The object of his regard comes to attention, carefully, as if afraid her bones might break, and raises a hand in salute. "Miss Excel was going...." The high, whispering voice trails off as Hyatt's golden eyes roll back into her head, and then she collapses, blood spilling freely from her mouth over her pale skin and ornate purple uniform.
There is a short pause, which the author uses to change the verb tense.
No more than a litre of blood spilled out over the granite floor before a blonde burst through the door and ran up to the master of the hall, waving her hand madly above her head. "Hail Lord Il-Palazzo! Excel has come to... oh, sorry, Ha-chan, didn't see you lying dead there, just let me get off you...."
"Excel."
"Yes, Lord Il-Palazzo?"
"You will explain to me why you were late." Pausing, he adjusted the hang of his ornate robe. "My intuition is that your answer to that question will also answer why I am sitting on a barstool."
Excel's green eyes looked at the floor shiftily, and muttered, "Well, yesterday, you promoted Ha-chan to Director of Forward Planning, made your throne the Director of Security, and made me sub-janitor in charge of toilets." She began to push her index fingers together. "And of course this was a good idea, because all your ideas are very good! But I wanted to make sure that the throne had not lied on its resume, and that it was actually qualified for the incredible honour of serving under you!" Beaming wildly, she thrust one fist into the air in an enthusiastic salute. "So I decided to see if it could deal with the possibility of arson from one of the many enemies who oppose you and your ideals!" She crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head sadly. "Unfortunately, it couldn't, and in fact, made a bad situation worse by burning a very long time, but I highly recommend making it into Director of Food Operations, because the fire was the perfect temperature for cooking sweet potatoes, not that I had any...."
Il-Palazzo tugged on the tasseled cord which had descended from the ceiling during the continuing rant, and Excel was sent plummeting into the deep shaft that opened beneath her feet. A distant splash was immediately followed, faintly, by, "Snakes! Why does it always have to be snakes!"
Lifting her head from the ground, Hyatt coughed once to clear her mouth, and weakly asked, "Why did you call us here today, Lord Il-Palazzo?"
Pulling his robes around him as he settled back onto the barstool, Il-Palazzo intoned, "I have called you here for a mission of utmost importance. For in these times of despair and degradation, when the world sinks deeper into sin and villainy, it is all the more important that we, as members of the Ideal Organization ACROSS, conquer and subjugate the city. It has come to my attention, however, that there is a powerful man who arises to present a possible obstacle to ACROSS and its goals."
Hanging from her fingers off the mouth of the pit, Excel gasped, and threw herself out and to her feet. "Someone dares to defy you, Lord Il-Palazzo?" She paused to wring some of the worst of the water from her blue shorts and massively-shouldered jacket. "Tell me who, and I'll defeat him! I'll kill him! I'll step on his dog, and cancel his newspaper subscriptions, and put frogs in his mailbox, and give him really bad pedicures, and..."
"Excel."
"Yes, Lord Il-Palazzo?"
"Be quiet."
"Yes, Lord Il-Palazzo!"
"This man is a martial artist, a very powerful one. If he acts to challenge ACROSS, he may very well thwart our plans. We must prevent this."
"Ah, of course! Yes!" Excel pumped her fist enthusiastically in the air. "So you want us to seek him out, and challenge him to fair and honourable single combat, and fight him, and lose, and go off and learn powerful techniques in far-off, long-lost lands, and eat really good Korean, the sort you can only get in Los Angeles, and then return, stronger than ever, and...."
From the ground, Hyatt coughed through her blood, "So we should assassinate him, Lord Il-Palazzo?"
Excel screeched, and began frantically pawing at the air.
"Excel?"
"Yes, Lord Il-Palazzo?"
"What are you doing?"
"I'm trying desperately not to fall into the pit-trap, even though it's futile, because you were right to open it up, as you're right to do everything and I was very silly to say such a silly thing but I REALLYREALLYdon'twanttofallandswimand bebittenbyrabidsharkswithteflonteeth...."
"Excel?"
"Yes, Lord Il-Palazzo?"
"I didn't activate the pit trap."
"What?"
"You are not about to fall. As you suggested, the plan is that you shall challenge this martial artist to single combat."
Excel nodded sagely. "Yes, yes, of course. We will challenge him, and fight him, and defeat him, which will crush his spirit and his hopes and his dreams," her eyes took on a manic gleam, and hints of slaver dripped from her fang-like incisors, "and then, to avenge his ruined honour, he will train harder than ever and devote himself to one day defeating ACROSS and all it stands for...." She ground to a sudden stop, one finger pressed to her forehead in laboured consideration. "No, wait. This is a stupid idea."
A gentle tug of the gloved hand opened another pit-trap. Excel had time only to blink before she fell again, shouting, "Never mind, Lord Il-Palazzo, I'll get right on it, thank you for sending me out the fast way...."
* * *
Shampoo hovered over Cologne's shoulder. "What is it, Great-grandmother?"
"A bad omen, dear." She perused the letter carefully for the third time. "A very bad omen."
"Tell Shampoo. She tough amazon warrior, she can take it."
"No roles in this episode."
"Aiyah!"
* * *
With Hyatt close behind, Excel strutted down the street, singing, "Gonna find a martial arrrrrrist! Gonna kill a martial arrrrrrrist! Gonna crush his bones and pulp his skull and step on his spleen all for the greater glory of the hunky Lord Il-Palazzo and his Ideal Organization AAAA-KUUUUU-ROOOOO-SUUUUU!" She stopped skipping and scratched her head. "Hey, Ha-chan, how are we supposed to find this guy, anyways?"
Hyatt tilted her head. "Well, Lord Il-Palazzo said he was in the Nerima district, which is in Tokyo."
"Yeah, but Nerima's kind of big. Do we have his address?"
"Um...."
"The neighbourhood?"
"Um...."
"Nearby landmarks?"
"Um...."
"His name?"
"Um... I think Lord Il-Palazzo mentioned that, but I was dead at the time."
Excel twitched.
* * *
Exhaustion sapped his muscles and blurred his mind, but Ryoga paid it no heed. Hunger gnawed at his insides, bidding him remember the time four days past when he had last eaten, but he had no money which which to get more food. None of it mattered, anyways. Nothing mattered at all, but the three shining stars of Ryoga's life: a cure for his curse, revenge against Ranma, and the love of Akane. The first was beyond him, at least at the moment. But for the last two....
He stepped around a puddle lying, unexplained, in the middle of the street, and flexed the fingers of his right hand, grinning savagely. It had taken him time to find the Master, time and hardships as he had fought his way through the barren steppes, and then the steaming rain forest. When, finally, he had fought his way free of the last raging beast and found himself in downtown Kyoto, it had taken even longer yet to persuade the Master to train him.
Now, though, he thought, idly hopping over a careening car as he crossed the intersection, he had mastered the Five Swallows Fighting And/Or Mating Over Two White Oaks And An Elm With Dutch Elm Disease Fist. He caught a glimpse of his madly-grinning reflection in the display window of an electronics shop, and could not help but laugh. Now, Ranma would pay.
He sobered quickly. Ryoga had to find Ranma, first. Feeling no less a fool for the many times he'd done this before, he bobbed a bow to a passing couple of strangely-dressed girls. "Um, excuse me. Could you tell me the way to Furinkan High?"
When he straightened, he was met by their blank stares, and couldn't help but flush in embarrassment. The dark-haired girl lifted a hand to her cheek in lady-like confusion, and asked, "Furinkan?"
"Furinkan. In Nerima?" They continued to look at him, and his blush deepened. "Um, aheh, could you tell me where I am?"
The blonde one shook off her confusion and thrust a finger trembling with emotion underneath Ryoga's nose. "I will tell you where you are! You are in F Prefecture, in F City, in F Neighbourhood, on F Street, in front of the...." She peered uncertainly at the sign beside them. "G Building?"
A gust of wind blew tumbleweed down the street, bouncing along until it fell down an open manhole, from which screams of agony ensued.
"Anyways, most importantly, you are in the future domain of the Ideal Organization ACROSS! We will conquer it and subjugate it and stamp out all the filth and depravity and dirty bits and convenience stores that close at eight P.M.! Here is a brochure that outlines our domination plans and schedule, as well as current hiring opportunities, but please don't read it because it's top secret!"
Ryoga stared at the glossy eight-page leaflet that she had pressed into his hands, and felt the dark depression creep upon him.
"Um, Miss Excel...."
F City? He'd never even heard of it before. Was it even in Japan? Convulsively, his fist clenched on the pamphlet, crushing the high-quality paper.
"Yes, Ha-chan?"
It might take him weeks to find Nerima at this rate. Weeks, while Ranma trained, and teased and hurt Akane. Weeks, while the advantages of his new training were diminished.
"He mentioned Nerima, Miss Excel."
"Damn you," he snarled quietly, and then his voice rose to a roar. "Ranma! Damn you, this is all your fault!" He snapped his fist in a sweeping roundhouse, which sheared through a nearby lightpost. When someone tapped his shoulder, he whipped around and snarled. "What?"
It was the blonde. "Hey, did you say you wanted to go to Nerima?"
He blinked. Beside him, the streetlamp slowly toppled and crushed a parked Honda. "Yes?"
She grinned broadly. "And you're a martial artist?"
His chest puffed out slightly. "Yes." A tire, bouncing away from the wreck, fell down the manhole. Another piercing scream was chased out by a muffled explosion.
"Do you live in Nerima?"
Ryoga was beginning to get confused. "Um, no. My sworn enemy does." He blushed, and pushed his fingers together. "And there's this, um, girl, you see...." A motorcycle skidded out trying to avoid the flaming hulk in the road, and slid down the open manhole. Dull squishing noises, like watermelons being run through printing presses, echoed up, along with a sodden, resounding "clank".
The grin on the blonde's face was threatening to eat her ears, and she nodded enthusiastically at her friend before draping a companionable arm around Ryoga's shoulder. "And this enemy... Ranma? He's a martial artist? Powerful one? Strong? Confident? Kind of sexy? Definite protagonist or antagonist material?" Ryoga snorted. "He thinks so, at least. Um, why are you asking?"
"Oh, no reason," the girl sing-songed in a innocent voice, and pointed behind him. "Hey, look! A semi-plausible distraction like a water main exploding to disorient you while I knock you out and tie you up to take you as a prisoner and interrogate you later!"
Ryoga finished the "wh" in "what" before a massive geyser exploded out through the manhole, soaking the street.
Dripping wet, the dark-haired girl clasped her hands in front of her chest. "That was very clever, Miss Excel."
"Hah!" She proudly put her hands on her hips. "The old 'semi-plausible distraction like a water main exploding to disorient them while I knock them out and tie them up to take them as a prisoner and interrogate them later' trick never fails." Peering about, she added, "Except that he seems to have vanished, so I never got to the 'knock them out and tie them up to take them as a prisoner and interrogate them later' part. Well, not that it matters anyway!"
"Oh, look, Miss Excel. A cute little pig...."
P-chan, still stunned by the sudden change, could do nothing as a hand reached out to snag his collar. "Yeah, he is cute, isn't he, Ha-chan?" The blonde looked at him thoughtfully, and then snuggled him into her arms. "You know, Ha-chan, I think we should keep him."
P-chan bwee'd a little hmmph, and then relaxed. They seemed to be going to Nerima anyways, and there were worse ways to travel than cradled in the arms of a girl.
"Sure, Menchi would like the company. Besides, you can never go wrong with *two* emergency food supplies, and I like pork better than dog anyways!"
* * *
In the gloomy, echoing headquarters of ACROSS, Il-Palazzo ascends his dais. He stops to consider the stool that represents the seat of honour, his robes swirling to rest around him, and then reaches to retrieve a cell phone from an inner pocket. Unfolding it, he presses a single button, and raises the phone to his ear. There is a pause, and then he speaks, in a calm, level voice.
"Hello. Ikea Shop-by-Phone? I would like to order a throne."
There is a soft muttering on the other end.
"Yes, that would be fine."
Another murmur, and Il-Palazzo's eyes harden. Rising to his feet, he takes the phone away from his ear to glare at it, and then brings it back, and in a cold voice, states, "My address is a secret."
There is another pause. The author realizes that the episode is again in the present tense, and changes it back.
Il-Palazzo sat down on the barstool. "Yes, I'll hold."
* * *
"It's amazing how fast we got to Nerima, isn't it, Miss Excel?"
"Yes, Ha-chan. What a wonderful country we live in, where we have public transportation available to us that is so efficient that it is easily mistaken for a plot contrivance!" Excel lifted the piglet high in the air with both hands and smiled gently at it. "Of course, Gyoza, it'll be even more wonderful when all has been ground under the heel of Lord Il-Palazzo!" She ignored the pig's frantic struggles. "So we need to find this Ranma person quickly and defeat him." She peered around, one hand shading her eyes. "Well, this is Furinkan High. Boy, there's a lot of people here. How to find this Ranma? Maybe we should build a dojo right here, and develop a reputation for brutally crushing challengers," she posed, starry-eyed, snuggling Gyoza under her chin, "or be kidnapped as a bride by megalomaniacal chopstick-wielding villains," she wrapped herself in a deep, heavy cloak, "or offer to teach an amazing martial art based on using pressure points to make people's heads explode," she threw away the cloak and hefted a round crystal in which was trapped three stars, "or set out on a quest to collect the other six...."
Hyatt stepped into the school's courtyard and bowed to the nearest passing student. "Excuse me, sir, but could you tell me where I could find Ranma?"
"Ah, fair flower," the boy said mournfully. He turned to face her, hakama swirling, and bokken coming to rest on his shoulder. "Why should such a sweet damsel such as yourself be seeking out the miscreant knave Saotome? I see! You must be yet another maiden that he has enslaved with his dark magics and bound to his will! Fear not, for I am Kuno Tatewaki, Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, and a peerless warrior! I shall war for your freedom, even though my heart is bound up in another, and verily, my mighty wooden shaft shall strike with...."
Hyatt wandered back. "Miss Excel," she whispered, "he says he is a martial artist too."
Chewing on her lip, Excel stared at him. "Two martial artists in Nerima?" She closed her eyes and ground her knuckles into her temples. "Tricky, tricky, very tricky. How do make sure we fight the right one? Lord Il-Palazzo will be very unhappy if we defeat the wrong one, and I don't want him to be unhappy with me, I want him to smile at me and praise me and promote me and rip off all my clothes with a feather duster and throw me over an over-sized marshmallow and.... I know! Hey, you!" She pointed at Kuno. "Go fight Ranma!"
Without skipping a beat, Kuno thrust his bokken skywards and switched rants. "Indeed! I, Kuno Tatewaki, Defender of the Fairer Sex, sally forth! The sorcerer Saotome has seen his last English class!"
Hyatt and Excel stood, watching him run off with his bokken held high overhead. "That was very easy, Miss Excel."
Excel crossed her arms and nodded decisively. "Indeed. He has excellent taste to be swayed so easily by my feminine charms." She broke into a sprint. "C'mon, Ha-chan! He'll lead us right to Ranma, and then we can fight the winner, because that will be the incredibly powerful martial artist Lord Il-Palazzo told us to deal with!"
Her only answer was a spray of wetness across her back. When she looked back, she stumbled to a stop, slumped, and then slapped Gyoza against her forehead. "Ooops," she muttered. "I forgot that Ha-chan dies when she tries to run."
When she finally rounded the school, Hyatt slung over one shoulder and Gyoza tucked into the other elbow, there was a ring of slightly-bored onlookers, and no sign of Kuno. "Excuse me," she said, lashing out with her feet at the crowd, "beautiful delicate girl coming through! Get out of the way or you'll be cleaning toilets in the new regime!"
Once she'd reached the front row, she could see that the inside of the ring was occupied by a young, handsome pig-tailed boy dressed in Chinese clothes, rather than the uniform, and a short-haired girl. Watching the boy warily, Excel set the pig down on the ground. "You stay here, Gyoza," she whispered.
P-chan blinked at her, and then started to scamper for safety. No sooner had he gotten his trotters under him then he was crushed to the turf by a heavy, if soft, weight.
"Keep an eye on Ha-chan," Excel added, before dusting off her hands and stepping away from the corpse-pinned pig.
* * *
Ranma was mildly irritated. Being attacked by Kuno was not new, getting boring, and not particularly challenging. Moreover, the new accusation of having "enslaved the porcelain doll" was new, and Ranma had no clue as to what it meant, other than it probably represented yet another headache.
Ranma was mildly pleased. He had used the sack he'd been carrying to belt Kuno into the sky, and then thrown it like a sling to land another hit on the mid-air kendoka. Conservatively, he guessed that he'd been able to double his usual distance.
Ranma was mildly worried. The sack, he just remembered, had been carrying Akane's homework.
And so Ranma was mildly grateful when the strangely-dressed blonde girl stepped forth. "Excuse me, have you seen a tall talkative guy wearing a hakama?"
"Yeah." Ranma smirked and crossed his arms behind his head. "I beat him up." He grunted when Akane planted a short sharp jab in his ribs.
The girl pointed at him. "Are you Ranma?"
"Yeah. What's it to you?"
Looking impressed, the girl said, "You know, you speak Japanese really well for a Chinese guy."
"What?" Ranma sputtered. "I'm Japanese!"
"What?" the girl echoed. "But you're wearing Chinese clothes!"
"So?"
"So why are you wearing Chinese clothes if you're not Chinese?"
"What, I gotta be a Chinese to wear Chinese clothes? What about you?" He studied her tight-fitting brown and black shirt under a pale blue, dome-shouldered vest, with fingerless gloves and combat boots to round things out. "You look like... like...."
"A member of a secret revolutionary society led by a cool and mysterious mastermind?" she supplied helpfully.
"An anime character!"
"What?" she spat. "Japanimation? You take that back!"
"Heh." He crossed his arms, smug in his victory. "An' I thought those sailor suits looked stupid."
The girl seethed with righteous indignation. "For this insult -- no, because I was told to by Lord Il-Palazzo, I never put personal considerations ahead of duty, Lord Il-Palazzo, but that insult sure didn't help his case -- I will challenge you! I," she frowned suddenly, "wait, who am I? My given name is Excel, my surname is Excel, my code name is Excel, that is to say, my name is Excel, but if this is a secret mission, I shouldn't say that, but this isn't a part-time job, so I can't be Dosukoi Hanako, but I need a name to challenge him," she straightened and thrust her fist in the air, "I, Celexay, challenge you!"
Ranma snorted and turned his back. "Feh. I don't fight girls." Akane stared at him, wide-eyed and sputtering, but he ignored her. Geez, just because he'd hit Shampoo, and Ukyo, and Kodachi, and the take-out girl, and the lady at the post office, and that old granny, and....
"Really?" he heard from behind him, and he smirked. He almost felt sorry for her.... And then, "Great!"
Eyes widening in sudden panic, he spun on one foot....
To take a metal baseball bat in the stomach.
Doubling over, gasping, he straightened himself, grimacing, and the Louisville CB303 TPX Omaha Scandium XS bat soared from below to catch him on the chin, slamming him up into the air and dropping him in a heap. Shaking his head to clear it, he turned towards the patter of running feet, snarling and arms out to block the next swing. Instead, a jump-kick caught him in the forehead, driving him back through the air to plow through the turf.
As he lay there, face down and fingers barely twitching, the girl walked confidently up to him, nattering, "I don't know what Il-Palazzo was worried about. I mean, this fight is really easy!"
She lifted the bat up high to deliver the finishing blow, and suddenly Ranma was uncoiling from his feigned immobility, landing a powerful uppercut that sent her slamming into a tree.
As she slid to the ground, leaves tumbling about her, Ranma rocked his head from side to side, and then cracked his knuckles, grinning ferally. "Normally I don't fight girls," he repeated, advancing on his stunned foe while the bat clattered to the ground behind him. "But for you, I'll make an exception."
The blonde remained slumped against the torn bark of the trunk; when he finally closed on her, she looked up weakly, blood trailing from one corner of her mouth. "A good hit," she said hoarsely. "You're a strong opponent. I have to respect such strength, such power. You could defeat me. But I won't let you." She pulled something from out of her jacket. "I *can't* let you." Wavering, she presented her hand, and Ranma inhaled sharply.
A grenade.
"Um, Miss Excel...."
Yanking the pin out, the blonde let it drop, and then slumped back against the tree. "Sorry it has to be this way, Ranma. But if I have to lose... we both have to. Hail, Lord Il-Palazzo...."
"Um, Miss Excel...."
Excel looked over irritably. "What is it, Ha-chan? I'm busy trying to have a dramatic final death scene."
Ranma watched as the pale-skinned girl raised her head from the immense pool of blood that surrounded her. "Miss Excel, Lord Il-Palazzo said we were supposed to defeat him in a martial arts challenge."
"And?"
"I don't think grenades count as martial arts, Miss Excel."
"Sure they do! It's part of the East Uruguayan School of Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu!"
"Actually," Ranma interjected, "Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu only works with the German Model 24 'Potato-masher' Stielhandgranate. What you're using is a US Army-issue Mk II HE grenade."
"Oh, yeah," Excel exclaimed. She laughed, scratching the back of her neck with her free hand. "Completely slipped my mind. I was wondering why it felt so strange!"
Ranma laughed along. "Yeah, I did that once, too. Throws you right off, the balance is so wrong."
"Anyways." Excel dropped the grenade and got to her feet, dusting off her shorts. "You win this round, Ranma, but I will be back. Train hard, because I will be! Training hard, I mean, though in retrospect, maybe you shouldn't train hard, or at least not as hard as me. In fact, it might be best if you slacked off a lot, took up professional ice-cream-eating, maybe, which I hear is a very lucrative career, but slack off or not, I will be back, and we will fight again, and I will win, or at the very least I'll lose and go and train some more and do you know any good Korean restaurants and hey!" She looked around in confusion. "Why is everyone running away?"
* * *
Grenades are military hardware. Specifically, they are *simple* military hardware, and thus they are designed to be low-maintenance and highly reliable. Each undergoes thorough quality assurance, a careful examination, and a randomly selected few from every batch are actually tested in the factory, though not, at least after the first batch or two, on the factory floor itself.
Thus, all jokes about fifteen thousand dollar wrenches notwithstanding, the point is that it is unlikely that any given grenade will be a dud. Extremely unlikely. The odds of a grenade not exploding are, in fact, roughly the odds of getting two people together in the same place and finding out that they both have trained in East Uruguayan Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu. Such things, as they say, happen only in Hollywood.
So when they make a movie out of this, they'll have to edit out that explosion.
* * *
The student body lay strewn around the blast crater, moaning and covered in blood. All of the blood belonged to Hyatt, though, so that was okay.
"Are you okay? Can you get up?"
"I'm fine." Akane shook her head groggily, and reached out to take the proffered hand. "Thanks," she said woozily, and then froze as she looked at the person helping her.
It was a nun.
Well, probably.
Nuns wore wimples, as did this girl. Nuns also wore high, white collars, often with a cross pendant, so that was okay too. Leather high-heeled boots seemed a bit off, but then, Akane hadn't seen many nuns as young as this girl, so maybe that was just an age thing. Fishnet stockings were definitely iffy, though. Akane was quite sure that even if they were okay, they should be hidden under a skirt, rather than rising up to grasp a pair of garters that left only a few inches of bare skin before a pair of skin-tight latex bikini briefs took over the job of providing a semblance of decency. Nuns were also to wear habits, rather than black silk and velvet corsets, and form-fitting shoulder-length gloves, even fingerless ones, didn't seem very ecclesiastic.
And nuns never carried bullwhips.
"Hurry," said the hypothetical nun, as she pulled strongly and brought Akane to her feet.
"Wh-what?" She looks a lot like me, Akane thought dazedly. Except for the clothes.
"You're Tendo Akane, right?" She turned to quickly survey the area, and then held out her hand again to Akane. "Come with me if you want to live."
"Wh-what?"
"Hurry!" She broke into a run, and Akane, still stunned, found herself running behind as they fled the school grounds.
"Wh-what?" In her confusion, Akane realized she sounded like a broken record, but could do nothing to stop it. Even from behind, she could feel the nun's grimace.
"I'll try to explain. Years ago, I fell in love with a boxer. It was a forbidden romance, of course, since I was already a nun, but he was kind, and sweet, and with every match he fought, I could feel my resolve wavering." She sighed mistily, and then pulled Akane after her down an alley. "And then I learned the truth. Or, at least, a possible truth."
She came to a stop so suddenly that Akane almost ran into her, and then picked her up bodily and threw her sideways into a nearby dumpster. "Stay low! Anyways, what I discovered that was if I had left the order and married him, we would have had two children. And the older child, a daughter, would have grown up to be powerful in magic, the reincarnation of some ancient malevolent spirit from ancient history. With that power, she would enslave the world, bending it into a dictatorial, inflexible regime in which she would rule every thought and emotion and enforce her idea of perfection."
Thrashing about in the muck at the bottom of the garbage can, Akane found herself seized by the scruff of the neck and heaved out. The daring nun quickly brushed off the worst of the coffee grounds, and then set her down again. "Okay, the coast is clear. Follow me!" She set off at a sprint down the deserted street, Akane at her heels.
"Of course, knowing this, I had no choice to not only spurn him, but run away; if I had stayed, sooner or later he would have won me over. I thought that was the end of it."
Akane said nothing as tried to puzzle out how the nun could keep up this brutal pace on six-inch heels.
"But my daughter-to-be wasn't out of tricks. She sent back her enforcer -- a heartless, evil witch with a mastery of time travel -- to make sure that everything went the way she wanted. I've been on the run ever since." The nun skidded to a stop, grimly staring up at the rooftops ahead. "Damn! There she is now!" she growled, shaking out her whip.
Squinting up into the setting sun, Akane could just make out an undeniably female silhouette, holding a massive key-shaped staff, before her collar was seized and she was yanked off her feet.
"No chance of fighting her now, we have to run!" the nun barked, running full-speed for the nearest alley with Akane flapping behind her like a flag.
Akane found herself on the verge of wailing. "But what does all this have to do with *me*?"
Surprised, the nun glanced back over her shoulder. "Isn't it obvious? C'mon, let's go!"
"Noooooooooooooooo!"
* * *
A single sneeze brought Ranma back to consciousness, and he struggled groggily to his feet. "Where'd she go?"
Glancing quickly around, he realized that the girl... Excel... had fled the scene, along with her really sick friend. He grinned. It didn't matter. She would be back, and they'd fight again. He was looking forward to it. That had been a decent fight. Plus she was pretty cute.
"Ranma," someone said, tugging on his sleeve.
Ranma shook his head ferociously. No way! He had enough girl troubles already, foisted on him by circumstance. He didn't need to go *looking* for another girl. Even a real pretty one.
"Ranma," the voice said more urgently.
But she knew Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu, a voice whispered to him. None of his fiancees knew Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu. No-one he had ever met, in all his travels, knew Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu.
"Ranma!"
Except Ranma, and....
Someone hit him across the back of the head. "What?" he shouted, annoyed.
It was Akane's friend, Sayuri, who seemed to be the only other student awake. "Akane's gone."
Ranma stared at her. "What?"
Sayuri wrung her hands, tears beginning to cut tracks through the grime crusting her face. "Some weird girl hauled her off! I don't know where they went!"
"Oh." Ranma went back to staring at the crater.
Sayuri waited impatiently, while others caught in the blast slowly began to shift and stir. Finally, she prodded him irritably. "Aren't you going to go after her?"
"Why?" Ranma sounded puzzled. "She's going to come back when she's ready."
"What?" Sayuri gaped.
"Well, she challenged me, right?"
Stamping her foot, Sayuri shouted, "Akane! Are you going to go after Akane?"
"Oh." Ranma waved his hand dismissively. "Nah."
There was a silent, terrible moment while the entire student body froze. Then Sayuri stammered, "Wh-wh-what?"
"I gotta train. Besides...."
Besides, Ranma thought, staring up at the afternoon sun, Excel knows Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu.
* * *
Kodachi hated her English class. She had a natural aptitude for Physics, so that wasn't bad at all, and Literature was filled with stories of heroic manly men sweeping beautiful damsels off their feet. It was in Gym class that she demonstrated how her lofty status in the ranks of the school had been earned, and, of course, Cooking and Chemistry were tied for her favourite subjects, even if she sometimes got confused as to which one she was actually in at any given time. But on the second day of school, she'd learned how to say, "I love you, Ranma!" in English, and that, as far as she was concerned, was the end of English's usefulness. And so, when her desk was crushed by a kendoka flying through the window, she was rather more charitably inclined than she might have been. "Hello, brother dear. How is my darling Ranma?"
"I fight on!" Kuno explained, as he got to his feet and dislodged plywood shards from his hair.
Kodachi stifled a yawn. "Oh, that's nice."
"But needs must I elsewhere to continue my fight," Kuno observed, "as my dishonourable foe would seem to have fled." He ran a dispassionate eye over Kodachi's classmates, who seemed to have gotten over their shock and gotten on to the ogling state. "Most likely he has taken the fair porcelain doll off to bind her further with his vile sorcery!"
Snapping to her feet, Kodachi demanded, "What? Some new foolish girl is trying to put her hooks in my darling Ranma?"
Kuno nodded gravely. "Indeed, though it pains me to admit it." His eyes narrowed as he drew a new bokken. "I cannot allow the foul cur to perpetuate this travesty!"
"Indeed." Kodachi reached to the lace at the top of her blouse, and with a sharp tug, tore her uniform into shreds. She posed in her leotard, casually flicking her gymnastic ribbon about. "I will go with you, brother dear, and my love will rescue my darling Ranma from the schemes of this witch!"
He studied her with serene eyes, and then abruptly nodded, a slow, secretive smile appearing on his lips. "Indeed," he echoed, and then seized her about the the waist and leapt out the shattered window.
Startled, Kodachi recovered her wits just as he set her gently down on the grass of the school's courtyard. Staggering for a second, she busied herself making unneeded adjustments to her leotard. "Buffoon," she muttered, though her heart wasn't really in it.
Regardless, he ignored her, and hefted his bokken, grinning all the more broadly. "Indeed," he repeated, "we shall hunt together, sister. Now, follow me, as we seek the vile sorcerer!"
Kodachi watched with a flat gaze as her brother charged from the school grounds, and then turned to look up at the second floor, where her classmates hung, gaping in astonishment, out the window. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips, and she gave them a mocking bow. "My pardon, teacher and friends, but I have business elsewhere!" Bounding after Kuno, she left a soft storm of rose petals and a pealing laugh floating behind her.
"Kodachi Kuno leaving early?" Still standing in front of the chalkboard, the teacher shook his head sadly as he surveyed the wreckage. "Yet another disciple who could not take the magnificence of Great Teacher Largo! Ph34r m3!"
* * *
"Where are you going, Ranchan?" Ukyo's breathless voice held a note of urgency. She had been on the fringe of the explosion, and was the only one, other than Sayuri, that had made it to their feet.
Ranma looked back, one hand resting on the gate pillar of Furinkan high. "To train," he said levelly. "That was a close match. I just about lost, and Saotome Ranma doesn't lose."
Ukyo looked at him oddly, hands on her knees as she caught her breath. "Ranchan, you cleaned her clock. Were you standing too close to the blast or something?"
Grimacing, Ranma snarled, "Don't try an' make me feel better! I gotta get better -- a lot better -- or I won't be so lucky the next time." He turned to go. "I'm gonna go ask Cologne ta help me; she's gotta have some good tricks left." She had to; Ranma won all his fights, even though a not insignificant part of him cringed at the thought of possibly hurting Excel.
"She doesn't."
As one, Ranma and Ukyo turned. The sun had almost set, hanging low to blind them with reddish beams, but as the barely-distinguishable silhouette took another step towards, he moved into sharp focus when his massive, incongruous afro produced a solar eclipse. "Who are you?" Ranma gasped.
The man tightened his yellow tie, and re-adjusted the collar on his red sports jacket. "My name is Nabeshin." He grinned at them, light glinting from his teeth, and then his face hardened. "Cologne is powerful, true, but she doesn't know anything that will be strong enough to help you against this foe. I can help you, though."
Not entirely trusting him, Ranma asked cautiously, "Help me? Do I know you? Why...." He cut off suddenly, feeling the ominous chill of a terrible presence.
"Hotcha!" Happosai came bounding over from the direction of the recent fight, a bag almost twice the normal size bouncing on his shoulder. "Wotta haul! Stunned insensible and flat on their backs -- just the way I like 'em!" He caught sight of the small party near the street and changed course, waving enthusiastically. "Ranma! And... Nabeshin!"
Staring over Ranma's shoulder, Nabeshin's eyes held the distant glaze of a man seeing time lost past. "You are the heir to Anything Goes Martial Arts, Ranma, and I once knew -- and owe a great debt to -- the founder of your school. A man named Happosai." His far-off look did not fade as Happosai came to a stop, perched on top of his afro.
"Nabeshin! Long time no see."
"We were comrades-in-arms -- no, we were friends. We fought together, we trained together, we drank together, we chased girls together. Well, he chased them; they just came to me, but he never held the fact that I was far sexier and more charming than him against me. Ah, I miss those care-free days!"
Puffing on his pipe, Happosai frowned down from his perch. "Hey, I'm right here."
"And then we took that final mission. We never should have, but how could we refuse the heir to the de facto ex-Shogun in exile? We set off for Guatemala with nothing but three pounds of rice and a bottle of glue, never expecting what was in store."
"Nabeshin?" Happosai used his pipe to tap Nabeshin on the forehead, gently at first, but rapidly becoming more forceful. "Yoo-hoo, Nabeshin!"
Still ignoring him, Nabeshin wiped a tear from his eye. "When the cannibal cybernetic Marxist psychiatrists from JANERIKU had us surrounded, I was sure it was all over. But Happosai made me run, telling me that someone had to take the news back, that someone had to let them know that Grasscutter had been found!" His fists clenched, knuckles cracking. "I watched as he fought on, despite four mortal wounds and having his head cut off. His death bought me the time to escape, which is the only reason the world is still here today."
By this time, Happosai had crawled down Nabeshin's front, and was holding his collar in one hand, slapping him repeatedly across the jaw with the other. "Nabeshin! Speak to me! Speak to... errrk!"
Nabeshin held the diminutive man dangling in one hand, and roared, "Shut up!" Punting Happosai into the far distance, he turned to Ranma, dusting his hand clean. "Anyways, that's why I'm going to train you."
"Fair enough." Ranma crossed his arms over his chest and smirked. "But why should I let ya train me? How do I know yer any good?"
Reaching his hand into his coat, Nabeshin nodded. "Good question." Shrugging, he turned and tossed a dark lump lightly to Ukyo, who, taken by surprise, fumbled after the catch. "Here."
Finally getting a good grip on it, Ukyo took a close look and blinked.
"Don't hold on," Nabeshin suggested.
"But...," was all Ukyo managed to get out.
Ranma gaped as the dust from the focused explosion swirled around him. Coughing, he whirled and stared at Nabeshin. "That... that... that was...."
Utterly unfazed by the blast, Nabeshin returned Ranma's previous smirk with compound interest. "Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu Ultimate Attack: Reverse Psychology Hot Potato."
Ranma prostrated himself before Nabeshin. "Master! I beg you to teach me!" He had never seen that attack done before, only heard descriptions of it; never in a million years would he have believed that any man could master Don't-Hold-On Grenade-Jutsu to the point where they could deliver it with such grace and perfection.
"ranchan...." Weakly, Ukyo's arm struggled free from the detritus to tug at Ranchan's shirt. "hurts so much, ranchan...."
Such a martial artist could take him to his limits and beyond, Ranma knew. Only then could he be a match, a true match, for the beautiful Excel.
"ranchan? 'sall getting dark...."
Nabeshin pulled Ranma to his feet; neither paid any heed to the grating noise as Ranma's sleeve was pulled free.
"Come. For the memory of Happosai, I will train you, but we have to start now. Come!" He took off a run, Ranma close on his heels.
"can't feel my legs, ranchan... come back... please...." Ukyo's hand groped briefly at the air, and then, with a shudder, fell back to the bloodied mud. Ravens cawed into the now-full darkness.
"you jackass."