[Ranma][FanFic] A Broken Casket - Chapter 1
Kwokinator
Chapter 1
"Look! A hole! A hole in the matrix!" Ranma-chan exclaimed
loudly. "At last, I'm free!!!" She ran towards the hole, and started
pulling out the rocks as hard as she could.
Even after an hour of digging with absoultely no avail,
Ranma-chan still didn't give up. The hole wasn't getting any larger,
but her fingernails were ripped clean from her fingers and blood
continued to ooze out of control from the open sores.
After what seemed like an eternity of continuous digging,
she gave up and sat back down, staring at the hole. Suddenly,
without any warning, a rock materialized and filled up the hole.
"NNNNNOOOOO!!!!" Ranma-chan cried, and started punching
furiously at the rock. It didn't move an inch. When Ranma-chan tried
to look for any cracks between them, she saw that the rock looked
exactly the same as the other ones, as if it were put there years ago,
on that fateful day. She kept on punching and punching, until her
whole hand was bleeding and she couldn't lift up her arms anymore.
She sat down on the ground, curled up into the ball and cried.
Once again, she thought. The exit ran away once again. Why?
Ranma-chan just sat there, staring at the rocks that were
her only company for the past decade and a half. She didn't know
how long she sat there for, time no longer mattered to her. Day or
night didn't matter to her. She slept when she was tired, and
praticed the Art when she was awake. Sometimes she talked to other
friends, usually Sakurako, but she could never figure out how they
could disappear just like that. The chains around her arms and
legs had long been torn away, but she still couldn't move the rocks.
Sometimes, she question herself about the reason for continuing in the
Art. As the days went on, the possibilty of never leaving her stone
prison became more and more prevalent in her mind. Still, she held
onto the hope that she would get out. And once she did, the Art would
be the way to her vengeance.
One day, while practicing the Art, she was suddenly blinded by
light. She turned away and closed her eyes, not being able stand
seeing the blindingly bright light. Then she heard a man's voice:
"Oh my God! You alright miss?"
"What?" Ranma-chan croaked. Could it be? Could it finally
be? Someone's here for her?
"You all right?" the man repeated.
"Who are you?" Ranma-chan asked.
"I'm a member of the Japanese Association for Terraforming
Deserts. This island is the next target for our project. I was
passing by this cave and became curious as to why there's a large wall
in here. Seing that there was a hole in the wall, and started pulling
out the rocks. They were too heavy, so I called the rest of my team
over and used the crane. They're standing behind me right now."
"Do you," Ranma-chan asked, hope against hope that she
would finally be able to leave, "have a way off this island?"
"Of course we do!" the man answered. "How do you think we
got here in the first place?"
"Well, my friends seem to come and go whenever they want,"
Ranma-chan replied, "they didn't even have to remove the rocks and
stuff."
"Err..." the man asked, a hint of panic starting to take hold
in his voice, "how long have you been in there?"
"Dunno." Ranma-chan shrugged. "10, 12 years maybe?"
Without another word, the man turned around and motioned his
co-workers to run away with him, leaving a confused Ranma-chan behind.
"Hold up!" Ranma-chan squinted her eyes against the bright
sunlight, and gave chase to the men. They turned their heads around
when they heard Ranma-chan's cry, and started to run even faster when
Ranma-chan started moving.
The men were obviously more familiar to the landscape of the
island than Ranma-chan, as they left Ranma-chan behind after they
entered the dirt path of leaves.
Giving an exasperated sigh, she kept running deeper into the
jungle of thorns that she has just reached. The thorns pricked at her
skin as she ran, and Ranma-chan soon found herself coughing and
sneezing uncontrollably about half way through the man-made path
through the jungle.
Ranma-chan heard screams in the far-off distance, and picked
up her pace. She noticed that as she approached the source of the
screams, red stains became more evident on the soil beneath her.
Finally, she arrived at a clearing where a huge creature stood
in the middle, tossing a man up into the air and down its mouth like
popcorn. Ranma-chan started to cry out a halt, but was interrupted by
the creature sending a large, glowing ball of green at her, forcing
her to roll to a side on the ground. Before she could get back up,
the creature jumped towards Ranma-chan with amazing speed,
attempting to stomp on her. She once again rolled sideways onto the
ground to avoid the attack, then pushed off with her hands to spring
back up to her feet.
That's one ugly bastard, Ranma-chan thought. Looking up to
the creature, Ranma-chan could see that it had a noxious purple
complexion, and she almost had the impulse to move its eyes away
from the offending color. The skin on its face was peeling off,
revealing bloodied muscles among patches of purple skin and white
bones that portruded from its sides. It was also obvious as to who
had the advantage. The creature stood towering over her, and she
only came up to its mid-section.
The creature wound its arm back and thrusted it downward at
Ranma-chan with surprising speed. She saw its telegraphed movement,
and jumped up onto its arm. Running along the creature's arm before
it could be retracted, she jumped up to deliver a kick to its face.
The creature howled in anger, and attempted to swat Ranma-chan off its
face. She jumped away before the hit connected, which resulted in the
creature hitting itself in the face.
Ranma-chan landed on the ground and laughed at the monster.
It growled loudly, then jumped at her with a flying kick. She allowed
herself to drop on the ground, and the creature sailed past her. When
it passed directly above her, it extended an arm in a punch, and
caught Ranma-chan unaware. The punch was powerful enough to create a
crater on the ground, and she turned over to release her stomach
contents, along with traces of red mixed in between.
She shakily stood up and turned around to face the monster.
It launched itself at her again, this time with a stomp from high up
in the air. She ran forward to avoid the attack and jumped up once it
landed. Ranma-chan kicked the back of its knee, causing it to lose
its balance. Using the leg as a springboard, she jumped over to the
other leg and kicked the back of the other knee as well, toppling the
giant over.
When the creature started its fall, Ranma-chan jumped high
into the air, then landed on the fallen monster's back with her knee,
causing the titan to roar in pain. It pushed itself back up, throwing
her off its back. She landed safely on the ground with a backflip and
immediately went into a leg sweep. Unfortunately, she forgot to take
into account the difference in height, and her attack was as effective
as doing a leg sweep on a stone pillar. Which was basically what it
amounted to. She jumped back up, and grabbed her leg in pain.
It laughed in a thunderous, hideous voice, forcing her to clamp her
ears shut.
The creature chose precisely that moment to initiate an
attack, catching Ranma-chan off-guard when she was still moving her
hands to her ears. The hit connected, and she was thrown back 30
feet, her momentum stopped only by impacting a tree. She fell down on
one knee, and started to breath deeply to try and recover.
The behemoth didn't seem to want to let Ranma-chan rest,
however, as it started to run at her as soon as she hit the tree. It
attempted to crush her against the tree with its leg, but she pushed
herself off from the ground and spun in the air to land beside
the monster.
The creature turned and faced Ranma-chan and launched itself
towards her again, at which point she started running backwards,
staying just outside of the giant's reach. As she continued, the
giant's swings became increasingly erratic and widening their gap
further and further.
"Hiryu Shoten Ha!" Ranma-chan released a tornado up into the
air, leaving a baffled monster on the ground, unaffected. Ranma-chan
jumped into the tornado, and started gathering her ki.
With a cry of "Hiryu Koarin Dan!", Ranma-chan came down
on the creature's head. Ranma-chan's move ran clean through the
creature, slicing it in half, and she landed on the ground just as the
two halves landed with a loud thud, the blood flying back up and
soaking her.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Ranma-chan glanced around to
assess the aftermath. Due to the fact that they were fighting in a
clearing, there was surprisingly little property damage. She saw
several men trying to hide behind some trees, and started walking
towards them. The men, once they saw that she was approaching
them, whimpered and began to back up.
"It's okay," Ranma-chan said in a smooth, calming voice.
"It's over. It's dead."
One of the men spoke up. "What-what are you?" he asked.
"I'm a martial artist," she replied. "It's my duty to protect
those who need protecting."
"A-arigato," the man answered, even though he was backing away
as he said it.
"Now," Ranma-chan prompted, "I believe that you have a way to
get home?"
"H-hai," the man replied, and began to lead Ranma-chan. Out
of the clearing. His co-workers soon join them, and they began to
walk to the location of their boat. Every so often, they would spare
a glance at Ranma-chan and her blood-soaked clothes. Soon after, they
arrived at the beach, and Ranma-chan found herself staring at a small
cruiseship. What caught her attention was not the cruiseship itself,
however, but the golden dragon painted on the side of the ship.
"It's the logo for our organization," a man said
dissmissively. "The boss wanted it."
Ranma-chan shrugged, and started moving on. When they
started to board the boat, all the men stared at Ranma-chan's feet,
which was making red stains on the deck. Since this was their boat,
Ranma-chan decided to comply and jumped into the water, coming back
out clean, but even more soaked. They proceeded to go inside the
boat, where Ranma-chan asked if there was anything she could do to
help, and they declined, sending her to her quarters on the second
deck.
During a the night of a thunderstorm, Ranma-chan exited the
ship, alone. Lightning went off in the distance, illuminating the
surroundings. If anybody had been watching, they could see the ship's
deck painted red, and a dragon on the side, staring menacingly into
the distance.
Author's Note
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