Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Umbra Aureola ❯ Chapter 10 - Jishinha Bakusai Tenketsu ( Chapter 10 )

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

CHAPTER X: JISHINHA BAKUSAI TENKETSU


Ryouga looked at the setup a bit leery. A small, slightly less than a meter, boulder was hanging from a rope. The said rope looped over a tree branch and went to another tree branch from whence was hanging yet another boulder of roughly the same size as the first. Effectively in the entirety there where two boulders, each hanging from a tree branch, tied with the same rope about ten meters apart.

"Now hit this boulder, and without breaking, harming or otherwise damaging it, cause that other boulder to explode." Anito said simply. He was leaning against his staff tossing and repeatedly catching a small metal sphere in his free hand. The sphere looked to be made of steel.

Ryouga's eyes narrowed. "That isn't the way you did it."

"That is because I cheated." Anito pointed out calmly. "Now are you going to do it, or are you too incompetent to succeed at this simple task."

Ryouga growled. "There is nothing I cannot do!" He yelled smashing his fist into the boulder. The boulder of course was broken into pieces.

Anito rose an eyebrow. "Is that so... well go fetch yourself another rock and set the system back up again. It looks like we'll be here for a while." Anito tossed his metal sphere into the air and began to bop it up in a controlled manner with his staff. He was going to have a lot of time to kill, that was for sure.


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Ranma relaxed on his way back from school. The last two days strangely enough where the first time in weeks he had any time for himself. Anito had called off construction until next week which left Ranma with three whole hours free everyday and Ranma intended to use them to the max.

"What are you all cheerful about?" Akane asked a bit miffed. She had been angry a lot recently.

"I don't have to do any construction today." Ranma said happily. Ranma was practically hopping on the fence as he walked down it.

Akane looked away with a slight smile. Since Anito had shown up Akane had found getting near Ranma harder. Since Anito and Ranma had started their construction project it was almost impossible. Ranma simply didn't have any free time at all. She didn't want to admit it but she had kind of missed talking and hanging around with Ranma. Akane wondered if she would be able to spend more time now that Anito was distracted.

"Hey what's up?" Ranma asked.

"Nothing, why?" Akane replied.

Ranma scratched his head. "Don't know, you where just being quiet and stuff so I thought you where thinking of something."

Akane and Ranma where silent for a while. Looking at her fiancé Akane found herself thinking how nice it would be to spend some time alone with him. For once acting on this desire Akane spoke up. "Hey Ranma, do you want to get something to eat?"

"Eh, I don't have any money."

"I'l-"

"Husband go on date with Shampoo, yes? I'll pay for meal yes?" Shampoo asked after glomping onto her self proclaimed husband.

"Free food! Sure thing!" Ranma said happily. Nothing says I love you to Ranma Saotome than free food.

"Fine! Do whatever you want." Akane growled angrily stomping off. Why couldn't that jerk understand her feelings. Here she was being nice and then he goes running off to his other fiancé! Grrrr... Akane got angry just thinking about it.

Ranma scratched his head a second time. "What's up with her?" He asked out loud. Then he turned to follow Shampoo on his quest for free food. He only made it a block towards the Neko Haten before Shampoo's guardian showed up.

"Ranma! How dare you take my precious Shampoo on a date!" Mousse yelled unleashing a cluster of knives from his robes.

Ranma casually dodged the attack. "Hey Mousse long time no see"

"Ranma you think you can avoid me so easily! Then think again!"

"Uh Mousse, I am over here." Ranma pointed out to Mousse who had been threatening a presumably innocent light pole.

Putting on his glasses Mousse confirmed Ranma's words. Turning to Nerima's supreme martial artist Mousse announced another challenge. "Don't think a trick like that will let you escape Saotome. I have trained long and hard and will now show you the dreaded attack of th- quack quuaack!"

"Mousse no interrupt Shampoo's date." The amazon said annoyed at her inevitable suitors antics. Unlike Ranma she found the issue far more easily solved with a simple glass of water. As such she implemented that tactic as quickly and as often as possible.

"Quuaack quack quack!" The glass wearing duck cried back to his beloved. Either Shampoo didn't speak duck, or she didn't care because she simply plucked the helpless creature up by its neck and dragged it with her on her quest.

"We go to Neko Haten okay?" Shampoo said.

Ranma looked leery at the thought. "You aren't going to poison me or nothing?"

"Shampoo ever poison husband?"

"More times than I can count."

The duck attempted to bite Ranma for that yelling. "Quack quuaack!" Like usual the effort failed when the duck met the business end of Shampoo's fist. Which considering her penchant of walking through walls probably hurt.

"Great grandmother wants to see you." Shampoo finally admitted.

Ranma frowned if Cologne wanted to talk something was up. On the other hand if Cologne was going to do something to Ranma she would usually come out right and do it. While caught in thought Ranma's stomach growled and the matter was sealed. As hungry as he was, how could he refuse to goto the Neko Haten? "Uh, sure thing." Ranma finally replied.


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"Crack!" Another boulder bit the dust under Ryouga's sharp attack. Seeing the lost boy's latest failure Anito beat his head against a near by tree. "How many times do I have to tell you? Don't break the first boulder. Its the other boulder that your are supposed to break!" Anito said with a sigh.

Ryouga glared at his teacher. "Lets see you do it."

Anito promptly beat his head against the tree again. "How many times do I have to explain to you that the way I did is not a way you can do it."

"Why not?"

Anito sighed. "Given that sound waves travel at a speed of 600 m/s inside a material, and this material in the shape of a 1 meter by 1 meter by one meter cube. If you should cause the sound wave to enter at one of the corners in such a way that it hits the opposite edge half way up, where is the wave the strongest in the material after one half a second passes?"

Ryouga looked confused. "What does that have to do with anything."

"Knowledge, Ryouga, knowledge. My methods rely on very advanced understanding of ki dynamics and their effects on the surrounding world combined with a spattering of traditional arcana. While I don't have to calculate something like that in order to use the technique, the understanding to use the technique as I did can be compared to answering the earlier question. In other words, my method requires far more knowledge than you could possibly muster in any reasonable amount of time. Besides, my method is slow and inefficient."

Taking a deep breath Anito continued. "What you need to do is much simpler. Like the Bakusai Tenketsu you must develop a sight, an intuitive feel for how the shock wave propagates through the material. Then in combination you must be able to create the desired shock wave. This is done by using a mixture of ki and force, thus the sharp blow. If done correctly the said shock wave can be used to trigger a breaking point inside an object, or even in materials outside of reach. Thus is the secret to the Jishinha Bakusai Tenketsu, the shock wave breaking point."

Ryouga nodded slowly. What Anito said made some sort of sense. Well actually it just sounded like it made sense, but Ryouga didn't understand any of it. Not that Ryouga would ever admit that fact. "So what am I supposed to do."

"Simple, hit the one rock and cause a shock wave to travel through it, through the rope, into the other rock and cause the other rock to explode. Now to save ourselves TIME don't break the goddamn first rock!" Anito growled. Turning away from the lost boy the arch-mage batted the metal sphere away and then began to play, using short range teleportation, a game of bat the metal sphere all by himself.

Ryouga turned back to his work. The effort seemed so pointless. There was no way he was going to get this technique. Suddenly the lost boy shook his head. No he would learn this technique and then he would punish Saotome for his crimes. Unleashing his anger in a verbal assault. "Saotome I will learn this technique and make you pay!"

Startled Anito looked at the lost boy. Grinning the arch-mage forgot the metal sphere he had just batted in, what was now, the location he was occupying. "Thwack" was the stuffy sound of cold hard steel impacting with Anito's skull sending him into blissful unconsciousness.


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In the Neko Haten Ranma was busy sucking up ramen like a vacuum. The trail of noodles went strait from bowl to mouth and flowed upwards into the ravenous Ranma like a rolling river. It didn't take but a minute for Ranma to finish the entire bowl. It took only seconds more for him to empty the liquid strait into his stomach. Satisfied after two large bowls of ramen Ranma let out a large burp and looked around.

Seeing that Ranma finally had the brain power to concentrate on something besides devouring sustenance at a frightening rate Cologne spoke up. "I hear that Anito is staying at the Tendo Household."

"Yeah, he said something about needing a pure aura or something like that." Ranma said.

Cologne nodded as if storing some data for future use. "Is that so? Well son-in-law it looks like your days will be rather busy in the future."

"Yeah tell me about it. The whole of last week I have been helping him build his own underground lair beneath the Tendo house."

Cologne blinked in surprise. She hadn't expected Anito to hang around in the first place, but from what Ranma had said Anito didn't just plan on hanging around, he was practically moving in. "So Anito is moving in then?"

"Yeah, that's what it looks like. Heck he has even got Nabiki convinced into letting him in. That and enchanting the Dojo walls tells me he is going to be around for quite a while."

Cologne cackled with delight. "Well then son-in-law when you head back take these scrolls to Anito I am sure he will enjoy them quite a bit." Cologne slipped three scrolls out of under her robes and handed them to Ranma.

"Eh?" Ranma blinked in surprise. "What are they anyway?" Ranma had hung around Cologne for a while and she didn't usually give stuff for free.

"Just some old magical references. Anito collects scrolls like that and I am sure he will be thrilled to have them." Cologne said with a grin. What she didn't mention was that Anito, unlike Ranma was well informed with the policy of exchange of favors and would return some side benefits back to her, when he saw a chance.

Ranma shrugged and pocketed the scrolls. Standing up he said. "Well I should get going, got things to do."

Shampoo quickly grabbed onto Ranma before he could leave. "Ranma take Shampoo to movie, yes?"

Immediately a duck quacked and started attacking Ranma with throwing knives and vicious bite attacks. While doing so it uttered. "Quack quuaack quack!" Which sounded suspiciously like, to Ranma at least, "Stay away from my darling Shampoo!"

Ranma let out a groan. This was going to be one of those days.


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Ranma finally walked into the Tendo house weary from a battle with Mousse and a lot of running to escape Shampoo zealous attempts at getting more of a date. The whole matter had been made worse when U-chan had decided to join in on the fun. Needless to say getting home had taken longer than Ranma had planned and his extra time had vanished with the wind. Seeing Anito in the house when Ranma walked in was almost enough to make Ranma pray nothing else would go wrong.

As if to belie Ranma's thoughts Anito simply waved to Ranma in greetings and greeted him with a simple, "Yo."

"So what have you been up to." Ranma had a distinct feeling it wouldn't be good for him. Perhaps it was paranoia, but then again in Ranma's case there really where people after him.

Anito grinned his grin faded slightly as he rubbed his head, "Working on a pet little project."

"Oh, it doesn't have anything to do with me does it?" Ranma asked.

"Directly, no." Anito answered his eyes flashing with amusement.

"Oh." Ranma said uninterested. If it didn't have anything to do with him Ranma didn't particularly care. Remember the scrolls Ranma pulled them out. "Hey, Cologne wanted me to give these to you." Ranma said promptly tossing the scrolls to Anito who caught them easily out of the air.

"Nice." Anito said having opened one of the scrolls so fast not even Ranma caught him in the act of doing so. "I'll have to have a chat with her sometime soon." Anito said with a grin. Looking back at the scroll with renewed interest Anito said, "Interesting..." And promptly vanished.

Brushing off the arch-mage's disappearance Ranma sat down and finally, for the first time in days, relaxed. That was of course the very moment in which Akane walked into the the room. Shivering Ranma hoped the tomboy wasn't as angry as she was when he last saw her. "Uh, hi Akane."

Akane let a loud "Humph! So did you enjoy your date with Shampoo?" After finishing the statement Akane quickly stomped off to her room.

"Oh come on Akane, you know I didn't do nothing." Ranma said chasing after her.

"Ranma! Have you been going out with other girls!" The Soun demon head flowed into the room causing Ranma to stiffen in fear.

"Hey, she was offering food and I was hungry! What was I supposed to do?"

Nabiki who had just entered the room rolled her eyes. "No? Seems effective to me."

Genma didn't wait a second to join in on the fray. "Ranma how dare you spurn your fiancé."

Below the house in his underground lair Anito didn't hear a single word as Ranma Saotome suffered once again at the hands of fate. Though whether fate was sole responsible was a rather questionable premise.