gomen ne.

The Art____Chapter 4: 
         A Silly Storm Of Love

by GreggSharp     Metroanime@aol.com
  Ranma 1/2 created by Rumiko Takahashi, AMG created
by Kosuke Fujishima, Gold Digger owned/created by
Fred Perry, Sailor Moon (c) VIZ.
  i don't have money so don't sue me, hire me and we
can BOTH make money.
===========================
	Tatewaki Kuno readied his bokken, glad that
there was no crowd of lesser talent to detract 
attention from him today. No, he had gone home in a
funk yesterday and found Sasuke watching a movie. A
movie that had revealed to him how to defeat the
foul sorcerer Saotome.

	Now with his "secret weapon" ready, he was
finally rewarded with the sight of Akane and Shampoo
Tendo racing towards the school. Behind them was the
evil one himself.

	Ranma saw Kuno waiting there in front of him,
and didn't want to be late to school again. He briefly
sprinted ahead of the two girls.

	The pattern was of Fire with a trace of Spirit.
It was a very familiar spell to Ranma, one of his 
favorites. "FIRE BALL!"

	There was an explosion at the gates of Furinkan
High School, it was fairly impressive to the vast 
majority of people there. That it was only half strength
was not immediately apparent.

	Passing the unconcious form of Kuno, the three
made it on time to class.

	Nabiki looked down at Kuno, feeling a pang of
sympathy. Then she noted his "secret weapon" and smiled.
Oh, this WOULD be interesting.
-----------------------------
	Kuno entered class late and suffered the usual
penalty. The good thing was that by this time his 
clothes had stopped smouldering.

	Nabiki smirked at him when he finally rejoined
the class. "Guess a full frontal assault isn't a good
tactic in this situation, is it?"

	Kuno muttered something about trickery and
didn't look at his neighbor.

	"You know, Kuno-baby, even the great samurai
like Ieyasu and Musashi used a strategy."

	"How much?" Kuno spoke barely loud enough
to be heard.

	"Hey, for 500 yen, a steal at that price, I
can suggest a manner you can be guaranteed to fight
up front and personal. Though there is one other
condition..."

	The coin was quickly placed on her desk. He
glanced at her, waiting for Nabiki to continue.

	"Personal honor is a big thing to Ranma, almost
as much as it is to you. Make it a personal challenge
for honor and you'll have him right where you want him."

	Kuno considered this. "And your condition?"

	"Defeat him by all means. Liberate my two 
sisters from his control. Hurt him if you must, but I
want him alive."

	"Has he ensorcelled you too, Nabiki Tendo?"

	"Hardly. No, I want him for reasons of my
own." 

	"As you will, as soon as he gives up his claim
to Shampoo and Akane, I will let him live with the
knowledge of his defeat at the hands of Tatewaki Kuno."
---------------------------
	"A formal letter of challenge?" Ranma looked
from the letter to Kuno.

	"Meet me at the school's baseball diamond
today after school. I call an honor duel to prove who
has the right to court the fair Shampoo and the 
fierce Akane Tendo."

	Ranma glanced up from the letter. "Why did you
write it down if you were gonna read it to me?"

	"Urrr. How come it's always Shampoo who gets
the 'fair' or 'beauteous' tags and all I ever get are
phrases like 'fierce' or 'tigress'?"

	"Akane, just yesterday Kuno say Shampoo tigress
and call you fair. Or maybe he just confused."

	Since mages had to have a fair control over 
their tongues, Ranma avoided saying anything at this
point.

	"Aiyaa. Ranma you go to this fight?"

	"Hey, it's an honor challenge. I gotta go."
Ranma glanced back to Kuno. "So what's it to be? You've
obviously got a plan here. Standard rules, First Blood,
or what?"

	"Ring battle, using the infield as the ring. 
Standard rules." Which meant that defeat was to be
knocked outside the "ring", to give up or be unable to
continue would end the match.

	"Fair enough, but don't you think they should
choose for themselves who they can pursue or be pursued
by?"

	"That is, indeed, the objective." Kuno turned
and left, fully confident that by this time tomorrow
the two Tendo girls would be his.

	The three watched him leave, then shrugged.
The next class was about to begin anyway.
-----------------
	By the scheduled time of the battle, a fairly
large crowd had appeared. Nabiki, of course, moved
through the crowds taking bets. Akane and Shampoo were
in the Visitors bench area with Ranma. Akane fuming
at Ranma for getting himself in "such a stupid
predicament" while Shampoo was worried about Ranma and
coaching him in the weak points in Kuno's defense.

	It would have been a lot easier to take the
duel seriously without Kasumi showing up with a picnic
lunch, both Soun and Genma in tow.

	"Hmmmph." Ranma looked at his father stuffing
himself on sandwiches. "Kasumi, I sure hope you put one
aside for me, otherwise oyaji there will have actually
started on the basket by the time this is done."

	"So why don't you use a 'Fire Ball' again and
just get it over with," Akane tried to be nice. Kasumi
and Shampoo were nice to Ranma and he tended to lock up
in their presence, go figure.

	"Duh, Akane. Look at the crowd. Fire Ball's an
explosive spell with a fair radius. If it was just Kuno,
sure no problem, I'd just toast him and he'd collapse."

	"Wizard battles not cut and dried, Akane," said
Shampoo with a nod. "See occasional fight among amazon
mages. Is like game of shogi or chess, you have to think
ahead, see your opponent's move and counter.

	"In this case, ai ren please finish quick."
Shampoo smiled at Ranma. "Shampoo place bet on you 
finish fight within five minutes."

	"Actually, Shampoo, I was wondering something."
Ranma wondered how to put this. He didn't want to insult
her, though he didn't really want to be engaged to her
either. "You've spent a lot of your life in Japan, why
do you talk like that?"

	"Like? Ah! Shampoo have hard time with Japanese
language. Shampoo speak Mandarin, Tibetan, Cantonese,
English, French, and Ancient Greek okay but never got
hang of Japanese. Shampoo very direct, Japanese language
not very direct. Philosophical difference maybe?"

	"Uh, yeah." Ranma blinked. "Allrighty then. I
guess I better get on with the duel since Kuno's 
finally gotten here. What's with the bag?"

	Kuno had two of his fellow swordsmen bring
a huge sack into the infield. He then stood next to
it and began a long speech that nobody was particularly
interested in hearing.

	"What's with the scrolls, anyway?" Akane noted
that Ranma was carrying a leather side pouch with a
few rolled up parchments in it.

	"Oh, you know that 'Anything Goes' magery is
a generalist style- whatever works, you know. Well,
there's some spells that you've really got to be a
specialist to carry off properly, or that I just 
haven't had a chance to learn properly. Like I can do
a simple healing spell to set a broken arm, but if
someone got massive internal injuries I'd be pretty
lost. You gotta REALLY be up on healing spells for
that."

	"So in keeping with the Saotome school
philosophy of whatever works, you've got scrolls
of spells that you might need as backup." Ranma
jumped as Kasumi spoke, he hadn't heard her come
up behind him.

	"Well, gotta get into the fight," Ranma
said, recovering. (How the heck did she sneak up on
me? Dummy, she's an esper, she probably used some
psychic trick.)

	Kuno was waiting at the pitcher's mound,
still going on about how he would free his two loves
from the hold that the sorcerer had them under.

	Ranma centered himself, finding his wa. The
time for speeches, he felt, was AFTER the battle was
won. He'd seen far too many egomaniacs not to have
come to that conclusion.

	"Now, SAOTOME, I shall defeat you!" Kuno
threw an object forcefully at Ranma.

	Ranma formed a pattern. "Shield." Then he
blinked. Kuno had just thrown a necklace made of 
garlic at him. "Excuse me? Do I LOOK like a vampire?"

	"Laugh this off then!"

	"A cross? I didn't know you were Christian..."

	"Die fool!"

	"Um, Kuno. Wolvesbane is for werewolves. You 
want to fight werewolves go quarrel with Greenpeace."

	"Then take this!"

	"Oh no," Ranma said in a voice dripping in
sarcasm. "A shinto anti-demon ward, whatever shall I
do? Oh, the horror."

	"Silence, wretch!"

	"Now THIS is interesting. I'm not entirely sure
what this is supposed to be." Ranma resisted the impulse
to drop the Shield spell. Kuno still had the bokken.

	"Then try this!" Kuno threw a bucket at Ranma,
who was still trying to figure out what the heck this
ball of knotted twine and feathers was that Kuno had 
thrown at him.

	<SPLASH!>

	Ranma-chan, dripping wet, made a mental note
to find out if anyone actually had a Repel Water spell
she could copy the pattern for. Just her luck it would
be a specialty spell.

	The glamourie immediately took hold, she could
tell from the effects on the male portion of the crowd.
Once again, Ranma cursed her father (not literally) for
annoying that elven mage.

	Nabiki closed her eyes. "Good grief, he actually
DID think of the 'Wizard Of Oz' as reference material..."

	"Truly a goddess made flesh," Kuno said as his
eyes tracked Ranma's form in the now-wet shirt.	"So it
was true, that the evil is washed away by the purity of
water, leaving only the good and wholesome behind. Ah,
pigtailed girl, tell me...oof!"

	Ranma had imbedded her fist into Kuno's face.
Hopping back, she readied a pattern then another and
another, her chi flaring in anger. "CHI BOLT! ICE HAWK!
FLAME FIST! FLARE ARROW!"

	Kuno arced upwards, his body jerking as each
successive blast slammed into him, finally coming down
just on the other side of the crowd.

	At that point, the male portion of crowd, or at
least those who were proving that they weren't thinking
with the head atop their shoulders, mobbed forward.

	Ranma shrieked as she was suddenly surrounded.
A Fire Ball at this range would place herself within
ground zero. Hide wouldn't help either as she was 
already in the crowd. "Heeeelllllpppp!" Panic.

	She noted in some little portion of her mind,
that Akane was laughing herself silly, Shampoo was 
looking disgusted, and Nabiki was nowhere to be seen.

	Ranma tried to form the pattern for a Leap
spell but having to fend off probing hands was 
thoroughly wrecking her concentration.

	Someone heard her, and she appreciated the
rescue more than words could convey. Kasumi, radiating
disapproval, had the crowd retreating in moments,
managing to cut through the glamourie by focussing her
own abilities in a counterpoint.

	Shakily, Ranma allowed herself to be drawn in
for a hug. Maybe it was just that projective telepathy
of Kasumi's but it just felt so RIGHT there.

	"It's okay. They're gone," murmured Kasumi to
the girl shuddering in her arms. 

	Shampoo watched, shocked into immobility a
second time. First the crowd of men practically 
attacking Ranma, then Ranma clinging to KASUMI? Well,
Akane was no competition, so she'd dismissed the shy
Kasumi as being no problem. Nabiki was tricky, you
could never tell what she was planning. But KASUMI?!?
----------------------------
	Meanwhile, two figures crossed a desert, arguing
as they had been for the past few months.

	"This is the LAST time I let you lead."

	"Oh SHUT UP! Curse you, Ranma, I'll find you,
and THEN I'LL MAKE YOU PAY!"

	"Shouting about it ain't gonna help, y'know."

	"Oh, go play with your spatulas!"
----------------------------
coming next: The Art 5 "Enter Ryouga, Eternally Lost Boy,
and Ukyou Can Cook."

	"Can I cook, or can't I?"

	"Oh shuttup you oversexed <censored>!"

	"Actually that would be a werewolf, sugar, 
and you KNOW I'm not the lycanthrope here. Besides 
you're just jealous 'cause you can't get any till
chapter 8 when you meet Akari."

	"You just talk big anyway, I happen to know
you've never <censored>."

	"Just wait till chapter 6." <snicker>