Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Umbra Aureola ❯ Chapter 05 - Wizard vs Warrior ( Chapter 5 )

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

CHAPTER V : WIZARD VS WARRIOR


Ranma focused quietly as his old man poured the golf balls into the automated thrower. Faintly he could feel their presence in the room. Instantly the balls took to the air and with amazing speed and grace Ranma spotted and identified the high speed attack. One after another he plucked them from their positions with ease sensing them by battle aura alone. With the machine empty Ranma ripped off the blind fold.

"Ha eat that old man."

"Hmm, it seems you mastered the technique. Just in time as well." Genma said.

"What do you mean by that old man?" Ranma asked his lazy panda of a father.

"Well, by off chance I met Anito and set you up with a fight today."

"And when did you plan on telling me this!" Ranma said as he extracted his foot out of his unconscious father's face.


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Ranma waited cockily as his opponent approached on the field he had fought Ryoga so long ago at school. Anito walked up and stopped a mere two meters from his opponent. Like before he carried his staff, and wore the same white tunic and black pants.

"Hey, who's that guy Ranma is going to fight." A male student to the left said.

"Some sort of arch-mage or whatever." The guy's partner replied.

"So who do you think is going to win." Another said off to the right.

"I am betting on Ranma."

"I don't know, that other guy is supposed to be pretty good and Ranma has already lost twice."

"Place your bets here!" Nabiki sang out over the talking of the fellow students. Quite a number had gathered around the girl and where placing bets. Nabiki was more than happy to accommodate whatever they placed down. Of course her famous services came with a small bookie charge. All she needed to do is make sure that both sides balanced on the odds she had offered and profit was guaranteed. Unfortunately the jaded group was betting heavily on Ranma, a fact she hopped would change once the battle started.

"Well shall we get started, or will we merely stare at each other for a while longer." Anito asked obviously quite bored.

"I'm not going to lose this time!" Ranma said back. Falling into a fighting stance.

"Well, I suppose we will see about that." Anito replied grinning like mad.

The two paused for a moment then both flew forward. Anito vanished before Ranma could land his attack appearing directly behind the skilled martial artist. Ranma flipped over Anito's staff as it swung through the air, and twisted to throw a kick at Anito's head. Anito vanished appearing at Ranma's right where he promptly flickered out of existence when Ranma's foot pierced his after image.

In the background one of the students spoke. "Did he just teleport?"

Another replied to the question. "Don't know, both move so fast it is hard to tell."

Standing a good four meters from his opponent Anito evaluated Ranma. Then he quirked up a grin. "You're a lot better than last time. You practiced aura sight didn't you?"

Ranma hadn't expected his enemy to pick up on his new technique so quickly. Despite this he answered with his normal great pride. "Yes, I did."

"Thought so, a may lose this one after all." If this worried Anito there was no indication. If anything Anito was smiling even more than before.

Ranma moved in stopping all conversation by sweeping at Anito's legs. Anito vanished appearing up and back about 2 meters, and fell forward with a double handed swing of his staff. Ranma leapt to the side avoiding the blow that crushed through the earth with ease. Ranma then swung a round house at Anito's head. Anito flickered again appearing to Ranma's back left and made his own low sweep at Ranma's feet.

Ranma replied with an aerial kick which once again hit raw air. "Shit!" Ranma yelled as he felt Anito's soft spark of ki turn into a furnace.

"Shadow Dance!" Yelled Anito vanishing into a storm of attack on Ranma. While Ranma was a master of the air fighting style of Anything Goes Martial Arts, there is quite simply only so much a person can do to dodge while in the air. Unfortunately, Anito, being able to teleport, conveniently avoided many of the flaws of air based combat as a human. Combine that with the lighting speed of Anito's shadow dance technique and there was little Ranma could do to defend himself. Trapped in the air Ranma was slammed with the pain as meteor like attack rained ultra powerful blows into him from every direction and then finished by nailing Ranma into the nice, hard ground.

Anito appeared down low to land another blow to his stunned opponent. Ranma though used his hands a hopped up into the air over the low sweeping attack. A foot lashed out causing Anito to defensively shadow step backwards. With his improved aura sense Ranma knew perfectly where Anito was moving to and made a quick dash and planted a foot into the chest of the surprised Arch-mage.

The wizard flew through the air towards the nice stone wall surrounding the school. Instead of hitting it Anito caught Ranma by surprise when the man again shadow stepped this time five meters forward and slid across the ground to slow his movement, thus avoiding the nasty crash that was in store for him.

"Huff, that was a nice kick. Looks like we are one for one." Anito said with a grin.

Next to Akane a Panda offered a cup of tea. Akane who was watching the fight looked startled. The Panda was lifting up a sign that read, "Tea?"

"How can you drink tea at a time like this?" She asked.

The Panda didn't bother answering instead merely lifted up another sign. "Who is winning?"

Ranma already knew the answer to that. If he guessed correctly Anito still didn't know how to really take a blow. He was after all a beginner, at least in Ranma's book, at the Art. From the look of it Anito was hurt as badly as Ranma was. The key difference was that Anito had already used one of his high level techniques. If he didn't have anything else up his sleeve then Ranma would have this in the bag.

"That which flows violently through the wind." Anito whispered Ranma heard it as he felt the mage's ki flare up again. Ranma attempted to close the distance before the wizard could accomplish whatever it was that he was going to do, as Ranma's hair stood on end he realized he was to late. "Rajin's Hammer!"

A series of swift back flips and side steps avoided five lightning bolts that fell with vicious force onto the ground. As it was Ranma was blinded by the light, the shattering rocks and dust. The tremendous thunder as the air itself exploded with the power splintered through his mind. The powerful sound, light, and energy though not making direct contact was enough to stagger Ranma as well as any blow.

Stunned, dizzy and surrounded by the brilliant ki filling the area Ranma could not feel Anito swing behind him. When Ranma felt the the flare of the Arch-mages ki it was too late for Ranma to dodge. "Shadow Strike!" Anito yelled announcing the name of the attack technique.

A two hit version of the shadow dance slapped Ranma forward and then hit him down with two full strength blows of Anito's staff. Rock and dirt exploded in a shower as Ranma flew into the ground like a cannonball. Shacking from the pain and physical distress Ranma pulled himself slowly to his feet. Sucking in air to regain his sense of life Ranma lifted his eyes.

Before him was a heavily breathing Anito standing a several meters away, eyeing Ranma with the utmost caution. While Ranma had suffered more physical damage, Anito was quite obviously fatigued. Apparently though the arch-mage had ki levels that Ranma couldn't even touch, Anito hadn't been channeling it long enough to physically stand up to the effect. As such the battle was still even. Now however, the next engagement would settle the matter.

The circled each other keeping their eye's firmly on the opponent. With the next short battle to likely be the end of it, both thought their strategy out carefully while buying time to recover from their ailments. Ranma judged that Anito would recover from a single blow too easily. As such the fight could only be won by landing a swift combination. Not hard for usual enemy, but the arch-mage's shadow step technique made Ranma combinations all but impossible. The nature of Anito's technique allowed him to escape hand to hand far to easily to become a victu of multiple strikes. However, if Anito was as tired as he looked then the arch-mage might recovery too slowly to escape. A swift combination was quite possible.

"That which haunt's the air the arctic mists." Anito began to whisper. A white misty collection of light coiled in his hand in answer to the words.

This time Ranma didn't hesitate he moved in for the kill. His foot lanced out at the arch-mage's position slicing through an after image as Anito shifted again this time ten meters behind Ranma and into the air.

"Shiva's breath!" Anito yelled as a blast of frigid air hit the ground freezing it solid. Ranma was unable to dodge the wide area attack and found himself incased in ice.

"Moko Takabisha!" Ranma yelled shattering the ice with confidence ki. The cold liquid hit Ranma's body and he changed into Ranma-chan. Just in time too as Anito's staff originally aimed at Ranma's chest was now aimed squarely at Ranma-chan's head. The quicker relative speed between the dodge necessary to escape a blow to the chest and a head was all that saved her.

Ranma-chan slid her head to the side with a single smooth movement she watched the staff slide past her and immediately took the opening she had been looking for. With a fierce expression Ranma-chan unleashed the furious speed gained through learning the chestnut fist. A hundred blows slammed into Anito's ribcage causing him to go flying back once again toward the stone wall surrounding the school.

This time the pain paralyzed Anito far to much for the Arch-mage to defensively teleport for a slow down, so his body hit the wall shattering stone. Anito then slumped down to the ground. Ranma-chan wasted no time and moved in to attack position in case the Arch-mage decided he had one last spell in him.

Anito pulled himself up slowly with his staff. With his body quacking from the pain Anito said with a grin, "That was a pretty good shot you got me with there." He then fell heavily on his butt and leaned against the broken stone wall. "Heh, I forgot about your transformation." He said with a chuckle.

Akane walked up. "He doesn't look so good, I think we should take him to Dr. Tofu's"

The panda whipped out a sign immediately that read. "He'll be fine."

Anito was just as fast to talk. "I'll be fine. There is no need for that."

"You sure he is a really good doctor." Akane said.

"No, no it won't be necessary. I have suffered worse." Anito shuddered suddenly remembering his training under Cologne. Yes, he had most definitely suffered worse.

"Where is Kasumi." Ranma said, bringing up the point of the fight. Well the other point of the fight, without Kasumi Ranma still would have fought Anito for the sake of pride alone.

Anito waved, "She is fine, I'll bring her back as soon as I am up to walking again."

"My sister better be okay!" Akane said, suddenly angry remembering that this man kidnapped her innocent sister.

"You delinquent students must be disciplined!" Hinako-sensei yelled out holding out a five yen coin.

The Panda lifted up a sign that said. "I've got somewhere else to be."

Most of the student body quickly dispersed as fast as they could run. Unfortunately, Akane and Ranma happened to be in her immediate trajectory. "Ranma fighting on school grounds is against school rules. You must be punished!"

Anito lifted an eyebrow. "Well, I'll leave things to you." And then he vanished. Leaving behind another fierce battle that broke out in the school yard. Apparently Hinako believed that those same rules didn't apply to teacher's disciplining students. Then again, who would have the guts to try to explain such things to Hinako?


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Ranma and Akane finally entered the Tendo Dojo latter that day. The former was worn out from a day at his high school and was thrilled to hear Kasumi humming in the kitchen as she worked. The prospect of a good dinner was doing wonders for his mind.

"Yo." Anito said lazing back in the Tendo Household.

"What are you doing here?" Ranma asked falling into a battle stance.

"Oh, he'll be staying here for a while." Kasumi said.

Anito grinned, "Yep, since I couldn't kidnap your sister I had to move in. Probably for the best though." Anito, while he liked Dr. Tofu, well he liked the Dr. Tofu he knew...

"What does my sister have to do with anything?" Akane asked hotly.

"Oh didn't I tell you? Remember how I was acting when I fought Ranma the first time. That was because of a flaw in my ki balance that resulted from a ki increasing spell I created and used not long ago. Oddly enough your sister's mere presence is enough to make the dark ki settle down. In other words, until the effect stabilizes I am afraid I will need to spend several hours a day proximity, approximately 50 to 100 meters of your sister to insure that I keep my sanity." Anito explained.

Soun in the background nodded, he however did not take his eyes off the shogi board for a second. In his years of playing he had discovered that the fickle pieces had a strange way of moving when he wasn't looking. Never did he suspect that they moved by a very similar method to that which he used when Genma turned his head elsewhere. At least if he did suspect, he probably figured that cheating when your partner looked elsewhere was part of the game.

"So where have you and my daughter been staying all this time?" Soun asked watching the board carefully.

"Oh didn't Mr. Saotome tell you father? We have been staying at Dr. Tofu's." Kasumi said sweetly.

"Yep, we are old compatriot's. Discussed several ideas over the years." Anito said.

"And when where you planning on telling me this Saotome?" Soun asked.

"Heh, heh, well old friend you know how these things can slip your mind." Genma replied.

"You're amazing forgetful Mr. Saotome. I sent home a meal with you every day." Kasumi said happily, if she had any idea what trouble those words would cause there was nothing to show it.

Ranma cracked his knuckles. "Been eating without us old man."

"Eating the meal my daughter made with all her love for her family. How could you." Soun said in tears. The tears apparently where not enough to stop his other hand from rearranging the board.

The panda form Genma had been coiled around the tire the second Kasumi started talking the second time. He now lifted up a sign that read. "It was stolen by aliens! I swear!"

"Ah, it is good to be home." Kasumi said happily humming to herself undisturbed by the brutal sounds of pounding and breaking bones.