Ranma ½ © 2000 Takahashi Rumiko
Rurôni Kenshin © 2000 Nobuhiro Watsuki
[R&A&N, somewhere in the Nerima Ginza]
“Son,” Nodoka began, “for the last ten
years,
you have studied the Saotome Musabetsu-kakutô Ryû—and, from
everything I have seen and heard, become the second most skilled
practitioner of the art after its founder.”
Ranma smiled, an ever-so-slightly-nasty
smile. “And it shouldn’t be too much longer before I can take
down
the old lech, too. Master of the school, got a nice ring to
it…”
Nodoka sighed. Her son’s shameful lack of
respect for Master Happôsai displeased her, but then, no one else in
Nerima seemed to approve of his manly behavior. Odd. If he’d
been two hundred and seventy-five years younger, she’d have thrown Genma
over for him in an instant…
She shook herself back to the present.
“…In any case, I think it’s time you
learned
the other half of your heritage: my family’s school of kenjutsu.”
[Ranma doubtful about weapon-based arts, Nodoka chides him]
[Kunô shows up and challenges Ranma, Nodoka insists on standing
in]
—but before he could move, before he could so
much as blink, his mother vanished.
No. Not vanished—dashed forward, he
realized, moving at such speed he could barely track her.
Moving faster by far than HE ever had—!
Kunô had just enough time to understand
what was about to happen, but not nearly enough to prepare any sort of
defense. He made a valiant effort, though, bokutô moving
snail-slowly into guard position—
—and Saotome Nodoka, within inches of contact,
disappeared again, a sudden gust of air rippling her opponent’s
hakama.
The Blue Thunder whirled around, expecting an
attack from behind. Nothing. He turned again, to face his
hated rival…
…who was staring straight up with a look of
mingled awe and fear.
Kunô turned his gaze to the sky, and knew,
at last, that he had lost.
And the cry rang out: “Flying Heaven
Blade school—DRAGON HAMMER FLASH!!!”
Ranma and Akane watched, stunned, as Nodoka
dropped fifty feet straight down, katana-first, falling at a speed
appreciably greater than terminal velocity—landing on Tatewaki with an
impact that dug a fifteen-foot crater in the street and shattered windows
in at least three nearby buildings.
“Oh…my…GOD…” Akane
managed.
“Did…did your mother just… KILL Kunô?!”
Ranma snapped out of his trance and leaped over
to the lip of the pit. “MOM! Have you gone completely
nuts?! Kunô was a moron, but there’s no way he
deserved—”
He stopped.
There was his mother, casually dusting herself
off. There was Kunô in a kendoist-shaped hole at crater’s
bottom, deeply concussed but still in one piece and apparently alive.
“No way.”
Akane joined him. “Auntie
Saotome…? How did you not kill him? That katana was
blade-down…”
Nodoka hopped up to street level, smiling a Mona
Lisa smile. “Things aren’t always what they seem,
Akane-chan.
Behold, the two of you, this unworthy one’s ancestral sword…”
She held up for their inspection the kata—
No. Not a katana.
The outer edge, the sword’s striking surface,
was blunted. The inner curve, normally blunt, was a razor-sharp
blade. The sword that Ranma and his father had lived in fear of for
months was…
“…A sakabatô…?”
“Yes, my son,” Nodoka confirmed.
“A
reversed blade, designed to allow the use of kenjutsu techniques without
taking life.
“The last and finest work of the Meiji
swordmaster Arai Shakkû: the holy sword Shin’uchi
Sakabatô. My family’s sword, for six generations. Now
yours, Ranma.”
Saotome Nodoka, once Himura Nodoka of the Hiten
Mitsurugi Ryû, placed her sword in her son’s hand.
[more later…]