[Ranma][Fanfic] Destiny's Wish, Part Twenty-Four

[Mike Koos]

The fight between Ayumi and the newcomer, Mousse, had turned out
to be much more exciting than any of the spectators outside the ring
had foreseen - at least as far as the boys were concerned.
Ayumi had attempted what had to be the least-expected move in
the martial-arts book - transforming himself into a girl! - but that
had apparently been only for show, as the female Ayumi had all but
let Mousse shred her showy 'bunny-girl' costume from her. Now, she
had only the precious few remaining strips of her costume left to
work with, and Mousse was steadily ripping those away as well.
The final indignity of all was only known to Ayumi and a few
others. Ayumi had actually been a girl even before the beginning of
the fight. Dwelling on this new, if somewhat temporary, curse had
clouded her mind enough that she'd neglected to remember her range in
fighting would be somewhat shorter as a girl.

Destiny's Wish
Part Twenty-Four: The Least of Her Problems
written by Mike Koos
------------------------

"How's he doing it? I never saw any of his kicks come close to
her!"
Quite a few members of the male half of the crowd watching the
fight were lapsing into fantasies about the girl in the ring, wearing
absolutely nothing at all - despite the fact that she was supposed to
be one of their male classmates, and a considerable fighter, at that.
"I'm really glad we came to see this!" one boy grinned vacantly.
"Me, too, with all my heart!" said another, sitting nearby.
The whole scene was making Ranma rather sick, really. She had
always suspected the guys at Fuurinkan High were a sorry lot of
hentai perverts, and this apparently justified all her fears. Not
that they needed that much justification to begin with...
Mousse narrowed his eyes. Even with his glasses present, his
vision was still somewhat questionable, and he had to squint to make
sure the person standing across from him in the ring was the same one
he had been fighting. "And now... the punishment you've been waiting
for!"
Ayumi had barely managed to avoid many of Mousse's kicks; with
his longer range, Mousse was successfully keeping Ayumi at bay. She
knew full well Mousse was using some kind of nail or something
attached to his shoe - and if she didn't put a stop to his tricks
here and now, she would have nothing left to wear!
On Mousse's next kick, she flipped just out of his reach,
maneuvering herself while upside-down into a position where she could
catch the nail attached to the end of his shoe between her hands.
She wrenched the shoe off his foot and flipped back down to her
feet. Ayumi brought an arm up against her chest. No sense in giving
all those hormone-crazed guys in the audience what they wanted to see.
<Great,> she snorted. <I'm starting to sound like *Ranma*.>
Ayumi pushed the tip of the nail close to her opponent's face.
"I thought you said you didn't use cheap tricks?"
The audience was amazed. "So *that's* how he did it!"
"Aiyaa..." Shampoo gasped.
"*Mousse*!" shouted Ranma, banging her fists on the mat. "I
thought this was supposed to be a FAIR fight?" Of course, when it
came to the brand of fighting both Ranma and Ayumi employed,
*anything* could be legal... and dangerous. But not everyone knew
that. She was hoping the minor distraction would give Ayumi a chance
to get in an attack - or something.
Mousse gave a casual shrug. "I have no idea what you're talking
about." He made a move as if to brush a few strands of loose hair
back into place behind one ear. What Ranma and everyone else
couldn't see, however, was the small hook and spool of fishing line he
had concealed behind that same ear and in his hair.
<He's too serious about this fight! Looks like Ayumi'll need
help after all!> Ranma sighed. And first on the agenda was the
matter of clothing.
Shampoo noticed Ranma reaching for her sports bag and digging
urgently through it. <What is she up to?>
"Since you refuse to take off that stupid disguise, I will rip
it from you, shred by shred!" Mousse cast his fishing line; the hook
caught on the last piece of fabric that had been wrapped around
Ayumi's waist, and tore it away.
The boys in the crowd inhaled sharply as one. "That's it!"
some chorused. "The last piece...!"
But they weren't going to see what they had hoped to see for
long. An instant afterward, Ranma dashed into the ring to pull one
of her spare training gis over Ayumi.
There was an overwhelming roar of disappointment from the crowd.
"Ranma!" they protested her move while throwing in a show of
tears that would have put Tendo Soun's traditional waterworks
exhibition to shame. "Why'd you have to go and do THAT for!?"
"Oh, knock it off with the crying, you big hentai babies!" the
cursed girl growled. A little crowd control right about now was
starting to sound like a good idea.
Meanwhile, Dr. Tofu stepped closer to the edge of the ring.
"Ayumi-kun? Who did this to you? Your condition, I mean."
"That old witch." Ayumi did her best to point at Cologne while
dodging more of Mousse's kicks in midair. "Her!"
Cologne focused on Ayumi. "Who are you calling an 'old witch?'"
"She used some kind of pressure-point technique... the
'Soushin-Neko-jita,' I think she called it - and now Ayumi can't
touch hot water to change back." Ranma unconsciously began to wring
her hands.
"Yes...," the doctor said, thoughtfully. "I believe I've heard
of that one. And how to counteract it."
Ranma's eyes widened slightly. "You do?"
A shout from Mousse cut through the air, interrupting their
conversation. "You shame yourself by dressing like a girl, Tendo!
Lose the disguise, and I might reconsider beating you into a bloody
pulp!" He clipped a lock of hair from Ayumi's head with a bladed
yo-yo as she cartwheeled away from him.
"Hah, you and what muscle?" she defiantly retorted. As she
neared the edge of the ring she turned herself about to face Mousse.
All of a sudden Ayumi felt something hard poking into the tender
area just inside her left shoulder blade. She glanced back to see
Dr. Tofu watching her. <Tofu-sensei...? What now?>
The doctor climbed down from the platform to rejoin Ranma.
"What did you do, Tofu-sensei?" the girl inquired.
Tofu took a deep breath before answering. "I used the only
counter-technique I've ever heard of for the Neko-jita... it should
allow Ayumi-kun to touch hot water again and change back. It's
called the 'Touch of Edo.'"
"The 'Touch of Edo...?'" Ranma echoed. The thing about
pressure-point techniques was that they often had names more vague
than many fighting techniques.
Tofu's declaration hadn't gone unnoticed. "Did you hear that?"
one of the boys within earshot asked his friends. "They're saying
that hot water'll change Ayumi back into a guy!"
"No way! We can't let that happen!"
Ranma snatched the kettle of hot water her father had brought
for tea - and himself, eventually. "Okay, then - if it's safe for
Ayumi to touch hot water again..."
As she hefted the kettle around, preparing to carry it into the
ring, Cologne sliced through the thin metal of the kettle with her
staff. The hot water within splattered all over the ground at
Ranma's feet and turned the dirt into warm mud. "Goodness... you
seem to have spilled your hot water."
Ranma narrowed her eyes and frowned. Like Soun, she'd been
giving Cologne a bit of leeway even though she didn't trust the
Chinese elder in the least. Come to think of it, Kasuga was probably
the only one in the house who readily trusted Cologne. Genma didn't
care one way or the other as long as he was fed. Ranma knew the fact
that she was a girl dictated she should maintain a level of
politeness and respect toward other people, although she wasn't
always one to follow that rule.
She wasn't about to behave toward Cologne as openly as Ayumi
did... but Ranma figured her defiance was overdue. Shampoo was, for
the moment, an extension of Cologne's scheming and Ranma was growing
tired of the whole affair. Why couldn't she just break off her
engagement to the currently-tomboyish Ayumi and give him to Shampoo
or Ryomi? Or even Kodachi... or whoever else was chasing him this
week? Answer: her pride and honor were as much a part of this as
anything else. She was too stubborn to hand Ayumi to anyone; she'd
been issued a challenge in a grand sense and while she was stuck with
the concept of an arranged marriage, she wasn't going to let anyone
take away her iinazuke - no matter how much she believed she hated
the boy's guts. No matter how much trouble they were always getting
themselves into.
In the meantime, the word of Ayumi's 'condition' was drifting
amongst the spectators gathered on the grounds. "I heard that
Ayumi'll return to being a boy if he uses hot water."
"That's horrible!" someone declared.
Then the mob caught sight of Ranma, who was on a dead run to the
ring with another kettle of hot water she'd managed to locate. The
boys formed a human wall to block her path.
She didn't slow down when she saw them. "Get out of my way!"
Ranma warned them. "Quit interfering!" What were the girls doing
about this? she wondered. Surely, they couldn't be all that happy
about all this *drooling* over someone who wasn't even supposed to be
a girl?
"You're the one who's interfering!" they retorted, adamantly.
Ranma raised the palm of her hand in front of her at arm's
length, tucking the kettle underneath her left arm like a football as
she kept running. She plowed through the wall, sending the mob
flying in several different directions in a scene reminiscent of her
first few days at Fuurinkan High. The circumstances were similar,
too. Everyone was always out to get Ayumi...
There was also the occasional person out to get Ranma, but she
liked to believe she didn't make herself out to be as big a target as
Ayumi did.
Mousse glanced in her direction. "What's all that noise about?"
He frowned; it was difficult to pick out anyone within the
disturbance. "I'll put a stop to it," he said, walking toward it.
Ayumi was confused. "Huh?" She relaxed her guard slightly.
"Silence, all of you!" Mousse addressed the mob trying to
subdue Ranma. "I wouldn't want you to miss such fearsome moves as
the one I am about to execute..."
Ranma heaved the kettle over the mob's heads into the ring as
Mousse advanced on Ayumi once more. "*AYUMI*!!"
Mousse brought a foot straight upward underneath Ayumi's chin,
mimicking the movements of an ostrich. "Dachou-kyaku!"
The kick missed Ayumi, who twisted her body out of the range of
the attack - instead striking the kettle Ranma had thrown
dead-center and spilling the hot water all over the mat.
"*Baka*!" shouted Ranma. "Why'd you let him do that?" It
hadn't occurred to Ranma that Ayumi might not understand he was able
to touch hot water again.
"That's a new one on me," Tofu remarked to the panda, who
nodded. "It does leave him open for a while, though."
Ayumi had realized that point as well. Even as the doctor was
speaking to Genma, Ayumi swung her left foot around ninety degrees
into Mousse's face, knocking the boy's glasses to the mat. "Gotcha!"
Mousse lurched to his right.
"He's lost his glasses!" someone felt the need to comment.
<If Mousse is nearsighted, that means Ayumi can have the
advantage!> Ranma mused. All the girl had to do was use the
opportunity to start pounding on Mousse and not let up until the boy
from China was down for the count.
But when Mousse began to laugh, Ayumi instinctively took a
couple of steps back. "You believe that taking away my glasses will
help you?" he declared in a stage voice. Mousse proceeded to toss
out a handful of smoke pellets.
The smoke clouds that rose to obscure the ring didn't behave
like ordinary smoke, however. "What the heck...?" Hiroshi coughed
as the smoke blanketed the audience.
"It's *tear gas*!"
A move which Mousse didn't have a complete defense for, either.
He alternated between coughing and laughing. "What do you think of
your foolishness *now*?" Ayumi heard his voice come from somewhere
within the smoke surrounding her.
She regretted never having had any real training in fighting
blind - or close to it, anyway, what with her eyes stinging from the
effect the tear gas had on them. Ayumi tried not to breathe, but the
impulse to cough was difficult to ignore. <Stupid gas...> "Where is
he? I'm gonna kill him!"
Someone coughed behind her. <Huh?> Maybe her blind-fighting
senses weren't that underdeveloped after all...
She abruptly swept a leg back, hopefully far enough to tag
whoever was there. Thankfully, as a girl she had a quicker and more
flexible range of movement. "You can't sneak up on me!"
Genma the panda stepped forward out of the clouds of smoke to
deal her a clout on the back of the head. As luck would have it, it
had been his snout her foot had connected with, and he wasn't exactly
happy about it.
After being mobbed on her last trip to the ring, Ranma had
learned her lesson; this time, she had brought along her father to
run interference. Genma held Ayumi still while Ranma came around
from the side and emptied a third kettle of hot water on her.
Ayumi's eyes went wide...
The clouds of tear gas were beginning to thin. "Tendo Ayumi!
Prepare to *die*!" announced a voice from above.
Everyone's eyes, still feeling the effects of the tear gas,
tracked toward the source of the call. "He's up there!" It figured
he would be *above* the clouds of tear gas he had unleashed, out of
the range of the gas.
Mousse descended, feet-first, on Ayumi. "Takazume-ken!!"
"What's that he got attached to his shoes?" someone asked.
Ranma inhaled sharply... for not only was Mousse approximating
the pose of a hawk about to pounce on its prey, he had attached a set
of polished metal talons to each shoe! "Ayumi!" she called out in
warning.
Now male once again, Ayumi launched himself off the mat with
both hands and intercepted Mousse, impacting against Mousse's chin
with both feet. "Oh, shut up!"
As they descended Ayumi casually placed Mousse's glasses back on
the boy's face. "Here - have your stupid glasses back."
Mousse saw for the first time that Ayumi had been restored to
his proper form. "What?" he muttered. "So, you finally gathered
the nerve to return to being 'male,' huh...?"
The temporarily-cursed boy shrugged. One could only take so
much of this sort of act. "I'm *so* glad you can see again. That
way, you won't miss THIS!" He punctuated his declaration with the
most forceful kick he could muster to Mousse's jaw.
His opponent tumbled to the mat and promptly dropped out of
consciousness.
"Hey!" some members of the crowd jeered. "Ayumi's a guy again!"
Ayumi headed over to his corner of the ring to gloat in
Cologne's presence. "You have done well, son-in-law," she admitted,
grudgingly. A part of his mind registered the broad smile on
Shampoo's lips, yet he chose to say nothing about it.