The reposting continues, as the world goes on its way.  

							Switch

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* FIRST FIC * FIRST FIC * FIRST FIC * FIRST FIC * FIRST FIC * FIRST FIC * 
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A Ranma 1/2 Fan Fic
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Switch: Herbs and Spices Day 1
by Nikholas "Switch" F. Toledo
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                             Seventh Sign-Off



	Mousse was flying.
	He could feel the whizz of the air in his ears, and knew right away 
that something was indeed very, very wrong.  For one, the one who had 
propelled him into the troposphere's middle was the rather urgently 
passionate set of teeth and arms that had captured him.  This had meant 
that this particular set was, in fact, belonging to either a) another 
martial artist or b) an alien.  Banking upon the first idea meant that he 
actually knew this person, since martial artists in Nerima tended to meet 
and bash each other.  He started to wonder who it was.
	Secondly, this was because whoever it is probably would have 
estimated his body weight incorrectly.  But their current ability to 
generate trajectory can lead him to no other conclusion except that this 
person was also a practitioner of Hidden Weapons techniques.
	With the proper moves, he wriggled about a bit and produced an 
anchor, which was thrown with a sufficiently large force, bringing them 
down along with it.

	Kuno had a satisfying dinner.  Sasuke was pleased as well (but he'd 
never show it):  the mistress had been missing during the meal.  When she 
didn't cook, she had this penchant for lacing the meals with all sorts of 
herbs and spices.  The manservant mumbled incoherently about how the 
flavor of sashimi was not-quite, but very nearly, utterly destroyed by a 
dash of arsenic in chloroform.  (Not that it would be detected by 
anything but the finest of gourmets.)
	The skein of the Kuno Legacy adjourned to his shrines, leaving the 
unassuming ninja to worry about his next task:  the duty of feeding the 
mistress's pet.  This usually fell upon the shoulders of the lady of the 
house, since she was the one who was spared bodily harm consistently 
during these sessions, but her absence not only required primary alarm 
(how would the principal take it?) but some aftershocks as well (who 
would have to feed the felonious reptile?).  He braced himself, armed 
with the bo (recently extracted from the jaws of the beast) and a trayful 
of munchies, he set out to duty.
	As the windows were always shut in a samurai's restful sanctum, 
Kuno missed the third symphony of mistaken meals and panic and pain, 
played in their own yard.

	Mt. Fuji hasn't erupted for hundreds of years now, and many say 
that it never will again.  Finding itself on two of the major 
seismovolcanic regions of the world leads many a casual monster-mania 
fiend to just veer away from it, at least until they could assure 
themselves that the top no longer has connections with the inner earth.
	In the next few days, though, pyrotechnics will be taking a minor 
encore.

	Sneaky... well, no.  Not really.
	Playful, maybe.  
 	The female made her way, nimbly fingering the switch to the kitchen 
lights.  The old wood meshed wonderfully with the new, so much that the 
fastenings had absorbed the footfalls completely.  This was the first 
time she had done this alone, but it did not bother her in the least.  
The dark hallway she was treading ended bathed in light.  Her goal, 
though, was the sliding door slightly glowing on her right.  The night 
was silent.
	Akane felt the door *swoosh* quickly open, rather than heard.  At 
this, she would have either paranoidly searched for intruders or, at 
worst case, scream in abject terror, if it weren't for the fact that she 
had heard, instead, a gently inflected, "tea, Akane?"
	(Akane's much-vaunted retort that she is, in fact, a martial 
artist, with the skills and, more importantly, the reflexes of a good 
one, would attest to the fact that Kasumi had spoken before the door had 
very audibly creaked, so as not to scare the people inside, as was 
intended.)
	The younger Tendo had relaxed before she had begun to tense up, 
cutting through the suspension of disbelief.  She turned her head away 
from the thriller on the TV and gave her elder a dimpled smile.  "Thanks, 
Kasumi."
	While handing the ceramic mug, she gingerly held her own.  She knew 
without looking about what the matter was.
	She realized a whole world of emotion in play at the moment, not 
just with Akane, but with both her siblings.  When troubled over 
something, Akane liked to distract herself for as long as she could.  On 
the other hand, Nabiki liked to face the matter, by herself.  And at 
their age (?), trouble meant only one thing.
	She could, of course, just let nature take its course.  Which would 
mean that the youngest Tendo would take matters into her own hands, and 
that the poor young man in question would end up in pain, or in traction.  
And whatever was bugging Nabiki would never come out.  She could just 
choose to be the older sister, and keep out of their business.  But that 
just wouldn't be her.
	She used the current ambiguity to turn on the lights, and to turn 
off the set.  Setting herself down across the tabletop's corner to her 
baby sis, she took her first sip.  It was a bit colder than she would 
have preferred, and had implied this to her companion, who had had none 
of her own.  The stillness in her eyes as she had them transfixed on the 
drink belied her own shaky feelings.
	The truth was that Kasumi had not made light of the situation, and 
had always been concerned as to the state of affairs in the house.  It's 
just that anything that tried to put her little sister and (she had no 
doubt) her fiancée together always ended up in a broken and bloodied 
heap.  Come to think of it, anything that tried to pull them apart shared 
that fate.  A certain sadness came from the two whenever they were caught 
alone without the other, on nights where no large-scale domestic violence 
occurred.
	She might have ventured into trying to convince one that they were 
perfect with the other, except that she had the feeling that they already 
knew.  She might have been missing out on what's been happening, even 
with her eternal vigilance.  And so, she kept to herself in these 
matters, much as they keep coming up these days.
	But enough was most definitely enough.  Much as she loved playing 
matchmaker, she couldn't bear it.  Things had to start moving, or else.
	Akane couldn't look into her eyes.  "I'll just be upstairs."  She 
stood not-too-quickly and made way for the door.
	Kasumi wasn't quite sure that she wanted her to go just yet.  
"Aren't you going to take your bath?  We could take it together you 
know."
	The shorthaired girl stopped in mid-step, and turned.  "Not 
tonight, sis.  I just feel too tired."  She faked a yawn, covering tears 
that could have been there already.  "Good night."
	Kasumi sipped.  She sighed.  Not bad, having your two sisters mope 
about, and you couldn't even talk about it with the younger one.  How 
could you handle Nabiki, then?  She sat in silence for a while, until a 
phone rang.

	Tsubasa wearied.  He was in tears, all right.  Tears and shreds.  
His dress gave out before he did, but now that the darker night has 
fallen, he couldn't cope.  Having ended up on a rooftop, he hadn't 
thought of rain when the lead weight fell on him.  Flying boats?  What 
would they think of next?  And with that, he fell into a silent clump, 
soon followed by some others.

	The train sped through the hollow night, bringing phantom speed.  A 
set of four intrepid warriors held the most common of celebrations to the 
start of a hunt:  a war dance.  But, as the most sophisticated of races 
evolve, the war dance grows with it.
	In the more ferocious cousins of the cat family, it would be held 
in the relative safety of packs, with only the starlight to dance with 
them.  The elder primates sought refuge in trees, and thus could not 
partake in such festivities, but their younger siblings rediscovered the 
tradition with their feet on the ground.  The earlier tribes had 
intricate and elaborate costumes, with well-choreographed tunes and 
striking colors.  As man became domesticated, though, the hunt was soon 
banned, but the celebration lived on in the form of songs, dances and 
video games.  A return to nature can, however, occur, and the most 
refined of spirits has many an ingenious scheme of dancing with wolves.  
	They were not the most refined of spirits.
	Cologne merely tilted her staff as Ranma, Genma and Soun passed by 
her.  Tilting back, she turned to see the youngest of her opponents jump 
up as the others teeter across the gap between their cargo tram to the 
next one.  Ranma fell upon the other two, causing them to grasp the 
ceiling of the other bus, inadvertently bridging the space.
	With a nearly feral, but effectively sub-verbal grunt, Ranma stood 
to come at the aged Amazon.  The latter took the time to mentally point 
out errors in the maneuver of her opponent, and the proper offense to 
play.  He wasn't giving that much battle aura, and kept his temperature 
near cold.  His stance belied the impracticability of a Moko Takabisha, 
as they were moving some 200 miles per hour atop Japan's fastest railway 
system.  Noting that the top speed of the bullet train was near 500 mph, 
she immediately had come upon several conclusions.
	One was that this was their stop.
	She jumped off her staff, as the train began its turn.  This 
effectively tossed the pig-tailed wonder off the cabin ceiling.  Hauling 
what and who had remained, the venerable female leapt off in pursuit.

	Ryoga opened his eyes sleepily.  He wasn't sure if they were, in 
fact, open or not, because it was too dark to see anything.  He felt kind 
of weak, and was already adapting the standard procedure upon finding 
one's self in a strange place (many have touted this to be the boot-up 
for all Hibikis).
	Step 1:  Do not panic.
	OK, done.
	Step 2:  Slowly, but surely check all body parts.
	Checking... checking... done.
	Step 3:  Find familiar landmarks.
	He started to try to turn his head.  It was on something soft.  
	What was it?  It was somewhat taut, underneath a fabric with 
frills.  It was dark.  Was it... oh God... was it Akane?
	Oh God, it was Akane, he was human, they were in bed, oh dear, step 
4, find a way out, get the hell outta here...!
	As Ryoga was wrestling with a pillow, convincing it to go through 
step 12 (find a secondary light source), while being calm and savvy as a 
man should when in bed with a woman, waking the woman that was in bed 
with him.
	"Uhhhhhhhh..."
	Ryoga stopped in mid-sentence.  Ukyo was here, too?
	He wanted to put his hands to his head, except that one of them was 
under the pillow under his head, which he thought was Akane, and another 
one was quite isolated by an arm pinned by the body which he identified 
as Ukyo's.  Quite a nice body, too.  Ohhhh dear...
	Breathe in, breathe out, stay cool, have to stop the nosebleed...
	A hand came to the rescue, with a bandanna.  Nausea gave way to a 
slightly solid feeling of his lower body.  Refocusing his eyes, he saw 
that the bandanna was his, the hand was connected to an arm trailing to 
his lower right, where his arm was being pinned by Ukyo's quite-nice 
stomach.  He couldn't see her face, but could make out that plain white 
ribbon she wears in her hair.  He just gave in to the impulse to breathe.  
Ukyo looked up from where she was, aware that he was conscious and there 
was no blood spewing from any orifices.  With her big (hopeful?) eyes, 
she peered beyond her outstretched arm.
	Ryoga had stared into her head before she had noticed, and was 
clearly was into some inner space.  His lips were wagging in a way to 
say, "step 43:  remove all flammable objects and project ki blasts into 
the clogged portion..."  Ukyo had a small cross-eyed look, and may have 
knocked his socks off if not for two facts.  These two facts were:  her 
hand, on his nose;  and, his hand, on her waist.  She would have ended up 
in orbit with him.  
	He trailed off, not quite saying anything.  She started to feel 
quite self-conscientious, indeed.  Wriggling a bit, she took the hand 
that was on the other side of her from its owner.  She blushed only 
slightly.  A young, nubile female such as her, caught in bed with a 
young, marriageable and cute martial artist, who was staring at her with 
such want, such need that was in his eyes...
	Staring at her?
	With a hand in her hand, with them in such close quarters, it was a 
wonder that she was not slapping him silly, screaming "Ryouga no baka!!" 
before sending him into the sky.  Maybe, just maybe, she might.
	
	Ranma was worried only that he'd gotten bored before they got 
there.  How long has he had to wait?  How much has he had to put up with?  
Was it worth it all?  The indignation was growing.  He knew that when the 
boredom (and, he knew, the loneliness) grew, the only way to beat it was 
with the indignation.  When the anger was gone, that was all there is.
	Doing their equivalent of the marathon, the four made their way 
through the night to the next leg, hoping to squeeze in as much time as 
they could.
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Thus ends the first day of affairs in the Switch:  Herbs and Spices
storyline.  Tune in for the next day of affairs.  What happens then?
The herbs and spices come in (no, no appearances by the Musk Dynasty,
or cameos of descendants of Shampoo from other fanfics...).
Stick around to see if it's hip.  Good night.

								Switch



another quality product of

Nikholas F. Toledo
niftol@i-manila.com.ph