-- Listar MIME Decryption --------------
-- Name : ALS4BC&C.txt
-- Decode : from quoted-printable...
| Ummmm. Well. There was this real life thing that attacked me, see? And
| it sucked up all my blood, and then I had to redo the order I had planned
| and then the list went down and ummm....
|
| I die.
| I collapse over my computer and die. The emanations from my corpse are
| drawn into the hard-drive and mutated. Evil radiations spread from my
| machine to affect the rest of the net. All files are transmuted to
| oscar-fics, and everything linked to the net starts broadcasting
| Gubby and Gruboursy kook-rants.
| The world commits nuclear suicide to escape.
| Then, all die.
| Oh, the embarrasment!
So that explains why I haven't commented on the last two parts. Seriously, though, nothing wrong with them a mild proofread wouldn't catch. And this is one facet of life where I DON'T have to play catch-up and no one questions the reasons why. So I'll just comment on this and hit the ground running, ne?
| Aheh. This is the operative part 4B. All previous statements of 4B
| are inoperative. The party will be held in 5A. Or so.
Well of course the party's in room 5.
Semi-obscure ref, there.
| Inspiration for this section was gained from:
| Thiemo "G�nther" <outlaender@yahoo.com>
| Silas Dunsmore <silasd@psyber.com>
| "Freemage ." <freemage@hotmail.com>
| "Paul Arezina" <arezina@acad1.stvincent.edu>
*mutters something about using the G. Falconar handle he signs every single blasted message with but doesn't want to show up when he attaches his resume...*
| and Silk <silk@GalaxyCorp.com>
| all of whom hope I have not offended by naming here.
| It's their fault, but it's also their glory, for they are Good C&Cers.
| You want to be a Good C&Cer too, right?
Sure! We all do!
| Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only swinging on
| the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds cleaner than you found
| them and please don't feed the Troll.
|
| "The Enfolding" is copyrighted by Garnet Rogers; "Annie's Song" is John
| Denver's, and John Denver's alone. (Of course he's dead, but ...).
Your background music today, class, comes from the magical kingdom of Zeal, from Chrono Trigger. I thought it appropriate for the mystic quality and the fact that golems make an appearance.
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
| Chapter 4: A Tapestry of Stars and Shadows
| Part B: Sunday Service: A Sonata for Flute
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Sunday morning ... _early_ sunday morning ... the sky still dark, in
| the darkest hours before the light of the new day. Ranma's apartment,
| like all the others in her building, is dark;
So it's dark, then?
Sorry, one too many MiSTings...
| that should not, however,
| be construed to mean that Ranma is asleep. Contrariwise, she is wide
| awake, sitting seiza in girl form in the middle of his main room,
Erm... I know Ranma's gender is variable, but one doesn't change pronouns mid-sentence unless said sentence includes the application of water. "...the middle of HER main room"
| surrounded by a litter of books, papers, vials, beakers, boxes, racks,
| small pieces of metal or wood or wire, and a great quantity of objects
| for which the only name that truly fits is: miscellanea.
Hmm. I know what you're gunning for with the colon, but it's not working. Perhaps "and a great quantity of objects which can only be reliably classified as miscellanea" might work to the same effect, perhaps not.
| No diagram hangs in the air before the window, no mysterious liquids
| drip in shadowed corners, no air of arcane secrets prevails. Nonetheless,
| magic is being made. Magic of the best and most useful sort: prosaic
| magic.
Technology, in other words. Magic advanced to the point where it is commonplace.
*notices the funny looks from half the list*
What? What? If a country-wide telephone system worked through little air spirits instead of through electricity, wouldn't it still be technology, simply because it was so widely in use?
Never mind, debate long gone by. Sealed away, even. Forget I said anything. Really. Please?
| In front of Ranma sits a pile of small pieces of rice paper, next
| to them is a set of inkstones, bearing ink of many hues, and a matching
| set of pens.
I think that first comma should be, not a comma, but a semicolon.
| To one side is a completed set of small origami geese,
| patiently waiting their time. Ranma's attention, though, is not on the
| geese; instead, she turns a small piece of jade over in her hands,
| staring at it with a faint air of puzzlement. It is carved in the
| likeness of a nightingale, but this has been the case for centuries, and
| would not seem to be cause for puzzlement.
The fact that said carving was originally one of blue-veined marble, however...
| Casually, Ranma reaches her hand to the side and picks a scroll out
| of a pile of similar writings. She places the jade nightingale carefully
| in front of her and unrolls the scroll; skimming at first, and then
| carefully reading one section.
And THAT semicolon should probably be a comma.
| Then she moves on in the scroll, skimming
| the rest before returning to several sections to scrutinize them closely,
| rolling the scroll back and forth several time to cross-reference some
| point or other. Then she rerolls the scroll and places it back into its
| place before rising quickly to her feet and rapidly gathering all the
| litter from the floor and replacing it in the footlocker.
One too many "and"s in that sentence.
| The geese she
| puts aside, laying them on the table in the kitchen; the jade bird
| remains sitting enigmatically where she left it. Although, to be honest,
| sitting where you leave it can not truly be considered enigmatic behavior
| for a jade figurine; this is, after all, what they do all the time.
However, it must be admitted that, when left at a point a good four feet above any remotely solid surface, said act of sitting takes on a decidedly enigmatic aspect indeed.
| Inanimation is a hard habit to give up.
|
| Ranma finishes her clean-up and returns to sit seiza before the
| still immobile figurine. Then she reaches out and takes it into her
| hands, resting it in the valley of her cupped palms as she sinks deeply
| into trance. And the minutes pass, fleeing like frightened minnows, as
| Ranma adjusts her perception, looking Without, and then Within - Within
| the jade bird cupped in her hands, and Within herself as well.
|
| Before her inward turned gaze she sees a tracery of fire, outlining
| blocks of softly luminescent patterns; patterns that, for those with
| eyes to see them, set out the precise details of the existence of any
| given object. This one, for instance, tells of the details for the
| jade figurine in Ranma's hand. See the patterns that mark out its shape,
| and color; trace the lines that tell of texture, chemical composition,
| mass and density; observe the lack of any pattern that would indicate
| life, or growth, or change. It is not unusual for there to be such a
| lack; after all, the figurine isn't alive. And yet ... yet within its
| structure it still possesses the energies of life. And yet within its
| patterns it follows the living patterns of the bird which is its model.
| And yet, somehow, locked in never-living stone, there still exists a
| living bird: awaiting life, longing for freedom, patient as a stone.
Now that... that was something you need a narrator to truly recapture.
| Patient, as it has had to be patient, since the day so long ago when
| it first was carved. Waiting, as it has had to wait since the day when
| first it coalesced from primordial ore and silicates. Longing, as it had
| longed since the first human hand had touched it, since its shape had
| taken form, since it had become like life, but not alive. And Ranma
| hears the longing in her blood, knows the waiting in her bones, feels
| the patience down all the endless years in nerves and heart and soul.
| And reaches out a mental hand, and presses a metaphorical button,
| because, sometimes, patience does have its reward. And a spring wound
| by a thousand years of longing unwinds. And in her hand the nightingale
| shakes its carven feathers into place, and stretches and spreads its
| stony wings, and hurls itself into the waiting air, and raises its voice
| -- at last, at last -- in song.
*slight eyebrow raise* Impressive. Not just the act, but the description thereof...
Are you sure you're not Alan Harnum, writing a semi-happy story under a pseudonym to escape the oft-dark pallor associated with your previous works?
| For a moment Ranma follows the jade bird's ecstatic flight with a
| proud smile, but then she notes the music the joyful bird is raising to
| heaven, a tune slower and simpler than expected, a tune, she suddenly
| realizes, that she knows. And her smile turns wistful, and a golden
| contralto softly joins a jade fountain of song.
|
| Deep within this softly moonlit night we awoke,
| to find our loves' sweet expression
| unfolding of its own accord.
| A touch in gentle sleepiness, a fingertip, a pressing lip
| The kindness of our bodies, speaking softly in the dark.
|
| Our love began so tentative; a smiling eye,
| a voice soft-spoken
| Touching in a way our lives had never quite been met.
| The quiet grave acceptance of the truth within each other,
| The meeting of two people, man and woman for all time.
|
| So in this night our love unfolds, your body is akin to mine.
| Another half once left behind in generations long ago.
| To finally meet together, in a silent true immersion.
| The natural culmination of a love we can't define.
|
| And this loving is a drawing close, a tuning in, an opening
| Until one perfect moment; but how can it be expressed?
| A receiving, and enfolding as I cradle you in my arms.
| Within my heart, within my soul,
| You are my true love.
*Stunned and awed expression* Nice one. So the nightingale's been tuned to 101.5 FM for the past few months or something?
| The nightingale circuits the room and lands on Ranma's outstretched
| finger, throat pouring forth a torrent of song. Ranma listens for a
| moment, still smiling wistfully, then chuckles. "It's all very well for
| _you_ to say. You don't have to deal with it." Music. "'Man and woman
| for all time', _that's_ the problem." Music.
Heh. I like these one-sided conversations. Happosai makes it work quite well with Ryoko and Ryo-Ohki. And it works here, too.
| "Because she's straight,
| you silly bird. And she thinks I'm a girl." Music. "Yeah, that _could_
| be done, I suppose. But there's one problem. _I_ want 'man and woman'
| too, and if you say anything about Nannichuan I'll ...." Music. "Be her
| friend. What else is there?" Music: a sharp, brief stanza. "Love is ...
| not a good idea. Besides, there's Oyaji, remember? If he hasn't found
| an engagement for me I'll eat my hat.
Music. "I know I don't have any. It's a figure of speech."
| It'll be enough of a miracle if
| she's at all suitable. Hell, it'll be something of a miracle if she's
| _human_.
After living in a world of anthropomorphics, you'd think Ranma would have at least started looking beyond her own species.
| Love is too much to hope for." Music. "Because _it won't work_,
| damnit. It hurts enough as it is." Music: a rich tapestry of interweaving
| harmonies. "Oh _well_. In _that_ case, yes, _then_ it would work. Of
| course, that won't happen ...
After all, it's not like this is a manga or anything...
| but _if_ it did, then yes." Music: a
| joyous trill, fading into a sleepy purl. A stretching, a shaking, a
| nestling down to rest; and a small jade figurine, a nightingale asleep,
| is cupped in the hollow of Ranma's palm. Patiently waiting for a spring
| to wind itself again; content now, in a sense, but still longing for the
| day when it can again unwind itself ... and fly ... and sing.
|
| And Bushiko Ranma looks down into the hollow of her hand, and says,
| very gently, "Silly bird."
Always nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of, ne?
Though I like Nabiki's trio of songbirds-cum-opera singers in "Chasing the Wind" a bit better.
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Tendo Akane woke very early, just before sunrise. She quickly dressed,
| intending to get in some practice before breakfast. Going out of her
| room, she first stopped in the kitchen. "Ohayo, Kasumi-oneechan; I'm
| going to the dojo to practice; would you call me when breakfast is
| ready please?"
|
| "Ohayo gozaimasu, Akane-chan. Ranma-san is already in the dojo.
| She asked me to make you this snack, to eat before you train." Kasumi
| gave Akane a small plate, carrying a pair of rice balls and a small
| filet of fish.
As a general rule, only animate objects carry. Inanimate objects are content to hold things.
| *blinkblink* "Ranchan's _here_? _Already_? Augh! I'm late! She'll
| think I'm slacking!" A wind blew through the kitchen as the door
| *whooshed* with Akane's passage, leaving the plate hanging in mid-air.
| It *whiished* as Akane reappeared, catching the plate and gulping down
| the food in a blur. It *whooshed* again as Akane vanished through the
| abused door leaving the now clean plate hanging in mid-air; only to
| *whiish* as she reappeared, catching the plate before it could fall and
| placing it gently in the sink before *whoosh*ing out the door again;
| followed by a *thump* as the door was sucked off its hinges and fell
| over. A *shhhk* announced Akane's sliding stop, followed by a black-haired
| head that slowly inched its way back into the picture. Akane gave
| Kasumi a nervous smile before picking the door up off the ground and
| placing it gingerly back into place. She patted it timidly, then took
| several cautious, silent steps away before vanishing dojo-wards again
| with a dopplered wail of, "Auugh! I'm Late!"
The Tsukino Usagi School of Hurried Breakfasts, ladies and gentlemen.
| Kasumi blinked at the door slowly. It sombrely toppled over with
| a somehow triumphant *thud* and broke into several pieces.
Considering it's made of ricepaper, that's an impressive feat indeed.
| Kasumi
| blinked again before lowering her face into her hands and shaking her
| head. "Oh ... dear."
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| We are brief Summer lightning,
| We are swift as swallows' flight.
| We are sparks that spiral upwards,
| In the darkness of the night.
| We are frost upon the window,
| We won't pass this way again,
| In the end only love remains.
|
| Akane skidded to a halt as she entered the dojo and dropped her jaw
| in shock. The formerly empty practice floor was covered by piles of
| cinder-blocks in a similar manner to those she had used to practice
| with, (was it less than a week ago, or was it a lifetime)
And is that thought just going to trail off into infinity, or are you going to cap it with a question mark?
| the first
| morning After Ranma. Ranma was stacking them into tall piles and had
| apparently been at work on a number of the piles she had already stacked,
| because they had been shaped in some manner into vaguely human form.
| How she had managed it Akane couldn't imagine, but she supposed that
| the trick of shaping cinder-blocks must be a fairly simple one after
| some of the things she had seen Ranma do.
|
| Akane watched as Ranma finished stacking her latest pile and withdrew
| her fan from her sleeve. Then Ranma raised her hand above the top of
| the concrete pile and snapped the fan open.
|
| That pair in the corner,
| They're here every Tuesday
| They come when the market
| first open its stalls.
| And it's got so that lately
| I'll wait just to see them
| Their heads bent together,
| As they come down the hall.
|
| And her hair has grown whiter
| His has grown thinner,
| And their pace has slowed down
| As the years have grown long.
| But they keep step together
| 'Mongst strangers who hurry,
| These two old companions,
| Walking slowly along.
|
| Ranma's fan flashed around and through the pile of blocks as she
| sang, and before Akane's eyes a pile of rectangular blocks was shaped,
| flexed, carved and melted into another humanoid shape.
|
| "Ohayo, Ranchan. How are you doing that?"
|
| "Ohayo Acchan. Let me finish a couple more so we have half of them
| done and I'll show you."
|
| "Let me help stack."
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| "Okay, now here we have a pile of cinder-blocks, right?"
|
| "Umm. Yeah. Looks like that to me, yep." Akane nodded happily, and
| looked at Ranma with wide eyes.
|
| "Stop that. Besides, for the purpose of this explanation, you're
| wrong.
It's a block of piled cinders, then?
| What we have here is a pile of patterns of energy. A set of shapes
| defined by 'chi' and, in this case, mostly free of 'shi'."
If I just let the chibi-physics major in me out and called the two potential and kinetic energy, respectively, would I be terribly off the mark?
| Akane squinted to slip into othersight, "That's the same thing though,
| right, Ranchan?"
|
| "Not quite, no. See, if it was a pile of concrete blocks, then there'd
| be no way to do anything with it. Concrete blocks are concrete blocks,
| ne?
Well, if they're partially imbedded into an art gallery wall and painted red, they're called "Rage No. 4" and sell for around six million yen. But otherwise, yeah.
| But! If it's a collection of patterns of 'chi', then I can use
| _this_," she flourished the fan, "which is _also_ a pattern of 'chi', to
| change what the patterns say. Now watch. I take the fan, and I feed
| 'shi' from my ki into it, see?" Akane nodded. "Now, I use the 'shi' to
| 'spread' the 'chi' of the blocks. And now that I've got them in shape to
| be changed ...." The upper portion of the pile was quickly reduced to
| the shape of a crudely fashioned head. "Now you try."
|
| Akane dubiously took the fan from Ranma, and focused her othersight
| on the concrete. Sinking into a trance, she sent 'shi' rushing into the
| fan, filling it with crackling tubes of light. She attempted to insert
| the fan into the concrete but met with resistance. Withdrawing the fan,
| she 'looked' at it, altering the shape and frequency of the power filling
| it to something closer to what she had seen Ranma use and then tried
| again. A few attempts later, the fan began to sink into the concrete,
| but stopped less than an inch in, having apparently run into something.
| Frowning slightly, Akane flexed her fingers, preparatory to changing
| the 'shi' flow one more time. The flex caused the fan to open slightly.
| The pile exploded into dust, knocking her head over heels backward into
| the wall of the dojo.
Please don't let Akane be coming down with Mihoshi Syndrome...
| Ranma tapped her chin meditatively, "Well ... it's a start."
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| *boom* ... *boom* ... *boom* ... Tendo Nabiki was a heavy sleeper,
| particularly on Sunday.
But they were paying her so well to take care of that pink bunny with a drum...
| Nonetheless, repeated muffled explosions could
| waken even her. Blearily she wandered into the kitchen, where Kasumi
| intercepted her with a request to inform Ranma and Akane that breakfast
| was ready. Not particularly in a good mood she wandered through the
| house to the dojo and opened the door. Strewn about the once-polished
| dojo floor her narrowed eyes observed a dozen or so piles of rubble, and
| the accountant in her bemoaned the cost in cinder-blocks that rubble
| represented. Meanwhile the sister in her was storing up a grievance, and
| the observer was watching with dropped jaw as her sister went after
| another pile of blocks in a seeming frenzy with ... a fan??!!
|
| A most puissant fan, she noted; it was carving pieces of cinder-block
| off the pile like a ginsu knife slicing tomatoes. Akane finished carving
| concrete with what passed for a flourish, and stepped back from the
| now human shaped pile with a gasp of exhaustion and a whirl of triumph.
| "Ha!, Ha!, See, Ranchan, I told you I had it this time!"
|
| Ranma tapped her chin in silence and Akane turned to her in irrita-
| tion, "Well ... what's wrong with it?" She was answered by a sound as of
| flowing sand as the concrete gave up its bondage and dissolved into
| dust; a few small pieces of somewhat more resilient mien falling
| through the pile to *ping* off the floor. Ranma raised an eyebrow in
| silence. Akane flushed beet-red and slumped to the floor in a heap,
| putting her head in her hands.
You know, Ranma is starting to remind me of Yosho. I wonder if that's deliberate on your part?
| "I don't think you've quite got the 'form-the-chemical-bonds-so-it's-
| all-one-piece' part down yet, Acchan."
So she's making diamonds out of them? Seriously, though, that's about the only thing out there which IS held in one piece by chemical bonds. Anything else, it's friction between individual grains, effective suspension... certainly not chemical bonding in the true sense of the word. Maybe make references to welding or to leaving the chi backbone intact, but ain't nothing on EARTH that can break chemical bonds with physical force. Excepting, perhaps, atomic power and particle accelerators, neither of which are found in your typical dojo.
| Akane *snff*ed from the floor.
| "Still. it _may_ be that you'll do better after a rest, ne? And I think
| Nabiki-san is here to announce breakfast." Ranma raised another eyebrow,
| at Nabiki this time.
|
| "Umm, yeah. Oneechan says it's ready, yes."
|
| Akane *snff*ed again and Ranma extended a hand to her. Akane grasped
| the hand and pulled herself up. She started to walk after Nabiki, but
| raised her head to where she could see the remaining uncarved, stacked
| cinder-block pile. Her head snapped up, her jaw firmed, and her should-
| ers straightened. She raised the fan and said, "No! I'm on the verge, I
| know it. Once more, and _this_ time I'm gonna do it right!" Then, sud-
| denly, she grinned, "Hey, Ranchan, watch me pull a dummy out of a cinder-
| block!"
|
| "Aw, Acchan," Ranma squirreled, "that trick _never_ works!"
|
| "This time for sure!"
"Nothin' up muh sleeve..."
And somewhere, two new Russian exchange students sneezed...
| Akane strode purposefully up to the untouched pile and stuck the fan
| an inch into the space where the head would be. Then her shoulders
| hunched and she gathered herself. The fan suddenly unfolded, and Akane
| seemed to go into a frenzy of fan blows; blurring about the pile, now
| to the left, now in back, as she stripped and melted concrete with each
| strike. After a minute of frantic effort she stepped back, panting in
| exhaustion and glaring at the shaped concrete, daring it to move in
| any way.
She was thus rather surprised when the hands closed around her...
*ahem* Let's just get all the dark OUT of our system, shall we?
| Ranma stepped forward and flicked the dummy with her finger, nodding
| when it failed to immediately disintegrate. "Yep, I think that's got it."
| then she pivoted gracefully and caught Akane by the waist as the taller
| girl fainted with exhaustion, swinging her up into her arms. She carried
| Akane to the door and shrugged at Nabiki, "A little stubborn, maybe."
And I think "then" should be capitalized and perhaps suffixed with a comma.
| Nabiki shook her head and walked ahead of Ranma into the dining room.
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| After breakfast Ranma and Akane returned to the dojo. Ranma considered
| the dummies scattered about the room for a moment, and then turned back
| to Akane, putting her back to the dojo wall. "Well, you've proved that
| you can do basic ki movement, and also basic manipulations of other's
| chi. Now we move on a little. Using these skills, you can extend your
| capabilities in several ways. The first thing we'll talk about is an
| extension of what you just did with the fan. It's called 'chi' disrupt-
| ion. When Jei attacked, did you notice what I did to the wall of the
| classroom he was in?"
|
| "Yah, Ranchan, I'd been meaning to ask you about it. You sort of ...
| waved at the wall? And it fell apart, is what it looked like."
|
| Ranma held up her right hand, outer fingers veed and inner fingers
| curled.
"In the name of the moon..."
| "It's called The Butterfly's Kiss. What you do is send out a
| 'shi' pulse from your hand. The pulse is set in a manner that disrupts
| the 'chi' of any inanimate object that it hits. And once you've disrupted
| its 'chi' of course, it falls apart."
|
| "What about living things, Ranchan?"
|
| "A good question, Acchan. Living targets are harder to affect. First,
| because their ki will tend to resist you messing with it; and second,
| because they have souls, which will keep them mostly intact even if
| you _do_ manage to mess with it. That said, however, there are versions
| of this move that will do nasty things to people, too.
This is why the Bakusai Tenketsu doesn't work on living things, ne? And, I imagine, something made out of sufficient long-chain polymers like, say, rubber, isn't going to crumble away as easily. Collapse in a gooey heap, sure. Of course, rubber was once-living... true rubber, anyway. And synthetics are derived from living things...
Gah. Now the polymer chemist in me wants to come to the surface and somewhere in my subconscious someone is jabbering about flourescence theory and its applications...
You've gone pseudo-scientific and my mind is spinning around wildly trying to come up with actual science to draw analogues to.
| "Now you hold your hand like this ... and you feed 'shi' from your
| ki like _this_ ... and you've got to keep in mind what the 'chi' of the
| thing you're trying to affect looks like, cause you have to send a pulse
| that disrupts it, like so ...."
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| "Now the next thing we're going to look at is called 'shi'-sheathing.
| This is a method of creating a sheath or shroud of moving or 'fluid'
| energy from your ki, and having it exist _separate_ from your ki for
| some period of time. Now you've already done a variant of this with the
| fan, but the essence of the technique here is to be able to apply a
| sheath not only to yourself or something you're holding, but to things
| you've let go of, or even to non-physical things like a 'chi' structure.
| And also to get the sheath to _last_ once you can't feed 'shi' to it
| any more, of course."
|
| "You want me to use this set of throwing knives to practice on, right,
| Ranchan?"
|
| "To start with, yes."
|
| Akane concentrated on the knives in her hands, turning them over and
| over and watching the reflections. Slipping deeply into trance, she
| concentrated on the task of covering the blades with a 'web' of 'shi'
| that did not immediately disintegrate when she released it. After several
| minutes of effort she had determined that the most important step was
| insuring that the outer web was both self-contiguous and anchored to
| a stable object and was attempting to work out a method for doing so.
| Abruptly, a warning instinct she hadn't previously known she had went
| off, sending her rolling sideways, away from the concrete fist that
| *thudd*ed into the dojo floor where she had been standing.
"You had best hope you have courteous enemies, who will not attack you while you meditate." --Yosho Masaki, as envisioned by Happosai, slightly paraphrased.
I mean, seriously, some of this Ranma's mannerisms are reminding me of Yosho. Considering he's one of the coolest characters in anime, that's not a bad thing.
| Akane rolled to her feet in automatic reaction and slid sideways,
| dodging the blocky attacker's forceful rush and flicking a knife into
| its throat. The knife *ping*ed off concrete and Akane cursed herself for
| a fool, evading another cobra-quick attack by the animate statue and
| jumping for increased fighting room.
You know, somehow, stone and speed don't seem to go well together.
| She desperately reached for concen-
| tration to empower a better weapon and felt time slow as a sudden gestalt
| clicked into place. All at once she _knew_ the feel of a properly made
| sheath, knew the sight and sound and taste of it; and a sheath of 'shi'
| set to penetrate solid rock snapped down over two of her remaining
| knives, which then flashed across the rapidly decreasing distance to
| her attacker, thudding into its throat and heart and sinking deep.
I thought it was only Ranma who could pull that sort of thing off. Then again, this might be a sign of this enhanced Akane.
Oh, and I don't think that semicolon should be there.
| Unfortunately, as her attacker was made of concrete instead of flesh
| and blood, this accomplished nothing. Akane threw off two butterfly's
| kiss strikes set for stone to no effect before she skidded sideways from
| a combination strike that would have pulped her like a rotten grapefruit
That was a pleasant mental image.
| and jumped over the return stroke, pushing off from her opponents back
"Opponent's", ne?
| into a long dive that staggered the towering bulk and won her twenty feet
| of space.
Unfortunately, she traded it for what was behind door number three.
| Coming up from her dive into a forward roll, she stood and
| whirled, mind still in overdrive as she sought a way to deliver a chi
| disruption attack that would destroy her foe without making the fatal
| mistake of coming into its reach. Her racing thoughts quickly pruned
| her decision tree
Now that's a unique metaphor.
| to the only possible solution and began to implement
| it as her opponent regained its balance and turned to the attack again.
| Akane wove the sheathe around the disruption pulse and anchored it to
| the knife, then set the knife to throw. Dodging forward to close past
| the range at which her opponent's speed would allow it to dodge, she
| threw the knife from just outside the reach of its arms.
|
| The knife flew straight to its target and sank deep into the concrete
| chest, but the desired result did not obtain. 'Shit! Ranchan _told_ me
| you couldn't do that to a living target! What was I thinking?' Akane
| folded into a forward roll under the closing arms, her mind still in
| hyper. 'I need to set the disruption-'chi' off, but how do I alter ...?
| I'll have to get close.' Akane came out of her roll inside the reach of
| her opponent's arms and launched herself immediately into a jump that
| put her in a position to be crushed by their rapidly closing grasp; but
| also in a position to touch the hilt of the knife, into which she
| channeled
| all the 'shi' she had, funneling it directly into the disruption-web
| which drove the animating 'shi' before it as it expanded.
That semi-colon doesn't seem to fit there... maybe break and start a new sentence?
Just a general observation that you seem to be enamored with six- and seven-line sentences...
| And then the
| web collapsed inward into the creature's chest, exploding it with
| sufficient force to knock Akane back into the wall of the dojo, smacking
| herself on the suddenly disconnected arms as she went by.
|
| From the side of the dojo, Ranma chuckled, "Well, that's _one_ way to
| do it ...."
|
| Limping slightly, Akane moved to the crumbled remains of the practice
| dummy and retrieved her knives. Giving the redhead a glare, Akane
| replied in a dangerously mild voice, "What were you expecting?"
|
| Smiling, Ranma put a hand on the dummies to either side. As they
| rumbled into life, she said, "Look at these two. What do you See?"
|
| Akane looked at the lumbering figures, and tried to see what Ranma
| might be referencing. All she saw was a tracery of 'shi'. layered and
| interwoven, providing the energy necessary for the dummies to move.
| Suddenly she saw what her friend meant, and sent a knife winging into
| each dummy, hitting, and cutting, the 'knot' of energies that anchored
| the 'shi'-web in stability. The loosed energies fled back into Ranma's
| ki and the suddenly inanimate dummies stopped moving.
So the earlier approach was swatting a mosquito with a Patriot missile, or words to that effect.
| "Very good, Acchan. Now we'll try that a couple different ways...."
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| "Now," Ranma said, after lunch, "I think we ought to go into the more
| spiritual side for a while. To keep your balance, as it were. First, a
| philosophical question; what would you say was the most powerful force
| in the universe?"
*sounds of "Duct Tape!" "42!" "Raspberry Danish!" welling up from the writer's subconscious and quickly being quashed*
*think* Hmm. From a purely practical standpoint, I'd have to say entropy. We all make concessions to it, even involuntarily... but as this is philosophy, I'd have to leave biochemistry out of it, wouldn't I?
| "Oh, Kamis. Philosophy. I knew there hadn't been enough Zen yet. I
| could just tell. Well ... philosophically I'd have to say Love."
|
| "Well, you _are_ young, ne? But did all your father's love for your
| mother save her from death? Could it bring her back now? Could my love
| for Kai-oniichan save him? And love itself is often pretty fragile, too.
| Sometimes one word will kill it. It's _a_ powerful force, true, but ...."
And a ridiculously powerful motivator.
| Akane narrowed her eyes. "Are you making a case for Death, then? The
| old 'Everything Ends in the End' koan?"
Well... it's the end. After the end, there is nothing else. That's why it's the end.
"Start at the beginning, and, when you come to the end, stop."
| Ranma slouched over to the open dojo door, looking out on the yard
| and its garden. "I don't think that actually qualifies as a Koan,
| Acchan." She extended a hand and sent a delicate thread of 'shi' wafting
| into the yard and carefully drew a butterfly to light on her hand. "And
| as for 'most powerful'," she turned to Akane, extending her hand, "even
| something as fragile as this butterfly can defy it. Does defy it, every
| second of every day. Most _patient_ maybe...."
|
| "Ki, then? No, wait, that can't be right. Honor?"
|
| Ranma simply raised her eyebrow.
I can almost hear the violin screech what accompanies said raising.
| "Alright, sensei, this humble student awaits your most wise clarific-
| ation."
|
| "Trick question." Ranma shrugged. "There is no 'most powerful force'.
| Power does not reside in force; power resides in the relationships
| between forces. Nothing has power in isolation, only in relation to the
| rest of the universe."
By the way, my nose is the center of the universe today. Just so you know.
Obscure physics joke. You can use anything as a frame of reference, given appropriate concessions.
| Akane blinked slowly. "O ... Kaaay. Which means what?"
|
| "When I 'opened your eye' the other day," Akane scowled in rememb-
| rance, "did you feel something like a blanket? Like something wanted to
| protect you, and when it did, you saw ghosts?"
|
| "You know I did." Akane said crossly, "You were there. You got me
| out of it. After putting me into it, I might add."
|
| Ranma grinned at her crookedly. "That 'blanket' was you invoking sight
| in the celestial plane. What you could call 'spirit vision'. What you
| were seeing was a visual representation of the meanings and relation-
| ships imbued in your surroundings. That is, the spiritual environment of
| the dojo itself."
|
| "Explain the part about 'meanings and relationships' please, Sensei.
| Whose meanings, _what_ relationships?"
Gad. Just like most of the higher sciences... you can understand at different levels, and once you've breached the surface of one level, you HAVE to keep going to the next one or else nothing makes sense.
| "Anybody's. Everybody's. Take the dojo. In here," she waved her hands
| around at the surroundings, "people have learned the art, made friend-
| ships, made enemies, changed their lives, lived their lives, done their
| jobs, laughed, loved, lived, for what, fifty years, a hundred? And all
| that is still here. Everything that has ever happened here has had
| meaning, everything has left strands of itself -- and all the thing it
| was related to -- in the spiritual structure of the dojo itself.
So the dojo's got some sort of pseudo-neural net set up, cross-referencing all its "memories" with whatever...
Now you've got me dragging theoretical psychology and/or computer programming into the mix!
This is probably one of the most intellectually taxing fanfics I've ever read... but that's a good thing.
| "Now, what that means. First, everything that ever happened here is
| still here, in some sense. So there's a link, if you're good enough.
| Second, all that meaning has given this place a meaning of its own. The
| old texts would say that it has become a Word. Call it 'Tendo dojo'.
| And that word has relationships of its own, too.
|
| "For instance, 'Tendo dojo' is a subset of 'Dojo' isn't it?
Gah! Set theory...
| So this
| place has a relationship with the _idea_ of a dojo itself, you see, and
| through that relationship it also relates to every other dojo that's
| ever been built.
*whimper* and classes and inheritance...
| _And_ 'Dojo', as a word, is related to the larger word
| 'Training place', isn't it? And 'Training place' is related to 'Training',
| which is related to 'Wisdom' as the state of being trained, and so on.
AND memory schema! Have you no decency, man? Is there no science you will not drag into this?
Speaking of which, how can Ranma have trouble with a little thing like matrix manipulation when she's got an instinctive grasp of the roots of all science like this? Or is it the application that's found wanting?
| "Up at the top, you get a small group of concepts that have a _lot_
| of things related to them. These concepts have a lot of power, _because_
| so many other things draw on them for _their_ power. And _your_ ability
| to access that power is determined by A) how pure and uncluttered you
| can make a call on that power, and B) how closely related to it you are."
|
| "When we talk about 'accessing their power'," Akane said, scratching
| her chin, "just what do we mean?"
"I'm glad you asked that question."
I think it'd be funny for Ranma to slip up and call Akane "Timmy" at some point.
| "Well, for example," Ranma replied, "take the dojo itself. Now, just
| on the most basic level, you can See things that went on here in the
| past. Or that are likely to happen in the future. Or you can See what
| the dojo means to someone, and what relationships it has attached to it.
| At a little higher level, you can Imbue something with the spirit, and
| the power, of the dojo; cause that thing to exhibit some of the charact-
| eristics of 'Tendo dojo'-ness so to speak.
I think there should be a comma before "so to speak".
| Or increase the characteristics
| already manifest in the dojo itself. A little higher again, and you
| could Manifest 'dojo'-ness directly on the world, and, let's say, make
| yourself a roof and walls and floor in the middle of the wilderness.
| Finally, at the highest level I know about, you could Transform something
| to be more 'dojo'-like. Change its nature permanently.
I'm reminded of some RPG magic system or other, but the exact identity is hovering JUST out of reach...
| "Now, just what happens with any of this depends a lot on just how
| good you are at embodying the virtue of the word you're trying to call
| upon; which is why having a soul that's uncluttered enough to do that is
| so important. _But_ ... the other thing that determines what happens
| is how much relation _you_ have to what you're doing. You, for instance,
| are closely related to this dojo; _which means_ that anything _you_ do
| about it, or to it, will be easier _for you_. And the more of you there
| is in it, the more you can do, and the easier it is. And also, the more
| that things that happen here will reflect _in_ you."
|
| "So," Akane said worriedly, "if someone tore down a wall, say, it
| could hurt me?"
Gah. The Dojo Destroyer takes on a whole new meaning. Tearing down the dojo sign would be akin to removing the dojo's sense of self, and...
Not pretty.
| "If they did it right, yes. This is _another_ reason to have a simple
| soul: it simplifies the things you have to keep track of."
|
| "So, how do I look and see what relationships might be that strong?"
|
| "Well, first you go back into trance and empty your mind. Now you
| invoke that feeling you had, and you Look to See what's there. Remember
| that you're not going to See anything you're not looking for, so keep
| you're intentions focused."
|
| "Okay, now what?" Akane mumbled absently.
|
| "Now, Look at something. Then See what it relates to strongly, then
| Look at _that_. Then look at _that_ thing's relationships, then ...."
In other words, rearrange your mental linked list of concepts using heapsort. I can deal.
Gad, now that rudimentary CS is a part of my vast network of analogies, is there any science that WON'T feature prominently? I somehow doubt it.
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| "Okay, now let's look at the basics of Imbuing and Manifestations.
| First, what you're doing in both of these cases is taking the essence
| of a Word and imposing it on the world. In the first case, you put it
| on top of something that's already there, and in the second you just
| call it directly. Now I said earlier that Imbuing was easier than
| Manifesting something, but that's not exactly true. More precisely, it
| is easier to Imbue the complex, and easier to Manifest the simple. That
| is, simple concepts -- like, say, Fire -- tend to be difficult to over-
| lay on complex things like real life, but they are easy to just call
| up and let go. On the other hand, complex things like 'Tendo dojo' don't
| really have enough relevance to affect anything else _unless_ they have
| something to anchor to, as it were."
"I bought some used paint. It came in the shape of a house." -- Stephen Wright.
In all seriousness, that's essentially the analogue. With a house-sized paint brush, it's easy to paint a house, but not just take a glob of paint from the can. With a normal paint brush, it takes a while to paint a house, but you can dip out a glob pretty easily. I suppose an even better analogue would be biosynthesis versus organic synthesis. You can make something like, say, bromoethane with ridiculous ease given simple reagents, but try finding a natural source of it. Then try finding a synthetic route for, say, hemoglobin that approaches the natural one in simplicity. All a matter of scale.
| "So, what do I start with?" Akane queried.
|
| "Let's start with your element, Acchan. First, remember that you've
| got to clear your mind and spirit. Then slip into Sight and think about
| Fire. Don't try to get it to _do_ anything yet. Don't push it, just
| relax and call, like it was a friend."
|
| Akane relaxed, as she was already practiced in, and tried to empty
| herself while contemplating Fire. Warm fire, crackling in the fireplace,
| leaping from the wood yellow and white, giving off heat and light,
| flickering and dancing, you can see anything in the fire, she'd always
| liked fire, loved the smell of smoke, the crackle and pop of the flames,
| she could hear it now, smell it like a breath of Autumn in Spring, see
| the dance of the flame in her hand ... in her hand? "Hey! Ow!" Akane
| jumped up shaking her hand violently to put out the fire held there.
|
| Ranma put her face into her hands and shook her head. "Why me?"
Mihoshi Syndrome. Well, perhaps not so bad.
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| As Kasumi walked toward the dojo she worried, briefly, about cleaning.
| The training activities Nabiki had described sounded very messy to her,
| and she concerned herself with the question of just who was going to
| clean the result. It was important that the dojo show itself in good
| condition, after all; it reflected on the face of the dojo. And hence
| on her own honor. Not that she was eager to have to expend _yet more_
| time in keeping up the condition of the Dojo and its constituents, mind
| you, but .... Honor was honor, after all. Still, it might be that there
| was _some_ help to be had from ... other sources. Like Nabiki and Akane,
| for instance. Or even Ranma-san. It is part of a sensei's duty to insure
| the good condition of the dojo, after all.
|
| Walking in through the door to the dojo proper she stopped abruptly
| and gaped. The alteration in the dojo's countenance had been ... extreme.
It seemed Akane had let her mind wander to the discussion of the living habits of the early Ainu they'd had in anthropology earlier that day...
| A half-dozen concrete or stone statues loomed menacingly around the
| dojo wall.
Well, that's not so bad. A little statuary will give the place some character.
| A wide selection of dark spots, scorches, dents and holes
| now decorated the dojo's walls and floor.
Hmm. Now that's going to be a little harder to cover up.
| And a large pile of dust and
| debris was growing in the center of the floor where Akane and Ranma
| were sweeping it with brooms. Well ... Akane was sweeping with a broom;
| Ranma was ... shooing the debris along, _and it was moving!_
"Innicus Pinnicus Finnicus Fum! Prestidigitorium!" -- Merlin, Disney's "Sword in the Stone"
I'm reminded of that particular scene, where Merlin shrinks down the contents of an entire cavernous laboratory for transport in a small satchel. I don't know why.
| 'And to
| think,' she despaired, 'all these years and _I've_ been doing it the
| _hard_ way!'
Actually, in terms of years of training involved, Ranma's way is the hard way.
Then again, the same can be said of mathematics. Anyone with sufficient time can puzzle through a system of equations or find implicit derivatives or trudge through an integral, but with enough understanding, the tasks become trivial. The problem is building up to the level where it becomes trivial.
| "Ohayo, Kasumi-san," Ranma chirped, "we're almost finished here. I'm
| just giving Acchan a lesson in practical magic." Ranma crossed her arms
| and leaned against the dojo wall next to the door to the house. Akane
| finished sweeping the floor and turned to Ranma questioningly.
|
| "Okay, Acchan, now we have two things to do to return the dojo to
| good condition. First, we must remove that pile of trash. Second, we
| have to fix the walls and floor."
|
| "Umm, yeah." Akane flushed guiltily and looked about at the damage.
| "I guess we did kinda trash stuff didn't we?" She looked at the pile
| of concrete shards. "I dunno about this pile, though, Ranchan. I could
| disrupt it piece by piece, but there's gotta be thousands of pieces in
| there."
|
| "No problem. Watch what I do, here. First you treat the pile as a
| single thing, with a single meaning. Then you use the butterfly kiss on
| that one thing." The pile dissolved into a looming cloud of fine dust;
Yawn. Hey, what do you expect? We make lots weirder assumptions about the nature of things in general physics and everything works out just fine.
Of course, the whole problem lies in manipulating theoretical constructs and having reality follow suit. When the theoretical constructs ARE reality in a sense, I imagine it becomes much easier.
| Ranma waved her other hand at it, fingers rotating; Kasumi's eyes went
| wide in shock.
Semicolons? Bah. Periods will do nicely.
| "Then you take the dust cloud and gather it together and
| run it off." The cloud was sucked into a small tornado that formed on
| the former location of the pile and blew out the outside door into the
| yard.
|
| "Now, for the next problem we rely on the fact that the inner meaning
| of the dojo is not particularly related to holes in the walls. That is,
| the natural state of the dojo is to be in good condition. What you need
| to do is find the dojo's 'right state' and Imbue reality with it."
|
| "Fffff." Akane blew out her cheeks, dropping into seiza in the center
| of the floor. "Okay, I _think_ I can do that. Let's see." She knelt
| forward onto her knees and put one hand onto the dojo floor, almost
| caressing it before stilling herself completely, almost ceasing even to
| breath.
"Breathe", that is, with an e.
| A hum began to resonate throughout the dojo as Akane concentrated
| and Akane herself began to glow, faintly.
Rearrange the sentence so you don't mention Akane twice in four words.
| Then the walls and floor of
| the dojo began to blur, to seem as if seen in double-vision, overlayed
| by an image similar, but not quite the same.
Hmm. That whole double-vision thing seems a rather awkward way of putting things. And similar usually means not quite the same. Not exactly the same would probably fit better, emphasis on exactly.
| The hum fell in pitch and
| rose in volume and Akane's glow dropped quickly towards the red, bright-
| ening as it did so and giving off heat.
Hmm. I realize what you're going for, but dropping is associated more with the brightness of a glow than with the energy of its photons. Saying the glow shifted colors would probably be a better way of putting things.
| Then the walls seemed to snap
| into focus as the hum peaked in a sudden squeal of high-pitched sound.
| Akane's glow faded and revealed, when the light level had stabilized,
| a dojo not merely repaired, but polished 'till it shone.
"'til" is a diminutive of "until", right? As such it should only have one l.
| Ranma tapped her chin. "Not exactly the way I'd have done it, but it
| worked nicely."
|
| Akane wobbled to her feet, and put her hands on her knees as she
| gasped for breath. "How'd *gasp* how'd I do, Ranchan? *Pant* Harder
| than I thought. *Wheeze*"
|
| Ranma gave her a thumbs up, and turned to Kasumi. "You did great,
| Acchan! What's up, Kasumi-san?"
|
| Kasumi heard herself say something about dinner, and furos, and heard
| Ranma's reply. Internally, however, she was focused on one thought only,
| here was a product of the martial arts that _she_ could use. Domesticity
| Martial Arts. Plans and half-formed wishes volleyed back and forth in
| her head as she wandered away.
Actually, I've got an odd thought about Kasumi. See, the reason she's so vacant all of the time and doesn't seem to react to any violence is that she lives in her own little world. Not figuratively, literally. She's turning whatever chi she possesses into a force strong enough to bend reality and put her in a world where everyone gets along with each other and the dojo and house are never more than scuffed up by friendly sparring matches. And, when her little bubble of reality makes contact with the actual damage, the undisturbed reality takes precendence, thus explaining how the Tendo household seems to regenerate itself. Of course, some things - like Akane's haircut - happen anyway, explaining why Kasumi would react so severely to something so relatively unimportant.
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Akane leaned back into the heated bathwater and considered her friend.
| Ranma had delayed a moment to speak to Nabiki which gave Akane a chance
| to watch her undress and wash, a chance she was making the most of. From
| an aesthetic standpoint, she mused silently, Ranma's body left something
| to be desired. Oh, her _form_ and _figure_ were certainly acceptable
| enough, in an abstract sense; not quite as 'developed' as hers, but
| certainly acceptable.
*piku* Divergence yet again. I suppose having acquired the body earlier and having worked it on essentially starvation conditions didn't lead to the accumulation of body fat. Any body fat.
| But the overall presentation ... while not ...
| uncomely ... nevertheless was distinctly lacking.
|
| Partly, she thought, due to the sheer unconventionality of it.
| Conventional standards, after all, definitely emphasized smoothness.
| Skin should be soft, or else taut and tanned, muscles sculpted and well-
| defined. Body fat should cover and enhance to sleekness those areas
| possessing it, and some areas, particularly those most feminine, _should_
| possess it. Eyes should be large and expressive, and open to the world.
| The structure of the face should be smooth and sleek, flowing in curves
| strong or heart-shaped as circumstances indicated, defining that feature
| regarded as the emblem of the soul. The whole structure and carriage of
| the body should harmonize into the presented image, blending the soul
| and the body that carries it into one, unitary whole.
Which still holds, when one thinks about it. Don't go telling me that Ranma's soul isn't as scarred by some of the things she's seen as her body is scarred by some of the things she's fought.
| Another part was carriage and attitude. 'So much of how you perceive
| a person comes from how they move and are still,' she thought. A woman
| may mince, or skip, or even prowl or strut, but nonetheless she moves
| in a certain manner. With grace and style, or at least with an attempt
| at them. Forever conscious of how other will see her. A man may move
| forcefully or timidly, claiming the limelight or evading it, but always
| dealing with the space to be seen _in_. A normal man, a normal woman,
| she thought. But not Ranma.
|
| Muscles like steel cable and whipcord. Skin seamed with thin white
| scars and tanned into a semblance of well-cured, soft leather. Face
| close-laid over strong bones, but without more than a pittance of body
| fat, eyes as often half-closed as open. Attitude most of all. Ranma, she
| thought, rather than being concerned with seeing or being seen, more
| often exuded a combination of complete relaxation unconcerned with its
| surroundings and utter steel-spring readyness for action that you would
| ordinarily have to be a mongoose to pull off. Lastly, and that which
| was first noticed, movement; no concern there with being seen, no concern
| with space. Ranma simply moved from one space to another, utterly uncon-
| cerned with what might be going on outside the spaces she was moving _in_.
|
| Idly, Akane wondered if she would end up looking like that, and how
| long it would take. Idly, she thought that Ranma wasn't conventionally
| pretty, but was certainly beautiful. Idly, she wondered why she had
| thought that, but lost the thought amidst heat-induced relaxation. Then
| she remembered another idle thought, and acted on it. "Hey, Ranchan!
| Tell me about the other one."
|
| "Which other one, Acchan?" Ranma replied, slipping into the tub.
|
| "The other one who used to call you Ranchan."
Waiwai! Backstory!
| "Huh? Oh! Oh, sure, Ucchan. Ukyou that is. Ko-something Ukyou, my
| first friend. Ucchan lived in Osaka when I was six; still does, I guess.
| His dad owns an Okonomiyaki shop there. He and I always used to scuffle
| over food. Well ... that's not _quite_ right. What happened was, Ucchan
| would make a couple of Okonomiyaki, I would 'steal' them, then I'd give
| one back and we'd eat lunch."
Hmm. Well, of course Ranma still sees Ukyou as a boy. Those hyper-enhanced senses can't do ANYTHING about memoriers.
| "Made you lunch every day, hmmm?" Akane teased, "Sounds like _some_-
| one liked you a lot."
|
| "We were _six_, Acchan." Ranma said wryly, "Don't construct a great
| romance from nothing, here."
This is meant or not meant as a subtle jab at canon and/or certain fanfic writers who seem to be attached to the idea of Ukyo as Ranma's best (BEST, mind you, not simply existing but the BEST) friend?
| "You mean to tell me," Akane arched an eyebrow, "that you never
| thought about it before? Not even a little? No dreams of going back to
| Osaka and, you know, looking him up?"
Is this perhaps one of the parts I managed to influence? :>
| "First, we were _friends_, Acchan. Not boyfriend and girlfriend.
| Second, he's a well-favored guy who stands to inherit a restaurant of his
| own; maybe more than one. So he's got girls hanging off his arms, drool-
| ing. He may be engaged already, in fact.
*pfft* Oh, ye of little conscious irony.
| Third, and most prominent, _he_
| cooks Okonomiyaki. _I_ kill people. There is a severe disconnect in job
| prospects here. I mean, what is he supposed to do, sell food at exhibit-
| ions or something.
Question mark here. And yes, it happens as often as not.
| Or does he need, you know, armed guards and
| assassins to protect his Okonomiyaki Empire? No, it'd never work."
|
| "Oh well, it was a thought."
|
| "Ha! You can't get out of getting beat on by interfering in my love
| life either, slacker!"
|
| "Hmmmmf. Baka! You would think that." Akane focused her eyes dreamily
| on the scarlet braid floating free past Ranma's shoulder. Another thing
| different, she thought. Normal people's hair stayed where it was put, or
| flowed with the person's movement. Ranma's braid as often moved _against_
| the motion of her body. And then there was the ring; made of ivory,
| carven into the shape of a pair of dragons biting each other's tails, and
| set with glittering gemstones, it was not the type of hair ornament you
| would typically see. "Why do you always wear that hair ring anyway, Ran-
| chan? Don't you even take it off to bathe?"
Waiwai! Backstory^2!
| Ranma grinned slightly and unfastened the ring from her braid, placing
| it on the edge of the tub. 'Yes!' Akane enthused internally, 'I'll get
| her to unwind yet!' Then her mind began to gibber at her. Ranma's hair
| was unwinding of its own accord! Spreading out from its braid into a
| floating fan even as she watched, and Ranma unconcernedly sank her head
| underneath the water momentarily, tapping and touching the side of the
| tub, reaching out in all directions.
Hmm. Set the bit about Ranma ducking her head off with commas.
| And _growing_ she noted in amazement,
| lengthening visibly as she watched, stretching out to run along the sur-
| face of the water like a million tiny, questing snakes. Reaching, she
| noted with distant concern, towards her as well; it would cover the
| short distance in less than a minute. "Ah, ah, ah ... Ranchan? Ah, your
| hair ... ah ...."
|
| Ranma rose up from the tub momentarily, shaking her head; her hair
| whipped about briefly, then was returned to its braided state by a
| twist of her neck and blurring hands. She returned the ring to its place
| of honor, about a foot up the now-extended braid, then her hand briefly
| flashed light and she sat back down in the tub and handed Akane a neatly
| braided foot-long length of her hair.
Hmm. The whole chase-by-Pop-and-scarf-soup scenario being noticeably absent, one wonders...
| Ranma grinned crookedly as Akane looked up at her and down at the
| braid several times in shock. "Once upon a time, I was in a position to
| help out a dragon," she said, reminiscently. Akane blinked at her. "He
| had this problem with an infestation of parasites."
|
| Akane blinked again. "Dragon fleas?"
|
| Ranma raised her right leg above the water of the tub and regarded it
| pensively. "Yeah, sorta." The leg was patterned with scars that looked,
| to Akane, like something with a bunch of sharp claws had climbed up it
| and then dug in and tap-danced around the calf.
Not a pleasant mental image.
And aren't dragons immune to their own breath weapons?
...then again, dragon parasites probably are too. Evolution and all that.
| "By the time I'd dealt
| with them I was pretty chewed up and one of the damn things had eaten
| off my hair."
|
| "Your hair, Ranchan? But why ...?"
|
| "Well, Huan Huang Hu Hu Ti Shen Sheng Long-Wang isn't such a bad guy
| for a dragon,
"Even though it took me three tries to get his name right."
| and he Owed me for the help anyway, so he fixed up a bowl
| of soup. I don't know what all it had in it, but after I drank it, I
| started healing a lot faster and my hair ... well, you saw. Now I have
| to keep this ring on to keep it from doing that."
|
| "Huan Huang Hu Hu Ti Shen Sheng Long-Wang?!" Ranma nodded. "Jolly
| Yellow Fierce Tiger Emperor Spirit Scholar Dragon-King???!"
Hey, when you can slay a good three-fourths of anything that moves without even trying, you can afford to be pretentious.
| Ranma
| shrugged. "Yeeesh. But why does it work?"
|
| "'Cause its carved from one of his teeth." Akane blinkblinked. "Like
| my knives."
|
| "He gave you his _teeth_?"
|
| "Well, the original offer was 'half my horde and my daughter's hand
| in marriage' and his daughter already _was_ married and a dragon without
| a horde is a truly pathetic thing, so-ooo ...."
|
| "Oh." Akane sank back into the bathwater again. "My sensei, the
| weirdo."
Well, yeah. No matter where Ranma is, he/she is a weirdness magnet.
| "Biiidah!"
|
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Tendo Soun was not, contrary to popular opinion, entirely incoherent.
Is this something else I've managed to influence?
| It was true that his nerves were broken from the stress of his life and
| its many tragedies, but he did work towards his daughters' well-being.
| He worked all the time, actually, though it might have been more useful
| had any of the work consisted of more than dreams, schemes or tears.
| Lately he seemed to have been especially pressed, he felt. First, there
| had been the reluctant realization that the long-held dream he had based
| most of his hopes on would never come to fruition. No doubt the vagaries
| of a martial artist's life had overwhelmed Saotome; just the thought of
| Genma and his son's sad last moments could bring a renewed wail of grief.
Particularly with appropriately poignant last words.
| Yes, the realization had been hard, but he must face facts. It had
| been more than 12 years and he had no word for the last eight. No, he
| had to be realistic for his daughters' sakes; Genma would never return,
| and his son ('What had been his name, now? Lan-something?') would never
| marry one of Soun's precious children. He must forget the dead past; he
| must go on. But it was hard.
|
| He realized that he, himself, was almost useless now. He had almost
| been destroyed by Kyuumu's death;
You know, one of these days SOMEONE is going to have to compile a list of all the names Soun's wife has gone by.
It'll make for interesting reading.
| and he still could find no joy in the
| martial
| arts that he had put so much of himself into. They had not been able to
| save her; his skills had failed him in his supreme need, and he had done
| no more than teach desultorily since. It was a sad pass for a master of
| the musabetsu kakutou Tendo-ryu to come to, but there it was. Still,
| he was not _entirely_ dead yet, and the news that his beloved daughter
| Akane had nearly been killed fighting a monster, that many of the
| students at her school _had_ been killed or injured, while he could do
| nothing to aid them had undone him entirely.
Hmm. Set those last four words off, somehow. I know I want to when I read it.
| Even days later the thought of what might have happened brought him
| almost to collapse; but he knew he must not dwell on it.
And lop the dot off that semicolon.
| He had a more
| pressing responsibility, one so urgent as to even overshadow his many
| fears and griefs. Akane was in training under another. In itself, this
| was no bad thing, Kamis knew _he_ could no longer instruct her properly.
| But the fate of the school was at stake! He must assess _for himself_
| the skill at Art of her new sensei, this Bushiko Ranma.
"THE Art", ne?
| Not that he had
| any reason to distrust Ranma-san, no. But he must appraise her skills
| for himself; in the end, the responsibility was his, however inadequate
| his ability to meet that responsibility might be.
|
| At dinner, therefore, he had raised the question. Most properly,
| Ranma-san had immediately agreed, and so now he must do something he had
| not done in ten years. He must spar, all-out, with an opponent that he
| was uneasily coming to be aware might well his superior. He based this
| assessment partially on the relaxed flow of Ranma's movements as she
| evaded his attacks and insinuated herself past his defenses. It was the
| hardest sparring he had done since he and Genma had dealt with that old
| pervert Happosai, he had pulled out every trick he knew, and he was
| losing. But mainly he based the assessment on the fact that Ranma,
| moments after the match had started, had kicked him gently in the head.
| >From behind. And he hadn't even seen her _move_.
"FIRST ATTACK!"
| Akane watched the match intently. This was only the third time she
| had had the opportunity to observe Ranma in action without interference
| and the first where her sensei had been sparring rather than actually
| fighting. Ranma was obviously spending energy in performing her tech-
| niques rather than going for the win; Akane did not fool herself into
| thinking otherwise. Yet sparring also teaches an observer much about a
| fighter's style and Akane was almost in a trance as she drank in what
| the two in front of her were teaching.
|
| She had erred, she realized. She had assumed that her father's incap-
| acity was due to inability. The match was disabusing her of that notion.
| He was still a great martial artist; rusty though he might be his moves
| were fluid and correct, his attacks precise and powerful, his defenses
| firm. Yet even so she could see the difference.
Hmm. Set "even so" off with commas, I think.
| Precise as Soun's motions
| were, each spent a small portion of effort achieving that precision;
| Ranma's did not. Powerful as were his attacks, firm though his defense
| might be, each took effort to achieve, attention to complete, focus of
| mind and body to continue; Ranma's did not. Ranma simply _was_; grace in
| motion, calm in mind, composed in mien, as though she had found satori,
| not in the stillness, but rather in the storm.
And that last semicolon should be upgraded to full colon status.
| Deep in her heart and soul, Akane could feel the storm-winds blowing.
| Far off she could hear the thunder, far off she could smell the rain.
| At the core of her heart a fire was building, flickering from candle-flame
| to campfire, rushing from campfire to bonfire, roaring in its power as
| it grew to an inferno that would consume her whole. An inferno that
| sought the storm and the rain it brought; that would run before it, and
| delight in it, and grow stronger by it; that would give back to the storm
| that would rise up into the rain, and make them greater and richer in
| their own turn. As from afar off and faintly she seemed to see from
| the corner of her mind's eye a sword, traced out only by its edge, limned
| by fire, defined by sea-wrack, born up on the wind. Farther yet she could
| sense the presence of a mighty tree; the storm-winds ruffled its branches,
| the rain nourished it, the sword warded it from harm. And the fire would
| blaze upon it, would leap from branch to leaf, would run up and down
| the trunk till all was ablaze, yet did not burn, but grew and thrived
| and was warded from harm by friendly flames.
Whoa. Superb mental imagery. I'm saving all 104 of my guesses as to its meaning for later, though.
| And she saw that she had wronged her father yet more; she saw how he
| loved the art, how he gloried in its practice even now. 'How much he
| must have been hurt,' she thought, 'to give it up.' She resolved to be
| nicer to him in future, and to appreciate him more. Appreciate him, as
| she appreciated the match before her. And she stood back and drank it in
| like pure water in the desert, that quenches thirst in delight and cool-
| ness, and reignites it again. And her muscles began to twitch minutely
| as she committed everything she could to muscle memory, and her eyes
| went wide as she desperately strove to see everything she could. And
| within her a voice began to chant, 'That! That, I want that! That! Just
| like that! Just like her!'. And Soun strove to give a good account of
| himself and Ranma flowed by, calm as a summer breeze, ferocious as the
| storm.
|
| At last Soun called a halt and admitted defeat. Ranma smiled and
| bowed to him. "Good match, Tendo-san." Akane and Nabiki nodded enthus-
| iasticly, and Kasumi smiled abstractedly, her mind far away.
|
| "Yes. Yes it was, Ranma-san. Almost like the old days. If only ...."
| And he sighed, and said no more.
The infamous Soun Tendo Trail-Off.
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| The sun was setting in a blaze of fire and light. Ranma sat on the
| porch of the dojo and watched it. After a time she drew a rude-looking
| bamboo flute from jacket-space and began to play. Akane stepped to the
| edge of the house behind her and listened. "That's a shakuhachi isn't
| it, Ranchan?" Ranma nodded and continues playing.
I realize the 'S' key is right next to the 'D' key, so I'll refrain from exploding about the tense change just this once.
| Shortly Nabiki and
| Kasumi appeared from the interior of the house, drawn by the music. Then
| Soun turned from the place where he had been sitting, watching the TV,
| to regard the porch as well. After a few moments more Akane chuckled,
| "Hey, I know that one ... that's Bach. The Art of the Fugue. Do I want
| to ask how you learned it?"
|
| Ranma shook her head and continued to play, and Akane began to see a
| weave of shi passing with the notes of the flute out into the yard. Then
| the threads began to draw up butterflies from their resting grounds in
| the bushes and trees surrounding the koi pond. The butterflies began
| to dance to the flute notes, turning and fluttering in time to the rythm
| of the song Ranma was playing (she had shifted from the Bach to another
| tune - one Akane did not know).
Parentheses? Hah! A comment as insightful and indicative as that one needs a sentence all its own to shine in.
| At the climax of the tune Akane saw a
| thread dip gently into the pond and bring up a koi, which leaped high
| into the air as the last gleam of the setting sun illuminated it in a
| flaming shroud of gold.
This is one of those things which would totally rock if seen in anime... not unlike Ranma-yousei's flute sonata in Featherbrite's Tale...
| Kasumi laughed in glee and clapped her hands. Nabiki surreptitiously
| wiped away a tear. Ranma turned to Akane and winked casually. And the
| sky boiled up into violet and scarlet glory as the Sun went down.
Now THAT's a closer.
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Nerima after sunset is a quiet place normally.
What? It's still going? Oh, and comma before "normally".
| Except for the Ginza,
| there is very little activity late at night, and most of the people who
| live here at least pretend to keep normal hours. From the window of
| Akane's bedroom the streets seem empty and still as she watches a red-
| headed, white-scarfed figure turn a corner and disappear from sight.
| Emptier after she is gone, certainly, she thinks, as most places are.
| And she prepares for bed and smiles in affection, she will see her again
| in the morning, there is no reason to worry. Already the thought of _not_
| seeing her seems absurd for some reason. And as she moves quietly from
| one place to another in pursuit of the goal of 'ready-to-go-to-sleep' she
| begins, also quietly, to sing. A song she remembers from somewhere, that
| seems for some reason to remind her of Ranma. Though just why she cannot
| now seem to bring to mind.
Hmm. Put a comma after "just why" to make that sentence a bit easier on the ol' parser.
| You fill up my senses like a night in a forest,
| Like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain,
| Like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean,
| You fill up my senses, come fill me again.
|
| Come let me love you, let me give my life to you,
| Let me drown in your laughter, let me die in your arms.
| Let me lay down beside you, let me always be with you,
| Come let me love you, come love me again.
|
| You fill up my senses like a night in a forest,
| Like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain,
| Like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean,
| You fill up my senses, come fill me again.
|
| 'Now why is it,' she thinks sleepily, 'that Ranma always makes me
| think of love songs?' And she rolls drowsily into sleep. Briefly. Then
| she sits bolt upright in bed. It couldn't be! ...Could it? No! She
| wasn't ... she didn't ... well, she just didn't, that was all.
And what is to be done, then, when Ranma comes to notice this as surely she shall?
Yah, yah, I know. Angst.
| But it
| seemed very hard to get to sleep suddenly, and she knew that she would
| spend a lot of time tonight laying on her side, and looking out into the
| dark.
|
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Hmmm. Don't know about the ending. Maybe still needs something.
| What you think, hmm?
I don't know. It works for me.
| Next, Sayuri's in _Bad_ trouble. Gee, I wonder who's going to have to
| get her out.
"From the wilds of Russia he comes... Bob the Unknown, swinging his mighty blade and vanquishing evil of all sorts in his relentless quest to become... Bob the Known!"
Thanks to the people of Pencil Trace for that one.
| Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
| Chapter 4: A Tapestry of Stars ad Shadows
| Part C: Fortunata Imperatrix Mundi
|
| Coming in what will hopefully be less than two weeks this time, to an FFML
| near you.
Maybe, maybe not. Don't worry about slowing up, finals approacheth and not many of us have time to read anyway. Not many of us in college, that is.
--G. Falconar
-- Listar MIME Decryption --------------
-- Name : Enhasa.mid
-- Content: audio/midi
-- CONTENT REMOVED, NOT PLAINTEXT.