Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Dark Prayer ❯ Time of Your Life ( Chapter 8 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

By: xzero

The rising sun shone against the figure of Ranma as he sat perched on the edge of his roof. "I can't let anyone be hurt by this Bison guy, but if he can mess with you mind, what am I gonna do? I don't want the Neko-Ken to get a chance to get loose." His thoughts drifted off, and he decideed to sit down, his thoughts would be of no use if he couldn't focus them. So he sat in meditation, focusing himself enough to reach the area of his mind that was the containment for the Neko-Ken. "Reiko, upcoming is a battle, one that will push us to our current limits, I..." He paused, unsure of how to ask himself for help. "I need to find a training method, one that will give me an edge, I already know that I am strong enough to face this guy. But I don't want his ability to manipulate the mind to affect me. Is.. is there anything that can be done to hold the Neko-Ken in check?" He asked his mind, while inspecting the dark pulsing sphere that represented his repression of the Neko-Ken the barrier that held the maliciousness and dark power that would consume him if it failed before he was prepared. A combination, he realized, of his subconscious usage of Reiko's, or rather, his power, and his own conscious will. He put one hand against that wall, against the raw unholy strength. He knew that upon attaining mastery of his new strength, or is it old strength? that he would be able to defeat this thing, and knew even further that he was near finding the key.

Dark Prayer

By:X-Zero and Paul

Disclaimer:I don't own Ranma 1/2, Takahashi-sama does.Neither do I own Time of Your Life, that belongs to Green Day

Addressing a couple reviews:

Ranger5: Thank you for your review, it means a lot that an author of your skill has given a good review of my work.

Dwaje: With no little amount of hostility, I have only to say that, until you write something, and make it worth reading, you have no right to tell me how to spin a tale. If you don't like reading it, find something else. I write because I enjoy it, and figure someone else out there might share enjoyment in my creativity.

Chapter 8- Time of Your

Sakura lifted her head, wondering where she was. She could've sworn she had dreamt of falling out a window. She pulled the covers up some more, and snuggled deeper into her bed... Wait, the last thing she remember doing was fighting Chun-Li, and passing out. But where could she? Who found her? She cracked her eyes open, groaning as the light flittering in through the window. "Wha..." She groaned, eyes evening out and looking around the room where she had awoken. She nearly immediately spotted Ranma's pack and guitar. "Ranma's place?" She recalled now her exact location. If Ranma's things were here then she was in a small apartment building on the southern edge of town, near enough to both his workplace and their training yard, a place that had been condemned and abandoned, the demolition crew had been so thankful for the pair, as their sparring had destroyed much of the building, and had finished their job much faster than they had expected, allowing them to take on more contracts. They had offered the fighters some money to help them clear away more of the ruined parts of town, and had been accepted hastily.

Sakura realized that she was very safe, and found that with this knowledge she could rest. Curling up once again she closed her eyes and prepared to drift off into sleep, but before she faded into slumber, she extended her senses just to doubly assure her of things. Feeling Ranma's aura coming from above she nodded to herself, that was until she read the distress in it, after finding this, she wondered what could cause the very carefree man to worry as much as he was. That and the dark spot she found while probing his aura bothered her, this had never appeared before during a conflict, so she had never looked into it. So, he does have demons from his past. I wonder what caused this darkness? She asked, not finding a darkness of the aura to be any true concern.Afterall, when one's herod a style that was based off of killing intent, how could a bit of darkness stand out truly? She pulled herself to sit up in bed, noting the bandages around her wounds, wrapped expertly. Another turning point;
a fork stuck in the road.

Ranma for his part was still sitting calmly on the roof when he began to smell the light scent of breakfast wafting up from his apartment. Curious as to who was cooking, though he knew it couldn't have been Chun-Li, he pushed forward, and inverted himself into a handstand on the edge of the roof, twisting around and throwing himself through his open window. He landed in a crouch in the bedroom, silently as not to bother the still sleeping Chun-Li. He stretched out his ki, and found Sakura in his mini kitchen, and knew she was cooking. He'd learned that she was an okay cook, as she had learned during her search for Ryu, and it was okay not to run screaming off into the night when she offered to prepare dinner. Unlike certain parts of my old life. Time grabs you by the wrist;
directs you where to go.

Sakura had gotten hungry sometime while she was waiting for Ranma to return, and had wandered into the kitchen. She had just finished with the cooking when she sensed someone behind her, the immediate reaction to spin and drop into a stance was halted as she instinctively looked out with her third 'eye.' She grinned as she felt the familiar aura of Ranma, the dark spot reflecting his owrries gone, replaced with the warm glow of confidence. "Food'll be ready in a moment." She said, deflating her pigtailed friend's attempt at spooking her. "Go wake Chun-Li please." She stated as she began serving the food into bowls. Ranma only got a slightly annoyed look on his face before heading back into the bedroom and doing as she instructed.

Chun-Li Xiang awoke to the pleasant smell of food, and couldn't find it in her to complain about this, she was dreadfully hungry and hoped that food would help her to contemplate her situation. She, one of the last of the street fighters around to combat Bison, and she had foolishly gotten hurt. She turned to look at the source of her food moments later, and noticed that it was being offered to her by Ranma, someone who had proven to be a martial artist of at least some caliber. At the thought of the young man an idea began to form in her mind. Their conversation during the night had started this, and she believed that she'd need to ask Sakura about it. "Thank you." She said mildly, her thoughts bouncing around, trying to decide what to do, she couldn't afford for Bison to win this. The world couldn't afford such a thing. So make the best of this test
and don't ask why.

"Well I'm heading off ta work now, see you both later, and Sakura, keep her in bed, she needs ta let her leg have some rest." Ranma said as he disappeared out the door, his footsteps nonexistent as he left, a toolbelt hanging uncharacteristically around his waist. He was headed out to the job site where he was currently still an apprentice, this job would be the last of his tests before his final written exam, once that was through, he'd have a license to build anything anywhere in the country. He was still working on the last few months before he could take the finals exam for his physical education degree. Once that was through he could teach as a master of his own school, the last message from Happosai confirming that he would indeed have a certificate of mastery waiting for him upon his return.

The pigtailed warrior arrived at the job, and seeing that he was on time, tightened his toolbelt and leapt to his foreman's location. Tou watched as he completed the leap and smiled at him, he had grown to consider the young man as a son, or perhaps a nephew. He looked over the young man, noting the changes in him since their first meeting, instead of the green yet somehow weary young man he'd seen before, the one who didn't look anything like the lighthearted, if sincere, fellow he was now. This one gave an air of maturity, he felt that the boy had grown much since his arrival. He quickly gave him his assignment and sent him on his way, telling him that he'd send someone to check on him shortly. Ranma had of course started quickly, pausing only as the sneeze disturbed his balance for a second. It's not a question
but a lesson learned in time.

Sakura and Chun-Li sat in Ranma's bedroom, talking about a variety of things, such as Sakura's training, and shortly thereafter, about Ranma, how good was he, and so on and so forth. The air got unconfortably silent, however, as the chinese woman mentioned Bison, and the insane man's imminent arrival in Japan. Sakura had caught the unspoken reference to asking Ranma for help, as the other street fighters had either been incapacitated or were in isolated regions, or even, in Ryu's case, kidnapped and brainwashed. Her thoughts turned to the amazing feats of martial skill she's witnessed from Ranma and has it firm within her mind that he is just as, if not better than the man she wanted to learn from, the one who would give her the ultimate bliss, from the sweet song of battle.

Sakura had been incredibly impressed by her progress in her training, her imperfect mimicry of Ryu's style had never been enough to beat Chun-Li, yet she had done it. Granted, in the process she had exhausted herself, but that was something she had accepted, that even with the impressive increase she had experienced since meeting Ranma and being pushed by someone better than her, being pushed hard. She smiled and as she found something to say to the older woman about it, "Tell him that you need help, tell him everything, and he'll help us, I know it." Their conversation degenerated from there into random female banter.

As it turned out, he had been intended on talking to them about the troubles ahead after work that day, as he believed that not helping in this conflict would be worse than killing all those innocents himself. Chun-Li had spent the rest of the day looking for information, finding out the specifics of Bison's visit to the land of the rising sun. The following week were quiet and peaceful, only serving to amaze both Ranma and Chun-Li, he for the amount of quiet he was getting, not even his time at the monastery had been as uneventful as this past week. His time was consumed between work, meditation, and physical training. Each day he felt the powers of the Neko-Ken getting slightly larger, as his own limitations shrank, each day a little more of his power was coming under his control, the agonizing part was that it was almost complete, then there would only be the retraining of his body to handle the gross amount of energy. Chun-Li though, she was learning more about the pigtailed man than she wanted, his power was amazing, and she could tell that his reserves far exceeded what he was capable of showing with mere katas. His forms were perfect, flawless in execution, though what scared her was his ability to completely disapear from view, fading from sight for minutes on end. She believed that he could do it. It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

Peace, something that could never last, regardless of the endless fight for it, was lost that morning. Ranma had risen to begin his morning training, while Sakura could only watch, he having asked her to tend to Chun-Li for now. His senses twitched as he felt something on the edge of his perception, someone was watching him, he could feel it, the slight heat of eyes on his back. He stopped in his meditation and expanded his aura, reaching out to find his 'fan.' There, he decided, as he initiated the technique that had become as familiar to him as the Amaguriken. "Munashii Zenkai" He whispered and faded from sight.

Just last week Ichiro Koboyashi gotten a call from his boss, oddly enough it wasn't the man who usually gave him orders. No it was the head of the organization for which he worked. He had been so excited by this chance to advance in his career he had almost missed the man telling him to find out everything he could about a man named Ranma in Kyoto, Japan. This didn't surprise him, he had been searching for strong fighters for his boss for 4 years now, extending invitations to them, or if need be, sending them to meet their ancestors. He figured finding a man without a surname in Japan would be easy, and a man with a unique name such as "Ranma" couldn't possibly be any harder. He only needed half the time alotted to find him, and the rest had been spent finding suitable places to watch the man from, every time he'd believed himself a safe distance, the man would notice him, but ignore the him without a second thought it seemed. So take the photographs
and still frames in your mind.

Today was the day he made a mistake, the boss wanted to meet this one personally, tomorrow no less, he had though he was far enough, but when the man disappeared during his meditation, he knew he was in trouble. He took 5 seconds to absorb the man's disappearance, and that was all the time it took for the pigtailed man to reach him. Before he knew what was happening he felt fingers curl around his throat, felt himself lifted off the roof he had been watching from. His binoculars dropped from his hands and his eyes met chips of sapphire.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" The man he'd been sent to watch snarled at him, his eyes burning into his head. His thoughts were a mile a minute, what would the man do with him, but one thing was for sure, he wasn't being paid well enough to get himself killed.

"Lord Bison sent me." He choked, knowing that he'd be hunted, but at least he had a chance of survival. He almost wet himself when Ranma's stare bore deeper into his eyes, grabbing ahold of his very core.

"Take me there." He said, tossing the man down, and keeping his blazing stare on him. The man thought that this was a good time to try to fix this situation. He was supposed to extend an invitation to this one. So why not give him the information.

"He wanted to meet you tomorrow, outside of town, the forest northeast of here. You'll know the place when you find it." He was worried, this guy was amazingly powerful, stronger it seemd than that Ryu guy that Bison had gone to such great lengths to get. He'd have to let him know if he survived the encounter with this enraged fighter. Hang it on a shelf
In good health and good time.

Bison sat in his throne, waiting eagerly his latest interests arrival, he should arrive just as his new form was prepared. With Ryu's body he'd be able to increase in power exponentially. His thoughts turned sour as his mind came to focus on the image of a strikingly beautiful blonde haired woman. Cammy White, his greatest achievement in his experiments for a new body, unfortunately, his creation had been too perfect, gaining far too much independence. The phone in his throne rang, disrupting his thoughts and annoying him slightly, as all interuptions to his greatness did. (A/N:He is an arrogant psychopathic egomaniac afterall)

"Yes, what is it?" His deep voice rang with power, as his ire rose. Tattoos of memories
and dead skin on trial.

"Sir, we just got a report that Ken Masters has reached Japan after finding the base in Thailand lacking your presence. He seems to be using every resource at his disposal to find you. I believe he will find this place soon, tomorrow if his latest efforts have been any indication." Bison's eyes glowed angrily at his lackey's words.

"Hmm, well then, prepare for battle, as our guests should arrive soon." His insane laughter filled the line, sending shudders down the spine of all who heard the reverberating tone.

"Yes sir." The line went dead as the base was prepped for combat, all guard units were on an increased duty rotation, keeping them fresh for combat at all times, all operations short of the preparations for Bison's rebirth in Ryu halted for the time being. These next few days would be interesting, "Interesting indeed." For what it's worth,
it was worth all the while.

Sword katas were very usually strict patterns of movement, disciplined and unbending, this was not the case this early morning. Ranma was moving in a dual sword form, his blades moving in beautiful harmony. His was a chaotic dance of rippling air, the strokes of the magnificent metal gleaming in the morning light. A blonde man had arrived at his home last night looking for Sakura, he had said his name was Ken Masters. The youthful man with a hard look in his eyes had quickly been invited in, which threw him for a loop. Last nights events had been swirling in his mind since then, but one thing was for sure, this was it.

Flashback

"Sakura, don't you live with your parents?" Ken voiced, wondering, and a little worried for her, afterall, can't let Ryu's fangirl/friend, be hurt by some strange guy. Speaking of him... His thoughts trailed off momentarily as he thought about the extreme feeling of darkness he got from his aura like he had done something horrible in order to attain the massive, although passive, aura of power. It felt as if his aura was just a natural part of the surroundings, almost as if he were a human force of nature. Ryu'd love to face this guy, his power is incredible. He pushed aside these thoughts though for the moment, they needed to know what he was here for, and Ryu needed his help. He wouldn't fail his friend who had helped him selflessly so many times.

"I know where Bison's base is, in fact, it's buried in the mountain just outside of town. I think he'll be expecting us, Sakura you were going to come right?" Ken knew the answer, she had been searching for the man who could teach her so much through a fight, and she was determined to get it, and help the one who inspired her to become what she has, a fighter.His only answer was a nod from her while she looked to Ranma questioningly. "Um, Ranma right?" A slight nod was his response. "Are you going to come with us, you don't have any personal stake in this, so why do it?" He asked tentatively, the maturity that had rubbed off on him from his training partner and best friend was showing through at the moment, he wanted Ranma to know why he was risking his life. It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

Ranma was actually a bit shocked at the twenty-something blonde man asking him that, but his answer was already there, he had been thinking about it for a while now, "I'm going to end a threat that has Sakura-chan so scared, I'm going to be rid of someone who poisons innocent people to gain money to hurt people. I'm tired of watching people hurting, I've seen enough, and it ends. If what I've heard of Bison is true, then he is a monster, preying on the innocent, and exploiting the foolish. I won't let it continue. Besides, I'm going to help my friend to save hers." He stated all of this solemnly, his mind made completely, he knew his words weren't very articulate, and probably didn't make much sense, but he understood, and it shone in his eyes as his power leapt to rise to his growing ire at such a monster.

Ken was shocked, his ambient power had doubled then for a moment, and his eyes had flashed with restrained energy, but even scarier was that he had changed, he had seen something enter his eyes as he spoke, and watched the transformation between carefree student of the art to the calculating glare of a hardened warrior. He nodded dumbly, agreeing with the pigtailed man's statement, he would prove to help greatly, Ken could feel it. It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

End Flashback

The last movement of this particular kata ended with both blades glowing and in a scissor slice to the throat, which sent a pair of crossed scarlet blades rocketing through the air, directed at the metal post ten feet away. "Kurenai Ken." Ranma stated without inflection. The post's head was seemingly undamaged, and the blades were crossed and flipped together, causing the darker of the two, the one in his left hand, to fade away, causing the lighter to darken on one side. This singular blade made a smooth and short trip to the sheath, ending the kata. His eyes opened and he smiled at his accomplishment. "There wasn't any damage to it, I don't get it." Came the voice of Chun-Li, she'd never seen a ki blast/blade, do nothing. Ranma only smiled as he pointed at the metal post, and grinned wide as the top section showed lightly glowing scars in the same cross pattern as the attack. "Wow, that's amazing, you must have excellent control to make the blades just powerful enough to cut through, leaving a semi-liquified metal behind. I never imagined the benefits of controlling ki to that extent." She marveled for a bit on that, wondering what benefits improving her control over her extensive ki techniques would bring. It was easy to imagine that her powered kicking techniques would be more efficient, and less tiring. She let the matter slip to the back of her mind as she realized that it wouldn't matter until her leg healed. She moved back into the apartment, the soft click of her crutches the only sign of her passing. It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

Ranma remained outside, staring up at the sky and wondering if he'd see it again after tomorrow. These next few hours could likely be the last remnents of peace that he would get for a while, he could feel it.

To Be Continued...

A/N:I hadn't planned to end this chapter so quickly, but as it turns out I figure that this would set the foreboding tone of the next chapter, which will be an assault on Bison's base, and soon to be the final battle with Bison. I figured though that I would keep somewhat with canon continuity of SF and have only Ken and Sakura involved in the assault, along with the divergence of Ranma's assistance. Anyhow the translations... Technique Translations: Munashii Zenkai: Void Armageddon: This technique is achieved by harnessing ki without the emotional filter, making the output of energy more powerful. The technique makes the body extremely durable, and increases speed. The technique can encompass the entire body, or any particular area that is wished. The technique can be used to increase endurance, as it fortifies the user against the extreme stress the speed gained.
Kurenai Ken: Crimson Blade: This technique is used by filling the striking edge of a weapon with ki, and during the attack, directing it. The blades are projected forward by momentum, traveling a good distance if fully powered.