Disclaimer: The characters of Ranma ½ belong to Rumiko Takahashi
Tears of Anger
Ranma ½
By Acetalon
Chapter 4: First fight

	Hotaru looked up in confusion.  First this guy creates an
explosion in the middle of the park and then tells her he's sorry?  It
was pretty strange, but he seemed to be a nice person.  She accepted
the offered hand and smiled at him.

	"It's alright.  By the way, my name is Hotaru," she said,
deciding it would be rude not to introduce herself when the guy,
Ranma Saotome, already introduced himself.

	"Your not hurt are you?" He asked, worried.

	"No, I'm fine, thank you," she told him.  No one ever worried
about her and it was a nice feeling.

	"Okay, I'm glad.  Well if thats that then I'll be off."  He
shouldered his backpack and started to walk away.  Then, realizing
something, he turned around and asked, "Um, could you tell me where I
am?"

	Hotaru was stunned.  This park was in the middle of Juuban,
why did he wait this long before asking someone where he is?

	"You're in Juuban, Tokyo."  She said after recovering.  It
really didn't matter if he waited this long before asking someone.

	Ranma's eyes went wide.

	"You mean I traveled a month on the road and I ended back
in Tokyo?!"  He shouted to the sky.  Started hitting the ground,
then he sat down and started rubbing his temples.  "This isn't
happening to me," he mumbled.  "I can't believe I was led straight
back here."

	Hotary looked at him with concern.  Why did he want to get away
from Tokyo so much?  What did he do?

	"I'm sorry," she said for no particular reason other than to
cheer him up.

	He looked up and saw that Hotaru was still there.  He smiled
at her and said, "Don't worry, I'm fine.  Its just that I've had some
problems in another part of Tokyo."

	He got up and said, "Well, goodbye.  Maybe I'll see you again
sometime."

	Hotaru smiled as she waved.  She would like that.


	By the end of the day Ranma was pretty annoyed that he couldn't
find a place to stay.  He had been looking all over the city and he
couldn't find a single apartment or hotel.  "How could this town not
have a single place to stay?" grumbled Ranma.  "Guess I'll head back
towards that park and camp out."  He started walking back the way he
came. When he was near the park he heard a loud shriek and cackling.
"What the hell was that?" he wondered, dropping his backpack and
started running faster to get to the park.


	In the park, Ranma saw nothing but a bunch of people on the
ground, looking lifeless.  The people were in front of a stage, a stage
with several props.  The stage was a permanent stage, for it seemed
that some of the props were being made on the spot, like the stone
parts.  Jumping from tree to tree, he spotted a woman in greyish
clothes, facing a giant stone pillar. There was a chisel and hammer on
the ground, for it seems that the pillar wasn't done.  She seemed
alright, but her hands were out of sight.  "Hey, youalright?" he
shouted from his perch in the tree.  The woman turned around, spinning
around quickly to face him.  Unfortunately, so did the pillar.  It
swung at him at alarming speeds.

	"Shit," thought Ranma, leaping to a tree on his right as the
tree he was on was blasted away into the fountain.  "Hey, what the hell
is wrong with you?" he shouts angrily.  This yell died in his throat as
he realized that her clothes were stone and the pillar was attached to
the the womans hand.  The pillar shrunk down and thinned into a sword
that, although stone, looked like it could cut with relative ease.
His eyes narrow to tiny slits as he walked up to the daimon.


	Meanwhile, a group of teen magical girls wait impatiently while
their leader scarfs down an ice cream sunday.


	"Who are you?" demanded Ranma, clenching his hand.  The woman
just laughed.

	"I am your worst nightmare, little boy!"  she replied, swinging
her arm around again.  Ranma's face twitched

	"LITTLE BOY?!" This time, Ranma didn't dodge, but instead
ran towards the attack.  A loud crack could be heard and a second
later, The front half of the daimons sword split and fell to the
ground.

	"Hah, not as tough as I thought," he said, smirking.  The woman
didn't answer, but instead reached down and picked up her arm.  her
hand glowed a dim black and reattached her arm.

	"Not as easy as I thought," Ranma thought with a grimace,
watching the arm resealing itself.

	"Better just give up now and spare yourself the pain, you
little nuisance."

	"Give up? Against you?  Your joking," Ranma laughed, not the
least bit afraid.

	"Well then it seems I'll have to teach you a lesson.  Your
last."

	"Bring it on, you old hag!"

	Ranma cupped his hands and gathered his ki, preparing.  The
state lady was obviously unfamiliar with ki because she watched him
in amusement.

	"Neat trick, making your hands light up.  Doesn't help you
much here kiddo."

	Ranma smiled, sure now that the daimon had no idea what he
was about to do.

	"Shows that just cuz your old don't mean that your smart.
Moko Takabisha!" He shouted.

	The ball of blue ki slammed into her and she screamed.  Her
body flew backwards to crash into the park wall.  No sound came out
from the rubble.

	"Feh!  Thats it?" Ranma snorted.  He started walking away.

	"Not by a long shot, boy," snarled the daimon, getting up out
of the debris.  Several long cracks in her chest were already resealing
themselves.  She started spinning rapidly.  The ground around her
shook. A circle was forming around the daimon.  Once the circle
finished, the whole circle rose off the ground, creating a cone shaped
platform.  With this platform, the daimon turned it on its side, point
first, and shoved her arm through it.  Ranma watched it all with a
yawn.

	"By the time your done what your doing, I'll be too old to
fight," he complained.

	This ticked off the daimon, who just clenched her hand and hit
the cone, hard as she could.  Seconds later, small, sharp object were
being released from the cone, a shower of needles were shot out in
every direction.

	"What the-," yelped a surprised Ranma who, with nowhere to
hide, did the only thing he could; shield his face from the attack.

	Once done, the daimon was being smug, taunting Ranma and
pointing at him.

	"I'm just getting warmed up, kid," she said, laughing in a high
pitched voice.  "Just stop trying and let go.  Unless you like feeling
pain."

	Ranma lowered his arms.  Many small noticeable cuts were
visible in his clothes.  A drip of blood trailed down his leg. "Warmed
up yet?" he asked in a tight voice.  "Cuz I haven't even started." He
cracked his knuckles and circled the daimon slowly.


	The Sailor Senshi ran towards the park, with Sailor Mercury in
the lead, tracking down the power signatures with her computer.  She
came to a halt right outside of the park.

	"Hey guys, slow down."  Sailor Mars skidded to a halt and
turned around.

	"What's wrong, Ami? There's a Daimon right in there and who
knows what kind of havoc its already made!"

	"I know, but I'm getting two readings."

	All the other Senshi looked at her.  Two enemies?

	"So, are they both Daimons or is one an ally?" asked Sailor
Jupiter.

	"Don't know, but since one sources seems to be preventing the
other from moving out of the park, I'd say its a friend."

	Sailor Mars snorted.

	"Well if meatball head there wasn't busy eating ice cream we'd
have finished this Daimon off already, not have to worry about a second
person, and be at home right now."

	"Rei, your so mean!" Sailor Moon started to cry.

	More crashes and explosions erupted from the park.

	"Now's not the time to be boo hooing your eyes out, there's an
enemy to be defeated!"

	All the Senshi agreed and they warily entered the park.

	Ranma watched, waiting for the daimon to make her move.  She
did, by extending her sword arm, making it arc towards Ranma's head.
Ranma bent backwards till his hands touched the ground and, when the
blade shot over his head, did a handstand and kicked at the arm, hard.

	The daimons arm retracted, what was left of it, and grimaced.

	"That hurt, foolish boy," drawled out the daimon.

	"Thought that hurt? Then you haven't felt real pain yet."

	Ranma picked up the tree that had fallen when the daimon had
started this fight and threw it at her, blocking her view.  The
daimon sliced through the tree with a vicious overhead cop of her
sword, but Ranma had disapeared and reapeared in front of her, hitting
her with a quick one-two punch combo to her stomache, then spinning
around and delivering a spin kick to her back as a follow-up.  The
daimon toppled over.  Ranma grinned to himself.  The daimon was being
held together by something stronger than stone, magic probably, or
else she wouldn't be walking.  The daimon got up, a hairline fracture
across her stomache and back, angry.  She didn't bother with subtleties
and just slammed her fist into the ground, shooting needles up and
about everywhere.  Ranma dove behind a tree still standing.  Seeing
that she had Ranma cornered, she started concentrating and focusing,
directing her attack against the tree.  Attacking with everything she
had.  After a few minutes, Ranma heard the sound of wood splintering
stop and he looked out from behind the tree.  He cringed in imagined
pain.  The tree was shredded, needle-thin slivers of stone buried into
it several inches deep.  Ranma looked up at the daimon and, seeing that
she did not see him, ran and and delivered a flying kick to her face.
The daimon stumbled backwards, clutching her face, not seeing Ranma
walk up to her and execute another technique.

	"Kachü Tenshin Amaguriken!"

	Blow after blow landed on the daimon.  Ranma cocked his fist
back and hit her hard as he could.  The daimon flew back into the stage
that was being built.  Ranma looked down at her, confident that he had
already won.


	Scratched up, bruised, cut, and beaten, Ranma was doing well.
The stone hag had it worse. Missing an arm, whole chunks missing here
and there, and a large chip from her leg, she could barely walk, much
less fight.  Her ability to reseal herself was occurring much less than
before, meaning that she must be getting tired.

	"Give up yet?" asked Ranma rhetorically, since the answer was
obvious.

	"No way you little brat.  Your gonna die along with all the
other people on the ground!"  She pulled out several red fragile
looking objects.  "See these kid?  All I have to do is break them and
their deaths are on your hands.  Still think you can win?"  Again, she
laughs with the horrid, high pitched squeaky laugh.  That is, until she
realized that she wasn't holding anything anymore.  Ranma smiled, his
hand in his pocket.

	"You mean these?" he asked lazily, holding up the heart
crystals.

	"How did you...?" The statue lady managed to gasp out.

	" Burning your hands while plucking chestnuts out of a fire can
really help in small ways."

	Statue lady didn't bother to figure out what this meant.  She
just snarled and cocked her arm back, about to throw something that
probably wasn't a gift at him.  Faster than her, Ranma whipped out what
he was holding in his pocket and threw it at her injured leg,
shattering what little bit was keeping her standing.  It was the
chisel. With a scream, she fell to the ground.

	"Take that."

	Ranma let out a long breath and sat down.

	"Man, I'm beat," he thought.  "What ARE these funny looking
crystals?"  He held one up and examined it before carefully placing it
down next to the bodies.  "This place doesn't seem like a good place
to camp out anymore."  He grimaced as he pulled out a small stone
sliver out of his thigh.  "Better be more careful next time."  Sighing,
he got up and found his backpack.  "Well, guess its back to looking for
a place to stay."

	Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.  He heard stone scraping against stone
and turned around to see that the statue was almost standing, breathing
hard and holding a sword up to his back.

	"Well, your good.  Not good enough to defeat me, but your good.
It's time to finish you!" Raising her sword, she prepared to strike.

	"MOON SPIRAL HEART ATTACK!"

	A giant pink...thing...slammed into the statue and shattered,
disintegrating to statue and leaving behind a small, strangely shaped
egg.  Ranma blinked.  Did he just see a giant heart hit that daimon?
He pushed that thought aside as 6 girls dressed in fuku's ran over to
the bodies on the ground where the heart crystals lay.  He sat there
and watched them from a distance do something really strange: shoving
the little crystals into the people's chests.  When they were finished
They turned towards him, menacingly (at least that's how it seemed to
a sleepy martial artist whose been up past midnight fighting a daimon
for several hours).

	"This doesn't look good," he thought as he stood to face them.

Authors notes: Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out.  I'm not
too good on writing fights scenes.  Next chapter, the Senshi see Ranma
and they try to question him.  Also Ranma gets to talk with Hotaru a
bit more. (YAY!)

Need to reach me?
E-mail me at:
Ace_talon@hotmail.com

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