it’s a teahouse, but apparently it’s actually a kunoichi-themed hostess club that pertains to a very specific niche clientele. While the quality of the service is questionable, the skill of its owner and employees isn’t!”

Ranma followed the voice, and blinked when he realized it was coming from a garbage can. “Huh?”

“It’s unquestionably garbage! I should know, I’m kind of an expert on these things, if you catch my whiff!” the garbage can said with a snorty laugh.

Ranma stared for a moment, before she finally sensed a murderous intent coming from the three kunoichi.

“A trash ninja has no right to judge their superiors!” Koutetsu shouted as she threw ninja stars into the garbage can’s side. The three stars sizzled as a blur leaped from the can and escaped the ensuing explosion.

Ranma looked upward, and followed the figure who came to a landing in the middle of the street. It was a pretty gray-eyed girl in a purple and white sailor fuku; her dog-ear tressed long brown hair was tied up into a ponytail with a yellow ribbon. Smiling the girl placed her hands on her hips, and swung them from side to side before holding the peace sign near her right eye and winking:

“Tsubasa Kurenai arrives!”

The kanji spelling of her name appearing on either side of her in bold red font was a nice touch–or so Ranma thought.

She assumed a fighting stance and smiled. “Now, allow me to put it succinctly:” she grinned. “You came to the wrong neighborhood, motherfuckers.”

Koutetsu laughed heavily. “Is that so?”

Tsubasa nodded and became more serious. “Seriously, I’m the neighborhood watch and you’re just going around attacking young women in the street; that Grand Prix nonsense might fly in Nerima but I won’t let it fly here.”

Koutetsu looked to Koume and Koueda. “Then we’ll send you flying!”

Both Ninja attacked Tsubasa, who much like Ranma dodged Koume’s metal bat. After she baseball slid under the large kunoichi and somersaulted over Koueda’s sword, she looked towards Ranma. “You still want any of this?”

Ranma shook her head. “No, go ahead.”

As Koueda turned around, Tsubasa smiled. “Sounds great!”

She spun around to avoid a stab from Koueda. Jumping clear of a slash, she backflipped from a smashing blow from Koume and landed. As Koume got up, Tsubasa stomped on the ground, cracking the asphalt underfoot, and leaped into a flying kick that connected solidly with Koume’s stomach. “Toh!”

The force of the kick was tremendous, sending Koume flying backward and crashing into another telephone pole, bending it in a shower of splinters. As Koueda stared in shock at the shocking strength of the girl, Tsubasa capitalized perfectly, catching her in a grab and slamming her down into the ground with enough force to bounce her from the cracking asphalt. Drawing back, she slammed her fist into the bouncing Kunoichi’s face, and Ranma saw a shockwave emanate from the force of impact before Koueda went flying into Koume, bending the telephone pole further.

Impressed, Ranma nodded and continued to watch as Tsubasa turned back towards Koutetsu, who had vanished.

“Like I said, garbage ninja,” Tsubasa said before Koutetsu stabbed her through the back with a kunai.

“This is the price of underestimating the Red Hot Tea House!” she snarled before, predictably, Tsubasa transformed into a wooden mannequin wearing a vest laden with explosions.

“Please,” Tsubasa said as she appeared from behind Ranma, “You can’t even do the replacement jutsu right, bitch!”

She pressed the button, the ensuing explosion blasting Koutetsu back into the two other kunoichi.

Ranma was rather impressed. “Nice moves, who taught you?”

“An old friend from middle school,” Tsubasa replied as the three kunoichi managed to get back up. She noticed this and cocked her head to one side slightly. “Oh dear.”

“You think… that this is enough to defeat us?” Koutetsu asked, before all three kunoichi heard strange twanging sound, like a guitar string breaking. Both she and Koueda looked out Koume, who was clutching her stomach in pain.

“M-Mother… sister… I don’t think I can hold on,” the tall kunoichi moaned.

Koutetsu swore under her breath, and then looked back at Ranma and Tsubasa. “You have not seen the last of us. We will have our revenge!” Pulling out a smoke bomb, Koutetsu threw it down, creating a large cloud of smoke that they escaped out the side of.

“Good grief,” Ranma muttered as she watched them flee.

“Good grief indeed, this Grand Prix business is such a pain in the badukah,” Tsubasa replied. “My landlady says that it’s a big insurance scam, since starting a fight in Nerima always ends in property damage.”

Ranma hummed. “That assumes that Nerima is insurable.”

“You’d be surprised,” Tsubasa replied cheerily, before she noticed Ranma’s blood-stained t-shirt. “Oh wow, did those idiots get you?”

Ranma looked at her chest, and shook her head. “As if, this was from someone who earned it.”

“Then let’s have it looked at, what do you say? My landlady is pretty good about tending to injuries with no questions asked and no secrets told,” Tsubasa winked, “She did the same for me.”

Ranma hummed, and after a moment of reluctance nodded. “Yeah, sure, take me to this landlady of yours.”

“Yay!” Tsubasa cheerily said before posing cutely and pointing down the street. “I live just at the end of the block, at the big old house with the five meter wall. C’mon!”

Tsubasa began to hop and skip towards the house with the noticeably high wall, and Ranma followed, letting out of a whistle. “This is the place you’re renting?”

“Yep and the rent’s not cheap,” Tsubasa sang back, “But I pay for it with the neighborhood watch and odd jobs for the landlady. It’s a pretty sweet gig!”

Ranma looked down at her injury and then back towards the front door as they reached it. “The kind of gig you pick up when you need to disappear, right?”

Tsubasa had just pressed the doorbell, and looked back at her. “… Yeah, pretty much. You catch on quick.” Lowering her hand, she turned to face Ranma. “So… what are you running from?”

“Nothing,” Ranma immediately replied, “I just need a place to regroup for a bit.” She clenched her hand into a fist against her heart. “But I’m definitely not running from anything…”

Tsubasa nodded as the door unlatched and began to open. “Well let’s hope the landlady will help get you turned around quick.”

Ranma nodded. “Yeah, I hope she’s…”

She trailed off when the door opened, and revealed the landlady, who looked between the young women.

“Paying it forward, Tsubasa-chan?” the landlady asked when she saw the injured girl.

Ranma’s eyes widened.

“Well, you had no problem taking in a stray, so I thought I’d give it a try,” Tsubasa replied. “She’s a little hurt and needs a dry place to stay, it won’t be too much trouble will it?”

The brown-haired, kimono-wearing landlady smiled warmly and stepped aside, opening the door wider.

“Of course, I had just finished preparing dinner but there should be enough for a guest,” Nodoka Saotome answered before directing that smile to Ranma, “Please come in.”


Just back across the border from Nishitokyo and Nerima, a group of fifty men marched in formation down an empty street. They wore the same uniform, black trousers, red camouflage jackets, and crimson ponchos to shield them from the soaking downpour, and all of them were armed with assault rifles, flashbang grenades, and holstered pistols. At the front of the five-wide, ten-deep formation a pair of flags were carried–one reading “Wild Bulls” and the other reading “Red Bulls Division”.

At front and center of the formation, the leader of the march suddenly looked up and let out a shout. “Division, halt!”

On a dime, the entire formation halted. In front of them one of the Grand Prix’s judges stood under the pouring rain. The leader signaled with his hand for the unit to stay back, as he walked up to him.

“Is there a problem?” the poorly-shaven Division Commander, an American whose uniform name tag red “Shishioh” asked.

Joukyuu Kunitoshi looked at the man and smirked at his equipment like something was funny. “Yeah, I’m just a little confused about all the tacticool shit you’re packing. You guys realize this is a martial arts competition, right?”

Shishioh sneered. “Last I heard, the only rules in this contest were that we couldn’t kill competitors and we couldn’t leave Tokyo.” He lifted up his rifle. “These weapons are suppressed and use subsonic rounds. Against a guy like the King, it should be enough to knock him out, but not kill.”

Joukyuu stared at them for a moment. It was a long moment, the only sound that filled the air was rainfall. Then he honestly, earnestly asked, “Wait, you’re serious?”

He threw his head back and began laughing, uproariously.

Shishioh gritted his teeth, and then pulled his hood back, revealing the buzz-cut, gaunt face of a man who looked like he needed rehab for meth rather than another tour of duty. “Don’t fuck with us, asshole! Who do you think you’re laughing at?!”

Doubled over and clutching his sides, Joukyuu quickly tried to catch his breath. “Gahahaha…! Haha… haa…” He looked back up at the soldiers and began laughing again. Louder.

The red-dressed soldiers immediately began to exhibit their leader’s ornery behavior, shouting and hollering in protest much like the howler monkeys dealt with by the School of Indiscriminate Grappling on the first night. The lead soldier reached out and grabbed Joukyuu by the collar of his soaked suit and pointed his rifle at his chin.

“You think that’s funny you little bitch?! I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy SEALS and I’ve been involved in numerous secret missions, and I have over three hundred confirmed kills!” He gestured to his men. “These men behind me are trained in guerilla warfare!” He pointed at a soldier carrying a sniper rifle. “He is the top sniper in the Self Defense Forces!”

He let go of Joukyuu and lowered his gun. “The King is nothing but another target! We’ll wipe him the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words! Because we’re the 5th Division of The Wild Bulls, the “Red Bulls”, because our uniforms are stained with the blood of our enemies!”

The other soldiers stood at attention, and shouted at once. “HOO-AH! HOO-AH! HOO-AH!”

Joukyuu looked down at his suit, and then back up at the Red Bulls. “The Wild Bulls, huh? Right, you’re slavishly following that guy still. Huh… well, you have fun doing that. But there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

“And what’s that, asshole?!” Shishioh demanded.

Joukyuu grinned, as if he were to reveal a dark, shocking secret… and then promptly stood straight and pulled out a tablet PC. “Due to complaints from residents, no fights are allowed to take place in Nishitokyo during the night.” He gave them a condescending look as he raised his hand and shooed them off. “You’re not allowed there so shoo.”

The anticlimactic news knocked the all soldiers off their footing. A few even fell over.

“What do you mean no fights at night?!” Shishioh yelled.

“No fights at night, a lot of people with a lot of money like to sleep at night without worrying about their neighborhoods becoming a warzone.” Joukyuu shrugged his shoulders. “I tried to fight for you, tell them that it was in the spirit of the tournament, but they were convincing.”

Very convincing, he was marveling at the bank statement screen of his tablet, which he swiped away before the leader of the Red Bulls grabbed and looked at the sudden restriction. Reading it, he swore loudly and shoved it back into Joukyuu’s possession.

“Son of a bitch! That means the coward can go back and forth as he pleases and escape us at night!”

“It’s probably what he did,” Joukyuu suggested, incensing them further to his delight.

“DAMN HIM!” Shishioh yelled, “After we tracked him all the way here, he escapes?!”

Joukyuu draped an arm over his shoulders. “Come on, don’t feel bad. You can get him in the morning, once the sun comes up Nishitokyo is fair game like everywhere else.”

Which would do the Red Bulls no good, as they were night fighting experts and their outfits tended to be very conspicuous in the daylight. The apprehension of the Division Commander became readily apparent at the thought of trying to perform a tactical action in broad daylight.

“Damn, damn, damn…!” he turned to Joukyuu. “Can’t you change your mind on this? Is there anything we can give you? Money? Guns?!”

“Oh I’m taken care of on money, and I got all the guns I need right here.” Joukyuu held up his arms and flexed… which didn’t show much on account of his waterlogged suit.

He gave them a nasty look. “Sorry, but only one thing will change my mind!”

“Is that so?” a trio of voices called out. “How about these three things?!”

Joukyuu and the Red Bulls Division looked up as the ninja-gi swathed kunoichi of the Red Hot Tea House suddenly landed on the bridge. And all three immediately went awestruck at the voluptuous body of the tall Koume, the racetrack curves of Koueda, and the petit yet sexy shape of tiny Koutetsu. The rain seemed to sparkle around the three kunoichi, as they all adopted sensual poses.

“It just so happens…” Koutetsu said as her eyes, the only visible part of her uniform, blinked daintily. “… That we know Ranma Saotome’s exact location.”

“We know where he’s hiding,” Koueda purred as she extended a leg and ran her hands up it, causing the soldiers to follow them.

“And we know that his condition isn’t exactly… good,” Koume said as she crossed her arms under her massive breasts, drawing the soldiers (and Joukyuu’s) gazes to them.

Joukyuu’s eyes gleamed demonically, as he immediately caved in. “I’ll look the other way just this once, but you’ll have to pay me in your bodies!”

His lunge for the nearest of them, Koutetsu, was evaded by the tiny kunoichi. “Now, now! You can have all the fun you want with us after we’ve sorted out who will be King of the Hill at dawn!” She looked to the Red Bulls and winked. “Right, boys?”

Shishioh and all of his men, enraptured by the jaw-dropping bodies of the ninja, immediately broke into cheers.

“Lead the way, to Ranma Saotome!” Shishioh shouted. “RED BULLS! WE RIDE!”

“OIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!” the other soldiers yelled as they charged ahead, following the three Kunoichi who quickly leaped ahead while gesturing for them to follow.

Left behind, Joukyuu wiped the drool from his mouth and smirked as he watched the soldiers leave. He then turned around and found Lucretia Piera standing there, holding an umbrella over her head.

“You were told to inform them that Nishitokyo is a restricted area,” Lucretia said, her cold blue eyes gazing sharply at Joukyuu.

Joukyuu sniffed and turned away from her. “I got a better offer.”

“You got ripped off,” Lucretia bluntly replied.

“It doesn’t matter either way, now does it? If they go after the King now or next week, the result is going to be the same.”

“If they were going after the King, then yes,” Lucretia answered back, “But the King’s not there.”

Joukyuu tilted his head at a near right angle to his body. “Hah?”

Lucretia held up her own tablet, showing an “Area Unknown” message for Ranma. “We haven’t been able to locate him since his skirmish with Nihon Break Kogyo.”

Joukyuu actually seemed surprised by this and leaned closer to the screen. “Huh?” He looked towards the direction of Nishitokyo. “Then who have these guys been trailing?”


Ranma didn’t remember her home, and now that she recalled her Old Man never brought her to this big old-fashioned house. The one time she met with her Mom, after the Cat Fist training disaster, had been at a much smaller place. She definitely would’ve remembered having a house like this, with a large courtyard lined with trees that made it look like a forest, she definitely would’ve remembered the small stone bridge over the creek that cut through a well-cultivated garden. She definitely would’ve remembered the warm lighting on the covered patios that made it look like an Edo-period mansion, giving it a rustic, cozy feeling.

If she weren’t trapped inside her own body by terror, she would be wondering if this was really her mother’s house.

“It’s quite nice to have guests, actually,” Nodoka said gently as they crossed the footbridge and reached the front door. “Why, we hosted a party with the just last week with all the neighbors and it was wonderful.”

Tsubasa, who was guiding Ranma along by the arm, nodded in agreement. “Yes, the kimono you bought for me was so pretty!” She looked to Ranma. “I really should show you it, it’s blue with red flowers!”

“Huh… uh-huh,” Ranma neutrally responded, trying to disassociate herself with the situation she was in much like she did with the cats.

“Tsubasa-chan, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we don’t even know our guest’s name yet,” Nodoka said as they entered the house.

The inside looked more modern than it did outside, amply lit from the ceiling, with carpeted floors and spacious hallways tastefully furnished with art both eastern and western. Again, Ranma didn’t notice it too much due to terror.

Nodoka turned to face Ranma, as gentle and warm as Kasumi, but so much more at the same time. “Ne, what is your name, dear?”

Ranma went rigid, as her mind screamed at her to fib and fib like her life very much depended on it. “R-Ranko! Ranko Tendo!”

Her mind congratulated her on the spot for the completely original and not-at-all suspicious name… and waited for the inevitable since it now had no say in what went on going forward.

“Tendo?” Nodoka repeated. “Would you happen to be related to Soun Tendo?”

“Y-yes! I’m his daughter! One of them! Yes, he has four daughters, one-two-three-four. Kasumi, Nabiki, Akane, and Me. We’re twins, Akane and I, practically inseparable and always together ahahahahaha!”

Nodoka stared at Ranma. “Are you okay, Ranko-chan?”

Ranma quickly nodded. “F-fine! Just a little chilly from the rain, no big deal? Can I go use the bath? Alone? I’d like to get washed up before I-”

Nodoka nodded. “Of course, Tsubasa-chan take her to the bath so she can get cleaned up. Dinner should be on the table by then.”

“Sure thing, Landlady,” Tsubasa chirped happily before she turned and led Ranma down the hall opposite of the way Nodoka went.

“Hehe… that landlady of yours sure is nice, huh? Hahahaa… ahaha…” Ranma nervously asked Tsubasa.

“Uh yeah, and you’re tweaking like you’ve been smoking some Blue Sky. Are you okay there?” Tsubasa asked.

“Fine, oh I’m fine… I just didn’t expect to see her, I’m just so giddy! Hehehe!” Ranma replied before they stopped before a sliding door. “Oh my, is this the furo?”

“Sure is, if you need any help I can-” She was cut off as Ranma shoved Tsubasa aside, zipped into the room and slammed it shut before locking it tightly. “… Okay. Just don’t use the shower detachment with landlady’s name on it when you’re rinsing off, okay? It’s seen some shit.”

Ranma knew what a detachable shower head was generally used for, she’d used it to great effect on Akane several times, but with the mental image given to her by Tsubasa she was now forever turned off to the concept of shower sex until the next time Akane would want to do it.

Of course, that was dependent on if she’d live to see Akane again after tonight. She was trapped in her own home by her own mother who would probably lop her head off without hesitation or ceremony if she found out that she was a transformed he.

At the same time, though, as she looked around the expensive bathroom, she couldn’t help but be a little… happy. Her mother wasn’t just doing well… she was living quite comfortably, and wasn’t alone thanks to that Tsubasa girl.

“Geez,” she muttered softly, “Mom actually looked happy.”

After making sure the door was locked and transforming back to his normal self, Ranma examined the slash across his chest in the bathroom mirror, and frowned again. The cut wasn’t deep at all, in fact it was already healing, and that annoyed him. How strong did you have to be in order to cut like this with such a stupid slab of metal?

After washing up and rinsing off, Ranma sat down in the furo and sank down to just below his chin, agitation darkening his features.

“You’re a big fish in the sea, kid, but you’re no Orca.”

Nanami was the bigger fish, this time at least. She could take a hit as good as he could, and she could dish it out too. Ranma definitely wanted to beat her, and get back at her for letting him off easy.

“No strategy, no tricks, I just need to surpass her… but how?” That was the one billion yen question, and the answer felt out of his reach.

There was a knock at the door, and Ranma went rigid. Fumbling, he sat up in the tub and quickly grabbed a bucket of cold water he’d set aside just for this occasion.

“Hey, Ranko, are you done soaking? Dinner’s ready and the landlady’s got Netflix fired up,” Tsubasa called, “Also, you didn’t use that detachable shower head, did you? That thing’s super gross.”

Ranma shuddered as much from the cold water as from the allusion to shower masturbation. “N-no! And I’m almost done!”

“Cool! Change of clothes is right outside the door! Hope you don’t mind kimonos,” Tsubasa called before she departed.

Ranma sighed, got out of the tub, and began drying off. If there was one thing she remembered about her mother, it was her ardent refusal to wear anything other than a kimono–even if she looked totally out of place doing so. She was obsessed with being the perfect Japanese woman as much as she was excited about her son being the manliest of men.

Running the towel roughly through her hair, she looked at herself in the mirror and sighed again when she saw herself through the fog on the glass. All of not even five feet with huge tits and sexy, child-bearing hips–surely, this was what counted for unrivaled manliness nowadays.

Tossing the towel into the hamper with a grunt, she opened the door and found a red and pink kimono waiting for her. Reluctantly, she pulled it on sloppily and made her way down to where she could hear the television and smell food. In the sitting room, she found her mother and Tsubasa both sitting back, watching a western show that looked like it was about bikers on a TV certainly bigger than what the Tendos had.

“Geez, how much money does my Mom have?!”

“You know, I really like Opie, I hope he and his entire family make it through this show okay,” Tsubasa said to Nodoka after a spoonful of rice. She looked over at Ranma. “Oh! Hey there Ranko, looking sexy in that kimono!”

Ranma looked at her haphazardly tied kimono and grimaced. “I’m not used to wearing these…”

“Most girls aren’t, and it’s a dreadful shame,” Nodoka said.

“I can’t imagine any guys complaining about that, landlady,” Tsubasa said in reference to the amount of cleavage Ranma’s poor dressing provided.

Ranma tried to close up her kimono some, and sat down at the table to serve herself. The fact that she was about to try her mother’s cooking again after so many years wasn’t lost on Ranma, and she was rather excited to load up her plate.

“Thanks for the courtesy, er… um… Auntie Nodoka,” Ranma said to her mother, who glanced back to her.

“Think nothing of it, Ranko-chan. Even if you weren’t a family friend, you would be welcomed here,” Nodoka replied.

Ranma nodded, and looked to Tsubasa. “Why are you here, anyway? Not to sound rude or nothing…”

Tsubasa waved off the awkward question gamely. “Ah you’re fine! The landlady took me in off the street after my asshole parents threw me out.”

“Huh!” Ranma was surprised that someone would throw out someone so decent. “Why’d they do that?”

“Oh, you know how it is. Mom and Dad being all hopped up on that traditional bullshit wanted a firstborn son to raise into a man who would take care of them and all that fluff, instead they got a daughter. They didn’t like that very much, so they kicked me out.”

Ranma gasped. “What?!”

Tsubasa shrugged her shoulders. “No hard feelings though.”

“But they got rid of you because you’re a girl!”

Tsubasa nodded. “Yeah, I know, but I live here now in an awesome house with an awesome lady who is way cooler and more supportive of who I am than my parents ever were.”

Ranma was silent for a moment, surprised to not only hear Tsubasa’s origins… but to see that his Yamato Nadeshiko mother had done so much for her when by traditional standards she’d be a disgrace.

“This is the same woman who agreed to assist my suicide for the disgrace I’m bringing to the family, right?” she thought.

Nodoka picked up a cup of water and sipped from it. “And as long as you’re living here, Tsubasa-chan, you are part of this family in all but name.” She smiled. “Even after you leave.”

Tsubasa blushed and rubbed the back of her head. “Aw geez…”

Ranma lingered her stare on Tsubasa for a moment, as she processed actually having a sister who was a pretty cool guy. She looked to Nodoka. “Why not put her on the family register?”

Nodoka sighed. “Because my dear husband has it with him.” She shook her head forlornly. “And I haven’t seen him in almost a decade…”

“… Oh,” Ranma flatly said. as Genma’s ability to so easily sell her off into marriage was suddenly explained..

“Which reminds me,” Nodoka said, “You wouldn’t happened to have seen my husband at all?”

Ranma quickly shook her head. “No, not at all, it’s just me, my Dad, and my three sisters ha, ha, ha, ha….”

Nodoka hummed, sounding disappointed. “I see. What about your sisters? Are they coming along nicely as young women? Last I heard Kasumi was quite the martial artist.”

“Oh, um… Kasumi’s mostly retired. She’s much more inclined to being a homebody… and um… she’s dating a Doctor,” Ranma replied.

“I see,” the disappointment in Nodoka’s voice was even more apparent, “Well, I suppose that’s nice for her.”

Ranma briefly lifted an eyebrow. “Why does she sound upset? Wait, was she thinking of Kasumi and me?!”

It wasn’t like Ranma never entertained the thought but when she did it was weird, wrong even. Plus she wanted Dr. Tofu as a romantic rival as much as she wanted to challenge Sailor Moon to a fist fight.

“If it makes you feel better, he’s a martial artist, too. He can destroy a person’s body with a single touch to their pressure points just as easily as he can heal what ails them,” Ranma reassured her.

Nodoka’s face lit in interest. “Oh! Now that’s not bad at all! What about Nabiki-chan?”

Ranma quickly shook her head. “She has no interest in martial arts at all. Though I think if she put any effort into it, she’d be good…”

“That’s nice,” a now thoroughly uninterested Nodoka said.

“She’s really good with collecting information though. I mean, wow… she’s got connections and knows people like it’s her business, or something,” Ranma quickly said.

At that, Nodoka brightened again. “Really? I had heard that her interests were more intellectual than anything, but that’s very good. How’s her love life?”

Ranma immediately thought of her interactions with Shampoo as of late. “Err… ambiguous.”

“Oh? Not very interested in men?” Nodoka bluntly attacked.

“I didn’t say that,” Ranma quickly replied, suddenly finding this conversation very surreal.

“Ah, she’s fine with both. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, either,” Nodoka said.

“I don’t really know my mother at all, do I?” Ranma asked herself.

It was either this, her father feeding a ton of bullshit (most likely), or something had profoundly changed the woman who she’d always remembered as the most Japanese woman who ever lived.

“Now… what about the ‘Worldwide Road Roller?’” Nodoka asked.

Ranma smiled. “Akane? She’s great! She’s almost as good as me, maybe even my equal.”

Nodoka stared meaningfully at Ranma for a moment, before she brought a hand to her lips and giggled at something she found terribly funny.

Ranma was a bit confused. “What?”

“Nothing,” Nodoka said with a smile before she heard a beeping down the hall. It was the alarm of a home security system.

Tsubasa immediately sat up, alert, while Nodoka was far more languid as she stood up.

Ranma looked towards the direction of the noise. “What’s that?”

“Don’t worry about it, Ranko-chan. A rabbit probably set off the alarm. Just sit down and watch TV with Tsubasa-chan,” Nodoka said before she left the living room.

As Nodoka departed, Ranma looked over to Tsubasa and the show she was drooling over. “So… uh… Biker Gangs?”

“Uh huh,” she said before biting her lower lip at all the testosterone on the television.

“Neat,” Ranma said as she got comfortable to watch with her.


Rolling down the street, an 8x8 crane truck bearing the NBK logo carefully made its way down a main road in Nerima. In the extended cab of the truck, Hagane sat at the wheel and Nanami in the passenger seat. Behind them, Akane and Ryoga watched the sidewalks for any sign of Ranma.

“Thank you for coming out to get us, Hagane, Mousie couldn’t be assed to,” Nanami said.

Hagane smiled. “It’s what I’m here for, chief.” At a stoplight, he looked back to Akane. “It’s nice to finally meet one of the kings.”

Akane looked back towards Hagane. “Likewise nice to meet another member of your team.”

She was already trying to get a read of him, but all she saw of him so far was the big dumb muscle of NBK. With how Nanami surprised them, she was interested to know what kind of secrets he hid.

As if he could sense her scrutiny, Hagane spoke. “If you’re curious, I handle the sheer brute force of the business. Wrecking balls, hammers, or my bare hands, there’s not a building I haven’t been able to knock down.”

“Ever worry about the buildings hitting back?” Akane asked.

“A falling building hits harder than the people I’ve fought,” Hagane smartly replied.

Akane huffed. “I’ll have to change that.”

“I look forward to seeing you try!” Hagane said with a laugh.

Ryoga leaned over. “Hopefully after we’ve found Ranma, guys?”

“Of course,” Hagane said.

On that note, Nanami soured. “I didn’t think it’d hit him that hard after we were done.”

Akane looked towards her. “What happened, anyway?”

“Well, let me ask you this: Do you like to fight?” Nanami asked.

Akane found that question a little weird. “Of course I do. I picked up martial arts because my sister was doing them, and I really liked it.”

“Ranma doesn’t,” Nanami said plainly.

Both Akane and Ryoga stopped and stared at Nanami like she was speaking Gaelic.

“Come again?” Akane asked.

“He doesn’t? That doesn’t make sense…” Ryoga said.

“He is so exceptionally good at his art, that he doesn’t find any joy in battle,” Nanami replied, “His fights are just motions, chores that he doesn’t care to do.”

Hagane hummed. “He’s that good, hm?”

“He’s magnificent, actually,” Nanami replied.

“And how’d you come to this conclusion?” Akane demanded.

Nanami sat back in her chair. “He should’ve been able to beat me. He fought like a man who was doing it at gunpoint; if it weren’t for the money on the line he wouldn’t even be participating.” She looked back at Akane. “Is that right?”

“Well, yeah we’re only really in it for the money,” Akane admitted, “But he can’t just hate to fight. He’s been a martial artist all his life!”

“But he hasn’t had a fight that he’s enjoyed, has he?” Nanami asked before she looked out the front. “His fights have always been because someone has been after him, or because someone threatened what is his. Has he once, since you met him, fought for just the sake of becoming a better fighter?”

Ryoga looked away, feeling somewhat embarrassed that he contributed to this.

Akane rested her hands on her lap, balling them into fists. “No… not once. There’s always been something.”

She was suddenly reminded of when she fought off the boys who wanted to date her. Two pound weights, she called them, and Ranma was so much better than all of the people they fought. Every fight, even the fights she struggled in he had next to no problem when he was motivated to fight them. But when he faced opponents who were too much trouble for him…

“It’s all right, though,” Nanami assured Akane, “It’s never too late to learn to love the fight, or seek to become stronger. Ranma just needs to keep fighting, and he needs to watch you fight.”

Akane leaned forward. “Watch me?”

Nanami looked back, and grinned determinedly. “Teach him a thing or two about how much you love to fight, okay? When I fight him again, I want him to see me as another mountain that he wants to climb.”

Hagane peered ahead through the rain, and then stopped the truck. “Oi, boss.”

Nanami looked ahead, and hummed when she saw Lucretia standing in the road. Akane saw her and glowered. “Oh no, now what?”

Both she and Nanami stepped out of the truck, followed by Shirokuro, and walked towards Lucretia, with Nanami hanging back. Reaching her, Akane spoke. “What do you want?”

“The same thing you want, presumably,” Lucretia replied, “We cannot find Ranma Saotome.”

She looked past Akane at Nanami. “We also have some issue with your skirmish.”

Nanami crossed her arms just below her chest. “That was a friendly spar, we put nothing on the line. There’s nothing in the rules against that.”

Lucretia nodded. “It would do you good to have a referee on hand. Keep that in mind for future ‘friendlies.’”

“You needn’t worry about looking for Ranma, we’ll find him ourselves.” Akane gestured to Shirokuro. “We already have his scent.”

With that, Shirokuro sniffed at the rain-soaked sidewalk, then pointed with her nose down the road and across a bridge that would take them cross the river and into Nishitokyo.

Akane looked up from the dog to Lucretia. “Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”

Lucretia nodded. “Yes. Complaints from residents there have forbidden Grand Prix matches at night and on any private property. While there will be no formal actions taken against you by the Grand Prix, the residents in question have said in no uncertain terms that they will use force against anyone violating their request.”

“We’re not looking for a fight, just to make sure Ranma is safe,” Nanami argued.

Again, Lucretia nodded. “That’s understood. If you’re going to continue into Nishitokyo, be aware that two teams are there as well and are looking for him.”

Akane frowned. “Which ones?”

“The Red Hot Tea House, and the Fifth Division of the Wild Bulls Gang, the Red Bulls. One is a team that specializes in ninja techniques, the other specializes in tactical operations,” Lucretia described.

“So more fodder. If we run into them, I’ll wipe them out without making a sound.” Akane turned around and headed back to the crane truck. “Let’s get going.”

As Akane walked past Nanami, the latter turned to follow but stopped and looked back at Lucretia. Staring intently at her for a moment, she turned and followed Akane and Shirokuro back into the truck, as Lucretia flickered out of sight.


Koueda and Koume peered from one of the tall trees that grew inside the walls of Nodoka Saotome’s home. The two Kunoichi were marveling at how large the compound actually was, and how well the trees managed conceal it.

“This place… it’s huge,” Koueda whispered to Koutetsu, who was sitting on a branch above them, smoking from a cigar.

“I know, to think that uppity little brat lives in a place like this!” Koutetsu snapped back, envying the size of the home.

“When we win the Grand Prix, we should buy a house bigger than this, Mother! Think of all the customers will be able to entertain!” Koueda declared.

Koutetsu pulled the cigar from her mask covered lips and blew a puff of smoke through the fabric. “Why buy a house, when we could get one for free, hm?”

Her daughters shared Koutetsu’s evil expressions at that.

Noticing movement, Kotetsu looked down to the grounds below. “Look, they’re moving in.”

The dense foliage of the property was perfect for the Red Bulls, whose infiltration was straight out of a special operations field manual. The red-dressed soldiers slipped over the walls from all sides but from the street, moving quickly and silently to limit their visibility. Two teams of men from the Red Bulls, four soldiers in each. Over a dozen others were taking position outside, assembling assets to support the fireteams inside the wall.

One such team was setting up a man-portable mortar; on the roof of a nearby house, sticking closely to the shadows, an observation team kept watch; on another roof, a Red Bull member threw a remote controlled plane into the air and ducked down as his comrade took control. A block over and on the other side of the river that ran through the neighborhood, the leader of the Red Bulls took command from the back of a large armored van parked on the street.

“This is Big Red One to Sexy Mama, come in,” Shishioh radioed to Kotetsu, “Do you read me Sexy Mama?”

“Sexy Mama here,” Koutetsu replied, “We’re in position and ready to move in.”

“Understood, confirm that the target is in the house, and then fall back to a safe position; we’ll do the rest,” Shishioh ordered.

“We will take care of that,” Koutetsu said, “By the way, what are your rules of engagement regarding civilians?”

In the van, Shishioh grinned a bit sickly. “The Tournament’s Rules expressly forbid killing competitors, and we plan to uphold that rule to the letter.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. Keep the collateral damage to lives and not property, and we’ll be much more inclined to let you have the crown,” Koutetsu requested.

“Will do, Sexy Mama,” Shishioh agreed.

Koutetsu looked to Koueda and Koume. “Let’s go, and don’t screw it up like you did before. Koume, you watch over us, Koueda, you’re with me.”

With that, all three kunoichi became blurs, moving from tree to tree in erratic, zigzagging movements before splitting up. Kotetsu and Koeda landed in the bushes behind the house, where they could see the soft flickering glow of a television through the paper screens of the house.

From the bushes they looked back, and could easily make out dim glints of the house’s lights reflecting off the goggles and sights of the armed soldiers. Koutetsu then looked to Koueda, and with an affirming nod they moved straight for the back patio, landing on it with a feather soft touch.

Overhead, the drone launched by the Red Bulls streamed the image of the kunoichis’ infiltration back to Shishioh’s van.

“Alpha, Bravo, any movement to report?” he radioed the fireteams.

“Negative,” Alpha Team’s leader reported.

“No joy,” Bravo team answered.

“Neighborhood Watch, what you got out there?” he asked the forces outside.

One of the observation teams peered through the scope of his rifle, watching every exit. “No movement at the doors.” He checked the windows. “No movement in the house, they have no idea.”

“Rainmaker, what’s your status?” Shishioh asked, and got no response. “Hey, are you assholes there? Answer me.” There was continued silence. “Hey, are you there? Did your radios break again?”

There was a staticy sound, like the fumbling of a microphone, before there was an answer. “Rainmaker h-here we’re in position. Nothing to report.”

Shishioh nodded. “Good, when the word comes in, get ready to drop smoke and fire on our target. Though I doubt we’ll need it.”

“Understood,” the speaker hurriedly responded, “Send firing coordinates anytime.”

Shishioh ended the call, and grinned. “In a few minutes, boys… the Red Bulls will be the Kings of the Hill.”


Inside the house, Ranma leaned back on her arms as the episode they watched drew to its violent conclusion. “Jeez, I’m glad the biker gangs in Japan aren’t this messed up, and are just loud and annoying.”

“A couple of years back, there was this really awful gang of mountain racers in Matsumoto Prefecture,” Tsubasa said, “They called themselves the Z-Boys and they were the worst. They killed like fifty people and junk.”

Ranma looked at Tsubasa like she’d just torn off her clothes and revealed she was a dude. “Bullshit.”

“It’s true,” Tsubasa insisted.

“I think a gang of Initial-D fanboys going all murderhobo would be in the news,” Ranma said. “What happened to them?”

“One November night, their Leader went totally berserk and started this huge fight. The entire gang killed each other in a hail of bullets,” Tsubasa said with the same tone one would tell a ghost story.

Ranma stared at her.

“True story,” Tsubasa insisted, while gesturing emphatically with a cup of juice.

Ranma burst into laughter. “Ha, yeah right!”

Tsubasa giggled and snorted. “Okay, okay you got me.”

Ranma folded her arms. “I thought so.”

“They were actually slaughtered by ninja working for the Emperor,” Tsubasa then quickly said.

Ranma gave her a flat stare. “Oi, stop making stuff up.”

Tsubasa giggled at Ranma’s expression. Rolling her eyes, Ranma joined her with an amused chuckle.

Koutetsu and Koueda placed their ears on the paper screen that separated them from the inside of the large house. They could clearly hear Ranma’s laughter, and that obnoxious snort of Tsubasa’s. That especially incensed the two kunoichi.

“They’re definitely there,” Koutetsu seethed.

“Can you confirm that the target is there?” Shishioh asked.

Koutetsu looked to Koueda and nodded as she smirked darkly behind her mask. “Oh yes, I can hear them with perfect clarity. They’re in the sitting room of the house, laughing and having a good time.”

“Good, fall back ladies,” Shishioh commanded, before contacting the nearest fireteams. “Alpha, Bravo, move in to attack, we’ve got the bastard.”

“Understood, we’re moving in,” Alpha Leader said before he signaled for the two teams to quickly emerge from their cover and creep swiftly towards the patio.

Raising their suppressed rifles as the two kunoichi vacated, the soldiers passed final confirming looks to each other and then opened fire. The subsonic rounds were relatively quiet in the pouring rain as they punched through the paper screen, shredding it and its wooden frame entirely until it fell to the polished wood floor with a clatter.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Alpha Leader suddenly called out, shocked.

One by one the soldiers stopped firing, and they all stared at a completely empty sitting room. It was furnished like any other sitting room, and even the super-sized plasma HDTV in the room was on. Stepping into the room, Alpha Leader stared at the screen itself, and shook his head. “What the…?”

On the TV was a closed circuit feed of Ranma and Tsubasa watching television, completely unaware of the attack, in another part of the house. The television then flickered off.

Koutetsu and Koueda landed next to the Alpha Leader and looked to each other.

“A decoy?” Koueda asked.

“Impossible! There’s no way they’d have detected our approach,” Koutetsu shot back.

In his fancy control van, Shishioh quickly heard of the turnabout. “What? They’re not there!?”

“They’re somewhere else in the house,” Alpha Leader replied.

Shishioh grumbled. “Damn! Alpha! Bravo! Enter the house!”

“Understood,” Alpha Team leader announced as his team raised their rifles and stepped into the house. He looked back. “Bravo Team, go around the side.”

“Rainmaker? Get ready to make the noise!” Shishioh demanded, and got no response. “Rainmaker? Hey you assholes, respond!”

Again there was no response, and Shishioh began to sweat. “You’re kidding me, their radios are out? Neighborhood watch, get eyes on Rainmaker!”

“Understood… uh… sir, I’ve got no joy on Rainmaker,” one of the recon units responded.

“No joy from up top either,” the team controlling the drone revealed.

Shishioh gripped the radio handset so tightly its plastic casing cracked. “Enter the house! Find Ranma Saotome and turn him into a fucking cripple!”


“What up, biyatch?” Tsubasa’s phone suddenly called out, alerting her to pick it up.

Ranma looked over at her. “What’s up?”

“Just a text message,” Tsubasa said as she read it. “Huh, Landlady says she needs my help with something. Apparently some asshole climbed over the wall and is casing the joint.”

Ranma moved to get up. “I’ll go kick his ass.”

Tsubasa stood up. “No need, Landlady and I are the neighborhood watch and you’re our guest. Help yourself to some sweets in the kitchen and watch some TV, kay?”

With that, Tsubasa skipped off down the hall, humming happily to herself. Watching her go, Ranma couldn’t help her frown and sat back. Tsubasa was one heck of a ninja, she reassured herself, if anything happened she could take care of things.

Down the hall, Tsubasa’s skipping turned into a purposeful stride, as she rounded a corner and headed for a large cypress cupboard at the end of the hall. Reaching it, she unlatched and opened it, revealing a veritable arsenal of weapons ranging from standard kunai and knives to short swords, police batons, handguns, rifles, and even grenades.

Slipping off her kimono, she quickly pulled from a drawer a blue pleated skirt and blue sailor uniform top, and quickly pulled them on, before arming herself with several bandoliers of kunai around her legs and forearms. Humming as she considered the guns.

“Nah, not cute enough,” she decided and instead grabbed a pair of blue and white police batons before twirling them like tonfa. “Perf!”

Turning, she then broke into a run, her eyes bearing a dangerous gleam as she became a blur down the corridor. Rounding another corner in the maze-like house, she holstered the batons and let two kunai slip down her sleeves and into her hands just as she ran into the kitchen of the house–and its door was smashed open.

Stepping inside, the breaching member of Bravo Team, turned towards her and immediately raised his rifle at the sight of a school girl vaulting the kitchen’s center island towards him.

A kunai struck his trigger hand, slicing it. A second kunai hit him in the shoulder, and he dropped the rifle before Tsubasa jumped and kicked him in the head, cracking his helmet and mask and sending him flying back out the door and into the side of a tree.

She landed in the open doorway, and in front of the other three members of Bravo Team, who were still in the golden moment of moving between surprise and realization that they were under attack. Time appeared to slow as she watched their weapons raise and their trigger fingers move to position.

Ducking, she dove between the two men on either side of the doorway, and quickly darted past
the man to her right to go straight for the man behind him as bullets tore up the wall and floor behind her.

Like a vine around a tree, Tsubasa wound herself around the tail-end Bravo team member, before springing off his back with a rapid twisting motion, sending him spinning to the ground as she landed on the underside of the roof’s overhang.

As the remaining two Bravo team members turned to bring their rifles to bear, she kicked off and caught her arm around the neck of the nearest man, and swung around it, kicking the other in the face, before she used the momentum of her swing to come over and then slam him down top of the head first into the wooden patio, breaking the heavy polished wood.

The last member of Bravo team staggered back, and lifted his rifle to shoot, before he was promptly struck in the throat with a thrown baton. Roundhouse kicking him in the head, Tsubasa grabbed his arm before throwing him to the patio floor face up with tremendous force. Dropping a kunai into her free hand, she raised it and unceremoniously drove it into his neck before ripping it out.

Standing up, she twirled around and posed. “Tsubasa Kurenai strikes!” she declared cheerfully before she heard a buzzing. “Areh?”

Producing another kunai, she stepped off the patio. After scanning the canopy of trees, she threw it through the dense dense foliage. A moment later she heard a crack and a pop, and then a crash.

“The drone’s down!” Neighborhood Watch alerted Shishioh.

“Is everything going wrong?!” Shishioh yelled. “Bravo team! Respond! Respond!”

There was no answer.

Shishioh screamed in frustration. “Damn it! Alpha Team, find Bravo Team and tell them their radios are dead!”

“Alpha Team here, we’re moving through the house now-” the radio cut off abruptly, leaving only silence.

Shishioh looked at his radio, and then at the now blank screen that was supposed to be their eyes on the house. “God damn it,” he realized, “They knew we were coming.”

He held up his radio. “All Red Bulls, if you can hear me, move in on the house loud and hot! They know we’re here!”

Back at the house, Koutetsu and Koueda rejoined Koume on the roof of the house, moving on the hunt for that uppity ninja girl.

“That remote controlled plane they had up there got shot down,” Koume said to her sister and mother. “It came from the west side of the house.”

Koutetsu hummed. “That’s her, let’s go!”

“No need to come looking! Tsubasa is here!” Tsubasa announced. She was standing behind them on the end of the roof, twirling a tonfa in one hand. “And I’m gonna mess you old hags up!” she said with a wink.

“What did you say?!” Koueda and Koume yelled before they were held back by their mother.

Koutetsu stepped forward, chomping on her cigar again through her mask. “You’ve got some impressive balls for a little girl.”

“Well some people just can’t help how they’re born,” Tsubasa replied.

“Though, balls won’t help you in this fight,” Koutetsu said before she glanced off to her right and then back to Tsubasa.

Tsubasa looked over where Koutetsu looked. “Eh? What?”

Koutetsu looked over again, her eyebrow rising. There was supposed to be a gunshot, and the girl was supposed to topple over dead. “Hey… what are you guys waiting for?”

“Oh, you’re talking about those snipers, right?” Tsubasa asked, causing the three ninja to freeze.

Tsubasa smiled cheerily. “They’re probably dead right now.”

“Dead?!” Koume and Koueda repeated.

Koutetsu’s eyes grew large. “You… you’ve been taking them out?!”

“Yes, and no,” Tsubasa replied, “I mean, I can’t be everywhere at once. I’m not some kind of magical ninja girl who can make copies of herself like that. Though I heard there was such a ninja, you might have heard of her?”

Koutetsu blanched as Tsubasa smiled cutely.

“Too bad she’s not here, I probably would’ve had to put out some effort against you uggos.”

That taunt made Koueda and Koume bristle with anger. “Don’t you dare…” Koueda snarled.

“… Compare us to that ugly bitch!” Koume yelled as both kunoichi charged straight for Tsubasa.

Tsubasa snickered and snorted. “You’re right, you don’t even come close to her!”

Koueda quickly slipped a pair of tiger claw weapons over her hands that she attempted to slash her with. For her trouble, she took the end of a baton to the stomach, doubling her over, before an uppercut from the other sent her flipping through the air off the roof.

Spinning around while twirling the batons in her hands, Tsubasa turned her back and crossed the batons over her head to block the handle of the heavy axe Koume tried to bring down on her head.

With a quick flip of both weapons, Tsubasa jabbed Koume in the stomach with the ends of the batons, knocking the wind out of her. She turned and somersault kicked Koume in the chin, knocking her backward two steps. Landing, she performed numerous spinning strikes on Koume with both batons, each blow knocking her back again and again towards Koutetsu. After a final spin strike, she jumped and bicycle kicked Koume in her chin repeatedly, the last blow knocking the giant kunoichi off the roof.

Landing on the roof, Tsubasa twirled her batons and smiled. “Supreme victory!”

She turned around to face Koutetsu, who was gawking like an idiot at what she’d just seen. “Now,” she began, “What was it I said about this neighborhood? Oh yeah… it was the wrong one to come to. I even used motherfucker for emphasis! Come on, lady!”

Koutetsu took a step back from Tsubasa, trembling. “You… you…!”

Tsubasa took a step forward. “Let me tell you somethin’ though. I’m going easy on you because if I turned it up any higher, you’d all be dead and I don’t want that. People like you deserve your miserable lives devoid of any happiness and satisfaction, especially for the things you did to Konatsu.”

Koutetsu bit through her cigar. “Hmph! We did that mockery of women a favor after his father died-!”

Tsubasa froze, and for a moment, Koutetsu swore she saw a demon in the cute girl’s place.

“You should leave,” she said.

Terrified by the pure killing intent directed at her, Koutetsu quickly pulled out a smoke bomb before she threw it on the ground, creating a large pall of smoke that was quickly washed down by the rain. Nevertheless, the tiny ninja escaped.

“What up, biyatch?” Tsubasa’s phone demanded again, and she checked the message.

“Oh, so they’re coming,” she said before turning around and brightening up. “Tsubasa Kurenai, going forth!”

With that she ran and leaped off the roof. “Hup!”

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

Inside the house, the sound of the smoke bomb was muffled by intense fist fight happening on television that Ranma was captively watching. “Akane will love this show.”

On the other side of the house, the members of Alpha Team slowly made their way down the pitch dark halls with the aid of thermal imaging goggles, checking every doorway on their way to Ranma’s location. At the front of the group, Alpha Team Leader checked his radio. “Bro, we’re in the house, we have not sighted the target.”

There was no response on the radio. He looked at it. “Bro? Bravo Team? Anyone there?”

The radio was completely silent. “Damn it, this old house must be blocking the signal.”

He looked back to his three men in the shadows behind him. “Move up quietly, I hear the TV.”

With their fingers resting on their trigger guards, the four soldiers crept down the long, dark hallway towards a corner. Checking it, Alpha Leader found no traps or threats, and carefully rounded the corner. Two men followed him.

“These hallways all look alike… even the furniture’s arranged in the same way,” the man directly behind Alpha Leader, Alpha Two, observed as the three advanced down the hall.

“Think it could be a trap? To confuse us?” Alpha Three asked.

Alpha Leader didn’t look back. “That’s absurd, why would someone do that to their own house, unless they were totally paranoid or crazy or something?”

“I guess,” Alpha Three said as he checked behind him for Alpha Four. “Huh?”

Ranma looked up from the TV, and then quickly paused it when she thought she heard a strange noise. She focused on her hearing, listening past the ambient sound of the rain pouring outside, trying to pick out the strange noise she heard. It sounded almost like footsteps on a wooden floor.

Standing up, she headed towards the doorway and saw only pitch darkness down the long hallway. “Hey, Tsubasa? Auntie…?”

She heard footsteps coming from down the hall, and tensed up. “Hey… is everything all right down there?”

The footsteps grew louder, before the form of Nodoka emerged from the darkness. Seeing Ranma, she smiled. “Oh did I give you a fright?”

Ranma relaxed and shook her head. “Nah, I thought I heard something. I guess it was just you. Is Tsubasa okay?”

“Yes, she went out after the intruders,” Nodoka replied.

Ranma frowned. “Wait, there are more of them?”

“Oh, quite a few! They seem to be very well armed and equipped bandits, maybe even terrorists!” Nodoka said nonchalantly as she walked over to the table and picked up the kettle to pour herself some tea. “Though, for the life of me I can’t understand why terrorists would invade my house.”

Ranma grimaced. It sounded like another team of wackos were after her, but how were they able to track her here to the house when she was a girl?

“Don’t concern yourself about them, Tsubasa is more than enough for them all by herself,” Nodoka said.

And that just annoyed Ranma. If it was another team, then her Mom and Tsubasa were getting caught up in her mess. “Still… I should really go out and do something…”

Nodoka sipped her tea. “Nonsense, you’d only get in her way.”

That stung. “I can fight, you know!”

She finished her tea, lowering the cup. “Even if you can, this isn’t your fight.”

“What if it is?!” Ranma demanded.

“Why would it be?” Nodoka asked as she turned towards her.

Ranma recoiled. “I… er…”

Nodoka took a sip from her tea, and finding the cup low she took the kettle and refilled it. “Is it this Grand Prix nonsense that’s got these people at my house, Ranko-chan?”

Ranko began to stammer. “Uh… um…” She lowered her head, and nodded. “Well… yeah, I’m part of a Grand Prix Team-”

“The Saotome/Tendo School of Indiscriminate Grappling?” Nodoka asked.

Ranma became very quiet, sweat beating down her forehead and running down it. “Um… well… it’s… you see…”

Reaching out, Nodoka placed her hand on Ranma’s shoulder, and Ranma tensed under the contact. “There’s no such person as Ranko Tendo. But…”

She took her cup of tea and poured it on Ranma’s head, transforming her back into him.

“There’s a Ranma Saotome.”

Ranma stared blankly at her, unable to move. Looking him over, Nodoka shook her head and smiled.

“I thought that was you and Akane-chan I saw at that convenience store,” she said warmly as she squeezed his shoulder.

Ranma twitched. “Wait, you bought those… knowing it was me?!”

“Of course I did! You’re not too young to be in love, but I’m certainly too young to be a grandmother!” Nodoka said cheerfully.

“B-but how’d you even know it was-?!” Ranma yelped when Nodoka reached over and tugged on his pigtail. “Hey!”

“Come on, you think I won’t recognize my own son from a mile away sporting this?” she asked with a laugh. “I remember when I tied a pigtail in your hair before your father took you back out on the road.”

She stopped when she noticed Ranma looking up at her fearfully, and let go of his pigtail. “What’s wrong?”

“Th-the contract,” Ranma replied.

Nodoka blinked, confounded by what he meant. “What about it?”

Ranma averted his gaze. “… Wasn’t I supposed to kill myself if I’m not a man amongst men?”

Nodoka expression became perplexed.

“What?” she asked.

“Uh…” Ranma looked down at himself. “… I turn into a girl.”

Nodoka rested her hand on his shoulder again, and stroked it. “What, do you think that doesn’t make you a man?”

“How can a man amongst men be that when he turns into a cute girl?!” Ranma asked.

Nodoka stared at Ranma, before she closed her eyes and shook her head. “Oh goodness…”

“Well?!” Ranma demanded.

“Son, please,” Nodoka said as she placed her fingers on her lips. Setting down her teacup and standing up, she turned and gestured for him to stand as well.

“Your father… I love him but he has such simple ideas about manliness.”

She placed her hands on her hips and huffed cutely. “I blame that master of his… and his general short-sightedness. He only made that promise because I wouldn’t let you go otherwise after the cat thing.”

“Yeah, Pop is a real ‘short term’ type of guy…” Ranma muttered, before he looked at her intensely. “But, seriously? You don’t mind that I can transform into a girl?”

Nodoka giggled. “If men and women were determined by just what’s between their legs, then I would’ve killed you on the spot.” She smiled gently. “What makes a man a man’s man or a woman a woman’s woman is what kind of person they discover they are. You are, and always were, a man’s man, in my book, even if you can turn into a woman now.”

Ranma blinked several times. “R-really?”

“Of course, why would I think otherwise?” Nodoka asked.

Tears formed in Ranma’s eyes. “… M-Mom…” he laughed, before flinging himself forward and and hugging her tightly. “I’m just… I can’t believe this is happening…!”

Nodoka returned the hug, and kissed him on the top of his head. “My son… welcome home. I’m sorry for messing with you when you first got here.”

She pulled back. “But seriously, Ranko?”

“I’m sorry, I panicked!” he quickly answered.

Kissing him on his forehead, Nodoka laughed and cuddled him close before she remembered. “Oh dear, then that means those gentlemen are here for a match.”

Ranma blinked. “What? What happened to them?”

“Well…” Nodoka seemed to search for a way to put this best. “… You know what? Don’t worry about it. They seemed rather content with killing Tsubasa-chan and I since we weren’t counted as competitors. So they’re getting what they deserve.”

Ranma blinked again as he processed that. His vision promptly turned red. “Wait… WHAT?!”

Nodoka smiled. “Relax, Ranma… we were never in danger.” She gestured for him to follow her towards the patio doors.

Ranma stopped. “You weren’t?”

Nodoka opened the door, revealing a blood-splattered and grinning Tsubasa standing there, and looked back at him. “We are the danger.”


Building up speed, the Red Bulls’ armored van raced down the street towards the gate to Nodoka Saotome’s home. On either side of the gate, the remaining Red Bulls waited with rifles at the ready. Reaching the gate, the large van swerved right and crashed through it, sending the two halves of the gate crashing to the ground. It quickly spun out, nearly toppling over as it came to a stop, but righted itself with a heavy thud.

From either side of the gate, the Red Bulls charged in, quickly but silently fanning out around the van with their rifles raised. The flashlights on the weapons illuminated the dark interior of the wall, spotlights dancing over trees, rocks, and the creek that the property was built around.

From inside the van, Shishioh and the few Red Bulls who rode with him stepped out. In his hand, Shishioh held a very large caliber pistol that looked just as menacing as the assault rifles fielded by his men.

“I don’t care if you have to flip the whole house on its roof! Find them!” he yelled out as he brandished the weapon.

“You will not set another foot towards this house, much less inside it.”

Shishioh stopped, and lowered his weapon when the lights inside the courtyard of Nodoka Saotome’s home came on, revealing the true beauty of the palatial courtyard that Ranma had only caught the barest glimpse of in the darkness. They also revealed Nodoka herself, standing at the entrance of her home, staring sternly at the men who knocked down her gate.

Beside her, Ranma leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed and a very sour look on his face. Next to him, Tsubasa twirled a kunai in her hand.

Shishioh pointed his weapon at him. “Ranma Saotome, I knew you were here!”

Ranma looked at the wannabe soldiers and equipment and snorted in annoyance.

“Do not point your worthless guns at my son,” Nodoka said sternly as she placed herself between Ranma and Shishioh, “Not in my neighborhood, and certainly not on my property.”

Shishioh was taken aback by the kimono-clad woman’s complete lack of fear in the face of his superior firepower as much as he was surprised by the fact that this woman was apparently his mother!

“You’re his… mother?” He narrowed his eyes. “Lady, I don’t think you realize the kind of situation you’re in. This punk has what amounts to a billion yen bounty on his head, and the Red Bulls aim to collect!”

“OOH RAH!” the other Red Bulls shouted as they pointed their weapons at her.

“So unless you want to get yourself hurt, you’ll get out of the way–because there’s no rule that says that people can’t die. Just that competitors aren’t allowed to kill each other.”

At the very threat to his mother’s life, Ranma didn’t move from his spot against the door frame, he didn’t even flinch. There was a flicker of yellow light across his body, his barely suppressed battle aura almost leaking from beneath his skin.

Nodoka sighed and stepped forward to the edge of her porch. “That is correct, however… that rule goes the other way as well; does it not Referee-san?”

Behind the Red Bulls, holding an umbrella over his head, Joukyuu watched with an amused smile. “Yeah, that’s right.”

Shishioh looked back at him. “Oi! Kunitoshi! What the hell are you doing here?!”

“I’m refereeing the match, I’m a ref… that’s what I’m paid to do,” Joukyuu replied plainly.

Nodoka quickly regained Shishioh’s attention. “Before that match starts, however, I want you to understand the situation that you are in. You have broken into my house, damaged my property, and endangered the lives of my children. When my son fights you, Red Bull-san, it will only be you against him… because your men have forfeited their lives to me.”

“Aw, Landlady! Yer makin’ me blush!” Tsubasa said with her hands on her cheeks.

Shishioh laughed and aimed his pistol at her forehead. “The only life that’s forfeit is yours, bitch!”

Nodoka closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, and she let out a soft-sounding kiai. “Hyah!”

A noticeable silence fell after that, broken only by the sound of the rain falling intensely through the canopy of trees and onto the roof of the house. Shishioh stared at Nodoka, trying to understand what just happened and looked back again at Joukyuu.

Joukyuu’s expression had changed, from amusement to ready interest. Something had grabbed all of his attention, and he was staring intently at Nodoka.

Shishioh then heard terrified whimpers, coming from his men, and looked around. “Hey, what the…?”

It didn’t take him long to realize that his soldiers were frozen in fear. Their trembling hands were barely holding onto their guns, and were it not for the rain, he would be able to see that the pants of a good number of them were well soaked around the crotch and down the insides of their legs.

“What…?” Shishioh asked as he stared at her, he felt the tremendous weight of unrelenting fear fall upon his shoulders. “What the hell?”

Nodoka’s hands went behind he and undid the tightly wound sash around her kimono, and let it unroll around her to the ground. Tilting her head forward and dropping her shoulders, she allowed her kimono to loosen and slip from her shoulders and to the porch.

Underneath the prim and beautiful kimono was an entirely different sight. Nodoka’s black underwear clad body was adorned with long faded scars across her stomach and legs; her arms, sides, and legs were covered with black hibiscus flower tattoos, while her shoulders sported the tattoos of snarling demon faces. From her shoulders, shoulder straps hung where a pair of handguns sat snugly in their holsters at her waist.

Brad Shishioh’s eyes widened as he stared at her, and he quickly zeroed his pistol on her. Suddenly, his training had kicked in–he was staring at a hostile and that if he didn’t pull the trigger he was going to die. However, even as his training yelled for him to shoot… his body was too terrified to move.

“You are not wrong to be terrified, Red Bull-san,” Nodoka correctly stated as the lights went out one by one, “It is only natural for men to fear when in the presence of Death.”

And then there was nothing but pitch darkness.


Several blocks over, Hagane slammed the brakes of his truck, and leaned over the wheel. “Oh! My! God! Do you feel that?!”

There wasn’t anyone in the cab who didn’t. Both Akane and Ryoga were nearly thrown into a fright by the murderous presence they could suddenly feel. It both reminded them of Shampoo when they had fought her, but stronger, and extremely refined.

Nanami gripped the handle on the passenger side door, as she licked her lips. “There’s a killer out there… a real one.” She looked to Akane and Ryoga. “Care to go check it out?”


Another long, tense silence in the dark reigned, broken only by the rain, as Ranma looked towards Tsubasa, who was standing perfectly still. In front of him, she could barely make out the shape of her mother in the darkness, as she stood on the porch.

And then the silence shattered.

Screaming in terror Shishioh fired his pistol, its muzzle flashes illuminating Nodoka walking towards him, completely unharmed by his wild firing.

His gaze didn’t leave hers, his mind raced and he kept shooting. He should’ve been landing hits on target, but it was like she was moving before he could squeeze the trigger and get another shot off.

The gunshots seemed to snap the rest of the Red Bulls out of their stupor, and they quickly went to raise their rifles onto Nodoka.

In the dimming light of the final flash from Shishioh’s gun, Ranma saw Nodoka’s hands finally go for hers.

The darkness then lit up like lightning, the muzzle flashes from weapons much more powerful than what Shishioh had. The flashes stopped for barely a tenth of a second before they appeared in different positions, with machine-precise movements again and again.

Ranma’s eyes grew wide and his mouth slowly fell open, as he watched the flashes from the guns illuminate his mother and her opponents. Every so often, the rifles would flash as they fired ineffectually, or when bullets impacted against them.

The flashes illuminated Tsubasa, who grinned in satisfaction as she watched the carnage.

Sharing her grin, but to a far more vicious extent was Joukyuu, who paid rapt attention to her body’s every move when the flashes allowed.

The shooting was over in twelve seconds, leaving only darkness and the rain again. The street lights flickered on again, revealing Nodoka standing with her back to the Red Bulls–holding her heavily smoking guns in front of her hammer to hammer with one smoking barrel pointed to the sky and the other to the ground. Behind her, only Shishioh stood unharmed among the badly wounded Red Bulls.

Shishioh staggered backward from Nodoka. He shook in uncontrollable fear. “W-What…?”

Looking down at the heavily smoking guns, Nodoka let them drop to the ground and clicked her teeth. “Well, now we can have a proper match. You versus my son, man to man-”

Nodoka suddenly hopped back to avoid a ground pounding strike from Koume’s fists that cratered the ground she’d been standing on. “Don’t forget us, woman!”

“Oh my!” Nodoka said as she landed and looked up at the giant kunoichi looming over her.

“You’re fast… but can you block?” she asked before she punched straight for Nodoka’s stomach.

Koume’s fist missed, Nodoka narrowly sidestepped it, and then hopped back again to open up the distance between them.

“Ugh! You idiots are relentless!” Tsubasa complained before she quickly used a kunai to block a sword stab aimed at Nodoka from Koutetsu. Crossing the kunai, she catches the blade between them.

Koutetsu was wild-eyed with anger. “We won’t stop until we are satisfied!”

Koutetsu broke free of Tsubasa’s kunai, before Koueda’s sickles fell upon the fuku-clad ninja girl. Deflecting both, Tsubasa somersault-kicked her backward through the air.

Landing on her feet, Koueda shook her head and rubbed her chin. “You called us trash, and interrupted our fight!”

“We’re taking our revenge, and regaining our pride!” Koume yelled as she lifted her fists above her head.

Her fists smashed into the ground, damaging it as Nodoka hopped back with several twirls to return to the porch with Tsubasa.

Both Koueda and Koume joined their mother, who folded her arms. “And you’re the ones going into the trash!”

Panting from her exertion, Nodoka looked at both teens. “I’m not exactly built for this kind of fight.”

Tsubasa sighed. “I’ve already beat these guys twice!” She looked back to Ranma. “You wanna take these guys back on your plate?”

Ranma stepped forward past them. “Yeah, I do,” he said, “After all, what kind of man would I be if I didn’t fight to protect my family?”

“Aw!” Tsubasa said as he walked past her and Nodoka.

He pointed at the three kunoichi. “You three, last time I said I wasn’t in the mood to splatter you idiots all over the street, but right now that’s all I’m about. So if you want to get at these two people behind me…”

A yellow light flickered across his eyes as he smiled. “… Too bad.”

Ranma’s battle aura suddenly erupted in a column of yellow light that lit up the night and kicked up a massive cloud of steam as the heat from his aura evaporated the fallen rain. The blast of battle aura enveloped and then blew back the three ninja. Joukyuu laughed as he was buffeted by the blast, but wasn’t even budged, the heat drying out his rain-clogged clothes.

Down the street, Akane and Ryoga both stopped when they saw the brilliant light. Akane smiled when she recognized the light and its intensity. “Ranma!”

Ryoga stared. “Whoa… what the heck’s got him set off?”

Nanami whistled. “Yeah kid, that’s the kind of motivation I want to see.”

Koutetsu and her daughters recoiled from the glowing cloud of steam.

Shishioh, before overcome with fear, was now in awe of what he’d just witnessed.

“This… this is Ranma Saotome…?!” he demanded.

Her surprise quickly fading, Koutetsu quickly tried to rationalize what she just saw. “An impressive trick, Ranma Saotome, but that won’t protect you from the true beautiful power of the Red Hot Teahouse!”

Ranma lifted an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

Koutetsu held up her sword in front of her and pressed her free palm against the side of the blade. Behind her, Koueda performed a ninja hand seal, while behind her Koume held her hands out above her head with her palms upraised.

“Ninja Ultimate Art! True Beauty is Within!” all three kunoichi shouted.

A great wind swirls up around them, as all three were enveloped in their own battle aura. Then, the three jumped apart and landed in a circle around Ranma, their black ninja gi now pure white with gold trim, and somehow even more sexier in their skin-tightness.

“Behold! The true beauty that lies within us all!” the kunoichi yelled as one.

Despite their injuries, the Red Bulls were immediately up on their hands and knees with hearts in their eyes. Shishioh was immediately at the front.

Drool running from his mouth, Joukyuu wiped it away and grinned. “Well, well, this night gets better!”

Ranma was unimpressed. “Inner beauty, huh?” He cracked his knuckles. “You’re not doing anything for me.”

“We’ll do plenty!” Koutetsu shouted. “Allow us to dazzle you with our beauty, and take our crown!”

All three charged Ranma, the large and powerful Koume reaching Ranma first. Raising her fist, she fired a punch that all but broke the sound barrier as it reached his face.

Ranma caught Koume’s fist and threw her straight into the air above his hair. “Nope.”

Koueda swung her sickles down onto Ranma’s arms, but his foot reached her first. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he performed a flip and kicked her straight up into Koume’s gut, the giant kunoichi folding in half from the force of the blow.

He was barely an inch off landing back on the ground, when the end of Koutetsu’s sword was an inch from his gut. On the other end of the blade, the tiny ninja’s eyes blazed with hateful fire.

“You little wretched punk, you can’t defe-!”

Her sword suddenly vanished from her hands. She was given no chance to comprehend this, before she was hit with over a hundred punches.

And then two hundred.

Then three hundred.

Four hundred.

Five.

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

And then ninety-nine more after that.

His hands snapping to a stop, steam rising from his body, Ranma stared at Koutetsu, who now hovered several feet above his head and began to fall towards him.

“Let this be a lesson to you, and all you Grand Prix flunkies,” he said, “Do not. Ever.”

His final uppercut slammed into Koutetsu’s chin, the world slowing down as the fist lifted her up and above his head. His battle aura flared up his arm to his fist.

“COME NEAR MY MOTHER AGAIN!”

Koutetsu immediately accelerated to the point where multiple condensation rings exploded from her body, before she crashed into Koueda and Koume, the impact sending all three ninja blasting upward into the sky–an ascent so fast it parted the low rainclouds above the Saotome home.

Nodoka, who had pulled her kimono on, gasped and clapped her hands together. “Ah! My son is so manly!”

“The manliest,” Tsubasa agreed.

Ranma smirked proudly under their praise, before he cracked his knuckles and looked down at Shishioh. “Now then, how about we get to our mano a mano, hombre a hombre duel?”

Much to his surprise, he found Shishioh was now chalk white, his face and his tacticool outfit. “Eh?”

Shishioh had gone from awe right back into pants-filling terror. He had been told stories. His boss, the Wild Bulls’ brave leader, had told them of the hell he experienced… of martial artists that could do inhuman feats. In all honesty however, Shishioh had confidently believed that they were just stories. There weren’t men out there like Joukyuu Kunitoshi… there was no such thing as people who could do this with their bare hands. They had to be aliens, or cyborgs, or gamma radiation exposure victims, or Sailor Senshi.

No. Humans could not do this. Ranma Saotome was just human. He was. Only. Human.

“… This isn’t real…” he asserted to Ranma. “You’re not real. None of this is real… hehe… this is a bad dream… hahaha… AHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Ranma huffed and lowered his hands. “Aw jeez, he snapped.”

Now he couldn’t bring himself to hurt the guy, not in good conscience. That is… had this guy not invaded his home and tried to hurt his Mom and his might-as-well-be sister.

There was a loud crackling sound from above, and Ranma hopped back in time to avoid being crushed under Koume, who landed between him and the Red Bulls on her back. Koueda landed atop her with a loud thud, and then Koutetsu fell upon her. All three groaned in pain.

Wait, groaning?

“Geez, how durable are you if you can still make sounds after what I did to you?” he asked in annoyance.

Tsubasa hopped over. “Come on, after all that you didn’t notice?”

Ranma looked at her, then back at the pile of ninja. “Notice what?”

“Duh, the padding,” Tsubasa said.

Ranma needed a moment for that. “Padding?”

He then heard a twang, and then another.

Rolling her sister and mother off her, Koume groaned and brought a hand to her stomach. “Oh… oh no…”

Ranma blinked. “What’s about to happen?”

“You might want to look away,” Tsubasa said, “Because there’s some things even men amongst men just aren’t meant to see.”

With the sound of cloth ripping and a guitars strings violently breaking, the massive girdles she wore beneath her ninja gi exploded outward with tremendous force, revealing beneath a grotesquely fat and wrinkled woman with a bald head and large wrinkly lips.

The freed wires of Koume’s girdle slashed across Koueda and Koutetsu. The latter’s gi shredded, and from her arms, legs and chest fell silicone pads that exaggerated her true emaciated, knock-kneed physique. Her mask was the last to fall away, revealing an equally hideous face and a sad, sad bowl-cut with a large bald spot that made her look less a woman and more a monk from a Medieval monastery.

The latter fared no better, her destroyed gi revealing a chunky and short old woman who looked well into her late fifties or early sixties. Her face, more appropriate of a syphilis-ridden Al Capone than anything else, was just as disgusting as her daughters.

Ranma didn’t see any of them, because Nodoka had covered his eyes.

“Ranma, I want to spoil a bunch of grandbabies in the future, so please do not look directly at them. Your mind’s eye must remain unsoiled,” she said softly, urgently to him.

The others weren’t so lucky. Not Shishioh, not his still conscious Red Bulls, and certainly not Joukyuu, who was now merely a pale shadow of his previous self–barely alive and functioning in what was now a lightless world.

“… How can something be… so… busted…?” he said as he wilted and seemed to float off with the breeze.

Tsubasa, seemingly unaffected by their ugliness, stepped up. “No matter how ugly you are on the outside, it still doesn’t match what you are inside.”

She walked right up to them. “That’s why you’re getting out of this alive, so you ugly, miserable wretches can wallow in your ugliness until you’re brave enough to put yourselves to the knife.”

With all her might, Tsubasa punted all three of them out of the courtyard, and waited for the splash of their bodies crashing into the nearby river. Satisfied by the sound, she pumped her fist and did a happy little hop. “Yosh!”

“Very good, Tsubasa-chan,” Nodoka said proudly, before she noticed someone charge through the crashed gate. “Oh?”

She removed her hands from Ranma’s eyes and stepped back, and the first thing he saw was Akane fly straight at him with outstretched arms.

“Ranma!” she yelled before she collided with him in a big hug. “You’re safe!”

Ranma smiled and hugged Akane tightly back. “Yeah, I’m fine… I’m sorry I wandered off! I just needed a minute to get my head together.”

Behind her, Ryoga peered into the gate and then walked over cautiously. Seeing the woman in the kimono, the girl in the bloodstained sailor fuku, and the wounded Red Bulls lying at their feet, he brought his hand up to the back of his head and hummed. “Jeez, what the hell happened?”

Akane nodded. “I know, I know… you’re not some punk who gets weepy every time he loses!” she said, “But what are you doing all the way…”

She trailed off, and her mouth hung open when she saw Nodoka standing there, smiling at her.

“Ranma,” she said in a very small voice.

“Yeah?” he asked, knowing exactly what she was going to say.

“Y-your mother is standing right behind you.”

“Yeah I know.”

“… She is standing behind you right now, and you are not disguised by your cursed form.”

Ranma wanted to chuckle. “Yeah, it turns out that she knew I was cursed for a while. She doesn’t care about it.”

Akane froze. “She what?”

“Why would I? I love both of my children, regardless of what their identities are,” she said proudly, “It’s the kind of people they are that matters to me.”

She took Tsubasa and pulled her over into the hug she caught Ranma and Akane up in. “And my children are truly men or women among men or women.”

Tsubasa flushed brightly along with Ranma, before snickering with a snort. “That was terrible, landlady.”

Nodoka kissed Tsubasa on the side of the head, and then Ranma, before releasing them. “Akane-chan! Let me get a good look at my future daughter-in-law! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you in person!”

Akane blinked. “S-so long, since…?”

Ranma laughed nervously and indicated his pigtail. “Yeah… she easily figured out who we were back at the convenience store.”

Akane stared at Ranma, before she put it all together in her head and covered her face with her hands to hide her own bright flush. “Oh Jesus.”

Nodoka laughed gently, and was joined by Ranma and Tsubasa.

“My, my, quite the hoedown we missed,” Nanami then said.

Ranma, hearing her voice, turned to look at her with a mild flash of anger. He stopped when he saw Ryoga with her, an umbrella held above his head.

“You…” he began.

“I came to help find ya,” Nanami said, “I wanted to make sure you were okay there, kid.”

She looked towards Nodoka, and blinked. “Well, this is awkward.”

Nodoka appeared equally surprised. “Yes, this is…”

Nanami brushed it off, and smiled. “Of course you would be his mother, wouldn’t you? I can’t think of a finer pedigree to run through his veins.”

Ranma looked back and forth between Nodoka and Nanami. “Wait… you two know each other?”

“From long before I met your father, Ranma, don’t worry. We’re almost as good as strangers now, nothing personal between us,” Nodoka reassured him.

“Sure felt like it back then, but yeah… that was a different time,” Nanami said before she tactfully changed the subject. “So! Did you enjoy yourself this time, kiddo?”

Ranma soured just slightly. “Enjoyed myself?”

“Did you enjoy beating these guys?” she asked.

Ranma blinked twice, before he quickly found his answer. “… Not really, they were pretty weak even for a bunch of assholes trying to kill my Mom.”

Nanami’s expression tightened a bit.

Ryoga looked over to her, and then back towards Ranma.

Even Akane felt her heart skip a beat, to hear that.

Ranma looked aside at his mother, who watched him intently with Tsubasa. Both personally were rather curious what Nanami was on about.

“But…” Nanami began.

“But… it was nice to show off for once,” he said, before looking aside to his mother. “It felt pretty good.”

Slowly, Nanami smiled. There was something different, his confidence wasn’t the bravado he tried to hold himself up with before. It was like a dark shadow had been removed from him and he could stand in the sun.

Ironic, given the shadows he ran into to find it.

A chuckle escaped Nanami’s throat. “Well, it’s a step in the right direction. Do you kids want a ride home or are you sticking around here with your mom?”

Ranma looked to Akane. “Well, do you want to stay the night here with Mom?”

“Yes!” Akane quickly said, sparkles lingering around her. “Yes I do! I’ve always wanted to meet you without worrying about Ranma being beheaded!”

Tsubasa blinked. “Beheaded?”

Ryoga recoiled. “Beheaded?!”

“It’s a long story,” Ranma and Nodoka said together.

“The short version is, Ranma was scared that he would have to commit seppuku because of his curse,” Akane said.

Ryoga’s mouth fell open. “… Holy shit.”

“That’s what I said,” Akane replied.

Nanami nodded, and looked to Ryoga. “C’mon newbie, let’s get you and Shirokuro home to the wife, what do you say?”

Ryoga nodded, and turned to follow Nanami. He looked back again, and saw Ranma being hugged by his mother again.

“Beheaded, huh?” he asked aloud. “Damn it…”

“What?” Nanami asked.

Ryoga shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t see my mother because she has as bad a sense of direction as I do. If I couldn’t see her because I was afraid she’d kill me for my curse…”

As they left the Saotome home, Nanami slipped her hands into her pockets. “Don’t feel bad, you forgave him and moved on, didn’t you? That’s not your life anymore, so you shouldn’t feel bad about the things you didn’t know then.”

“Oh… you’re right…”

Nanami punched his shoulder lightly. “I know, tomorrow what do you say we look for your family? Have they even seen Yoiko yet?”

Ryoga shook his head. “No, actually… I had Shirokuro leave a message though…”

“Then we’re definitely going to find them!” Nanami said, with fire blazing in her eyes.


As Ranma and Akane followed Nodoka and Tsubasa towards the front door, Akane looked back towards the frozen Brad Shishioh, and his wounded Red Bulls. “Hey, what about those guys over there?”

Nodoka stopped and looked back at them. “Oh, don’t worry. I already called someone to remove them, by the morning they won’t even be a memory.”

Ranma nodded. “Yeah, forget about that trash. They’ve as good as given up.” He smiled and put his arm around Akane’s shoulder. “Mom and Tsubasa have this really cool show you gotta watch. It’s about American biker gangs…”

“Oh?” Akane asked.

“Yeah, Hellboy’s in it.”

Akane nodded. “Yes, you have my attention.”

The door shut behind them, muffling their voices, but Shishioh didn’t hear them. He just sat there on his knees, his mind tormented with imagery of hideous monsters and abominable strength unlike anything humanly possible. He sat there, listless, whimpering softly for the darkness to claim him, even as a shadowy figure stepped slowly from behind him. Then another, and another.

Before a large shape loomed silently in the darkness above his head and over the treetops, ropes cascading down from it towards him.


Brad Shishioh snapped awake, breathing heavily as consciousness returned to him. He was lying on his back, staring up at a ceiling illuminated by fluorescent light. He was bathed in a cold sweat, which exacerbated the chill he felt from the cold air of the room he was in, and he was lying on an uncomfortably hard surface… but that was okay.

He wasn’t having that nightmare anymore.

“It’s over,” he breathed in relief, “It’s finally over.”

“Ehh? What’s over?” a woman with a low, somewhat deep voice asked.

Brad sighed. “I had the worst nightmare just now. I dreamt I was in this contest, to win an easy Billion Yen. All I had to do was take my team and completely crush the competition, and we could do it too. We had the men to do it.”

“What happened?” the woman asked.

“Well… we were going after the champion and… everything went wrong. The champion… he… he was beyond human. I don’t think he ever was human. Him, and his mother… and this girl in a school uniform. They wiped out all my men and allies… it wasn’t even a chore for them. Bullets didn’t work, tactics didn’t work… they were monsters, it’s the only way I can describe them…”

Shishioh laughed nervously. “I get chills thinking about it. I… I don’t want to close my eyes again because… because I might see them again. It was so real… it was…”

He tried to move his head, to find the person who was talking to him, and he found that he couldn’t move it. When he tried to sit up, he realized something was holding him in place, restraints around his arms, legs, waist, and head were keeping him firmly in place on the cold hard table.

“What…? What the hell is going on here?!” His eyes darted around, as his breathing quickened to the edge of hyperventilation. “Where am I?! What is this?!”

“Ah, this is a nightmare,” the woman said, and Shishioh could hear footsteps walking around him, just outside his field of view. “You’ve woken up into it, though.”

“W-what are you talking about?!” Shishioh gasped back.

“You see, you were asked to not go to a certain place, but you went anyway, and as a result you saw something only a privileged few are ever allowed to survive after. You’re not so special I’m afraid.”

Shishioh’s breath caught in his chest. “I-I’ll have you know… I was in the Navy SEALs-”

“Oh, I’ve never had one of those. Yakuza, CIA, SHIELD, Diplomats, Arms Dealers, yeah, and even an ex-Finnish Defense Forces Soldier. How random is that last one?”

The woman’s hand fell into his field of view, caressing his face. “They’ve all woken up to the nightmare on this table, because they stepped into shadows they weren’t welcomed. So… I suppose in that you’re special after all.”

The woman, with short brown hair and matching eyes, leaned down to look at Shishioh. A cigarette barely hung off her lips.

Shishioh whimpered, his chest heaving higher.

“By the way, for referring to Auntie Nodoka as a ‘Monster,’ I’m going to make your nightmare long and painful.” She held up a scalpel that glinted in the light overhead.

Seeing it, Brad Shishioh realized what was about to happen to him, and began screaming at the top of his lungs-

Only for him to be abruptly silenced by the woman’s other hand clapping tightly over his mouth.

Leaning down, Haruka Urashima brought her face to within inches of Shishioh’s, letting a bit of hot ash fall upon his neck and burning it,

“Don’t worry, though… all nightmares end eventually,” she said before she raised the scalpel and plunged it towards his face as he screamed through her palm.


“What happened to him?” Kira asked as she looked down upon the semi-comatose form of Joukyuu, lying on a medical table, a white foam bubbling from his mouth in the medical bay aboard the Ars Poetica.

Beside her, Lucretia stood with her eyes glued to a tablet, while next to her Mousse slowly shook his head.

“He got ripped off,” Lucretia said as she crossed the Red Bulls and the Red Hot Teahouse off the list of competitors.

“Poor Jou-chan,” Kira mewled.

Mousse hummed and turned away from the bed-ridden judge, following her from the sickbay to the observation deck. “Aside from Nihon Break Kogyo, is there any team that can make this entertaining?”

Lucretia looked through the list of competitors. “Of the one-hundred fifty competing teams who joined, approximately fifteen individuals have the recorded performance to possibly overcome members of the school of Indiscriminate Grappling in a one-on-one scenario.”

She holds out the tablet, showing the images of fifteen other opponents.

Mousse snorted. “Only fifteen?”

“Including Team Killer,” Lucretia said.

Mousse took the tablet and gazed at the fifteen competitors. “Can we get any of these fighters lined up to fight any time soon?”

Lucretia nodded and reached over and tapped on the screen, revealing a picture of a blonde-haired woman framed with white lillies. “Asuka Saginomiya has issued a formal challenge to Kodachi Kuno. Based on collected data, she has a eighty-five percent chance of defeating her in a one on one scenario.”

Mousse blinked. “Saginomiya, Rhythmic Gymnastic Martial Artist? She’s good enough to challenge her one on one?”

“Her chances are much better than the remaining ninety percent,” Lucretia replied.

Mousse nodded slowly as they entered the observation deck. “Picking them off in one on one contests is a better option than straight for the Captain. If any of the challengers request a one on one battle, enforce it. No interference from teammates, and if a member of the King’s team loses, they’re disqualified.”

Lucretia nodded. “That would certainly make things more interesting. I will be in touch with Saginomiya and Kuno.”

Mousse nodded and turned to walk away from Lucretia with the tablet in his hand.

“For the record…” Lucretia then said, “Impersonating a judge, that one in particular, to acquire my data and valuable intelligence on the other competitors could have gone very badly for you.”

“Mousse” stopped at the exit of the observation deck, and looked back.

“I admire your nerve, however, so you can leave with your prize,” Lucretia said, “Do not let your skill go to your head, Copycat Ken and good luck on whatever battle you decide to fight.”

“Mousse” pushed his glasses up onto the top of his head, and flashed a big grin to Lucretia. “Why thank you for the vote of confidence, Piera-san. I much appreciate it.”

With that, he left the observation deck, en route for the nearest exit from the ship.

Watching him go, Lucretia turned and looked up at the Benefactor, who wore his demented grin in the dark.

“Confidence,” the Benefactor repeated, before hissing out a laugh.