Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Umbra Aureola ❯ Chapter 04 - Aura Sight ( Chapter 4 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Xylix 
Anime/Manga: Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Adventure / Action / Martial Arts | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 12.17.2003 | Updated On: 12.27.2003 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.4K | Visits: 522 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Adventure / Action / Martial Arts | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 12.17.2003 | Updated On: 12.27.2003 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.4K | Visits: 522 | Status: Completed
CHAPTER IV: AURA SIGHT
Ranma sat in the dojo quietly contemplating the result of the fight. Even with all his skill and effort Ranma had be able to land a single blow against Anito. The arch-mage's ability to instantly change location did give Anito quite an advantage, but it could not be solely responsible for this act. If Cologne was to be believed Anito's martial arts where nothing special, and baring ki reinforced attacks Ranma agreed with her. Anito should have, even at the skill and speed of Ryoga, landed many more blows on Ranma then he did. As it was only the surprise factor of the teleport without a battle aura and the lightning speed of Anito's Shadow Dance had allowed the arch-mage to land blows.
So it came the question of how could Anito dodge so well if his anticipation of his enemies defense was flawed. Either Anito had an incredible reaction time, or was reading Ranma's every move. Though the first was quite possible, the latter seemed rather incredibly. The Anything Goes school of martial arts was particularly hard to read because of the mixture and mastery of so many differing styles. Further, reading Ranma's moves was the acts Ranma would expect out of a familiar enemy or a true master. Hardly the qualities Anito possessed.
"What are you doing boy?" Genma said breaking into Ranma's thoughts.
"Why do you care?" Ranma asked annoyed at Genma's interruption.
"Trying to figure out how you lost boy?"
"And what if I am."
"You cannot beat him as you are now boy. He has perfect aura sight."
"What does that have to do with anything!"
"Have I taught you nothing!" Yelled Genma standing up fiercely. "Aura sight is a martial artist's ability to sense the ebb and flow of ki, especially the ki inside an opponent. It is aura sight that allows you to sense your enemy's battle aura. Perfect aura sight however, is something more."
Genma settled down into a sitting position to tell the tale. "Once while traveling I heard a legend about perfect aura sight from an old hermit at a shrine in the mountains. As a martial artist I of course could not help but be interested in anything that would further the art, so I decided to stay the night in order to hear his tale."
"For the free food you mean." Ranma said knocking his father on the head.
Genma cleared his throat. "In any case this is what the old man had to say..." Here Genma paused.
Ranma leaned closer waiting for Genma to continue the story. After a while Ranma hit his father on the head again. "Don't tell me you forgot the story."
"I'm trying to remember." Genma said thinking hard and quietly.
Ranma waited a while longer. When no response came Ranma whacked Genma on the head yet another time. "You really where there only for the free food weren't you!"
Genma stood again with ferocity breaking into a tirade. "Do you really think that I your father would sink so low as to weasel food out of an old man!"
"Yes."
"In any case the matter of perfect aura sight is unimportant."
Whack, Genma discovered once again the pain of Ranma's fist upon his head. "Then why did you even bother bringing it up!"
Genma slinked off his presence seemingly defeated by Ranma's fist. With some time Ranma paused to brood some more over the events. He was stopped seconds later as a black silk cloth was tied in front of his eyes by his snooping father. "Hey, what are you doing?"
"Wizardry or no beating Anito is essentially easy." Genma said, "While his techniques makes him dangerous he seriously lacks refinement in the art. The key to beating Anito is this." Genma held up a small, hard, round, dimpled, white ball.
"How am I supposed to defeat Anito with a golf ball?" Ranma asked having lowered the blind fold. Ranma was leery of any suggestion that Genma might offer. Though Genma was a genius when it came to the art, it was quite apparent he had only a couple of brain cells left over for everything else and most of that everything else was scheming his way into free food.
"Yes, at first glance you might see a golf ball, but a master martial artist would see more. For in even this lowly ball is the smallest amounts of ki. If you can learn to catch these balls by sensing the ki alone then your defeat of Anito will be assured."
Ranma's eyes brightened as he thought about it. What Genma said was true, the biggest problem with fighting was not the teleportation. Sure the teleportation was fast but Anito reacted slowly enough to take a blow. No the real problem was the fact that Ranma simple could not feel Anito's presence. Alone neither factor was overwhelming, but combined it meant that every time Anito moved Ranma wasted precious time trying to relocate his enemy. Those precious partial seconds gave Anito a serious edge in combat. Effectively, it made Anito twice as fast as he was in reality.
Lifting up the blindfold so that he couldn't see Ranma announced his intentions. "Bring it on old man! I can handle a bunch of golf balls like that easily!"
Genma poured the golf balls into a modified automated tennis ball thrower which he had carted in while Ranma wasn't looking. Immediately the golf balls began to pop out at alarming speeds. That being not merely velocity of the balls as they left the machine, but the rate of fire as well.
Ranma attempted to grab the golf balls out of the air, but sensing each and every one of them, and catching them all while blind folded was simply too much. It wasn't long before Ranma was twitching on the bottom of a growing pile of white, and very solid golf balls.
"Don't strain yourself." Said Genma as he lazily watched his son vainly attempt to do battle with the onslaught.
**************
"Ranma honey, what happened?" Ukyo said concerned.
Ranma was not in the world's best shape for school. Spending the last twelve hours combating golf balls flying at speeds around 160 km/h did that to to a man. Especially when the said golf balls liked traveling in packs of three, or sometimes more, every second. As such Ranma was sporting quite an arsenal of bruises today. Though the swelling had reduced notably since his most recent attempt at the training earlier this very morning.
As it was Ranma, Ukyo and the rest of the regular crew where gathered for lunch. Ranma seemed to have his mind elsewhere. Akane had a good guess where that was, Ranma had a tendency to become obsessive when he met a martial artist that had the skill to defeat him. Now combine that with his obsession of learning a new technique and the level of obsession consuming Ranma was quite astounding. In fact, it was surprising that Ranma showed up for school at all.
"The old man is teaching me a new technique." Ranma said simply, as if that explained everything.
"Yeah, Ranma can't get over the fact that he got beaten by Anito." Akane said, still annoyed from her family's reaction to breakfast. A memory that Ranma dearly wished he could repress.
"Ha, the foul sorcerer Saotome was defeated in combat! Justice itself speaks loudly today. Truly, such a man that would smite the foul sorcerer Saotome is deserving of great praise." Kuno said.
WHAM! "Cool it Kuno!" Yelled Ranma sticking his foot into Kuno's face at a rather high velocity. Bone crushing velocity to be exact, because the sound of the cracking was probably Kuno's bones. Either that or it was merely what was left of the mad kendoist's shriveled brains bouncing around in his head.
"Say Ranma you look hungry, how about a special okonomiyaki, it'll be on me." Ukyo said. She flipper her portable grill out of... well somewhere. She then tossed on the ingredients. Soon the sweet smell of cooking okonomiyaki filled the air. Ranma couldn't help but be thankful.
"Thanks U-chan, I haven't had anything but poisonous pig slop for breakfast."
"Ranma! What's wrong with my cooking!" Akane said rage barely contained.
"Nothing, if you want to kill a dragon." WHAM! Ranma discovered that the near by tree's root was exactly three feet under the top soil. It didn't take Ranma but a minute to recover from the blow, there was much desired food to be devoured after all.
"So who is this Anito, Akane was talking about?" Ukyo said watching happily as Ranma tore into the okonomiyaki with the ferocity of a starving man.
"So you fought Anito again, did you son-in-law." Cologne said hopping over to the collected group. There was no indication from whence or where she arrived, but then Ranma didn't expect any.
"Yeah I did." Ranma said answering Cologne.
"Hey, who is this Anito?"
"Anito is an arch-mage. He traveled here to retrieve a book from me and recently returned it. I had figured that he had left, apparently I was wrong."
"Another foul sorcerer? Surely to come this far the wretch must wish for death at my blade. Likely the beast is here to steal the love of the fair Akane and beauteous pig-tailed girl from me. Oh her eyes are like the stars, and her skin as fair as the moon..." Kuno raved.
WHAM! Akane and Ranma put their fists into the seventeen year old kendo master. "Would you give it a break!"
"A wizard, that doesn't sound good." Ukyo said.
"Anito ain't that bad." Ranma said.
"Bwha-ha-ha-ha you don't know the half of it son-in-law." Cologne guffawed out.
"Come on Ranma, he kidnapped my sister." Akane said angrily.
"Now that is an interesting development." Cologne said out loud. "In any case son-in-law I will warn you. If you wish to beat Anito in your next fight avoid ki attacks, they are his arena of mastery. If you can pull him into hand to hand there is a slim possibility you can win."
"I've already got it all figured out. Once I master Pop's new aura sight, or whatever technique I'm going take him down." Ranma said.
"Aura sight, an excellent idea son-in-law." Cologne's respect for Genma as a teacher of the art rose by a notch. Considering Cologne's evaluation of Ranma's skill it was already pretty high Genma wasn't exactly lacking in the respect department for his ability to pass on his skill. Unfortunately, like Happosai Genma suffered from some rather notable flaws. Like lack of brains... If not for that she might have been tempted to slip him into the tribe as well. "It seems you may have this one in the bag after all son-in-law. I look forward to seeing my two wayward, but most talented students do battle."
With conversation dismissed Akane finally took a bite of her own breakfast and repressed a cringe. Okay, so maybe she really wasn't the best cook, but at least Ranma could try to say it in a nice way. Quickly she checked her pockets for change and found none. With her cheeks blushing she asked. "Uh, Ukyo?"
"What Akane?"
"Could you make me one too."
****************
Genma was going to work. Now most would express shock, disbelief or any derivative there of at Genma's action. However, it was worth noting that Genma had never stopped going to work, and continued to do the same low paying job he had since he moved in with the Tendos. That being assisting the good Doctor Tofu at his clinic. The better question was why did Genma persist going to work. Well, all in all it came down to two things. First that Soun spent the day out at his job with the city council, and two because Genma did like to have pocket change. After all, despite Genma's apparent stupidity he had realized over the years you can only cheat someone so many times. Considering that he planned on staying at the Tendos for a long, long time it was imperative that he cheat them only every once in a while. Besides, while Genma could resist the efforts of almost anything to push him into action, the words of Kasumi, and Nodoka where not amongst them.
Thus Genma had persisted to goto work to this day. Opening the door to Tofu's, the panda form Genma caught site of Kasumi. The Panda immediately lifted up a sign. "Kasumi, what are you doing here?"
Kasumi never losing her slight smile replied. "Anito is staying here silly."
"Tofu, I didn't know you trained a panda as an assistant." Anito's voice said from inside.
The panda went into a fighting stance seeing the arch-mage peering at him. He lifted up a sign with one hand while doing it. "Panda, doesn't taste good."
"What do you know, it is Saotome. Small world isn't it." The arch-mage said.
"Yes it is." Read the sign. The Panda was now actually in the clinic. The place wasn't all that busy, then again no one in his right mind would show up there for an exam while Kasumi was around even if his life depended upon it.
"Oh, Mr. Saotome. Will you take this home with you when you leave." Kasumi said pointing at a serving dish of food.
"My pleasure." Read the sign.
*************
It was morning at the Tendo Household. Ranma walked in where Akane was laying out her latest efforts to create breakfast. That being some strange cross between egg, and pineapple flavored charcoal. Ranma supposed he should count his blessings that there appeared to be nothing else mixed in, like egg fragments, wood, or pieces of miscellaneous kitchen utensils. To put it simply to Akane the art of making food was war, and there would always be collateral damage. Ranma just wished she would stop carpet bombing the food and move on to precision guided munitions.
Looking at the food leerily Ranma watched his father walk in. Akane was about to put a dish down for Genma when the old man interrupted. "None for me today. I have work to do early at Dr. Tofu's." He said.
"Why Genma old friend it is good to see you taking work so seriously." Soun said. "With you working so hard I can't hold back myself. I guess I'll turn in a few extra hours today as well."
"Daddy and Saotome going to work early on the same day? Now that is amazing." Nabiki said as she walked out the door. "Kuno is buying me breakfast Sis." Nabiki called out as she left. She decided it would be best not to mention he was doing so because she decided to rearrange the time which she sold her pictures to the man.
Seeing everyone else leave Ranma decided that maybe he should fish out an excuse as well. Maybe, he could get some food at U-chan's or the Neko Haten. Even if that fell out he could strike up a campfire in an empty lot and cook his own food. "Hey, Akane-"
"SIT!" Yelled Akane her battle aura boiling as the rest of the family escaped the breakfast even though she had gotten up early to cook the meal with all her heart. She wasn't going to watch her fiancee do the exact same thing. "EAT!" She said thrusting a finger at the dish.
By some miracle Ranma kept his mouth shut. Then again even he had to get tired of insulting her food eventually, and when she was the houses sole cook it was hard to keep up. Perhaps though, it was not that but instead he somehow had registered that this was not the normal pissed off Akane battle aura. Of course it could, just could have been the fact that Ranma had been bludgeoned so bad by his losing struggle against the golf balls that it hurt so much to talk that he would just rather not do it. Finally it quite possibly could be the result of starvation.
Whatever reason one picks the fact is that Ranma simple grabbed a small morsel and eyed it carefully before popping it into his mouth. His whole body froze as he tasted Akane's creation. Then a single shiver passed from head to toe.
"Well how is it." Akane said watching him.
"You've made worse." Ranma said electing to be nice.
WHAM! Ranma's face made in indention in the wall. "Don't you care how hard I tried to make this food for you?"
"Oh, geez and I was trying to be nice too."
"You call that nice!"
"Yeesh, what was I supposed to do, praise this pig slop?"
WHAM! Ranma once again discovered the wrath of a woman scorned. Grumbling he sat up and took another bite of the food. He was hungry, and it was better than some of her... other... dishes. The next bite was not as bad as the first. Heck, Akane might actually be a decent cook if she didn't try so hard. She almost glowed with battle aura when she was cooking.
Ranma paused and his eyes widened. "This is... this is it!" He turned and grabbed Akane's hands inside of his own. "You'll make be breakfast every morning till Kasumi is back right?"
Startled Akane's cheeks started to glow red. "O-of course." As Ranma turned back to the food Akane drifted out into dreamland. Ranma wanted her to cook for him. She had never felt so good in her entire life.
While Akane was preoccupied Ranma looked at the food in a new light. Akane's cooking was bad, but her powerful battle aura twisted whatever hope the food had into a perverse elixir of death. Where his aura sense was too weak to feel the puny aura of the high velocity golf balls, he could practice on an easier target first. That being Akane's cooking. If he could, using battle aura, discover what portion of Akane's cooking was edible, though not palatable, then he would be able to master the secret of grabbing all those deadly golf balls out of the air. Yes, Akane had unwittingly opened up the door to a new technique.
Ranma attacked Akane's food with the rigor of training. That he never mentioned why he wanted to eat Akane's cooking was probably for the best. Then again, perhaps that mistake would result in untold suffering in the future.
Ranma sat in the dojo quietly contemplating the result of the fight. Even with all his skill and effort Ranma had be able to land a single blow against Anito. The arch-mage's ability to instantly change location did give Anito quite an advantage, but it could not be solely responsible for this act. If Cologne was to be believed Anito's martial arts where nothing special, and baring ki reinforced attacks Ranma agreed with her. Anito should have, even at the skill and speed of Ryoga, landed many more blows on Ranma then he did. As it was only the surprise factor of the teleport without a battle aura and the lightning speed of Anito's Shadow Dance had allowed the arch-mage to land blows.
So it came the question of how could Anito dodge so well if his anticipation of his enemies defense was flawed. Either Anito had an incredible reaction time, or was reading Ranma's every move. Though the first was quite possible, the latter seemed rather incredibly. The Anything Goes school of martial arts was particularly hard to read because of the mixture and mastery of so many differing styles. Further, reading Ranma's moves was the acts Ranma would expect out of a familiar enemy or a true master. Hardly the qualities Anito possessed.
"What are you doing boy?" Genma said breaking into Ranma's thoughts.
"Why do you care?" Ranma asked annoyed at Genma's interruption.
"Trying to figure out how you lost boy?"
"And what if I am."
"You cannot beat him as you are now boy. He has perfect aura sight."
"What does that have to do with anything!"
"Have I taught you nothing!" Yelled Genma standing up fiercely. "Aura sight is a martial artist's ability to sense the ebb and flow of ki, especially the ki inside an opponent. It is aura sight that allows you to sense your enemy's battle aura. Perfect aura sight however, is something more."
Genma settled down into a sitting position to tell the tale. "Once while traveling I heard a legend about perfect aura sight from an old hermit at a shrine in the mountains. As a martial artist I of course could not help but be interested in anything that would further the art, so I decided to stay the night in order to hear his tale."
"For the free food you mean." Ranma said knocking his father on the head.
Genma cleared his throat. "In any case this is what the old man had to say..." Here Genma paused.
Ranma leaned closer waiting for Genma to continue the story. After a while Ranma hit his father on the head again. "Don't tell me you forgot the story."
"I'm trying to remember." Genma said thinking hard and quietly.
Ranma waited a while longer. When no response came Ranma whacked Genma on the head yet another time. "You really where there only for the free food weren't you!"
Genma stood again with ferocity breaking into a tirade. "Do you really think that I your father would sink so low as to weasel food out of an old man!"
"Yes."
"In any case the matter of perfect aura sight is unimportant."
Whack, Genma discovered once again the pain of Ranma's fist upon his head. "Then why did you even bother bringing it up!"
Genma slinked off his presence seemingly defeated by Ranma's fist. With some time Ranma paused to brood some more over the events. He was stopped seconds later as a black silk cloth was tied in front of his eyes by his snooping father. "Hey, what are you doing?"
"Wizardry or no beating Anito is essentially easy." Genma said, "While his techniques makes him dangerous he seriously lacks refinement in the art. The key to beating Anito is this." Genma held up a small, hard, round, dimpled, white ball.
"How am I supposed to defeat Anito with a golf ball?" Ranma asked having lowered the blind fold. Ranma was leery of any suggestion that Genma might offer. Though Genma was a genius when it came to the art, it was quite apparent he had only a couple of brain cells left over for everything else and most of that everything else was scheming his way into free food.
"Yes, at first glance you might see a golf ball, but a master martial artist would see more. For in even this lowly ball is the smallest amounts of ki. If you can learn to catch these balls by sensing the ki alone then your defeat of Anito will be assured."
Ranma's eyes brightened as he thought about it. What Genma said was true, the biggest problem with fighting was not the teleportation. Sure the teleportation was fast but Anito reacted slowly enough to take a blow. No the real problem was the fact that Ranma simple could not feel Anito's presence. Alone neither factor was overwhelming, but combined it meant that every time Anito moved Ranma wasted precious time trying to relocate his enemy. Those precious partial seconds gave Anito a serious edge in combat. Effectively, it made Anito twice as fast as he was in reality.
Lifting up the blindfold so that he couldn't see Ranma announced his intentions. "Bring it on old man! I can handle a bunch of golf balls like that easily!"
Genma poured the golf balls into a modified automated tennis ball thrower which he had carted in while Ranma wasn't looking. Immediately the golf balls began to pop out at alarming speeds. That being not merely velocity of the balls as they left the machine, but the rate of fire as well.
Ranma attempted to grab the golf balls out of the air, but sensing each and every one of them, and catching them all while blind folded was simply too much. It wasn't long before Ranma was twitching on the bottom of a growing pile of white, and very solid golf balls.
"Don't strain yourself." Said Genma as he lazily watched his son vainly attempt to do battle with the onslaught.
**************
"Ranma honey, what happened?" Ukyo said concerned.
Ranma was not in the world's best shape for school. Spending the last twelve hours combating golf balls flying at speeds around 160 km/h did that to to a man. Especially when the said golf balls liked traveling in packs of three, or sometimes more, every second. As such Ranma was sporting quite an arsenal of bruises today. Though the swelling had reduced notably since his most recent attempt at the training earlier this very morning.
As it was Ranma, Ukyo and the rest of the regular crew where gathered for lunch. Ranma seemed to have his mind elsewhere. Akane had a good guess where that was, Ranma had a tendency to become obsessive when he met a martial artist that had the skill to defeat him. Now combine that with his obsession of learning a new technique and the level of obsession consuming Ranma was quite astounding. In fact, it was surprising that Ranma showed up for school at all.
"The old man is teaching me a new technique." Ranma said simply, as if that explained everything.
"Yeah, Ranma can't get over the fact that he got beaten by Anito." Akane said, still annoyed from her family's reaction to breakfast. A memory that Ranma dearly wished he could repress.
"Ha, the foul sorcerer Saotome was defeated in combat! Justice itself speaks loudly today. Truly, such a man that would smite the foul sorcerer Saotome is deserving of great praise." Kuno said.
WHAM! "Cool it Kuno!" Yelled Ranma sticking his foot into Kuno's face at a rather high velocity. Bone crushing velocity to be exact, because the sound of the cracking was probably Kuno's bones. Either that or it was merely what was left of the mad kendoist's shriveled brains bouncing around in his head.
"Say Ranma you look hungry, how about a special okonomiyaki, it'll be on me." Ukyo said. She flipper her portable grill out of... well somewhere. She then tossed on the ingredients. Soon the sweet smell of cooking okonomiyaki filled the air. Ranma couldn't help but be thankful.
"Thanks U-chan, I haven't had anything but poisonous pig slop for breakfast."
"Ranma! What's wrong with my cooking!" Akane said rage barely contained.
"Nothing, if you want to kill a dragon." WHAM! Ranma discovered that the near by tree's root was exactly three feet under the top soil. It didn't take Ranma but a minute to recover from the blow, there was much desired food to be devoured after all.
"So who is this Anito, Akane was talking about?" Ukyo said watching happily as Ranma tore into the okonomiyaki with the ferocity of a starving man.
"So you fought Anito again, did you son-in-law." Cologne said hopping over to the collected group. There was no indication from whence or where she arrived, but then Ranma didn't expect any.
"Yeah I did." Ranma said answering Cologne.
"Hey, who is this Anito?"
"Anito is an arch-mage. He traveled here to retrieve a book from me and recently returned it. I had figured that he had left, apparently I was wrong."
"Another foul sorcerer? Surely to come this far the wretch must wish for death at my blade. Likely the beast is here to steal the love of the fair Akane and beauteous pig-tailed girl from me. Oh her eyes are like the stars, and her skin as fair as the moon..." Kuno raved.
WHAM! Akane and Ranma put their fists into the seventeen year old kendo master. "Would you give it a break!"
"A wizard, that doesn't sound good." Ukyo said.
"Anito ain't that bad." Ranma said.
"Bwha-ha-ha-ha you don't know the half of it son-in-law." Cologne guffawed out.
"Come on Ranma, he kidnapped my sister." Akane said angrily.
"Now that is an interesting development." Cologne said out loud. "In any case son-in-law I will warn you. If you wish to beat Anito in your next fight avoid ki attacks, they are his arena of mastery. If you can pull him into hand to hand there is a slim possibility you can win."
"I've already got it all figured out. Once I master Pop's new aura sight, or whatever technique I'm going take him down." Ranma said.
"Aura sight, an excellent idea son-in-law." Cologne's respect for Genma as a teacher of the art rose by a notch. Considering Cologne's evaluation of Ranma's skill it was already pretty high Genma wasn't exactly lacking in the respect department for his ability to pass on his skill. Unfortunately, like Happosai Genma suffered from some rather notable flaws. Like lack of brains... If not for that she might have been tempted to slip him into the tribe as well. "It seems you may have this one in the bag after all son-in-law. I look forward to seeing my two wayward, but most talented students do battle."
With conversation dismissed Akane finally took a bite of her own breakfast and repressed a cringe. Okay, so maybe she really wasn't the best cook, but at least Ranma could try to say it in a nice way. Quickly she checked her pockets for change and found none. With her cheeks blushing she asked. "Uh, Ukyo?"
"What Akane?"
"Could you make me one too."
****************
Genma was going to work. Now most would express shock, disbelief or any derivative there of at Genma's action. However, it was worth noting that Genma had never stopped going to work, and continued to do the same low paying job he had since he moved in with the Tendos. That being assisting the good Doctor Tofu at his clinic. The better question was why did Genma persist going to work. Well, all in all it came down to two things. First that Soun spent the day out at his job with the city council, and two because Genma did like to have pocket change. After all, despite Genma's apparent stupidity he had realized over the years you can only cheat someone so many times. Considering that he planned on staying at the Tendos for a long, long time it was imperative that he cheat them only every once in a while. Besides, while Genma could resist the efforts of almost anything to push him into action, the words of Kasumi, and Nodoka where not amongst them.
Thus Genma had persisted to goto work to this day. Opening the door to Tofu's, the panda form Genma caught site of Kasumi. The Panda immediately lifted up a sign. "Kasumi, what are you doing here?"
Kasumi never losing her slight smile replied. "Anito is staying here silly."
"Tofu, I didn't know you trained a panda as an assistant." Anito's voice said from inside.
The panda went into a fighting stance seeing the arch-mage peering at him. He lifted up a sign with one hand while doing it. "Panda, doesn't taste good."
"What do you know, it is Saotome. Small world isn't it." The arch-mage said.
"Yes it is." Read the sign. The Panda was now actually in the clinic. The place wasn't all that busy, then again no one in his right mind would show up there for an exam while Kasumi was around even if his life depended upon it.
"Oh, Mr. Saotome. Will you take this home with you when you leave." Kasumi said pointing at a serving dish of food.
"My pleasure." Read the sign.
*************
It was morning at the Tendo Household. Ranma walked in where Akane was laying out her latest efforts to create breakfast. That being some strange cross between egg, and pineapple flavored charcoal. Ranma supposed he should count his blessings that there appeared to be nothing else mixed in, like egg fragments, wood, or pieces of miscellaneous kitchen utensils. To put it simply to Akane the art of making food was war, and there would always be collateral damage. Ranma just wished she would stop carpet bombing the food and move on to precision guided munitions.
Looking at the food leerily Ranma watched his father walk in. Akane was about to put a dish down for Genma when the old man interrupted. "None for me today. I have work to do early at Dr. Tofu's." He said.
"Why Genma old friend it is good to see you taking work so seriously." Soun said. "With you working so hard I can't hold back myself. I guess I'll turn in a few extra hours today as well."
"Daddy and Saotome going to work early on the same day? Now that is amazing." Nabiki said as she walked out the door. "Kuno is buying me breakfast Sis." Nabiki called out as she left. She decided it would be best not to mention he was doing so because she decided to rearrange the time which she sold her pictures to the man.
Seeing everyone else leave Ranma decided that maybe he should fish out an excuse as well. Maybe, he could get some food at U-chan's or the Neko Haten. Even if that fell out he could strike up a campfire in an empty lot and cook his own food. "Hey, Akane-"
"SIT!" Yelled Akane her battle aura boiling as the rest of the family escaped the breakfast even though she had gotten up early to cook the meal with all her heart. She wasn't going to watch her fiancee do the exact same thing. "EAT!" She said thrusting a finger at the dish.
By some miracle Ranma kept his mouth shut. Then again even he had to get tired of insulting her food eventually, and when she was the houses sole cook it was hard to keep up. Perhaps though, it was not that but instead he somehow had registered that this was not the normal pissed off Akane battle aura. Of course it could, just could have been the fact that Ranma had been bludgeoned so bad by his losing struggle against the golf balls that it hurt so much to talk that he would just rather not do it. Finally it quite possibly could be the result of starvation.
Whatever reason one picks the fact is that Ranma simple grabbed a small morsel and eyed it carefully before popping it into his mouth. His whole body froze as he tasted Akane's creation. Then a single shiver passed from head to toe.
"Well how is it." Akane said watching him.
"You've made worse." Ranma said electing to be nice.
WHAM! Ranma's face made in indention in the wall. "Don't you care how hard I tried to make this food for you?"
"Oh, geez and I was trying to be nice too."
"You call that nice!"
"Yeesh, what was I supposed to do, praise this pig slop?"
WHAM! Ranma once again discovered the wrath of a woman scorned. Grumbling he sat up and took another bite of the food. He was hungry, and it was better than some of her... other... dishes. The next bite was not as bad as the first. Heck, Akane might actually be a decent cook if she didn't try so hard. She almost glowed with battle aura when she was cooking.
Ranma paused and his eyes widened. "This is... this is it!" He turned and grabbed Akane's hands inside of his own. "You'll make be breakfast every morning till Kasumi is back right?"
Startled Akane's cheeks started to glow red. "O-of course." As Ranma turned back to the food Akane drifted out into dreamland. Ranma wanted her to cook for him. She had never felt so good in her entire life.
While Akane was preoccupied Ranma looked at the food in a new light. Akane's cooking was bad, but her powerful battle aura twisted whatever hope the food had into a perverse elixir of death. Where his aura sense was too weak to feel the puny aura of the high velocity golf balls, he could practice on an easier target first. That being Akane's cooking. If he could, using battle aura, discover what portion of Akane's cooking was edible, though not palatable, then he would be able to master the secret of grabbing all those deadly golf balls out of the air. Yes, Akane had unwittingly opened up the door to a new technique.
Ranma attacked Akane's food with the rigor of training. That he never mentioned why he wanted to eat Akane's cooking was probably for the best. Then again, perhaps that mistake would result in untold suffering in the future.