Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ A Fighter's tournment ❯ AFTCh6 ( Chapter 6 )

Scene: Tournament

A group of fighters from various teams looked at Kyo then back at Ranma. They walked over with a lot of them having hidden smiles. Ranma recognized Yuri from The Kyokugen Karate team. He also recognized the Women's Team coming over. One or two other teams started to walk over that Ranma remembered from the introduction ceremonies. The Fatal Fury Team and Team Korea decided to come over.

"A bloody miracle." Rock said. "Just a bloody miracle."

The Tae Kwon Do mistress turned to her pigtailed teammate and asked. "Ranma, why did you do that?"

A lot of the other fighters were curious on how Ranma was going to answer. To their surprise pain could be seen in Ranma's eyes.

Chapter 6

"I used to have an ego that big, Chae but I always showed respect to where it should be." Ranma started. "A year or so ago I faced a powerful warrior named Saffron. That is where I learned a lesson the hard way. A girl who I consider my sister was almost killed because of my ego.

"You see Saffron guarded some healing waters that I needed for her. I was forced to kill him in battle to get that water. That battle taught me the most important lesson a warrior should know." Ranma paused to gain his composure. A lot of the fighters were surprised to see unshed tears in his eyes.

"And that lesson was?" Mignon asked.

"On the battlefield no amount of ego, no matter how big, will help you in a fight." Ranma paused then continued. "Much less a life or death battle."

A lot of the fighters understood where Ranma was coming from. What Ranma said made a lot of the fighters there want to fight him even more. A lot of the women fighters were amazed at the maturity Ranma had.

"Hey Ranma, don't be too sad." Yuri tried to cheer the pigtailed man up. "You learned the lesson that was taught in that battle."

Yuri paused then indicated a middle-aged man standing with her. "This is my father Takuma Sakazaki." Indicating a man with some resemblance. "My brother Ryo." Her last teammate was fashionably dressed young man. "And this is our friend, Robert Garcia."

"Nice to meet you." Ranma bowed in greeting. Ranma remembered the matches. "You're the team we're facing first, Right?"

Yuri nodded and said. "That may be Ranma but we're not facing each other now."

Ranma could see the mischievous smile on the female Sakazaki. He chuckled shaking his head. Turning he greeted the other teams coming over to visit.

"Hey Ranma." The buxom kunoichi greeted him.

"Mai, nice to see you here. How's Kasumi doing?" Ranma asked.

"She's doing fine Ranma." King answered.

"Unbelievable." A man with long, silver hair muttered. "Name's Andy Bogard."

"Terry Bogard." A man with his blond hair in a ponytail introduced himself and nodded to Ranma.

"Joe Higashi." The Thai kick boxer smiled.

"Name's Mary Ryan." The blonde haired woman named herself to Ranma.

"Kim Kaphwan. These are my students; May Lee, Choi, and Chang." Kim introduced himself and his team.

"Ranma Saotome. Nice to meet you." Ranma bowed slightly to fighters. "But you already know that."

Everyone had a small laugh at Ranma's joke. Soon everyone there was talking about styles and techniques. Plus a few other things. "It's been nice meeting you, Ranma. I look forward to our match. If you'll excuse me." With that said, Ryo started walking away.

Yuri frowned. Something is obviously bothering her brother but she can't put her finger on it. "He seems distracted," commented Robert.

She nodded in agreement. "Yeah. We're going to go check up on him. Will you come along too, father?"

"You two can go if you wish. I'm certain that Ryo will be able to work out whatever is bothering him." Takuma turned back to the conversation with Ranma talking about how Anything Goes works. He had a nagging feeling that the boy held a great amount of potential power. If he has indeed tapped into it and mastered it, Takuma may have to take out the mask and unleash the full power of Mr. Karate (AN: I'm talking the Serious Mr. Karate final boss in SVC: Chaos).

The other two Kyokugen disciples eventually found Ryo in the work out area set up near the arena for fighters to warm up before matches. Since nobody is currently using it, Ryo took advantage of the opportunity and started getting some exercise. "You're training again? You never stop, eh?"

"Robert, you heard what Ranma did to Kyo." Ryo threw out a couple of practice punches.

Yuri started laughing. "Now that was funny!! I'm glad I brought my camera to take a picture of that priceless moment!"

"Now that I have an idea of what Ranma is capable of, I have to increase my training!" He performed his anti-air move, Kohou, a few times.

"But you've already trained so hard in the past few months. I think that you've already pushed yourself to the max!" exclaimed Robert.

Ryo sighed. "And I know that I have to kick it up a notch! Ranma not only has incredible strength and speed to overwhelm Yamazaki in a short time but he has knowledge of pressure points, which can turn the tide of the match quickly! I have to make sure that I can either reverse those pressure points myself or train my body harder so that they won't be effective against me. Hien Shippu Kyaku!!"

"There's still a few days before the match so you can still train. But you should chill out for a bit...maybe spend some time with King?" Ryo froze at Robert's suggestion.

"Um...she's more than welcome to come spar with me." Both Robert and Yuri slapped their foreheads in disbelief as they failed to get the message through Ryo's thick brain.

'I swear he's obsessed...'

As Iori's team and the NESTS team fought it out in the arena Ranma found himself alone with the red-haired kunoichi. The others had moved off in separate directions. The beautiful woman considered Ranma for a few minutes then decided to ask for his help to make Andy jealous. She decided to be truthful because Ranma was smart enough to know when someone was lying to him.

"Hey Ranma, would you help me with something?" Mai asked. Ranma turned to face the female ninja.

"What do you need my help for Mai?" Ranma asked.

"I want for us to pretend that we are a couple now." Mai answered.

"But why? I thought you and Andy Bogard were an item." Ranma commented. Ranma's eyes narrowed. "Unless this is a plan to make him jealous and get him to chase you."

Mai's brown eyes widened in shock. "H-H-H-How did you know?"

"I've seen men and women use this type of plan happen before." Ranma answered truthfully.

"And will you do it?" Mai asked again.

Ranma thought about what Mai was asking him to do. He wanted to help Mai but he also wanted to stay out of Mai's and Andy's business.

Vanessa threw some quick warm up punches and grinned. "The fun's just about to begin!" She had been selected to fight first while Seth and Iori waited for their turns to fight. Ramon didn't like being a striker for this round and wanted to show off some more of his skills to impress Vanessa this year.

"CRITICAL!!" Foxy is the one starting off for the NESTS team. Her sword had already been drawn. K9999 had been selected as their striker so that meant Kula and Angel were the other two representatives for the team.

As soon as they were given the signal to begin their battle, both fighters went into action. Vanessa has a lot of speed so she is able to weave in and out fairly quickly to score some good hits and her specialty combo, the Crazy Puncher. She delivered several punches on each side before grabbing Foxy and punching her in the stomach six times. Finally, she gave one final punch to send Foxy flying. "THIS...UPPER!!!" As soon as she connected the blow, she shook her hands to shake off the pain. "Damn, that hurts!!"

Foxy got up, feeling weak from the attacks but she still had some energy left to fight. She knew she could finish her opponent off thanks to her connecting a few combos with her sword and her auto combo, the Poetry of Cygnus.

Vanessa had taken a quick breather and taunted Foxy. "Don't be sloppy!!"

Foxy gave no reply and leapt into the air. Vanessa prepared herself to counter whatever attack Foxy had up her sleeve but she became surprised when Foxy went past her, with her sword high in the air. "The world is but a desert..."

"What?" Before Vanessa knew it, Foxy had swung her sword hard to create a powerful shockwave attack. The boxer could not put up her defenses in time to shield herself. "AAAAUUUUGGGHHHH!!!"

Ramon forced himself to hold still while Vanessa's unconscious body got escorted out of the arena by the crew that had been placed in the arena to retrieve defeated and unconscious opponents quickly so that the match could continue.

"Okay...let's get this over with." As soon as Seth stepped in, Foxy slid forward to use her sword.

"SLASH!!" Seth realized what she was about to do (thanks to her using this move on Vanessa previously) and used his Irimi-Nadazuki move to counter her. After gripping her with his left leg, his right leg kicked her multiple times before sending her back a few feet.

'I could call in Kula or Angel to continue but there's a possibility that they may be defeated. No...in order to preserve the advantage, I'll have to use my trump card now. I hope that this Seth is as predictable as the hologram one.' Foxy summoned the last of her energy and started running.

Seth moved his body to a certain position so that he would be able to switch sides with his opponent when hit. It has a similarity to Iori's own Scum Gale grab move. When switched, Seth would have some free time to attack the opponent.

'Now!!!' Foxy leapt into the air and started spinning around with her sword. "...a bee flies!!"

Seth had no time to react as Foxy slammed against him. Both fighters kept flying until they hit the arena barrier with an explosion. Foxy screamed once before collapsing on the ground. She would not be fighting anymore for this round.

"This...isn't funny." Seth closed his eyes and slumped into unconsciousness. As crews quickly moved to get the bodies out of the way, Diana appeared behind Kula.

"Now do what you have always done."

Kula's blonde hair changed itself to blue as she prepared for battle. "I know."

Ignitz leaned back in his chair as Iori and Kula were about to begin. "This should be interesting."

Misty frowned and looked at her love. "Are you sure that Kula can beat Yagami?"

Ignitz waved her down, easing her concerns when he replied. "I'm fairly sure. She did defeat him between the 99 and 2000 tournaments dear."

"Yes, but then again, Iori didn't know what Kula can do."

Ignitz blinked and sweat dropped a bit. That was SO true. He looked down below, a bit worried for Kula, though he wouldn't mention it to anyone if they asked him. After all, she WAS a powerful asset to NESTS Cartel.

(----)

Iori looked at Kula with a dispassionate gaze. He cracked his neck to the sides and popped the knuckles in his hands. "So we meet again. I still remember how you froze me last time."

The blue haired girl nodded and got into her stance as Yagami did the same. "Yes, and today the result will be the same."

Iori just smirked demandingly at her. He didn't hate her, only a few people had ever earned his hatred, Kusanagi being the biggest one of all, but he could respect her abilities. "We'll see little girl, we'll see."

(----)

Off to the side Ranma shook his head at the bouncy ninja girl. "Look Mai, I'm sorry, but I won't help you on this."

The redhead pouted at that, she had SO hoped that he would say yes to that. "But why?"

The pigtailed martial artist took a breath and sighed, remembering all that he had gone through in Nerima because of plots like this. "I'm sorry, but you see, before I came here, I had similar problems with girls. You see, I had four admirers who would try anything, well, almost anything, to get my attention and get ahead of the others for my heart. If you really love this guy so much, just tell him. But don't push it. If you keep reminding him all the time, all you're going to do is drive him away from you because he'll be afraid of someone who's pushy and won't take no for an answer." He hated coming off as blunt and uncaring, but sometimes that worked the best.

Mai blinked, she blinked a lot, she was blinking so much that for a moment Ranma thought she was a camera shutter. "Gee... How come no one told me about that?"

Ranma shrugged at that, who knew, still, he had a small idea. "Maybe they like seeing him squirm and think that it's funny?"

Mai sweat dropped at that, for some reason, that sounded like something that Terry and Joe would do to.

Ranma looked up at the fighting area. "Say, looks like their about to begin. Hey, I'm going to head over to my team okay. See you later Mai."

"Um, right." The ninja girl watched as Ranma walked over to his team. 'He didn't once ogle me. That's something else really.'

(----)

Chae looked over as Ranma walked back to the group. "Hey, it's about time you got back here, we were starting to worry that you got caught up in rush hour."

Ranma chuckled at that. "Not really. Just got caught up by some of the others."

Rock smirked slightly. "Well, with what ya did to Kusanagi mate, a lot of people are going to be impressed. I'm surprised no one's ever thought of something like that before."

"So who's winning?" Ranma was watching the fight, and it seemed fairly even at the moment.

Mignon spoke up as she pointed to the fight. "Apparently Kula is, she's landed the most moves on Iori, but, he's concentrating on her right side for some reason."

Ranma narrowed his eyes, yes, Iori WAS concentrating on Kula's right side, dashing to the side every time she did an ice attack, avoiding those powerful blasts that would probably freeze him good. "But why?"

(----)

Ignitz grimaced as he watched the fight turn out, he turned to Krizalid who was standing there calmly, watching the fight. "Why the hell is Yagami concentrating on Kula's right side?"

Krizalid looked at him like he was an idiot, though he wouldn't say that out loud. "Well, father, it seems that Yagami noticed that Kula was injured before the tournament started."

"WHAT?! THEN WHY WASN'T IT TAKEN CARE OF?!"

Krizalid held up his hands in a surrendering sort of way. "It happened just before the tournament started, only a few hours. She was trying to get in some extra practice against some of the extra fighter's holograms, but she made a mistake and hurt her side."

Ignitz groaned at hearing that, he turned back to the fight, it was obvious that the injury was bothering Kula, as she was having a harder time keeping up with Yagami.

Misty blinked a bit as she watched the fight. "Hey, there's something not right about this."

Everyone turned to her and Ignitz spoke up. "What do you mean?"

"Yagami's moving faster than before. Not to mention that the projected data for his increase from last year's tournament to this one was smaller than what was supposed to be possible."

Ignitz frowned at that, could some of the fighters have found out about NESTS training abilities? 'But how?'

****

"Hee hee, I sure hope Iori-sama liked that mail I sent him."

"Vice... WHY do you like him so much? He nearly killed us!"

"So?"

"ARRGH!" Mature felt like ripping her hair out as the two of them sat in Japan watching the King of Fighters tournament on T.V.

****

Kula grimaced as she was knocked down from Iori's Deadly Flower combo. True, she had put up a great showing for herself as Yagami's left half was frozen in ice. 'Still, it's not helping right now.' She winced as she stood up wobbly. She dimly heard Dianna yelling at her to stop, but she just wouldn't. There was something in her that told her to keep going. 'Maybe this is what they call Warrior's Spirit?' No, Kula wasn't trying to kill herself; she remembered what someone had said to her once not to long ago.

"There are better things to do in life than just die girl. Underneath that cold exterior, you're just a scared, innocent little girl without a care in the world. There's no reason for you to die."

Iori had to acknowledge the perseverance of the ice girl. She was losing, yet she still fought on, that was something that he could respect. 'Still, respect hurts at times.' Not for the first time in his life he cursed his Orochi-tainted blood. 'Dammed ice powers.' When Kula got back into her stance, albeit a little shakily, Iori looked at her with narrowed eyes. 'What is she trying to do? Kill herself?'

Kula stood up and started gathering energy for one of her strongest attacks, she knew that it would probably knock her out, but it would let her team win, and then she could rest afterwards. "Freeze..."

Iori's eyes widened and he rushed forward as fast as he could, which was very fast considering his size. 'Oh no, not this time.'

"ExecuAHH!" Kula screamed out as Iori grabbed her right side, and with those dammable fingers of his, tore into her skin, ripped his hand upwards, tearing flesh and bone alike and causing a spray of blood to fly out from her body. Kula landed this time, and didn't get back up.

Iori turned away from her fallen body; she'd live as he didn't dig too deeply into her flesh. He was certain that because of whatever injuries were there before the fight began and what he had inflicted during the fight plus the shock of losing blood like that was what knocked her out. "When you look at the moon, think of me and tremble." He looked down at his body and winced, using those same fingers which could slice through practically anything; he broke the ice that was surrounding parts of his body. 'Not bad girl.' He thought to himself as he waited for the next fight.

(----)

Ranma winced as Kula was taken away on a stretcher. "Hey, will she be all right?"

Rock nodded at him, wincing himself, since he knew what it was like to be hit beaten up by Yagami. "Yeah mate, she'll be fine. She MAY have some light scarring on her side, but she's not in danger of dying. Hell, I bet she'll be up and about by tomorrow really quick."

Ranma relaxed a bit at that. "That's good." When his teammates looked at him, he held up his hands defensively. "Hey! I just don't like to see people being hurt needlessly okay?"

The others nodded at that, it made sense to them.

(----)

Iori smirked at Angel as she bounced her way into the ring. Most of the guys were drooling, save a few, at the sight. "One down, one to go."

The blue eyed, white haired woman smirked at him, bent over a bit and put her hands on her head that made it look like she had horns. "We'll see about that Iori Yagami. You got lucky because Kula was slightly injured."

Andy Bogard was hidden in the shadows watching Mai and the new face in town talk but unfortunately he couldn't hear what the two were saying.

He saw the two were talking intensely over some issue. After Ranma said something Andy saw Mai bat her eyes at Ranma. After exchanging a few more words he saw Ranma leave and rejoin his team. Andy could see Mai was deep in thought as she rejoined King and the others of her team.

Andy was a little angry at Ranma thinking he was flirting with Mai but he had to realize that he could not get angry at him. For one thing he could never tell if Mai was truly in love with him or was going through her first crush. That is one of the reasons he was so reluctant to go to the next phase of the relationship. To tell the truth he always thought that Mai had her first crush on him.

Training as they did they never did meet members of the opposite sex that often. Much less get into a serious relationship.

Andy could tell that he and Mai needed to sit down and have a serious talk about their relationship. Or if they even had one. From what he could see Mai was deeply attracted to this new fighter who took down Yamazaki.

'I better have a serious talk with Mai alone and as soon as possible.' Andy thought to himself. 'And if we cannot get together in a relationship and if Mai and Ranma get together he had better take care of her.'

Andy paused. 'Or he'll answer to me.'

"So this is what she meant by creating her own style," murmured Ranma. Angel immediately started mixing up her Chain Circle moves to gain a quick advantage over Iori Yagami.

Still partially weakened by his battle against Kula Diamond, Iori had trouble trying to deal with these Chain Circle moves. To make things worse, Angel integrated her striker K9999 into the Chain Circle strategy. By summoning him to perform a move where his cybernetic arm transforms into a drill, K9999 gives her an opening for a Chain Circle move. Since Kula and Foxy never summoned him, she has five striker credits at her disposal.

She got careless once and so Iori grabbed her and switched places before using his Aoi Hana move twice. As soon as she flew in the air from the second move, he immediately performed his enhanced Maiden Masher move that fighters recognized from KOF 1999 and 2000. He intended to wait until he battled Kyo to use his secret follow up move for the normal Maiden Masher. "Playtime is over!! Cry, scream and die!!! That's the end of you!!"

She got back up fairly quickly after Iori released her. "Striker!!"

"WHAT'S WRONG?!?" He fired his projectile move to blast K9999 back to the stands. Angel used the opportunity to leap over her teammate and roll past Iori to start another Chain Circle combo. But since he used the enhanced Maiden Masher on her, it's time for a little payback.

After the third hit in the Chain Circle move, rather than going with a finisher move, she went with the more powerful version of Test of Loyalty for the Liberalists, delivering a series of punches and kicks before hopping on Iori and slashing the part of his exposed chest, underneath his neck ring, with a knife. "Here I go...not yet...FINISHED!!!"

Iori ground his teeth together as he tried to get up. 'I can't afford to lose...not when I still have to finish what I started with Kusanagi!!!' He felt something wet on his fingers. When he pulled his hand back, the fingers were soaked in blood.

Angel grew worried when she noticed Iori getting up and then just hanging there like a lifeless zombie. "RRRRAAAAUUUGGGHHHH!!!!!!" When she saw his eyes and the vapor coming out of his mouth, a wave of terror washed over her.

'And I thought the hologram was scary...' She remembered her team battling the NESTS holographic representation of Orochi Iori. They all lost horribly and that had been an incomplete program since their scientists could not figure out how to derive reasonable attack patterns from this warrior. When the program became complete (complete as in their scientists were at a dead end trying to extrapolate reasonable attack patterns), they tried again. She, K9999 and Kula were defeated easily. It was only due to Foxy developing and using the Honey Bee last ditch move that they won.

Her superiors did not bother to come up with a suitable strategy for battling Orochi Iori or Orochi Leona since the probability of them going under Riot of Blood had been small. Because of their minor negligence, Angel is going to be the one who will pay.

"KYOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

Ranma looked on in shock as he saw Iori just change right in front of him. He saw the unseeing eyes and the smoke come out Iori's mouth.

'What the hell happened to him?" Ranma asked himself.

The Riot of Blood.

'What is that Strike Claw?' Ranma asked while carefully keeping an eye on Iori and Angel.

It's basically a berserker mode. Because Iori Yagami has both human blood and Orochi blood he goes into the Riot of Blood. These two bloods cause an imbalance. His blood is like that because his clan made a bargain with the Orochi a little under 700 years ago.

'That means human blood and Orochi blood is not compatible with each other.'

Yes. The Orochi blood is quite strong but there is a drawback for the power it grants.

'And that is?'

It shortens the life of any human/Orochi blooded person to around 50 years, Ranma.

'It's a poison then.'

I guess you could put it that way. Anyways the problem is that Iori is now a danger to everyone here. Last time he went into the Riot of Blood at King of Fighters Tournament there was a big mess.

'You will have to tell me later Strike Claw. Something is going on.'

Orochi Iori, after he finished Angel and K-4-9, walked out of the stage and everyone was getting nervous as he approached them. Fear could be sensed in the crowd and even the fighters.

Too everyone's surprise Iori suddenly stopped and fell to the ground. His body changed back to normal and he started to sleep. Unknown to the people there Iori had figured out a way to control the Riot of Blood. There was one thing that he had not counted on.

He had underestimated the amount of power to control that state he was in. Therefore he had collapsed unconscious on the floor. All the crowd and fighters were relieved to not fight Iori in that state.

Carefully picking Iori up Ranma left the area to go to the part that was roped off as the medical section.

End of chapter