Attack on Ranma
Chapter One
"THOUGHTS"
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This fanfic is crossed over with the popular, new anime, Attack on Titan. In addition to that, the historic time period will be taking place somewhere in the distant past like in feudal times for Japan and in the Post Middle Ages for Europe. Since this is being crossed over with Attack on Titan, this fanfic takes place in around the year 846, a year after the Colossal Titan kicked that huge hole into Wall Maria, the outer most wall. If you're an Attack on Titan reader and not one of my usual readers give me a review and let me know how you feel about my writing.
XXX
It was a cool, humid day as a group of three people arrived at a beautifully spacious valley composed of countless ten by eight foot springs on which the bright sun shone reflecting off the surface of the water. The grass and vegetation on the grounds was a sight to behold as a soft wind brought the aroma of fruit filled trees throughout the area. In addition to all this, tall mountains surrounded the liquid pools with there being only one paved road to and from a place called Jusenkyo.
"Are you sure about this, Gramps?" Ranma Saotome asked as she, her cousin, and her grandfather walked past several pools of waters that each had a smooth twenty-five foot stalk of yellow colored bamboo pole sticking up from them.
Ranma was born a beautiful baby girl, but she had become a strikingly beautiful, buxom yet athletic, young woman with shoulder length, dark red hair and a moderately muscular physique from years of grueling martial arts training. Her fair, apple blossom skin gave off a fragrant aroma as her twinkling blue eyes regarded the environment around her.
"Quite, Ranma! I'm thinking," Happosai barked as a fruity aroma filled breeze passed through them.
Happosai was short, shorter than the other two travelers, being a five foot tall, balding old man with grey hair on the sides and the back of his head. His squat physique moved with a grace that belied his advanced years. Thus he was in phenomenal condition and very skilled in the martial arts and hand to hand combat. His control over his scentless rock hard body and ki was such that his metabolism allowed him to eat a whole lot more than a man his size would normally be capable. He had also acquired the ability to create a subspace pocket on his person that allowed him to hide the stolen goods he had pilfered from here and there as he was also a master thief.
"Yeah, Ranma, prissy girls like you should be seen and not heard," Ryu commented, giving his cousin a sideward glance. (1)
Ryu Kumon was a tall, strapping young man with short brown hair that was curly over his forehead and a handsome face with a moderately muscular, wiry physique.
Despite having been hushed so abruptly, Ranma kept on talking. "Grandpa, this is important. If I didn't know better I'd think we were being tailed by large creatures of some kind. Some people have even told me about man eating giants devouring people. There's something going on-"
Whenever the group had left a town during their training trip, earth shaking thumps resonated through the ground. There was even a time when one of the towns at which they had arrived had smashed in houses and wrecked bridges, looking as if a tsunami had gone through it.
"Shut up, you impetuous girl! This is the last leg of our journey. After this we'll return to Japan," the old man ordered.
"Assuming we don't get eaten."
As if to emphasize her point, a loud, dull roar, accompanied with a crunching sound and a scream resounded from over a dozen miles away. Thus the three stood there motionless as the sounds of crunching and grinding grew faint then stopped all together.
"What was that?"
"Silence, Ranma. When we get back to Japan, you will learn your proper place," Happosai Kumon demanded in an authoritative tone that brooked no further discussion.
Happosai was very pleased with himself at having dunked his both of his granddaughters twice in one of the pools in the area. This had made Ranma and her younger sister much better looking than they would have been otherwise, making each of them more of an ideal woman on a universal level, allowing either of them to fit in within most places in the world.
In addition to all that, the spring had increased Ranma's height, strength, and feminine attributes along with her dexterity and quickness, enabling her to block, punch, and kick with more speed and force. Her hard bodied constitution and healing factor also allowed her to train harder and recover completely from injuries and scarring.
"When we get back to Japan, I'll be set for life when I have Ranma marry the richest feudal lord I can find. He'll have to be rich and well fed since Ranma's so tall. Come to think of it, who says I can't have Ranma marry the Shogun or even the Emperor? Heh, heh, heh," Happosai calculated to himself. Then another thought occurred to him.
"Oh, yes. Let's not forget, Ranma's sister, the one I left with Soun. He's always been a useful idiot, but I hope she'll be OK with him. I dumped her in Jusenkyo water the same way I did Ranma, so she too is beautiful. Even if she's not as tall as Ranma, she's almost as beautiful. I'll be able net a small fortune when I marry her off as well. Heh, heh."
In order to fit in with their surroundings Ranma and Ryu each wore a red Chinese shirt and green pants made of soft silk that gently caressed their bodies. In addition to that, each of them had his hair done up in a pigtail while Happosai wore a light brown Chinese shirt and pants along with a Chinese cap that topped his balding head.
"Put the provisions down and follow me!" Happosai ordered as he strode past the countless springs in surrounding them.
After laying their human sized backpacks on the ground near the springs both Ranma and Ryu breathed in the misty air deeply, tensing their muscles in anticipation of one more training session.
FLASHBACK
When Ranma was ten years old, Happosai had lowered her into a thirty foot deep abyss filled with the stench of small rabid wolverines with several pieces of raw meat tied to her body. Her mind was somewhat fuddled after having been carefully struck in the head by her grandfather who was looking down on what was going on with Ryu right beside him.
To the surprise of her grandfather and cousin, Ranma wriggled out of her bonds as the wolverines attacked her.
"That wasn't supposed to happen. Where did Ranma learn how to escape out of ropes and bindings? It must have been that rail thin, old woman who was being so kind to her. I thought she was teaching Ranma how to cook, but it's obvious she taught her more than that."
As the feral wolverines attacked, Ranma responded, attacking with fast paced punches and kicks against the pouncing creatures. However, despite her valiant, skilled efforts, the canines began to overwhelm her, their teeth biting through her flesh and dragging the girl to the ground. Then Ranma was on the ground crying out in pain.
"Grandpa, get me out of here!"
"Keep fighting, you worthless girl. After everything I've invested in you the least thing you can do for me is learn the Wolverine Fist!" Happosai called out from above her.
"They're biting and clawing at me!" a bloodied Ranma sobbed.
"Then fight back! What have you been learning all this time? Are you a waste of space?"
Upon taking a deep breath, Ranma regrouped and snap kicked the closest wolverine into its frothing mouth, knocking it into some of the others. Despite all her valiant efforts, the numbers began to bear down on her to the point that they brought her to the ground.
"Aaaah!" the little girl screamed, rising up and breaking herself free of the wolverines that had held her down.
"That's much better. Now go berserk and tear those wolverines apart!"
With an enraged look in her eyes and her little muscles almost bulging out of her clothes, Ranma spun around at an uncanny speed, kicking and punching. As the battered and bruised little girl began to overcome her adversaries, her grandfather took hold of a net full of more wolverines and let them go into the pit right over Ranma.
"Noooo!" Ranma screamed as the ferocious animals fell on her, slashing and biting.
"Keep at it, Ranma! You're almost there!"
Once again the wolverines attacked, over powering Ranma again, but this time the exhausted girl went crashing to the ground. She was about to be devoured until a golden/brown haired rabbit came flying into the pit after hopping over Ryu's head. It zoomed downward like a dive bomber, using its little paws to strike the wolverines, knocking many of them out while surprising them. And as many of them turned away from the girl and attacked the rabbit, Ranma was able to make a comeback and attack with three 6 inch light blue, fluorescent blades coming out of the dorsal sides of her hands, slicing through the wolverines like a hot knife through butter.
"Yes, that's it!" Happosai cheered, raising his hands in triumph.
"What's that coming out of Ranma's hands, Grandpa?" Ryu asked.
"That's the Wolverine Fist! I wasn't even sure it was possible, but Ranma has it. Now I can put you through it," the old man answered.
However, Happosai's feeling of elation turned to disappointment as the rabbit walked over to Ranma who was still teary eyed, allowing the girl to take hold of it. Then she sobbed as she embraced it to herself, eventually crying herself to sleep.
FLASHBACK ENDED
"What a letdown! And here I thought the Wolverine Fist would make a martial artist invincible, but instead it turned Ranma into a sissy that needed to cling to a dumb animal in order to hold on to reality. I would have snatched that rabbit away, but Ranma would get feral whenever I tried to take it away from her. So there's no way I'm going to put Ryu through that!" Happosai thought to himself.
Later on, to Ranma's surprise, her pet rabbit had written the kanji, 響 良牙 (Ryoga) on the ground when she had tried to name him something else, even going so far as to come running quickly whenever she called him by that name.
"Just stay here for the time being, Ryoga. I'll be right back," Ranma consoled the cute little, golden brown rabbit wearing a blue scarf wrapped around its head and thoughtful eyes that looked up at her as she took it out of her shirt and placed it on the ground beside their things.
"I wish you'd have ditched that rabbit a long time ago, Ranma. There was no reason keeping it around after you had mastered the kuzuriken.Having a little pet like that is so girly," Ryu commented to his cousin with a sideward glance.
"Thanks to Ryoga, I'm not insane right now. It was terrible being cooped up with all those wolverines," Ranma replied.
One of the other reasons Happosai had brought his granddaughter along the training trip was to put her through life threatening martial arts techniques only putting his grandson through them as soon as Ranma had gone through them all right unlike the kuzuriken.
"Don't be such a weak little girl. Besides, since I'm a man, I'm more important than you are. It's highly unusual for a girl to be training in martial arts like you do. At any rate, it's obvious to me you're using that rabbit which often sleeps in your shirt to compensate for the fact that you don't have a man," Ryu replied giving Ranma a wry smile.
"That's not true, Ryu!" Ranma answered with her blushing red from head to toe, her eyes widening in scandalized embarrassment.
"You know I'm right. You've often had that creature nuzzling in your bosom," Ryu snapped back, raising his eyebrows in a lascivious manner.
FLASHBACK
After having walked through a part of China that had a proportionally large amount of martial artists from which Ranma and Ryu learned and fought, the group of three made camp at a place nearby a turbulent river. While washing herself, Ranma bathed Ryoga as well, holding on to him and making sure he didn't get dragged away with the flow of the river. After using her own ki to dry herself and her pet sooner than would been possible otherwise, she put on a clean set of clothes and placed Ryoga on her shoulder.
Upon taking a deep breath and getting into a relaxed martial arts stance, Ranma began to engage in several tai chi movements, slowly punching and kicking the air in fluid movements, practically floating in the air when executing roundhouse kicks. As a chilling wind blew by them, Ranma ignored the blowing tempest. Thus the cold rabbit made his way down into the warmth of her bosom inside the girl's shirt.
Ranma's eyes went wide as she started to twitch and wriggle around as her rabbit nuzzled its whiskers and nose against her flesh. Then her mouth crinkled into a smile until she burst out in uninhibited giggling.
"No, not again! That tickles! You always want to hide in there where I'm sensitive! Stop that!" Ranma protested, her cheeks getting red and her eyes getting misty. Eventually Ranma fell to the ground, rolling around in her laughter. This forced her pet to move all over her upper to keep from being squashed, increasing the tickling sensations Ranma was feeling.
"Hahahahaha! Hehehehehehe. I can't take much more of this! Mercy, please!" Ranma begged with a gasp, prompting the rabbit which seemed to understand what she had said to come out from the top of her tunic and smile up at her innocently.
"Whew! Now, behave yourself, Ryoga. I need to train right now," Ranma admonished with a pat on his head as she placed him back on her shoulder.
From several yards away Ryu had watched the whole event, leaning against a tree. "What I wouldn't give to be that little rabbit."
FLASHBACK ENDED
Ranma scowled at her cousin for a moment. Then she answered him. "I think it's a good thing I've had Ryoga here with me, especially since he has protected me from you when you've made attempts to put your hands down my shirt," the girl said with a smirk and a knowing look.
"I wasn't trying anything of the sort!" Ryu denied strongly.
"Oh, really? Then why have I woken up with Ryoga biting you and the top of my shirt ripped up more than once? Hmm?"
"I was just checking on you. There was no reason for that rascally rabbit to take a bite out of me," Ryu snapped.
"If that was true and you knew Ryoga slept in my shirt, how was he able to bite your hand so easily? Hmm? I think you were trying to cop a feel on me."
"That's not true!" Ryu stammered, his face getting red.
"Quite, you two!"
Happosai was surprised the guide wasn't coming out to greet them as he normally would do. As it was, the place seemed to be deserted.
Then several earth shaking thumps resonated under their feet, making Ranma's little rabbit scream frantically.
"Shut that creature up before I snap its neck," Happosai told her, giving the bunny a sharp glare.
"Grandpa, there's something coming this way, and it's huge. I can feel it, and so can my pet," Ranma announced.
"Don't be such a paranoid female, Ranma. It's obvious mastering more martial arts than any woman has a right to learn has made you think you're more intelligent than you actually are. Maybe taking you along this training trip was a mistake," Happosai replied as he looked around the area.
"But, Grandpa!"
"Never mind that now! It's time for one last spar. I want the both of you to leap onto a bamboo spike and fight each other," the old man ordered.
"Yes, Grandfather!" both Ranma and Ryu responded in unison.
"And avoid being knocked into the pools of water all around here."
"Yes, Grandfather!"
As soon as Ranma and Ryu had each leaped on top of a bamboo pole, they got on one leg in the martial arts crane stance.
"I'll beat Ranma this time and eventually prove to her and everyone else that I'm the greatest martial artist on the planet. After that I'll use my power to someday rule the world!"
"Let's get this battle started. I won't go easy on you even though you're a girl, Ranma!" Ryu said with more than a little bit of contempt as his eyes narrowed in on her.
"Since when have you taken it easy on me? How many times has Gramps used me as a punching bag while you were learning a particular punch or kick? Then there were the times when you almost choked me to death while sharpening your grappling skills. If it wasn't for that shrunken old lady who lives over a dozen miles from here, I wouldn't have been able to have handled the punishment you and Grandpa have dished out to me."
"What the heck are you talking about?! As it is, you're probably the toughest girl on the planet. Grandpa has been more than generous with teaching you martial arts skills a female wouldn't normally have a right to learn," Ryu replied with an arrogant sneer.
"Is that so?"
Ranma had indeed acquired many martial arts techniques due to her ability to learn things quickly. On the training trip there were many martial arts masters who had taken pity on the battered little girl, teaching her their techniques. Many simply saw her learning potential and wanted to sow their martial arts into someone who could reap the benefits. There were also more than a few female martial artists who saw the talent Ranma had and worked especially hard to train her.
"Yes, that's so."
"Did Grandpa have the right to run high bills and steal valuable objects, leaving me to take responsibility for what he had done?"
Many a time the people whom Happosai and Ryu had robbed taken hold of Ranma who was often knocked unconscious or thrown into the pursuing mob and left to her fate. There had even been a few times when Ranma had been tied up in ropes or chains, in lieu of being put her on an auction block. At that point, the gorgeous girl had been stripped nearly or all together naked, enduring humiliating assaults on her person before she was able to escape and catch up with her cousin and grandfather later.
"Quit complaining," Ryu said with a pause. Then he regarded his cousin for a moment, noticing that her stance was different, more balanced than his own. Her whole body practically defied gravity as she was poised on the pole, ready to attack.
"There's more going on with you than you let on. I bet you've been holding out on us all this time. I've always suspected that."
"What if I have?" Ranma said.
"All of that is irrelative anyway since it won't be of much use to you against me anyway. Now quit your belly aching and fight!"
The two martial artists flew into each other, fighting midair with countless punches, kicks, blocks and counter attacks going back and forth. The both of them were poetry in motion as they seemed to hover in the air several yards over the springs. However, Ranma began to get more and more hits in than her cousin. As it was, her lightning fast hands and feet were proving to be too much for her larger opponent.
"You're pretty fast, Ranma. Ouch! You've obviously engaged in a lot of speed training to make up for the fact you're a weak little girl," Ryu stated as he executed a force attack by clapping his hands together and shoving them forward, creating a cone shaped force attack that increased in width as it got further and further away from the his hands.
"I'm not a little girl! I'm the strongest woman in the world!" Ranma announced as she seemingly hovered in the air, the wind tugging at her hair since her pigtail string had been sliced off during the fight. Even the front of her shirt had a rip in the middle of it.
As Ryu's attacks became unavoidable, Ranma rolled with the most recent blow, gliding backwards to the top of another bamboo spike. Upon landing safely, Ranma breathed out, her normally roomy tunic straining against her bosom, increasing the tear in it.
"I'll say. You're pretty good at retreating too," Ryu said as his eyebrows raised and his eyes zeroed in on the increasing tear in her shirt.
"I'm just getting warmed up, Ryu. I can see that Grandpa has taught you martial arts techniques that weren't as dangerous as the ones he put me through. But that's OK; I can still beat you. And it was obvious that I was about to kick your ass when you used that secret technique on me. If anyone has retreated, it was you!" Ranma then leaped over a few bamboo poles, bouncing her way towards her opponent.
"Is that so? Let's see if you can back up those words, little girl!" Ryu then attacked with his vacuum blade attack, composed of clear, four by twelve inch shiny window pane-looking shards that the fiery redhead was able to deftly avoid as she kept leapfrogging her way towards her opponent.
"You'll have to do better than that, Ryu."
"Then I will."
Ryu waved his hands and shoved them towards his cousin, knocking Ranma off of her leap projectory with telekinetic force attack. This prompted her to use her acrobatic skills, doing a rapid cartwheel in midair to right herself. Then she glided her way on one of the flat sides of the multiple vacuum blades that Ryu had kept sending her way.
"Hmm. Ever since I've twice dunked Ranma in the Spring of Drowned Girl, she's shown an unusually high amount of reflexes and agility in addition to her heightened good looks. Right now she's faster than Ryu or me. This might make bringing her to heel a little more difficult. But I'll think of something. My plans for the easy life must come to fruition," Happosai thought to himself as he watched the fight with interest.
"Whew!"
"There's nothing you can do against me, Ranma. Why don't you just admit to defeat? It's obvious you'll need to be retrained all over again."
Happosai nodded his head in approval of his grandson's prowess against a quicker, more agile adversary until a horrifying sight caught his eyes. Several yards away from the springs, leaning against the bamboo hut was a man wearing a brown cap and clothes with his eyes and mouth open blankly, covered in a block of light red, transparent slime.
"Who is that over there? That's the guide! What happened to him?"
The old man walked over to the horrid stench and sight, giving it a more intense viewing. He could have sworn the man had giant sized teeth marks embedded in him, but the teeth marks looked human. It was as if the man had been chomped, swallowed whole, and vomited out.
"This doesn't make any sense. Are there human hybrid dragons around here? I've heard the pools of Jusenkyo had more magical transformational qualities beyond what I did to Ranma, but from what I understood the power of springs has weakened over the years. Anyway, as soon as Ryu is finished humbling his uppity cousin, we'll leave this place."
As Ryu's vacuum blades got closer, three 6 inch light blue, almost crystal clear ki claws broke out from in between and behind Ranma's knuckles out of the dorsal side of each of her hands, allowing her to slice up the vacuum blades that had gotten a little too close for comfort, surprising her cousin with her quickness and accuracy.
While the battle raged on, the thumping sounds of powerful feet got closer, prompting Ranma's little pet rabbit to scream hideously loud as if it was trying to warn its mistress of something.
"Easy, Ryoga!" Ranma called out from the top of her perch. Then Ranma sensed something amiss and held a hand to her ear in order to better make out the distant noises she was hearing. Then she put a hand to her eyes which widened when she saw a larger than life sight to behold getting closer and closer. This perturbed Ryu who felt that Ranma was ignoring him, thus he decided his cousin needed to be shown the error of her ways.
"Pay attention, Ranma! Hyaaah!" With surprising quickness that belied his unusual stature, Ryu leapt into the distracted Ranma knocking her high into the sky with a fierce uppercut to the chin causing her to eventually fall towards one of the pools below near the edge of Jusenkyo.
"Yeow!" Ranma screamed as she skillfully glided towards the closet bamboo pole and bounced her feet off of it. Then she leapt towards another pole and bounded off of that. She kept this process going until she was able to land safely on solid ground away from the springs.
"Not bad, little girl. But you still lost!" Ryu called out as he leaped from off of his pole to another until he was only a few feet from her.
"Can't you hear that?" Ranma asked no one in particular.
"Hear what? What are you talking about? You're just using your over active imagination to distract me from the fact that I just kicked your well-formed ass all over the place," Ryu answered, giving her an accusatory glare while Happosai looked on.
"Surely, your training as a martial artist has allowed you to be more aware of your environment," Ranma said with a pert look in his direction.
At that point, the thumps got even louder and closer. Even the ground under them began to shake.
Then a look of recognition appeared on Happosai's face. "What the heck is that?!"
Happosai gasped as he noticed several giants of various sizes stumbling their way towards them. The dopey smiles on their faces had a hint of menace to them as they rocked back and forth as if they were drunk, being totally naked without any kind of genitalia.
"I wish I had been born a guy so you would have listened to me, Grandfather! I knew coming here was a bad idea," Ranma called out as she ran towards her pet rabbit and scooped it up, placing it in the safety of the bosom of her tunic.
"Never mind that now. Run!" Happosai yelled, prompting his grandchildren to follow after his fleeing form which seemed to be moving faster than the wind.
The fleeing group seemed to be in the clear as they widened the gap between them and their pursuers until a couple of giants broke free of the pack and ran towards them with an uncanny speed, almost catching up to them.
"I had hoped to make a fortune from selling Ranma to the highest bidder, but the way things are going now, there's no help for it. I'm going to have to sacrifice Ranma in order to escape," Happosai thought to himself as the giants got closer. The old man took hold of the surprised girl, spinning her around at super human speed countless times for more momentum. Then he threw her upwards in the face of their closest pursuer as if he was engaging in an Olympic hammer throw.
"Heeeyyyyy!" Ranma screamed as she went flying into the air head first at an inhuman speed.
The titanic hunters in the front had long black hair, the first one being fifty feet tall while the other was forty feet tall. The taller one had an enormous head proportionately larger than the rest of its body and a large mouth with sharp teeth at which Ranma got a good look as its gaping maw got closer and closer.
"Was that really necessary, Gramps?" Ryu Kumon commented without missing a beat as they continued to run.
Ryu didn't think much of his cousin, but surely she didn't deserve to be the meal of some naked giant, did she?
"Don't question me, boy. What I did was for the art. I wasn't really thrilled with the idea of taking Ranma along with us on this training trip until I realized how useful she could be to my plans. Her unusual speed and agility made her a good sparring partner for you as well."
"In addition to that, her good looks and ability to escape out of ropes and bindings allowed me to sell her in marriage to several rich lords and have her escape, catching up with us at a later date. I had even hoped to eventually sell her into a marriage to an extremely rich feudal lord or even a daimyo, but sacrifices must be made."
The two men didn't look back as they kept on running. Thus they ignored the high pitched scream and stumbling noises behind them which allowed them to widen the gap until they ran by some more giants which started to pursue them upon noticing them. These monstrous creatures ranged from twenty to thirty feet tall looking similar to the previous ones.
"What are we going to do now?" Ryu asked his grandfather who simply kept on running. Then Ryu sped up and got ahead of his mentor by several feet.
"Oh, no you don't!" Happosai called out as he put his hands together and created a ki based, bright silver energy blast that tripped up his grandson allowing the older man to get ahead of him.
"What'd you do that for?!" Ryu screamed as he quickly shot forward onto his feet just in time to avoid getting stomped by their lead pursuer.
"How dare you run ahead of your grandfather?!" Happosai responded as Ryu caught up to him.
Then Ryu felt something strange about the footfalls of their titanic pursuers. Thus his senses told him that the giants pursuing them weren't as heavy as their visible height and mass would normally make them out to be. Therefore it wouldn't be impossible to throw the smaller ones around.
At that point, Ryu let his grandfather get a little ahead of him and allowed a fifteen-footer with large, gangly hands to catch up to him. Then the young martial artist attacked with his vacuum blades slicing through it and knocking it down. And before the creature could do anything else, Ryu took hold of it, spinning it around by its hands in the same manner his grandfather had done with Ranma earlier. Then he violently threw the giant into the other pursuing predators much like a boomerang, knocking the others down like bowling pins.
"That will buy us some time." However, Ryu's euphoria turned into dismay as the injuries of the one he had attacked smoked up and healed as if nothing had happened. Then the others arose to their feet and got back into the pursuit.
"You're getting soft, boy," Happosai commented as the two continued their run.
"I don't think so, old man."
Before Happosai knew what was happening, his grandson had caught up, taken hold of him, and thrown him into the pursuing titans.
"Ryu, you worthless child! How dare you sacrifice your master this way?!" the flying old man called out to his fleeing grandson.
"Sorry, Gramps! Sacrifices have to be made! I'll be sure to continue the art for you!" Ryu yelled over his shoulder as he continued running.
Happosai evaded the chapping teeth of the closest colossus, landing on the shoulders of another nearby titan. Then he leaped up and around the other giants who proceeded to attack him, jumping on their heads and shoulders and evading their clumsy attempts to attack him. Upon counter attacking, Happosai had a look of terrified surprise as much of his attacks had either bounced off or only stunned his adversaries.
The old man put up a valiant fight, practically flying through the air all around the surrounding giants until one of his attacking vacuum blades sliced through the nape of the back of the neck of one of them causing it to go crashing to the ground in a smoking heap.
"That's their weak point! I can make it through this!" Happosai thought to himself as he evaded another clumsy swing from another of the monsters.
However, the numbers and various heights of the titans were becoming too much for him as one of the smaller titans leaped over the larger ones and attacked him from behind, knocking him forward and sending him falling to earth, allowing a larger adversary to smash him into the ground with an area encompassing fist. At that point, Happosai found himself a little woozy and surrounded by more titans who proceeded to attack him, tear him apart, and crane their heads towards him, chomping on him, his screams being heard all throughout the valley.
Ryu smiled in relief as he got further and further away from his pursuers until he saw over a dozen or more giants from his right who stumbled towards him, building up their speed as they got closer.
"Uh, oh."
Then a sixty foot long walker broke out in front, growling as it ran towards the young martial artist, bridging the gap between them. However as it reached down to take hold of its intended prey, Ryu surprised the skinny giant by taking hold of the offending hand and utilizing a martial arts throw maneuver and twisting the giant around, throwing it into the others.
"Yes! I knew those things were lighter than they looked!"
Ryu wasn't out of the woods yet, however, as more titans showed up, almost surrounding him. Eventually smaller twelve to fifteen foot giants rushed their way towards him as the quick footed sprinter ran into a forest of trees with large branches that made it difficult for the larger titans to travel through.
During this time, Ryu kept on running in a zig zag motion until he used his massive martial strength to strike a nine foot tall tree, uprooting it. Then he kicked it in the direction of the pursuing titans, tripping them with it and causing them to fall forward onto the ground into a mass of entangled flesh.
"While I was making a run for it and looking over my shoulder, I noticed that Gramps struck one of those giants with one of his vacuum blades in the back of its neck. Is that the best way to take them down?" Ryu thought to himself as he widened the gap between his pursuers, getting deeper and deeper into the forest.
Ryu had begun to get a little tired from the fast paced, long term sprint in which he had been engaging when another titan took notice of him. This twenty-five foot monster had brown hair and crawled on all fours like a crab. Then it moved in on Ryu with surprising speed, prompting the spry martial artist to leap ten feet into the air to avoid the chapping teeth. The crawling titan's eyes widened in surprise as it looked up towards its escaping prey. Then it made the crucial mistake of trying to leap upwards himself, smashing his head against a nearby large, thick oak tree, knocking itself out.
"Whoa! These things are everywhere. Where can I go?" Ryu announced to no one in particular as he stopped to sit down on a branch after climbing and leaping upon a twenty foot oak tree.
"Whew! I wonder where all these giants came from," Ryu thought to himself as he finally rested from his exertions. However, unbeknownst to the exhausted, young man a thirty foot giant had walked over to his tree. Then he grabbed him and threw him down the hatch.
XXX
As Ranma kept flying towards the mouth of the particularly large titan, her pet rabbit came tearing out of her shirt, popping a couple buttons off and increasing the rip in it.
"Ryoga, what are you doing?! Come back here! Nooooo!"
The rabbit had a look of intensity in its eyes as it ignored its mistress's cries and charged the advancing titan, striking it in the nose with a translucent silver/white colored ki war hammer that appeared in its paws. The circular handle of the hammer was nine inches long while being two inches in diameter. The business end of the weapon was a six by twelve inches squared with sharp axe ends on either side of it.
"Aargh!" screamed the titan as it recoiled back into some other titans causing a few of them to stumble onto the ground.
Despite her surprise, Ranma deftly used her phenomenal skill and agility to leap up and over the rankled titans who were too entangled in each other to effectively reach for her.
"Ryoga, where are you?!"
Ranma was shocked when she saw her pet rabbit flying in the air on its own power going from one giant to another, slicing the napes of their necks with the axe ends of his hammer, causing them to go crashing to the ground in a smoldering heap of smoke. However, good fortune didn't continue to smile on the flying rabbit, as a fifty-footer managed to strike Ryoga from behind sending him flying head over heels into the direction of the pools of Jusenkyo. Then the same giant turned towards Ranma who had deftly landed on the ground a few feet in front of it.
"What did you to do my pet rabbit, you overgrown hunk of flesh?!" Ranma called out to the larger than life creature making its way to her.
For a moment, the titan said nothing.
"Don't want to talk? Wanna fight?!"
Still it said nothing.
"Oh, yeah? Bite me!"
As if in answer, the colossus smiled, showing a large row of sharp teeth. Then it stepped towards Ranma who ran straight for it, her kuzuriken ki claws out and at the ready.
"Yeow!" The girl ran past the downward reaching hand of the giant and sliced off one of the Achilles Tendons of the creature, causing it to fall forward.
"That's it!" Ranma thought to herself as she ran further away from the injured behemoth. However, upon looking over her shoulder at it, she saw the daunting white smoke come out of where its heel had been injured, causing it to heal up rather quickly. Then the formerly injured behemoth smiled at her and got to its feet, getting into a run, making its way back towards her.
"Uh, oh."
"Ranma!" someone called out to her.
Upon looking up, the redheaded girl noticed a drop dead gorgeous, practically naked man except for the tan scarf she had wrapped her pet rabbit in. The young man sported gorgeous, long, flowing, jet black hair and broad shoulders. He was six feet two inches tall weighing a well-defined, muscular 225 pounds with twenty inch arms. In addition to that, the man was flying in the air towards her.
"What the…"
"Ranma, it's me, Ryoga. Here, let me pick you up. We need to get out of here; more titans are on their way. There's no time to lose!"
"Ryoga? But how?"
Upon sensing one of her pursuers getting closer, Ranma jumped up, allowing the flying young man to grasp hold of her, taking her up to the skies as even more titans made their way to them, reaching out for them. A few of them even jumped up after them, but the young man was too quick for them, evading the grasping hands.
"We'll be all right, Ranma. I simply have to find a tree that's taller than any of these titans," Ryoga said to the bewildered girl.
"All right, but where do we go from here?" Ranma asked, giving the gorgeous man another once over.
"Just hold on."
XXX
In another part of the world in southern Russia, Ranko Saotome looked around the snowy wasteland when a feeling of hope came out of nowhere. Then she took to the skies feeling better about her situation.
XXX
Ryu Kumon shouldn't be confused with Ryu from the Street Fighter video game.