I do not own Ranma 1/2. I do not own Urusei Yatsura. Both of these series were produced by the most wonderful and all-powerful Rumiko Takahashi. That said, I still have time for a short rant.
Akane Tendo, for your selfishness and crimes against all who live, particularly Ranma, I hope Belldandy or some other Kami comes down and smites you!

As for continuity, obviously this takes the Ranma 1/2 story from the beginning, but as far as UY goes, it's a little bit after Mendo shows up.

Chapter 5
Duels, Dates, and Demons!
**********************************************************************************

"So let me get this straight," Nabiki began, sparing a glance at the quietly sobbing Soun, "you," she pointed at Ranma, "are supposed to ask Yuka out for lunch tommorrow."
Ranma nodded and drank the last of his miso soup. "Yup. I really don't know why. Mom insisted, though."
Everybody else in the room sweatdropped, though Kasumi's cheerful expression made her's seem out of place.
Nabiki pointed to Rayden next, who was stifling a yawn as he fought with Genma for breakfast. "You have a fight with some ninja guy you claim you've never even met on the same day."
Rayden nodded, then blinked as he realized that the distraction had cost him a sausage.
She then pointed to Kaze. "You're going to spend today meditating to seek enlightenment, and tommorrow you're going to all the temples and shrines in the area to pray and make offerings."
Kaze nodded. "Yes. There are many restless spirits about. It would do a great deal of good to offer prayer."
Nabiki stared at him. "Do you see dead people?"
Kaze was caught off guard by the question, and didn't really know how to answer.
Luckily, that was about when Soun decided he couldn't take it anymore. "How could you, son? How could you forsake family honor just to date some girl you barely know?!"
Rayden growled at Genma. "All right, panda-man, time for my ultimate martial arts dining technique! Razor Chopstick Assault!" Unsheathing his sword slightly, he quickly ran his chopsticks over it, instantly giving them a sharp edge.
Ranma felt rather annoyed that he was being blamed for all of it. "Hey, it wasn't my idea, all right? So lay off! Mom said I should, and she's the one who ended the engagement! Not me!"
Genma gasped as his chopsticks were sliced apart, and Rayden started raiding Genma's portions of breakfast.
Soun fell to the table sobbing, though he didn't deny what Ranma said.
Akane glared at him. "You just keep your hands off Yuka, pervert!"
Ranma's eyes narrowed. "Stop calling me that! And what I do is none of your business!"
Akane's eyes narrowed right back. "I'll call you what I want, pervert! And Yuka happens to be a good friend of mine, so you do anything perverted to her, and I'll hurt you so badly you'll beg me to finish you off!"
Genma grabbed Rayden around the neck and tried to force him away from the table. His effort got him uppercutted out of the room.
Ranma's left eye twitched slightly. Then he smirked. "Uh huh, sure. You, hurt me? I fight monsters on a regular basis. What's a little girl like you going to do to me?"
It remains unknown to this day why he didn't see the giant mallet coming.
*SMASH*
"How about THAT?!"
Rayden stood up slightly. "Hey, who do you think you are?"
Akane turned towards him, resting the mallet on her shoulder. Her body appeared black from the sheer brightness of the halo of red that surrounded her. "Did you say something, Shikodan?"
Rayden gulped. "Heh heh... me? No. Didn't say a word."
Kaze stood up suddenly, and stared hard at Akane. "Mistress Tendo, I suggest you desist immediately. I will not tolerate this."
Akane glared at him. "Shut up! What do you know, anyway?!"
Kasumi, much to her younger sister's frustration, agreed with Kaze. "Akane, Ranma and the others are our guests. I realize it wasn't a very nice thing for Ranma to say, but he didn't deserve that."
Akane visibly wilted.
Ranma stayed in his prone position, musing over the strike. It had hurt a lot more than it should have. No real damage, of course, but still, he would have put it past this girl to put that much power into her swing. He'd been attacked by demons that had been weaker.
His eyes widened. Could it be? Well, she sure seemed tempermental enough to be a hell beast. Had to be sure, though.
Kaze blinked in surprise as Ranma stood up and started rooting through his robes, causing paper wards covered with arcane symbols to fly up into the air and scattering about on the floor.
Finally, Ranma found the one he was looking for and slapped it onto Akane's forehead.
Akane blinked. The ward did nothing, save obscure her view.
Ranma sat back down. "Huh. Guess she's not a demon. Just a strong, violent tomboy."
*POW!* Ranma went sailing through the roof and into the air.
Rayden sweatdropped. "You just proved his point, you know."
*POW!* Rayden was seen a moment later, on the exact same trajectory.
Kaze frowned. "Perhaps that one was defective. I'll have to make a fresh detector ward to make sure."
*POW* To Akane's shock, her fist struck some sort of energy field just short of throttling the White Star priest.
He hummed to himself as he took out a slip of paper and started drawing on it with an ink pen.
Nabiki watched impassively as Akane got frustrated and started pounding on the invisible force field that Kaze had somehow erected. "That's my little sister." She said dryly. "Hey Toren, how do you do that, anyway?"
Toren glanced up at her as he waited for the ward's ink to dry. "It takes years of spiritual conditioning and meditation, in addition to the coordination to link your soul to the energy flows that run through all living things. A perfect harmony with nature and-"
"Magic. Gotcha." Nabiki interrupted, sipping her tea.
He sighed forlornly, then looked up to Akane, who was panting from effort she had put out and rubbing her sore hands. Seeing the opening, he threw the ward at Akane's chest. It flattened as it cut through the air, then stuck onto her uniform the moment it touched. Nothing happened.
He nodded. "No, it would seem Master Saotome was correct."
Akane's aura shot up as she bared her teeth and growled dangerously. To her further frustration though, Kaze totally ignored her and resumed eating.
Nabiki stretched. "Well, as interesting as this is, I've got to get to school. Coming, Akane?"
Akane gave a final Glare of Death (tm) toward the priest, then followed Nabiki out the door.

Soun sighed in total resignation, having turned his plate of sausages and buns into a soup with his tears.
Standing up, he started to leave the room when Kaze suddenly shouted out a warning to stop. He blinked and turned toward him, when he stepped on one of the slips of paper scattered about on the floor. It quickly curled up around his foot and glowed blue.
A thick sheet of ice shot up around his leg, causing him to lose balance and topple over onto the other wards laying about.
Many of which quickly clung to him like a magnet to a hunk of iron and started glowing.

Kasumi hummed a little song to herself while she cleaned up the dishes. She paused suddenly to note the pretty flashes of blue, yellow, orange, and red in the next room.
*Shing* *Zak* *Thwoom* *KABOOM!!*
Her smile disappeared momentarily as the dishes in the drying rack shook from a vibration somewhere else in the house.
She looked at the rack for a moment, wondering if the dishes were in danger of falling off. When the ground ceased to shake any more, she shrugged and went back to cleaning.

Kaze would have been rubbing his head if both his hands weren't currently busy healing Soun.
The Tendo patriarch lay in a smoldering circle on the ground, his body charred and his hair sticking up at odd angles.
The White Star priest let out a forlorn sigh as his hands continued pulsing with the soft white glow. 'So much for enlightenment. It will take me too much time to clean up this mess. Oh well, there's always Sunday.'
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Rayden slowly caught up with Ranma as he went sailing through the air, the back of his trench coat fluttering out behind him.
They were both in sitting positions facing each other, and were still on their ascents.
Ranma looked around. "Hey, it looks like we're gonna land near Furinkan!"
"Dandy." Rayden commented sourly.

They had almost reached the apex of their flight, when a certain bikini-clad alien happened upon them.

"Hey, what are you two doing up here?" Lum looked at them curiously even as she struggled to keep up. They were moving pretty fast, though she had no idea how they could've gotten all the way up here. From the way they were positioned, it didn't exactly look like they were in control of their trip either.
"Enjoying the view." Rayden's tone was laced with sarcasm.
Ranma shrugged. "Eh, at least it's a free ride to school."
Lum blinked as they started what was obviously the descent of their 'free ride', leaving her behind in the air.

Ranma smirked to himself as the ground rushed up to meet him.
Twisting in midair, Ranma narrowed himself out, cutting down on wind resistance and speeding his way onto the ground, where amazingly enough, he managed to land heavily on his feet, only kicking up a thick cloud of dust upon impact.
The crowd of students that were already there was quite impressed with this latest display of martial arts prowess, and started clapping.
Ranma smiled and was about to take a bow when Rayden made his own landing.
*WHAM!!!*
A much larger cloud of dust was kicked up as the swordsman smashed into Ranma like a heavy brown meteor.

The crowd stopped clapping and sweatdropped collectively. Then they all shrugged and went upon their normal business.
"That hurt, you know." Ranma muttered.
"Yeah, I know." Rayden replied evenly.
Shoving the swordsman off of him, Ranma got up and started to dust himself off.
"Ranma, are you okay?" Ranma looked up and chuckled nervously as he found Yuka standing over him worriedly.
"Heh, no problem! Fine, really!" he did in fact manage to completely ignore the slight throbbing in his left arm that still indicated where his friend had landed.
Yuka took a moment to observe the other man. He looked a few years older than them, and from his size and features, was probably a foreigner. She ignored him.
Ranma just stood there, unsure of what to do. Eventually he decided that an introduction was in order, if for no other reason than to break the silence.
"Hey Yuka, this is a friend of mine, Rayden. Ray, this is Yuka." They gave each other a short bow.
Rayden was smiling as he raised his head. "So this is Yuka, huh? Nice going, Ranma." He patted the younger boy on the back. "Heh. Good luck!" With that he walked off whistling.
Yuka blinked as she watched him shove his hands in his pockets and leave. "What's he talking about?"
Ranma bigsweated slightly as he shrugged. "Eh, he's always like that. Eventually you learn to just ignore him. So anyway, would ya like to go out to lunch tommorrow?"
At first he wasn't sure whether he had said something wrong or not. Yuka's eyes just got all big and shiny, and she bunched up her hands beneath her chin.
"Oh wow! Do you mean it?!"
A droplet made its way down Ranma's head. "Uh...... yes?"
Yuka smiled brightly. "Of course I'll come! Meet me at the park at 2:00, okay? Bye!" She immediately left to a group of schoolgirls to discuss the invitation and generate gossip.
Ranma stood behind, still wondering what he had just done. It was just lunch, right? Nothing to be all excited about. Shrugging, he went off to class.
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*Shiang!*
"Damn it! Cut that out!"
*Shatter* *Crunch*
Happousai's ice prison broke into tiny shards as Nail's mallet strike sent his frozen body carreening into a tree. Breathing heavily from the stress, her mallet glowed and retracted itself into a small golden cylinder with a crystal set in it. She clutched the object fiercly in her fist, and watched with no small amount of cold rage as the dirtly little human got right back up and started crying crocodile tears to try and garner affection and/or sympathy.
"*Sniff* But Nail, sweety, *Sniff*, why won't you let this old man indulge in the last true pleasure in his long life? *Sob* All I ask is that you let me rest my weary head upon your bosom!" With that he made another lunge, and an energy beam sprouted from Nail's golden cylinder, only to expand and dim into the physical shape of an iron hammer.
*WHAM!* The little troll that somehow possessed a power greater than they was sent sailing up over the trees. They didn't worry about losing him though. He ALWAYS came back.
The other disguised demons merely sweatdropped and ignored the whole scene. All of them had at one point tried to stop the old man's ridiculous games, and all had learned that the dirty gnome outclassed them by a fair margin, not that any one of them would admit to being inferior to a human... or whatever Happousai was.
For some reason which they still couldn't figure out, he only seemed to let his guard down around Nail, who was as of yet the only person that had actually been able to hurt him. And yet he kept on grabbing her. Heck, it seemed his only perogitive was to grope her as much as possible. None of them could understand it. Two out of three of them were certain they didn't want to understand it.

*Glomp* Bolt found Nail suddenly attached to him, tears slowly crawling down her flawless face.
"Bolt, dear, can't we just kill him right now? I'm sure we can take care of those other humans without him!" Bolt sighed and lowered his head.
"I'm sorry, but we can't. He certainly can't kill us permanently, but he could escape and warn our targets easily enough. Besides, I think he'll come in handy once we face our enemies. Until then, I'm afraid we'll have to deal with him."
"Well that's easy for you to say!" Nail frowned deeply. She knew very well that many mens' minds were geared toward sex, and little else, but this... creature took it to a level that was beyond ludicrous. As she felt unwelcome hands suddenly rubbing her rear, she idly wondered if there was any other human as pathetically lecherous as this one.
__________________________________________________________________________________

*ACHOOOOO!*
Ataru suddenly sneezed violently, blowing the adult magazine he was reading behind his math book onto the floor in front of his desk. He absently sniffed and wiped his nose, then looked up to see that the entire class was looking from him to the magazine lying open on the floor.
The math teacher sighed, and with a gesture born of nearly a year of practice, waved Ataru out into the hall.
Looking about, he figured he might as well get the other one into the hall too. "SAOTOME!!!"
Ranma's head shot up. "The answer is 12!"
The entire class shifted their attention to him, then took a look at the board.
The teacher blinked, then cleared his throat and pointed to the hallway. "Lucky guess. Go fill your buckets."
__________________________________________________________________________________

Ranma hopped from tree to tree as he made his way through the park, searching for Yuka. It had never occured to him to look where the park opened up to the sidewalk, partly because he didn't know the area, and partly because he had little use for things like walkways himself.
This made it rather hard for the two people trailing him to keep him in sight while at the same time staying out of detectable range. They managed, however.

Ranma alighted onto a handrail next to a stairway, and casually slid down it while standing up straight. Hopping to the ground, he made it up to a small stone bridge above a stream when his danger sense flared.
He hopped up, and his short assailant passed right under him. That same attacker was then sent into the stream with a well-placed kick to the back of the head.
Ranma walked over the bridge with his hands in his pockets, then leaned over the edge to see the figure slowly crawl out of the water. He was short and remarkably ugly, with a bald head, wrinkled face, and large ears. He was wearing monk robes, and also carried a staff and wore a wide, conical hat that indicated that same profession.
Ranma watched him sputter and cough for a bit, then sighed.
"Okay, I'll bite. What do you want?"
The monk looked up at him, then gave him a stern look and pointed down the paved path.
"You mustn't go that way!" The little old man gave him a look that just dared him to argue.
Ranma blinked. "Uh, why? What's over there?"
The monk suddenly looked very somber. "The entrance to the park, and grave misfortune."
He blinked again, then snapped his fingers. "Ah! That'd probably be where Yuka is! Thanks man, see ya!"
Ranma started to walk down the path, when suddenly the little man stood before him, his arms wide to block the path. "No! You musten't go! Didn't you hear what I said? Grave misfortune awaits you!"
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I get that a lot." He hopped over the monk's head, then continued on his way. "I'll just have to deal with it. Besides, I'll have a lot more misfortune if I don't show up."
Cherry continued watching the young man plod down the path carelessly, idly wondering what sort of horrible fate would befall the boy. Oh well. He'd warned the fool.
Cherry had just turned away when he caught a flash of white from behind a nearby bush, though otherwise, he detected nothing.
'Hmmm... a bad omen, no doubt. I'd better get out of here.' With that, the aged monk turned and fled.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Nabiki poked her head up above the bush to see where Yuka was waiting patiently. It was still early for Ranma to be showing up, but she wanted to make sure she got all the good shots. She held her camera at the ready, waiting for Ranma to stride down the walkway.
Her whole photography schedule fairly evaporated when the person she was waiting for tapped her on the shoulder. Her left eyebrow twitched slightly as she found Ranma standing behind her.
"Hey Nabiki, what're you doing hiding back here with a camera?"
Nabiki rose an eyebrow and stood up. "Excuse me? Can't a girl enjoy a little nature photography once in a while?" Ranma blinked, and seemed torn between believing the excuse or just leaving with his suspiscions intact.
In any case, Ranma shrugged and called a greeting to Yuka, who ran over upon noticing him. Nabiki put her camera away and started off. She wouldn't have been able to sell the pictures for that much, just to curious girls and probably Akane, who never had much money anyway. Besides, in a way, she didn't have any right to spy on them.
Satisfied with the economical and ethical outcome of the trip, she walked out of sight of the couple.
She was just thinking on how she should use the film she saved, when she noticed two figures crouching behind trees just out of earshot of Ranma's position.
One of them had long, snow-white hair and was wearing long-sleeved white kimono with a blue star pattern on the front. Kaze.
The other was shorter, had uncombed brown hair, and a grin that no woman could ever forget, at least without thousands of dollars' worth of therapy. Ataru.
Nabiki stopped and blinked. Why were those two spying on Ranma? Well, Ataru she could understand, he was probably hoping for a make-out session (which, from what she'd seen of Ranma, wasn't terribly likely), but Kaze was the sort of guy that would be the first to preach to others about respecting each others' privacy and moral garbage like that. Interestingly enough, they seemed to be trailing Ranma quite effectively, despite all his training.
Shrugging, she snapped a shot of their pursuit and decided to follow them. Who knows, maybe it would turn profitable.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Kaze watched with great interest as Ranma walked alongside Yuka around the lake in the center of the park. His purpose for being there was somewhat cautious in nature. He had detected a rather strong disturbance, and his natural intuition had warned him of impending disaster coming from this area. In all honesty, though, he was mostly just curious as to how Ranma would do on an actual romantic venture.
Ataru was hoping for a make-out session. 'Nuff said. That he was with Kaze was pure coincidence.
It was also a small stroke of good luck, because Kaze was the only one capable of projecting the special aura to bypass Ranma's hardwired super-senses. Kaze was currently emitting a field of pure calm, safety, and utter harmlessness. Had Ataru felt the need to comment on the subject, he would have noted that he felt exceptionally warm and at peace with nature. However, he currently had more important things on his mind.
Ranma actually could sense their presence, but with them being so thoroughly harmless, his subconscious deemed it about as noticeable as a pigeon.
With his mind occupied so heavily on observing Ranma's activities, as well as keeping up the 'please ignore me, you don't care about me' field, it's perfectly understandable that he never noticed the presence behind him, biding her time and occasionally snapping a picture when she got a good angle.
Idly, he wondered how Rayden was doing with his endeavor.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Cyrax tapped his foot on the ground. Where was that man? It was 10 minutes past 2, and Shikodan was nowhere to be seen.
He was currently located in a large, solid dirt patch off to the side of a building which had been abandoned right after the construction of the main support structure for absolutely no reason other than to provide an excellent battle site.
The young ninja was decked out in his own special combat gear, with a black scarf covering his nose and below on his face, and a pair of dark blue gauntlets. He was wearing a baggy tunic that was tied tight to his body at the top of his boots and his shoulders and displayed dark shades of gray. A cloak so black it was almost painful to look at billowed out behind him like a cape, its hood forming a cloth collar around his neck.
Upon further inspection, it can be seen that blade hilts of various sizes and lengths are poking out from beneath his cloak, far many than most would deem necessary.

Cyrax sighed to himself and forced himself into a light meditation. He had to be patient. It was a skill, just like stealth. It would not do for him to fail in such a measly test of will.
It sure was hot.
Especially with all these black clothes on.
Focus! Focus!
Dang, he was hungry.
Focus! Damn you, focus!
He wondered if maybe Rayden had stood him up. It would be rather fitting, considering that he had attacked the swordsman out of the blue, and then demanded a fight from him.
Maybe he should just up and-wait, what was that?

*Rummmmmmmble...............*
Cyrax quieted all thought, stretching his sense to their very limits to hear what was going on.
All he could hear was a slight whistle............
*CRASH!* A gigantic I-beam fell straight into the ground just two meters in front of him.
He blinked.
Rayden, who was currently crouched on top of the girder, stood up to his full height and smiled.
He blinked again.
Rayden hopped down and waved a hand in front of his face. "Hello? Ninja guy? You there?"
Cyrax blinked a final time, then shook his head. "Uh, yes, right, sorry......... What are you doing?"
Rayden shrugged, putting his hands in his coat pockets. "Just thought I'd make an entrance."
Cyrax nodded. "Ah, yes. And indeed you did."
Rayden nodded himself. "Yup."
"Well then..."
"Right."
"........................................................................"
"........................................................................"
Cyrax looked around uncomfortably, then start scratching his forehead.
"Now, I'm certain there's a reason you're here......"
Rayden coughed. "Well, you know, the challenge?"
The ninja laughed and clapped his hands together. "Ah, yes! Thank you! I tend to lose my train of thought when people appear in front of me on top of 2-ton steel girders, you see, and-"
"You're ranting." Rayden decided he was getting bored. He was here to fight, not exchange pleasantries.
Cyrax coughed into his hand. "Sorry. Anyway, I suppose you're curious as to why I challenged you."
Rayden shrugged. "Eh, not really. Though if you want, you can tell me anyway."
Cyrax nodded. "You see, it all began 5 years ago............"
__________________________________________________________________________________

The lithely muscled figure glared down at Genma as the bald, bespectacled man bowed down repeatedly. He certainly appeared imposing, dressed in a tight black ninja suit that hid all but his heated eyes.
"Please! I'm sorry! I wasn't really going to steal that gold! I was just... ah... looking at it! Yes!" Genma gulped. That one had sounded stupid even to him.
The ninjas that currently held Rayden and Ranma, as well as the ones cautiously circling Kaze with their weapons drawn, all sweatdropped as they witnessed the man's begging. On the ground there lay many more ninjas, but being out cold, they were in no condition to sweatdrop.
"Stupid old man. Just had to get us in trouble again......." an 11-year old Ranma muttered.
The leader stepped up to Genma and clenched his hands into fists. "Hmph. And just why should I let you live?"
Genma swallowed deeply, and did some quick thinking. "Y-you can have anything! You c-can have my son! Take him!"
The ninja master ignored the indignant shout of 'Hey!' from behind his prisoner, and thought it over. Obviously this man was a coward, but still a formidible one. He wasn't really planning to kill them; little damage had been done, and Genma hadn't gotten away with anything. Besides, from the looks of things, these youths were more than they appeared, and he really didn't want to see how they reacted to lethal force. Besides, the clan could use such people.
"Very well Saotome, I'll take you up on that. Take those three to the east hold! Saotome, you come with me!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

Rayden blinked and scratched his chin. "Yeah... I remember that. That idiot Genma...... so that's where we met?"
Cyrax shook his head. "No, I was still a trainee of 13, and not permitted to combat. I was mostly just a scout, which is actually where I enter this story. You see, that night, my father, head of that ninja regiment, engaged his daughter, and my younger sister, to Genma's son, Ranma."
Rayden sighed. "Gee, this keeps getting better and better."
Cyrax shrugged. "In any case, that's not why I'm here. As you no doubt recall, that night Genma coordinated an attack in which you all knocked out your guards and escaped........."
__________________________________________________________________________________

A 13-year old Cyrax jumps through the branches of the trees, making no sound louder than the rustle of leaves in a gentle wind. At his side he clutches a ninja-to in a scabbard tightly to him.

'I found you and the others late in the evening.........'
Cyrax sweatdrops as he witnesses Ranma and Rayden sparring. 'Sparring', in the sense that Rayden is smashing apart everything in sight in his attempts to hit Ranma, and Ranma is dodging like mad, while attacking at any opening he could find. Nearby, Kaze is meditating quietly. Cyrax is using almost all of his concentration to mask his presence.
Eventually Genma calls out that dinner is ready. A tired Ranma and heavily bruised Rayden trudge up to the fire, whereupon Genma announces that since Rayden did so poorly, he can skip dinner in order to move a large pile of boulders into a ravine, rock by rock.
Just about everybody protested this, but in the end, Genma's word was law, and Genma ate Rayden's portion of dinner while the starved teenager carried huge boulders on his back across nearly a kilometer of rocky terrain. Soon they had fallen asleep, all except for Rayden, who had more boulders to transport for no good reason.
'As a scout, I was only supposed to find Ranma and report back. But I saw you all sleeping, and I couldn't resist the temptation to take him in myself, to gain prestige. I thought it would be child's play. It wasn't.'
Cyrax peeks out of the bushes, then sees that everyone's sleeping softly, and creeps up to the campsite, still slightly illuminated by the fire's dying embers.
He almost makes it to Ranma's sleeping bag, when Kaze suddenly wakes up groggily. Cyrax freezes.
"Huh? Wha...?" Kaze blinks to clear the sleep from his eyes.
This is apparently all the time Cyrax needs, as he looks around frantically and finds a good-sized rock, then picks it up and smashes it over Kaze's head before the priest could realize what was happening and raise a shield. Kaze goes out like a light.
Cyrax sighed in relief. Then he realized that he had just made a lot of noise, and looked over to the Saotomes in panic. Both of them were sleeping like babies. He breathes another sigh of relief.
That was when he felt a finger tap him on the shoulder.
The young ninja blinked, then turned around just in time to recieve a gloved fist to the face. After impacting a tree heavily, Cyrax groggily gets up, and clears his vision just in time to make out the huge boulder that Rayden is holding above his head with the hand not balled into a fist. Rayden smirks, then tosses it at Cyrax. Cyrax is quick to act, hopping up on the tree, and rebounding off of it to jump onto the flying boulder and use it as a platform to jump at Rayden.
Both boys unsheath their weapons at the same time, and as he descends, Cyrax strikes out with three quick thrusts with his ninja-to. Rayden is surprised, not used to fighting others with blades, but manages to block all the strikes with his sword, mostly out of pure reflex.
Now it's Cyrax's turn to be surprised. How could he have repelled such quick thrusts with such a large, clumsy weapon? Not bothering to ponder the question, Cyrax presses the attack, simply trying to stab him with the ninja-to.
Rayden's inexperience with this sort of fight, as well as the awkwardness of trying to block short thrusts with a heavy bastard sword, clearly shows as Cyrax begins to score small hits on his opponent.
Rayden is suddenly starting to feel desperate, and commits himself to a course of action.
Cyrax's next jab hit clean, tearing into the side of Rayden's chest and hitting bone. At the same time, Rayden makes an upward slash at Cyrax, who manages to dodge part of it, except that a large cut opens up on the left side of his face, and he screams in agony. Rayden himself clutches his chest in pain, and starts to feel dizzy as the young ninja sprints away.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Cyrax sighed. "Instead of a hero's reception, I was met with shame and scorn. Not only that, but the physical injury proved... somewhat permanent."
Rayden was pale, and he gulped gently. "You mean... that was... you, and I... did that?" He pointed nervously at the other man's eyepatch.
Cyrax nodded and smiled sadly. "The rest of my face healed without a scar. But my eye... will never recover."
Rayden nodded, and some of the color returned. "So, this is about revenge, is it?"
Cyrax shook his head. "Nonsense."
Rayden blinked. "Huh?"
"Given half the chance, I would have killed you. I am firmly of the belief that had that been a horizontal strike, I would be in two right now. I am not here for revenge. You managed to deflect my attacks with more skill and strength than my own teachers. And now that I've surpassed my teachers, it's time that I pitted myself against you, Rayden Shikodan."
Rayden stared for a bit, then shrugged. "Eh, to each his own. Still, I'm sorry about the eye. I mean, that had to have hurt."
"Oh, will you just draw already?!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"So... Ranma... what's your favorite movie?" Yuka was desperate. All attempts at comminication had failed. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't hold a conversation with this guy!
Ranma once again drew a blank look, which was an expression she was quickly getting used to. "Movie?"
"Yeah, you know, like at the theatre......" Yuka prompted.
Ranma concentrated. "........... Theatre?"
Yuka fell down. Had he been raised in a barn or something? He seemed totally ignorant of all forms of popular culture. Music, television, movies, magazines......
Getting up... "What do you do for fun?" She was just dying to know.
Ranma shrugged. "Practice martial arts. Or hang around with Rayden. Why?"
Yuka gave up conversation. They still had lunch. Maybe they could talk about food or something. He had at least expressed interest in THAT.

Ranma had sensed the girl approaching long before he had even really noticed her, and made every effort to allow her room to pass. Still, somehow, she managed to trip over him while going in the opposite direction, and he lashed out with his arm to grab her before she hit the ground.
"Hey, are you all right?" Ranma pulled her up and set her firmly on her feet, holding her up to ensure she wasn't dizzy or anything. He never noticed Yuka's scowl.
The woman turned towards him with a sultry smile on her lips. She was about his height, if a little shorter, with luscious, dark purple hair and a curvaceous, buxom body that tightly pressed against the simple white t-shirt and short-shorts, showing quite an indecent amount of leg and cleavage. Yuka felt fat, ugly, and flat-chested just looking at her.
The girl's smile turned even more seductive as she made no attempt to hide her appraisal of Ranma's body. "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you very much, Mr......" She flipped a lock of hair behind her ear in an alarmingly arousing way. She was quite simply the most beautiful female Ranma had ever seen, even outclassing Shampoo of the Amazons.
"Ranma Saotome. Sorry about that." He stood her up, then took Yuka's hand and walked off.
Yuka was planning on glaring at him and acting cold and distant, but the way he had just blown the woman off like that sort of ruined the atmosphere of betrayal and jealousy. Shrugging, she allowed herself to be led to the large grass field where she had suggested eating lunch.

Nail stared at Ranma's back as he left, with that other girl trailing behind him.
She blinked, then went over the checklist in her mind. She had done everything right: the sexy smile, the sexy outfit, the sexy flirting... what had gone wrong?
"Whoa! Hey there baby, wanna go out for-UGH!" Ataru's head was smashed into the ground before he could even touch anything. Nail's experience with Happousai had made her particularly paranoid about weirdos coming out of nowhere and grabbing her, and now the mallet strike was entirely reflexive. In fact, she was no longer even using her normal weapon to make the hammer, instead managing to pull a wooden one from somewhere behind her back. She had no idea how she did it; she didn't even own a wooden mallet.
Not completely deterred, Ataru latched onto her leg. "I... just wanted... to introduce... myself......" he gasped out, while simultaneously coughing up grass and dirt.
She managed to ignore him, in favor of creaming the little pervert that was clutching her chest.
She stopped, however, when she realized that instead of grinning his stupid little grin, he actually looked serious for a change.
"Well now, I see that that's failed. Time for plan B!" He said it with determination and commitment to action. Then he gave her breasts a squeeze. Before he knew what hit him, he was on the ground spitting up grass with Ataru.
"Idiots. If only that guy were half as stupid as you, this would be easy!" She growled out at them.

*Swish*
She only had a second's warning before the slip of paper hit her, slicing evenly through the air. As soon as it touched her forehead, it glowed brightly, before completely tearing apart into pinpricks of light and dissipating.
Nail screamed as a searing pain shot through her, and suddenly her aura was illuminated for all to see.
She turned a hateful glare to her left, to see Kaze standing there and glaring right back, his arms crossed inside the large sleeves of his kimono.
The woman took a step forward, surrounded by fiery blackness, which was in turn surrounded by a halo of bright blue. She smirked slightly, and now fangs were clearly visible. Happousai and Ataru both blinked, and she used their distraction to kick them both away.
"Well, if it isn't little Toren. Come to slay us, have you?" Her smirk grew.
Kaze's expression remained calm, though he narrowed his eyes slightly. "I think it's the other way around. In any case, this ends here, demon." His arms seperated, and one of his hands poked out of his sleeves, revealing several slips of paper with various symbols on them.
Nail laughed, and threw her hair back. "Oh please, save your pitiful white magics for third-rate shadows. Besides, I think you'll have plenty of trouble without having to deal with me." She put two fingers to her mouth and blew a shrill whistle.
Kaze stretched his sense outward, locating several purely magical auras surrounding them, and one demonic aura a little ways behind him. Beyond that, he felt more magical auras surrounding the area of the park where Ranma was.
He grimaced. In being so distracted, he had allowed the enemy the advantage of surprise, an advantage that could prove lethal. Purely magical auras indicated beings that were animated solely by magical energies, such as golems and zombies. These creatures held dark mana within them, as well as spirits trapped within the black web, so that indicated necromancy, and therefore the undead.
Nail walked off unmolested, save the two perverts that kept trying to grab her. It was annoying having to kick them away every 10 seconds, but she still managed to do it and leave with a semblance of dignity.

Kaze gave a cold look to her back, and further scanned his surroundings.
*Shhhhhhh..."
His barrier went up at the sound of steel cutting through air. A clawed chain slammed against the glass-like wall, bouncing off and onto the ground.
Kaze watched as several pairs of glowing red eyes shone through the nearby bushes. Then a loud crashing sound was heard as the demonic presence charged through the foliage into the park pathway.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!" Bit bellowed mightily, swelling up to tremendous size and towering over the white star priest. All around him, the other figures began to emerge.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Ranma started as he heard a crashing sound in the distance, and stood up suddenly. Frowning, he concentrated, and searched the area around him for...... aw, nuts.
"Ranma? What's-waaugh!" Yuka was quite literally swept off her feet as Ranma picked her up and leapt away with her in his arms, just in time for two lengths of chain to shoot out and impact the small area where their meal was going to be held.
Ranma growled and put Yuka down. Yuka gaped and backed away from the whole scene.
"All right, who's there? Show yourself!"
They did. A dozen fairly short figures, just below 5 feet tall, dressed in identical leather samurai armor, each carrying a katana and a clawed chain which was wrapped around their waist. Each one also wore a wide, conical hat like Cherry, that seemed to pull the shadows onto their faces. The only thing visible from under it was their glowing red eyes.
Ranma's eyes narrowed in recognition of the creatures. "Hajime... damn." Not that he couldn't handle 12 fairly skilled zombie swordsmen, but hajime were always used as ground troops and cannon fodder, which meant that there was some kind of leader, or at least cover fire, waiting to make itself known.
Ranma put Yuka down. "All right, look, things are gonna get messy in a few seconds. I want you to go over to that big tree over there and stay put. If anything notices you, point to it and yell. Got it?"
"Uhhhh..." Yuka was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that there were a bunch of evil samurai attacking their picnic.
Seeing that she wasn't moving, and that the hajime were, albeit cautiously, he gave her a shove toward the tree he had indicated to before charging into the fray.
__________________________________________________________________________________

*Ching* *K-shink* *Klang*
Cryax's katana glanced off of Rayden's blade, creating a short shower of sparks. He brought his sword around for two more attacks, each one cleanly blocked.
On the next strike Rayden executed a swing rather than just a block, and there was another burst of light and fire before half of Cyrax's katana went flying off to the side.
Cyrax hopped back, and his hand suddenly made several quick motions. Rayden twirled his sword around in a circle in front of him, and the shuriken bounced off of it like it was a solid shield.
Cyrax drew two kodachi, and charged.
Rayden managed to deflect each strike seperately, then beat back the shorter blades before winding up for a downward slash. Cyrax brings his kodachi back together to block in an X position, and Rayden cuts cleanly through the middle of it.
The ninja grimaced, then backed off slightly before reaching into his cloak and throwing his arm out in a wide arc.
Rayden leapt straight up, clearing the perfectly horizontal line of throwing daggers by a good 10 feet before landing again. Cyrax reached under his cloak again, and this time pulled out a quarter staff.
Rayden sweatdropped. This was getting ridiculous. "How many weapons do you have, anyway?"
Cyrax smiled slightly, not that Rayden could tell, since his mouth was covered. "In order to find you, I took up traveling with another young man that had the a similar goal. I ended up in China, and took the liberty of learning a very useful technique from a nearby village. Without anybody's knowledge, I might add."
Rayden chuckled. "Nice."
Cyrax tensed, and stood up straight. "Nonetheless, it would seem that your skills are as sharp as ever. I truly doubt that I could hope to defeat you by skill of sword alone."
Rayden blinked, and he scratched his head. "Uh, maybe this sounds stupid, I don't know, but does that mean you give up?"
Without a work, Cyrax grabbed a corner of his cloak, then pulled it over himself. And disappeared. Completely. The cloak seemed to fold in on itself, and suddenly there was nothing.
Rayden stared. Then he looked around. He simply couldn't see anything other than an abandoned construction site.
"So does this mean I win?" He called out.
*Wham!* His question was answered by a quarter staff to the back of his head. Slightly dazed, Rayden turned around to see Cyrax standing behind him, his staff at the ready and his cloak billowing dramatically in a non-existant headwind.
The ninja chuckled. "Behold! The Hitokage's second most dreaded technique! Midnight's eye! The ability to cloak yourself completely in broad daylight and strike at will!"
Rayden considered this for a moment. "What's the most dreaded technique?"
Cyrax blinked, then scowled and lowered his head before muttering something.
"What'd you say?" Rayden took a step closer.
"It's none of your business! Now prepare yourself!" Cyrax pulled the same trick as before, pulling the cloak over his body and completely disappearing from view.
Rayden stood up, and cupped his chin in his hand contemplatively. Then he smirked slightly.
He crossed his arms over his chest, and was suddenly engulfed by a thin yellow aura.
"Aura blast!" He thrust his arms out suddenly, and a powerful gust blasted away from him in all directions. There was a loud grunt, and Rayden turned around to see an hazy outline of Cyrax's form ripple out from the air.
Cyrax was still partially stunned from the wave of pure power disrupting his concentration so suddenly, and couldn't recover before he was sent reeling from a boot to the midsection.
*Klang* Cyrax impacted heavily against a standing steel girder, his entire body aching from the hit. Still, he managed a fairly quick recovery, and would have leapt right back into the fight, except that Rayden was currently holding the tip of his sword against his neck.
Rayden looked down at him evenly, a hand tucked in his pocket. "Concede defeat. Now."
Cyrax stared up at him, then sighed. "I concede. You have won."
Rayden smiled and sheathed his sword. Then he jumped up onto the girder he had arrived on. "Oh yeah! Victory stance!" He suddenly turned away and thrust a fist into the air, which glowed and sparkled in a brilliant, though thoroughly useless utilization of ki energy. Then he made a V with the fingers on that same hand, and reached into his trench coat before pulling out a bottle of booze and chugging it down.
Cyrax stared and large bead of sweat rolled down his head.
Rayden apparently noticed, because he stopped drinking and held the bottle out to him. "Sorry. Did you want some?"
The young ninja was about to shake his head no, when another voice spoke from behind the pair.

"I could use a drink."
Rayden whirled around, not noticing as the bottom part of his coat whipped Cyrax in the face. Standing just a few meters away was a man with unnaturally chiseled features, and another who was remarkably fat.
Rayden grinned. "Well well, what have we here? I suppose you two are the from the construction commitee, eh?"
The grotesquely obese man stepped forward, not saying a word.
Cyrax was currently glancing at the new arrivals in confusion. Something wasn't right here, though he wasn't sure what it was.
Rayden moved, and suddenly he had his sheathed blade in one hand, while his other one glowed slightly. "Why don't you drop the disguises boys? I know you're not here for tea."
The thinner man smiled and clapped lightly. "Very good Shikodan! Was my guise really that bad?"
He stopped clapping, and then he exploded outward. Skin-like shreds of nameless material littered the ground, revealing an insecticoid/humanoid figure. It had two arms, one a fairly normal hand and the other a large 3-fingered claw. It had two reverse-joint legs, and two long tentacles in its back. Its head held 3 compound eyes, and a pair of mandibles. Its entire body, save the tentacles, was covered in chitineous armor, and around its blocky waist a belt held a sheathed scimitar.
Rayden whistled and gave a thumbs-up. "Nice..."
The fat man exploded the same way, revealing Rotor. Big whoop.
Cyrax was now understandably horrified. What were these things?
The insecticoid drew its scimitar and pointed toward Rayden. "I am known as Bolt," he hissed out in raspy voice, "and now you will die."
Rayden smirked "No kidding? Bolt, huh? I think I'm starting to sense a pattern here." The glow in his left hand intensified, and leaked into the air above his palm into a sphere of white light. Then his smirk fell, and he stood up straight, not dispersing the ki ball.
"Hold it." He turned to Bolt, who also stood up out of his ready stance. "If I kill you, will you die?"
Bolt would have blinked, but lacked eyelids in his true form. "No."
Rayden's expression fell. "Dang. This is gonna suck."

Rotor moved, bringing to bear one of its steel arms, a mess of pipes, cables and blades. The metal seemed to rearrange itself before turning into a sort of twisted gun, and firing an oblique blast of energy at Rayden.
Bolt quickly followed suit, gathering his ki energy in his clawed hand and tossing it right at his opponent.
Rayden scowled, and then let loose the energy he had gathered. "Iczer beam!" The white blast completely overwhelmed and absorbed the incoming projectiles, and smashed into both demons. Bolt used his own aura to help absorb the wall of pure force trying to tear him apart, but Rotor wasn't so lucky, and was ripped to shreds by the pounding detonation of the beam.
Bolt had already recovered, and was automatically regenerating the damage even as he charged Rayden, who himself was struggling with the drain of his attack.
*Kshing* Sparks flew as enchanted metal met enchanted metal, and both combatants used their supernatural strength to beat the others' blade aside. Bolt quickly learned that he wasn't quite up to par, however, as Rayden threw him back before slashing again.
The demon jumped over the strike, then lashed out in a fearsome kick to Rayden's chest, raking it with its claws.
The swordsman paid the injury no mind and attacked again, this time angling his strike so that Bolt would have to use both hands to block with his sword. Beating away his opponent's sword, he hacked down to cut off the offending limb, before paying for the strike with a ki-enhanced claw slash to the shoulder.
Blood sprayed across the ground as it flew out of the wound, and Rayden grit his teeth before smashing his knee into the insecticoid's midsection, giving way to the rather unpleasant sound of a shell breaking and stabbing into the flesh underneath.
Bolt would have none of it, though, and slapped him away with a tentacle before kicking him in the stomach and then sending him into the ground by twirling around and whipping him with another tentacle.
"Shikodan, look out! Steel zephyr!" Bolt turned at the voice just in time to see the stream of glowing shuriken before they hit him, cutting through carapace and flesh alike.
Rayden also turned to look, to see that Rotor was currently in a pool of unidentifiable liquids, with a scythe lodged in the back of what was presumably his head. He also noted that Cyrax seemed oblivious to the crackle of electricity as the demon cyborg resurrected itself.
"Ayakana! Watch your back!" He found a convenient hunk of concrete roughly his size and threw it, crushing the monster and prompting another resurrection.
He was then aware of Cyrax flicking several knives just past him, and turned to see Bolt, who had mostly regenerated, backing away from the line of projectiles.
Bolt snarled and leapt, angling to come down at Rayden with his scimitar and talons.
Rayden surprised him by jumping up to meet him, and swinging his sword in a wide arc.
Bolt's body split into two halves after they passed each other, and he impacted the ground in a bloody mess.
Rayden approached cautiously as his body dissolved into a green, liquid light, then reformed itself into his natural shape.
The poor demon was once again cut in two at the waist, this time before he could even percieve what was happening.
Once again he melted, and again he reformed, right before his head was cut off.
Die. Melt. Grow. Repeat.
By now Rayden was understandably upset, and when Bolt reformed, he was merely impaled through the chest.
"You know, this is getting kind of tiresome," he complained.
"Agreed," rasped out Bolt, right before Rayden forced his sword upward and through his skull.

Meanwhile, Cyrax had been observing Rotor the whole time. Rotor had been crushed to death by the conrete chunk, and Cyrax noted that it seemed to be taking him a rather long time to regenerate, presumably because of the rock displacing much of the space the creature needed to reform.
Rotor had regenerated, the electrical energies had just sort of gathered to the side and slowly formed the bigger parts out from under the boulder, but even now that he was alive again, the demon was struggling to get the concrete off of him.
A strategy forming in his mind, Cyrax thrust a katana into the unfortunate creature's head, and turned towards Rayden.
"Shikodan! I have an idea! Follow me!" Luckily, both opponents were dead at that moment, so there was nothing to tip them off that the humans had a plan.
Rayden watched as Cyrax leapt up onto the skeleton of steel girders that made up the building whose construction had ceased. Reluctantly, he smashed Bolt over the head with a wheelbarrow to stun him before following his comrade/rival.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Kaze's gaze was focused on nothing, his eyes staring off at a certain point in the distance, seemingly ignoring Bit and the hajime that surrounded him.
Hajime were different from traditional 'cannon fodder' undead in that they were much smarter and more skilled. 'Hajime' meant beginning, or rebirth. It was said that the spirits which were trapped in the revived bodies of the hajime were the souls of samurai who had dishonored themselves during their lives. Kaze had always thought this odd, since this particular type of zombie hadn't originated from Japan or even this dimension, and from what he had read, there were no warriors with such a close resemblance to Japan's traditional soldier caste in Chryslon.
Suddenly Kaze turned to face one of them, as if indicating that he had commited to an action. His hands came together, hidden within his voluminous sleeves, and suddenly spread his arms wide, scattering paper wards into the air around him. Then he put his palms together, and a halo of white light blasted out from his body, striking the wards and causing them to freeze in the air, then flatten and stand perpendicular to the ground.
Several of the hajime charged, but as soon as they got within a meter of a ward, it would disappear into a white ribbon which blasted the hajime away almost completely, shattering the bonds of necromancy which animated them. 4 of the demon soldiers perished before the rerst got the idea that Kaze's immediate vicinity had been turned into a minefield.
Bit had watched all of this, and decided to just rush in and start pounding things rather than try and figure it out. Almost all the wards activated and struck at his charge, having, predictably, little effect. Demonic and necromantic energies are totally different things, the former being almost impossible to disrupt, as all demonic auras are naturally chaotic.
Bit's massive fists hit an invisible shield, and he growled with rage as he pounded on it again and again. The hajime waited patiently, those surrounding Bit not wanting to be accidentally crushed, and those on the other side staying away from the remaining ward traps behind the monstrous demon's assault.

Eventually Bit realized he wasn't doing much more than making a nuisance of himself, and stopped his attack to glare down at the White Star priest.
"Meinat gesha rashka, yaga!" He said it with confidence, almost arrogance.
Kaze lowered his head. "Suska lota non dyenot. Colsha."
Bit blink-blinked. Well, two of his eyes did. The other one was sort of out of sync with the others, so it only blinked once.
/"You speak the language of my people?"/
Kaze sweatdropped slightly. /"Well, duh."/
Bit snarled angrily. /"Then know this, human! I will tear you apart and feast on your entrails!"/
Kaze's gaze didn't waver. /"You will fall, and be returned to your home dimension, just like last time."/
Bit winced. Last time had been painful. Very painful. If he weren't so incredibly stupid, he might have actually started to act more careful around humans.
/"Your friends' dues will be paid in your blood!"/
Kaze didn't waste any more time with words. He reached down the robe to about waist level, and pulled out a shiny, perfectly straight dagger. With it he scrawled something in the dirt around him, then stepped back and started concentrating.
One of the problems with his tactical situation was that the nature of his powers didn't allow him much room in fighting a great number or variety of creatures. His own powers relied upon the exploitation of specific weaknesses, and as he was faced with two very distinct types of opponents, utilizing either anti-undead magic or straight battle wards would be distrastrous, as either party could easily butcher him while his back was turned dealing with the other. Hell, this was why he kept Rayden and Ranma around for. It sure wasn't for the conversation.
As it was though, he did have one edge; none of his opponents could use even the most basic of attack magics.
He dropped his own shield as his mana flows were redirected into the symbol below him, and an independent, though comparitively weak shield shot up as a column around him.
"Spirits of fire and ice! I summon thee! Come forth from your elemental planes!" Twin lights of blue and red appeared in each of his hands.
By now his opponents had decided that it would be a good time to attack, and they started pounding on the physical shield Kaze had erected, though Kaze's back was still covered by the few undead wards still floating in midair.
The phoenix screeched as it came alive in Kaze's hand, growing and spreading its flaming wings. In his other hand, a small pinnacle of blue light appeared, and growing in intensity, hopped off of the priest's hand.
/"All right,"/ Kaze's eyes narrowed, /"as Master Saotome would say, 'now the fun begins.' Simalcrum mirror!"/ The white priest disappeared, and then several of them reappeared, scattered across the field. The hajime wouldn't even see the illusionary images, but to Bit the priest had just evened up the numbers.
Nonetheless, the monster continued pounding on the shield, which quickly shattered as if made of glass, before fading away, the mark on the Earth smearing into incomprehensibility.
The phoenix and sprite spread out immediately, blowing heat and cold into the ranks of the undead samurai. While this did little to actually harm them, their natural impulse was to first concentrate on killing the target's summoned spirits rather than deal with the target himself. Chains and swords were batted away with fiery wings and ice bolts as the spirits sought to distract the vicious zombies from their master.
Bit watched in a cruel mix of fascination and terror as he and his minions were surrounded by Kazes. Deciding on a course of action (IE, it was the only thing he could think of), the massive creature started smashing priests, becoming more and more shocked as he found that each one was just an illusion.
All the images of Kaze took a moment to throw a few undead-killing wards into the surrounding fray, then the white priest stopped and lowered his head in concentration.
Had Bit actually had more than 5 brain cells, he might have just looked at the hajime that had actually been struck, then figured out at least which area the actual wards must've come from.
But instead he continued randomly thrashing Kazes, growling and cursing in his native tongue as he found each one to be insubstantial.
Then the voice. Something called out from within him. He stopped his violence as his vision began to blur.
His enemy wasn't just in front of him. No. He was surrounded by enemies! All these creatures wanted to harm him!
With an unearthly snarl, he dug both sets of claws into the ground and wound his tail/foot up for a swing.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Kaze focused hard, devoting the entiredy of his mind and soul to the task before him. If the phoenix or sprite proved unable to hold off the hajime until he was done...
Well, he wouldn't put much money on him healing an impalement through the chest, especially on himself.
His concentration was almost broken by a sudden eruption in the nearby streams, but with effort he ignored it.
'First, to breach his defenses......... let me into your mind. Let me roam within-' he was in.
'Wow, that was fast. Let's see now...' Mental manipulation wasn't something that Kaze was good at. As a fairly moral person, he always did his best to respect other's privacy of their own mind, despite the way his telepathy allowed him to read into people's thoughts far more intimately than he had let on to his friends. He hardly had any practice putting in new thoughts.
Still, this was proving a rather simple exercise. Bit's brain, if it could be called that, had three main areas: What to fear, what to eat, and what to break into little itty-bitty pieces. This is actually something like he imagined Rayden's mind would look like.
In any case, he directed his energies towards the 'smash' portion of Bit's consciousness, and blurred the concept just a smudge. Consequently, he felt the 'fear' part grow as the list of Bit's foes grew to iclude the preoccupied hajime.
Kaze was oblivious as the phoenix let out a screech of pain.

The fire bird waved tiny, painful flares at the hajime as it flew over them, favoring its left wing, which had been spared impalement from the offending katana. Most of the hajime followed its flight, ready to let loose their chains should the elemental slow down to return and rake them with its red-hot talons. Most.
One of the hajime, who happened to be in just the right position to notice, realized that he was looking at the original target's unprotected back, and that the target himself seemed to be in some kind of deep meditation. This particular soul wasn't one to pass up a free shot, so he brought out his own chain and twirled it around in the air to accelerate it.
The steel blade was suddenly loosed, flying through the air with lethal accuracy and a good 20 more pounds of metal behind it towards the back of the white priest's unprotected neck.
Kaze remained ignorant to his imminent danger as it sped toward him.
*Smash!*
The metal chain was suddenly robbed of its length and fell short as a huge, fleshy tail came down upon Kaze's unfortunate assassin, smearing him into the dirt and stopping the chain's passage.
All the hajime stopped dealing with their present annoyance, be it flaming feather darts or golfball hail, and turned to watch as their leader apparently went mad, tearing apart anything and everything that was nearby. Claws tore through torsos and fists powdered bone as Bit slaughtered the hajime nearest to him.
Now, hajime, while being far more intelligent than your average undead creature, still didn't possess the knowledge to understand this, or the reasoning to prepare a suitable countermeasure. Running was out of the question, as they had all been taught in life and bound in death to fight and fall without fear. They were further confused by the way he would stop to smash an area where nothing stood, then grin as if some victory had been attained at this feat.
Kaze opened his eyes, then watched as the dim-witted beast continued stomping his minions. He quickly dispelled both the illusionary spell and the spell binding the elementals to the mortal plane, and he was suddenly alone with the monstrosity.

Bit finished off the hajime by biting the zombie cleanly in two, and standing up, realized that he had finally been able to discern the actual Kaze from all the others that had suddenly appeared.
He snarled. /"Well priest, it's time for you to leave this place. Soon you will be on the other end of an exorcism!"/
Kaze pointed behind him. /"You missed one."/
*Crunch*
Bit cleaned his claws of the remnants of the final hajime. /"Anyway, now you die, fool!"/
Kaze smiled lightly and shook his head as Bit charged, his muscular tail propelling him through the grass like a snake's would, and his fist poised to smash the priest into a bloody pulp.
*Wham*
Bit groaned as his face slid down the barrier.
/"You are the fool. With but one opponent I can crush you at my leisure."/ Kaze took out a particularly large ward with a far more intricate design than his usual kind. Holding it in the air, the white priest spoke words that very few on that plane would understand. Bit was one of them.
The ward straightened out parallel to the ground, then shot out at Bit, who tried, and failed, to scamper away in time.
The monster screamed in agony as light suddenly seeped into the area that the ward had struck, then spread across his back like a plague, though it was quite obviously the opposite. Demonic flesh twisted and paled even as the creature's peculiar energies tried to reassert themselves to bring back the missing body mass.
Nevertheless, the latter energy overcame the former, and soon a trio of furious eyes turned toward he who would attack their owner.
Then Bit saw the second ward coming, and realized that he had lost.
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Hyah!" A roundhouse to the midsection sent another hajime flying backward into one of it's companions, stunning both and allowing Ranma time to deal with the other two trying to stab him from behind.
His foot caught the flat of one blade, and with a smart twist of his leg, that one was disarmed of his katana.
The other one made a thrust for his abdoment, and was rudely tossed into two of it comrades, who were still getting up.
Ranma advanced on the fourth, who was hastily trying to prepare its chain for the attack. Ranma didn't give it a chance, blasting the zombie swordsman with a ki-powered open-palm strike that just about shattered its entire body.
He twirled around, focusing on the last hajime in the area. "Screaming thunder missile!"
*Boom!* no more spirit soldiers.
Yuka timidly poked her head around the tree, wondering if it was safe to come out or what. As a person who had lived in Nerima all her life, she was perfectly accustomed to random destruction and people turning out to have extraordinary powers, but she was still upset that it had ruined her date.

Ranma looked around, unsure if he should put his guard down. So far there hadn't been any surprises waiting behind the group of zombies, but that didn't mean there wasn't one.
His fears were confirmed as he heard a slow, steady clapping, and turned to see the same purple-haired woman from before standing among the trees bordering the field.
"Now, if you're done playing around with the weaklings, perhaps you'd like a real challenge." She flashed him a licentious smile, revealing a pronounced pair of fangs, then crossed her arms over her face.
When Nail split her arms apart, her dress tore completely as two large, shiny black wings apparently made of metal plates sprouted from her back and stretched themselves out. The tatters of cotton and denime floated to the Earth to reveal only a blue silk scarf that wound around the back of her neck and had both ends tied to her waist, not really covering her breasts that well at all. The only other thing that could possibly be mistaken for any sort of clothing were the plain blue panties under the fringed blue scarf that were plainly visible from several angles. All in all, she was a sight that made most succubi look like conservative dressers.
Ranma was less concerned with the outfit than he was with the wings. "Hey, doesn't that hurt?"
Nail was about to go into the posing and the introduction, but stopped at his question. "Huh?"
"The wings," Ranma elaborated, "doesn't it hurt when they rip out of your back like that?"
She blinked. "Uh...... no?"
Ranma shrugged. "Oh. I was just wondering."
Nail stopped to remember what had just been going on, then realized she hadn't made her intro yet.
"Well mortal! You did rather well with those pathetic excuses for racid fodder, but now you face Nail, and-"
With her deadly smiled on full force, and her forefinger outstretched towards the one who would be her enemy, her speech was cut off by two full-force attacks.
"HOTCHA!!!" *Glomp*
"WHOA BABY!!!" *Glomp*
Ranma sweatdropped as his cousin and a tiny old man grabbed on to various parts of Nail's body.
Nail waved her wings to generate some lift to keep her balance, then realized what it was that kept her from her target. "Argh! Damn it! You two ruined my dramatic introduction!"
The subjects of her ire weren't listening, however.
"Hey, whaddya think you're doing grabbing onto my woman kid?!" Ancient lecher glared down at teenage one from his position hanging onto Nail's breasts.
Ataru returned the gesture with interest. "Your woman?! I don't see your name on her! Why don't you go pick up some chicks your own age, like the ones at the nursing home!"
Happousai would've given the dope a royal pounding if he wasn't in such an enviable position at the moment. "Get lost, you insolent little punk! I've got dibs!"
Nail was, needless to say, quite miffed at being groped and then ignored. Her body flashed blue, and both perverts were incased in large ice cubes.
Seeing how she had no use for Moroboshi, she simply kicked him away. Then she transformed her multi-weapon into a pair of ice tongs, and held the frozen Happousai out at Ranma threateningly.
".................................................................."
To find that the young Saotome had apparently forgotten the whole thing, and was busily eating the lunch that Yuka had packed for their date.
"Hey you! We're kind of in the middle of something here! I would appreciate it if you would pay more attention!" Ranma looked up, puzzled at why she should be so angry. Nonetheless, he shrugged and moved away from the food, hoping that it was far enough away so as not to be damaged in the upcoming battle.
Nail cleared her throat. "All right. I'm Nail, I was sent here to kill you, and this little freak here was sent with me to help. Now die!" Introductions finished, she threw the hunk of ice and Happousai at the ground in front of Ranma, where the former shattered and the latter was released.

Ranma scowled slightly and set one foot behind the other as he shifted into a ready stance. If this little gnome/troll/ghoul/little, ugly, perverted monster of your choice was being sent straight up against him, then that meant that he was going to be more trouble than he appeared to be.
To both parties' surprise, instead of attacking Ranma, he turned tearful eyes toward the object of his lusts.
"Nail, baby, how could you do that to a poor, defenseless old man? Is one little cheap feel really too much to ask?" He sniffled for effect.
Nail was understandably furious. "You moron! That's the target! Keep him busy while I-"
*Punt* *Wham!* Ranma retracted his leg as Happousai's head became one with the nearby tree.
Nail slapped her forehead, then realized that the target was rushing toward her, no doubt with malevolent intention. With a strong flap of her wings, the gorgeous demon lifted herself from the Earth, and hovered in the air as she thrust her arms out. "Icicle assault!" Several sparkles of blue light materialized around her outstretched hands, forming razor-sharp icicles which rocketed toward Ranma and stuck into the ground.
Ranma himself had flipped away. Nail continued her magical assault. "Ice beam!" The blue-white beam of light reminded Ranma of Rayden's own energy attack as he hopped to the side, except that Nail's left a coat of jagged ice all over the impact site.
Ranma smirked. "Eh, I'm not impressed. Why don't you just go all out and change into your real form?"
Nail stopped charging her next attack and blinked. "Real form? What? This is my real form!"
"No it's not!" Ranma insisted.
"Is too!" Nail was fairly certain she would've remembered if she had another transformation available.
Ranma shook his head. "Everybody knows that demons only have bodies like that to get men to lower their guards before they transform into some hideous, clawed beast and eat them." Or at least that was what Kaze had said. Sort of.
Nail fumed. "Look! I don't have a hideous form! I'm one-hundred-and-ten percent pure beauty!" She caught and updraft and did a sideways pose in the wind, her hair flowing in the air majestically.
Ranma regarded her for a moment with his chin in his hand, then shrugged. "Oh. Never mind then." Then he charged.
Nail, being a very bright demon with a deep understanding of tactics and human pychology, realized that the last few moments of conversation could be taken to mean that he outclassed her at such a level that he didn't want to fight someone so weak. That wasn't in fact what Ranma was trying to say, but it was close enough.
She flew higher into the air, only to be followed by Ranma, who leapt off a tall tree right under her and shot up to meet her. She took out her weapon, her golden rod, though she really doubted her ability to physically fend off someone who had downed so many hajime so easily.
Luckily, she didn't have to as another figure met him in midair, tagged him with a pipe, and sent the young martial artist sailing toward a tree, which he impacted heavily.
"About time you idiot!" Before she had finished the sentence, naturally, Happousai had somehow found his way onto her lap.
"Anytime sweetie!" *Wang* The sound of metal hitting bone echoed through the park as one of Nail's wings smashed itself against Happousai's face.
Nail snarled, then blinked as she realized that the ancient lecher was flying through the air with a very familiar article of clothing......
"Gack! My panties! Give those back, you sick little garthna!" Demonic languages were far more useful for offensive language than Japanese, though the insult's severity was lost on its target. Happousai found himself snatched from the air and relieved of the garment. He would have protested the loss of 'his' property, except that he was mesmerized by the sight of Nail's brests bouncing behind the silk cloth as she struggled into her underwear.
He didn't get to enjoy it long. Nail grabbed him in both hands, then turned back towards her target. "All right you-!"
Only to find that he had again lost interest, and was finishing off the lunch.
Nail commenced a painful, 30-foot face fault.
Ranma, Happousai, and Yuka, who was still hiding behind the tree, all held up cards with '10' on them.
Nail picked herself off the ground, and without a word, flung Happousai at Ranma.
Ranma blinked, then did a roundhouse kcik that knocked Happousai right back to his origin.
Nail snarled. "Why you!" She made a bat with her admittedly nifty weapon, then smashed the old man back toward Ranma.
Ranma kicked Happousai straight up, then jumped up himself and backhanded him towards Nail.
Nail's eyes narrowed, and she floated up slightly, then made a golf club from the bat, and drove the pervert-turned-projectile back at her opponent.
Ranma grabbed the old man this time, and then smashed him into the ground. Heaving a sigh, he looked up at the woman silently glaring daggers at him.
"Look, demon or not, you look enough like a human so that I've gone easy on you, but you hafta stop this, or someone's gonna get hurt." He spared a glance at the reeling form of Happousai. "Other than him."
Nail's glare turned into a haughty expression of defiance. "You will not leave this battle alive, human. Happousai! Distract him for a few moments!" She spread her black wings wide, her entire body glowed blue, and she started floating in the air as a cyan sphere materialized above her.

Ranma had rushed to the offensive, when he was slammed out of the way by what appeared to be a white comet. Getting up out of the small crater, Ranma grimaced as the energy died to reveal Happousai, actually looking serious about the upcoming battle.
"Son, nothing personal now, but the pretty lady says you gotta go, so you gotta go!"
Ranma smirked slightly. "Yeah, yeah, let's get on with it, 'kay gramps?"
Happousai charged, then jumped around the numerous punches and kicks that made up Ranma's defensive screen.
Ranma moved his body slightly to the side, and the aged lecher's pipe missed his torso by mere millimeters. He tried to bring his elbow down on his foe, only to find that Happousai had somehow found his way behind him, and was consequently tossed into the air.
Ranma gained control of his flight, then flipped to his feet to land on the ground.
Happousai grinned. "Not bad kid, but I won't let some young whelp who thinks he's a demon hunter stop me!"
Ranma growled. "Bite me! Are you gonna fight, or are you gonna blab?!"
The two rushed at each other, each glowing as their auras raged with full force. There was a blinding flash as they met, and both skidded away from the area of convergence.
Ranma groaned as bruises started appearing on his legs, having taken the brunt of the attack.
Happousai's wound was about half the size of Ranma's, but as he was about 1/4 Ranma's size, twice as much of his body had been subjected to remarkable pain.
They turned around, each intent on paying the other back with interest, when all hell broke loose.

"Glacier!" As Nail spoke the name of her most powerful spell, all the water from with nearly 2 kilometers blasted into the air in large pillars, then gathered toward the huge, glowing blue sphere that the demoness held above her head.
Smiling in positive delight, she flew away as the water quickly turned to ice, forming a shell over the globe of mana. The sphere shattered, sending lightning bolts of frost magic coursing through the mass of liquid, turning some water to ice while leaving other water trapped within the ice.
Ranma and Happousai watched in awe, and soon they beheld a gigantic, jagged, floating ice mountain.
Ranma gave an appreciative whistle. "That 'aint bad......"
Nail laughed aloud. "Oh, but the best is yet to come!"
Suddenly, the bottom of the ice cracked slightly, and, proving unable to hold the tons upon tons of water now free of whatever protection it had held against gravity, dumped a shower of ice water and just ice onto Ranma and his short opponent.
Both had the sense to get out of the way, and watched as the ice chunks pulverized the Earth, while the freezing water, promising death to those that it touched, flowed about the ground.
There were more cracks, and more ice fell.
Ranma had just finished dodging a third ice flow when he was forced to jump over a hail of icicles. Cursing his rotten luck, Ranma looked about to see trees getting splintered by huge ice chunks, and fearfully looked about for Yuka. He heaved a sigh of relief when he realized that she had backed off to a safe distance.
Ranma locked his eyes on Nail, and commited himself to a course of action. He zig-zagged through the showers of frozen water, approaching the source of the destruction, who had prepared for his approach with another barrage of frozen spikes.
As he approached, Nail grinned, realizing that she had him trapped betweent two icy waterfalls of the glacier, that was rapidly shrinking as it rained death across the battlefield.
What unnerved her was that he grinned back.
Jumping up, Ranma fed pure power to his feet, as he prepared a new technique on the spot, as he was wont to do. "Blade kick!"
Ranma's feet lashed out with impossible speed as his leap took him towards his oppenent, shattering each icicle with uncanny precision and leaving his foot unscathed.
He had almost made it when a large part of the glacier above broke and plummeted right in front of him. Quickly implementing a finishing move to his new technique, Ranma landed onto the jagged ice boulder with one foot, while sweeping his other across it, and slicing it cleanly through the middle. With that he pushed the upper half of the boulder toward Nail, while jumping clear himself as it smashed into the ground, sending frozen splinters everywhere.
Nail gulped as she beheld the large projectile, and wrapped her metallic wings around her body. The ice impacted her with an audible *CLANG*, but other than shaking her up badly, no damage had been done.

Ranma growled, then tried to think of another way to handle this.
Well, all that was really keeping him from thrashing that woman was the flows of water and ice above them.
Simple problem. Simple solution.
Ranma hopped into one of the water flows, finding purchase with his foot on a rapidly falling piece of ice, and rebounding off it onto another chunk descending from a different waterfall. Soon he had reached the floating piece of ice itself, and easily jumped onto the main body of frozen water.
Nail cursed at the miserable little human as he danced up and out of harm's way. Didn't these stupid mortals know when to lay down and die?
She flew up around the edge of the glacier, transforming her weapon into a bow as she did so.
Finding Ranma standing proudly upon the tip of one of the crags, she pulled back the string on the bow, and a shimmering arrow of yellow power appeared there.
She let it fly, and Ranma didn't even have to move as it flew past him into one of the adjoining chunks of ice. It exploded violently, and that entire section broke off in a shower of ice and water, which soon obliterated a good section of the park that was under it.
Ranma smirked slightly. "Gotta do better than that!"
She cursed to herself. Magical arrows were powerful, but they followed totally different laws than physical ones when shot, and she had never had much experience with that type of weapon anyway. Then she remembered what type of weapon she was experienced with, and smiled a very evil smile. Ranma blinked as the bow shifted form into a long bullwhip with a thin blade at the end. Then he dodged desperately as she snapped it at the place where he had been just seconds before. He was eventually forced to dodge all over the glacial body as Nail pursued him just above, snapping her deadly weapon with remarkable accuracy.
Soon two more sections of the glacier had descended, leaving only the main chunk, Ranma's perch, which still held a soft glow in the center which no doubt kept the ice aloft. Having nowhere to run, Ranma was bigsweating slightly as Nail laughed and wound up for another strike.
Ranma's hand lashed out just as the whip did, and then he sighed in relief as he held the blade of the whip between two fingers just in front of his face. He had done similar tricks before, but a real blade was a little different than a bokken, and he was not accustomed to grabbing the steel edge on such an unwieldly weapon as a whip.
Ranma yanked the weapon free from his opponent, then let it fall to the side, remarking as it fell that the lash disappeared into a small golden cylinder.
"No! My maji!" Nail flew right after the small object, grabbing it desperately, and then floating in the air, radiating relief.
The final piece of the frozen island started to crumble, and Ranma grabbed an icicle as the ice fell out from underneath his feet.
"Hey, demon chick!"
She turned around, just in time to have a razor-sharp icicle stabbed into her chest.

Ranma landed lightly on the cold, damp ground, the sharp bits of ice biting into his thin shoes as he stood up and put more weight on them. He was covered with several other cuts, most from when the ice boulders had showered him with razor shards of frost.
Nail impacted heavily onto a bed of frozen stalagmites a little ways away, her body spraying up more blood as she was further impaled.
Ranma sighed a weary sigh, then started to walk away.
Nearby, standing in front of a badly shivering Ataru, Happousai was gaping. "How... how could you son? You... you... you killed her!"
Ranma grimaced. "Look, I don't know what the hell you are or what you were doing with them, but she was a demon. She tried to kill me. I didn't like what I had to do, but all the same I had to do it." The truth was, Ranma was feeling deeply guilty simply because Nail had so strongly resembled a human girl. But then, she wasn't human, and logically, that made her no better than Rail, Bit, or Rotor.
His musing were interrupted by the sound of ice shattering behind him.
"Damn you! When I get another glacier up, I swear I'll-" The rest of her threat was cut off as Ranma landed a two-footed kick onto her face.
"Don't any of you stupid monsters ever DIE?!" Ranma was seriously starting to get pissed now. He had gone through a lot of trouble to kill her!
"No." Nail replied plainly, then formed a mace with her maji.
"Wasp's flying blade strike!" The blue blade of energy shot out from Ranma's sweeping arms, and Nail was cleanly sliced at the abdomen.
"You killed her again! WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
"Would you shut up?! Why don't you go bother somebody else?!"
Ranma fumed and watched as Nail's body was covered in a sheet of ice.
He was pleasantly surprised, however, when a paper ward flew through the air and stuck onto her frozen form, and then started glowing.
The ice shattered, and Nail screamed as her body was surrounded by a white/yellow corona of energy. Her entire body adapted the same glow before a vaguely circular symbol was spontaneously inscribed onto the ground beneath her.
Her energy leaked together and ran upwards, into the sky, and suddenly she was gone.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! Now she's gone for good!!"
Ataru, surprisingly, picked up a chunk of ice and quite purposefully dropped it on the old lecher's head.
Ranma ignored them both. "Thanks Kaze. That was good timing."
The white prist smiled. "It's no trouble. I had a run-in myself back there. Though whatever happened to the girl?"
Ranma blinked, then remembered Yuka, who had actually just now timidly approached the scene.

He ran up to her, checking her over for visible injuries. "Hey, sorry about all that, are you all right?"
She blinked. He was sorry about that? That their picnic was attacked by a bunch of samurai zombies and some slut in a silk bathing suit who created glaciers in mid-air? He was SORRY?!
"Uh, yeah, I'm all right." Well, it wasn't exactly his fault.
Then an important question occured to her. "Hey, Ranma, does this sort of thing happen all the time?"
Ranma blinked. "Define 'all the time'."
Yuka's expression fell. "I see. Look, Ranma, maybe it's best if we... don't see each other again..."
Ranma stared. "Uh, well......... huh?"
Suddenly, Yuka had taken out a microphone, and was shouting to the heavens as dramatic, heartbreaking music poured out in the background. "Let's face it; you, a demon-hunting martial artist, and me, a normal schoolgirl in an abnormal district... IT WAS JUST NOT MEANT TO BE!!!"
Everyone watching, including Happousai and Nabiki, sweatdropped heavily.
Ranma scratched the back of his head. "Well... okay..."
Suddenly she held her palm in front of his face. "NO!!! I can't stand tearful goodbyes!! Let us leave now, knowing that in each of our hearts, we hold a special place for each other... as friends......"
Ranma was now actually in danger of falling over from the sheer weight of the droplet behind his ear. "Okay. Cool. Friends it is, then."
"*Sniff* *Sniff* Goodbye, Ranma Saotome......... GOODBYE!!!" Tossing away the microphone, Yuka fled out of the park, emotionally wrecked and still hungry, as Ranma had eaten the entire lunch himself.

The others watched her leave, and Nabiki snapped a photo as she ran past.
"Ow!"
Then they all turned as a rather disshelved Rayden came out of the foliage, rubbing his eye and holding a microphone in one hand. Behind him trudged a guy they had never seen before, but whom they presumed to be Rayden's mysterious foe, Cyrax Ayakana.
Ranma smiled. "Hey Ray, what's up? Good fight?"
Rayden sighed. "Eh, demon attack. They were invincible, you know? So it took a little longer than usual."
Ranma blinked. "Huh? Kaze was here. How'd you deal with them?"
__________________________________________________________________________________

Bolt shifted uncomfortably as his carapaced body was pelted with small grains of concrete. Moving closer against the steel girders that formed their prison, along with several tons of concrete, he tried to get behind Rotor, who was slowly eating away at it all with his drills. It didn't help much that the drills had been made to tear through flesh in a particularly gory fashion, not shatter rock.
*Rumble*
"Oh no..."
Bolt was smaller and more durable than Rotor, so he got the benefit of not being completely crushed to death by the sudden cave-in, instead being subjected to tremendous pain as his body tried to regenerate itself and push away Rotor's energy, which was trying to reform completely.
It was going to be one of those nights.

End Chapter 5
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