[Ranma/SM][FanFic] The Phoenix Prince Saga Book 2, Part 6, Chapter 1
Linda Ward
Chapter One: Warrior - Kina
Princess Kina of Jupiter, her face flushed with a mixed kind
of embarrassment and excitement, scurried down the darkened jade
hallway to her chambers. She had just finished meeting the famous
Prince Shima of The Lord Phoenix, and now she was headed off to write
it all down in her journal. It wasn't every day that a person got to
meet the chosen Champion of the Lord Phoenix, one of the few remaining
elemental forces in the Realms, after all!
She giggled softly to herself as she hurried down the hall. She
hadn't just been introduced to him, she had also discovered that he was
the same older brother named Shima that Reiki-chan had been going on
about for so long. One of her dearest friends, the sister of the
Phoenix Prince! Kina sighed dreamily at the thought of how close they
seemed.
And his skills! He was so far beyond them in pure fighting
ability. And that shield! He had thrown it up so effortlessly! No
fancy song and dance like what the Senshi had to deal with in order
to summon their powers. Just the words, and BANG! A flaming wall just
appeared between him and Reiki and the attacks!
It was awe-inspiring to see that. Hades, HE was awe-inspiring
just standing still! Those muscles, that confidence! Wow. And so
gallant too!
Kina slipped through the large oaken doors into her chambers.
Flopping down on her bed, she fished out her journal from its hiding
place. Rolling over onto her stomach, she flipped it open and snatched
her quill and ink from the nightstand.
_Dear Diary_ she wrote.
_Today the most remarkable thing happened, and I'm not making
it up either! Come on.. Guess!
_What? You don't know? Alright then, I'll tell you.
_I met with perfection today. Hey! It's true! Shima of the
Phoenix Prince is simply... perfect.
That's right, I met with the chosen Champion of the Lord
Phoenix today. And get this! He told me to cheer up and smile!
_He said that if I cheered up I, and I quote, "shall brighten
the world"! He told me that! Can you believe it? He tried to cheer me
up. Even after I nearly fried him and Reiki-chan with a thunderbolt,
too.
_It's not like I don't have a right to be sad. Cause I do!
Mother and Father have been gone so long now that there are all kinds
of rumors going about that they shall never return. I miss them. I
really do.
_I'm getting pretty tired though. And I have a training
session with Miechale of the Jovian Knights tomorrow so I'd better
get my rest while I can, don't you think? Well, I guess I'll see you
later! 'Nite.
Kina of Jupiter.
**********
"Yaaaahh!" Kina screamed as she hurtled through the air to
slam painfully into the mats with a loud exhalation.
Sir Miechale loomed over her suddenly, glaring down at her.
"Are you ready to give up yet, girl-child?" he growled in his dark
baritone.
Kina struggled to her feet at that, her face red with
embarrassment as well as a mixture of frustration, exhaustion and
pain. "I can still go on, Sir Miechale. Please," she paused to catch
her breath. "Continue the lesson, good knight." And then she settled
into an awkward training stance awaiting his attack.
Sir Miechale shrugged and stalked off to the middle of the mat
again. He just stood there and looked at her. "Well? Do you intend to
attack me, or just stand there?" he asked with a nonchalant air as if
he were asking about the weather instead of teaching a lesson on
unarmed combat to a member of the Senshi.
Kina rushed forward with a wild cry, her fist before her as if
it were dragging her towards him. At the last second, he stepped to
the side with a smirk, allowing her to fly past him off balance and
unguarded. One second later she was flying through the air and
slamming hard into the mats again.
This time Sir Miechale didn't even bother to go over and ask
if the lesson was completed. He simply snorted in disgust and strode
out of the room wrapped in an aura of his own self-importance at being
able to beat an untrained young woman that had asked him to teach her.
Sir Miechale was a very proud man after all and didn't take well to
being defeated for any reason, or lowering himself for any reason.
Even if that reason is the training of one of the most powerful
warrioresses and his Princess of his planet in the arts of control
in battle.
Kina lay there for a while, just watching him stride from the
room with a wistful look in her eye. Then suddenly there was another
form blocking her view. Turning her head slightly, she noticed that
the legendary Phoenix Prince was crouching beside her with a hand
roughened from years of swordwork thrust out towards her. Returning
to her senses, she grasped his hand and allowed him to pull her to her
feet. As she stood there, she could feel him gently brushing the
training room's dust from the back of her training robe.
"You okay, Kina-chan?" he murmured as he worked.
She nodded at first, then slowly found her voice. "I'll be
fine, Shima." She informed him as she continued to stare down the
corridor that had swallowed up her quickly departed 'trainer'.
Shima noticed the direction of her gaze. "Why are you staring
at him like that, Kina?"
"Because he's so good and handsome, and I can never even hope
to be that good." She sighed in reply.
"He's not that good. Why do you think you couldn't be at least
as good as him, if not even better?"
"I can't learn. He's so fast and good, that I can never hope
to learn."
"Well, first off, he's an awful person. I mean, anyone with a
shred of decency in him would have helped anyone as pretty as you up.
Especially if he was the reason you were on the floor. Second, he's
not a particularly good fighter and he's an even worse teacher. You
can learn, Kina. I've seen you pick up things so fast, it makes my
head boggle. He just doesn't want to take the time to teach you." He
growled, still glaring down the hall.
"But he's the only one willing to teach me, Shima!" Kina looked
like she was about to cry.
"No. I'll teach you, Kina-chan." He tossed back over his
shoulder, not even bothering to look back as he spoke.
"Y-y-you'll teach me? B-but you're the Phoenix Prince, Shima!"
That got his attention. He immediately spun about and stared at her.
"That doesn't matter! You're my friend, Kina. And I _won't_
let you down."
"You're my friend? I don't have many friends. Only the girls.
You're the first boy I've ever been friends with. Hmm. Does that make
you my boyfriend?" she wondered quietly.
Shima smirked. "I guess, Kina. I guess." Then he turned back
to the corridor. "Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, I recently
discovered a very urgent matter that needs tending to. So, with your
permission?" His angry snarl was barely masked by the sheen of courtly
politeness over the top.
Kina nodded once, shyly, and Shima was gone down the corridor
his stride filled with his furious purpose. Curious as to what was
about to happen, Kina snuck quietly after him.
**********
Shima caught up with Sir Miechale only two minutes after
leaving Kina. The fact that he had caught up with the Jovian Knight
in the very crowded throne room in front of Queen Serenity V herself
didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. Shima was on a most holy
of missions. Defending the honor of a maiden.
"Miechale!" Shima roared across the bustle directly at the
armored back of the still departing knight.
His voice echoed and rebounded in the sudden silence that had
fell over the gathered courtiers. The knight stopped abruptly in the
center of the room at the shout, suddenly finding himself alone as
everyone had crowded back towards the walls. The center of the room
had cleared as quickly as possible when Shima had entered with the
snarl of fury distorting his normally handsome features.
"My _name_, FOOL, is SIR Miechale of the Jovian Knights!" The
arrogant idiot replied as he turned about slowly, just in time to see
what a stupid mistake he had just made.
Shima crossed the intervening distance in four great strides.
Then he lifted the offending knight off his feet by crushing a handful
of his breastplate in one hand and hurled him across the room to crash
into a far pillar and fall to the ground in a great clatter. Shima
crossed the room and lifted him again, this time slamming him into
the nearest surface with enough force to cause the solid marble pillar
to crack. Blood begin to smear across the white pillar before Shima
finally stopped and simply held him there.
Then Shima leaned in and got up in his face. "Miechale of
Jupiter. Do you know who I am?" he asked with a dangerously icy calm
in his voice. It carried easily throughout the room.
Miechale looked blearily into his eyes. "Y-y-you S-s-shima...
Phoenix Prince..." he mumbled.
"That's right, Miechale." Shima continued in the same almost
conversational tone. "I am the Phoenix Prince. I will address you as
I see fit. AND I see no reason to accord you a place in the honorable
Jovian Knights." Shima pointed out. "You, dog, are completely without
honor and hold no place in the Jovian Knights as far as I am
concerned."
Shima suddenly turned his attention from the bleeding idiot in
his hands to the court at large and Queen Serenity V, perhaps in
particular to the Knight Commander of the Jovian Knights who had
recently come to the Lunar Palace to attain the Queen's Blessing for
his new born daughter.
"You see, everyone, I just got to watch this filthy dog-man
man-handle Princess Kina of Jupiter under the pretence of training her
in the arts of combat and control." Shima explained. "Then at the end,
he hurled her to the ground like some cast-off piece of clothing and
walked away in disgust. Disgust, everyone! This filthy dog-man who
_dared_ to call himself a Jovian Knight _beat_ his Princess and then
saw only contempt in her untrained efforts! He refused even to offer
her a hand in assistance to regain her feet after having knocked her
from them to begin with! This filthy dog-man has no honor, no decency,
and shall NEVER have respect from myself or ANY who follow my Lord
Phoenix!" He glared at Miechale who had by now fainted dead away and
hung limp in Shima's grasp.
"Now, I would like to mention that the Inner Senshi are
personal friends of mine." Shima had gone back to that conversational
tone that caused so many courtiers to wish they were elsewhere at the
moment. "And being my friends, they have the right to call on my
assistance at any time. Also, one of them, the Senshi of Mars, is
bound to me by blood. So, I would like to inform everyone gathered
here that an attack upon the Inner Senshi, ANY of the Inner Senshi
in ANY way, shall be seen and treated as an attack upon MYSELF and
my Lord Phoenix. I do hope that I have made myself quite clear upon
the matter."
Then suddenly, he opened his hand and allowed Miechale to fall
to the ground in a loud heap. Crouching down, he wiped his hand on
Miechale's cloak as if to remove all traces of any possible scum that
might have remained from touching him. Then he stood, turned and
strode to the center of the room where he looked upon the Queen and
bowed deeply to her.
"My deepest apologies that you had to be witness to that sight,
your Majesty. Rest assured that such anger shall not be directed
towards you, for thy child is among those I name friend and I shall
not see her harmed." He added in his most courteous manner before
turning about on his heel and striding from the room in an altogether
different direction than he had entered.
Which was a good thing, because if he had he would learn that
the young Princess he had been defending had snuck in to watch him.
She leaned back against the corridor and stared at the opposing wall
for some time in silent shock. Then, suddenly, she straightened up and
dashed off back down the hall to the daily meeting of 'Serenity-chan's
Court'. The others just _had_ to learn about what had just happened!
Kina giggled slightly as she ran. No more would she or the
others have to deal with the mean-spirited comments or cruel jokes
that had once been passed around about them. Maybe they would still
be feared and avoided, but at least the nasty bits could be avoided
by them more now.
**********
Shima walked up behind his reading student on silent feet. Kina
didn't even bother looking up.
"Konban wa, Shima-sempai." She greeted him, never looking up
from her book.
"Konban wa, Kina-chan." He replied, vaulting over the high
back of the long bench to land lightly beside her on the seat. "And
how are you today?"
"Good. Thanks." She hadn't looked up yet.
"And... Manuel, was it? How goes things with him?" he asked
idly, staring up at the sky through the branches of an overhanging
tree, his arms stretched out along the back of the bench and his legs
out before him.
Kina looked up finally with that question. "Manuel is fine, I
guess." She shrugged. "I wouldn't really know."
Shima turned to look at her curiously. "Why not? I thought you
two were getting close."
She laughed. It was a rather disdainful sound. "Ah, yes. We
were I suppose. But not nearly as close as he was getting with that
prissy Cassandra. Ah well. To have loved and lost and all that." She
waved it off as if it meant nothing.
Shima wouldn't have any of it. "And to think that just two
days ago you were all Manny this and Manuel that. It's hard to believe
that you could be so completely over him in less than two days." He
drawled. "Unless..." His eyes narrowed slightly. "What did you do to
him, Kina-chan?"
She at least had enough sense of propriety to blush.
"Oh by the Sacred Fires, Kina!" Shima bolted up right from his
supine position as he began to realize what she may have done. "You
didn't!"
"I did. And he deserved it too!" She retorted, holding firmly
to her stance. "Evil, evil men like that... they DESERVE to be
thunderbolted in the ass!" She snarled.
"You..." His face contorted into a particularly odd expression
as he tried desperately not to laugh. "I cannot believe you did that,
Kina!" He blurted out, then began to calm down a bit. "Well, at least
his leather pants should have absorbed some of it, right?" He asked,
in an attempt to pass the subject off.
"Actually... he wasn't wearing them at the time...."
"Wasn't..."
"He was fair busy with the nubile Cassandra when I found
them..."
"Oh blessed Flames..."
"I sure did..."
"Kina!"
"He deserved it!"
"NO man deserves THAT!"
"Fuck that! Any man that cheats on me and LET'S ME CATCH HIM
deserves whatever he GETS, Dammit!" she swore, heatedly.
Shima just looked remarkably pained from her statements. "Such
language, Kina-chan..."
"I learned it from Akai. Anyway, maybe THAT will teach him to
keep it in his pants."
Shima could only chuckle awkwardly at that.
It was a truly embarrassing moment, but then, at least Kina
wasn't the embarrassed one this time.
***********
"Kina-chan?" Shima almost whispered his question as he came up
to the younger girl in the marble waiting chamber. His expression was
one of a man who found himself with a very unpleasant duty before him.
"Shima-san!" Kina cried in response, her expression one of
over exuberant joy. "They said you found Shinouki!"
Shima nodded slowly, his expression changing from displeasure
into one of pain.
"Where is he, Shima-san? Where is my brother?" Kina asked
imploringly, gazing up into his face.
"Kina-chan..."
"What? What's wrong?"
"Kina-chan... about Shinouki..."
"You didn't find him?" her face fell.
"I... I did find him, Kina-chan. It's just..."
"Just what, Shima-san?"
"Oh... Kina, I'm so, so sorry."
She didn't make a sound. She just stood there before him as
the realization came upon her about what might have occurred. What
must have occurred to affect Shima so. Slowly tears began to trickled
down from her emerald eyes like rain from heaven.
Shima knelt on the ground before her, slightly awkward and
noisy in his Golden Armor, and held his arms out to her in invitation.
The suddenly bereft orphan rushed into the sheltering circle of his
armored limbs. He closed his arms about her and held her to his chest
awkwardly. Finally, he let his instincts take over, and reached up
with a gloved hand to smooth her frazzled hair.
"It'll be okay, Kina-chan. It'll be okay. I promise." He
whispered into her ear in an attempt to soothe her. "You'll never be
alone, Kina-chan. Not while I live. I promise. I'll always be there
for you if you need me. Always. So will the girls. No one's going to
leave you if they can possibly help it Kina-chan."
**********
--
Look not for me in bright of day
Look not in dark of night
I am but a solitary figment
Alone created of your mind.
-
Siobhan Recca
The Cybernetic Ninja