Story: Konatsu's New Technique: A Little Backstory

Here is the winner of last week's vote, the first to win twice. The surprisingly (to me) popular Konatsu's New Technique.
"You appear to have done a very foolish thing", said the voice of her former master. In the space between the two of them lay a wooden chest, ancient yet showing no signs of wear and tear. The years had melted away from it, run and hid out of fear because of the perfect maintenaince and devotion given towards it. The chest lay open, facing her and - to her shame - it also lay empty.

"I can only apologise for my behaviour," she bowed apologetically. "I deserve and accept any form of punishment you deem worth this failure."

"No. I shall not punish you for failure," her master replied. "As I already said, it is your foolishness that is the concerning factor today. If anything you shall be punished for that."

Her training had entailed a rather wide array of horrors. She had been trained in the most efficient ways to kill herself in case of capture. She had learned to suppress fear by juggling rattlesnakes while spiders and rats were poured around her body, though this experience did make her feel rather like a reality television star wheneve she engaged in it. She could dodge shurikens, kill a dozen stampeding bulls with a toothpick, dropkick eagles out of the sky and pluck every feather before they hit the ground.

Even so, she still swallowed in fear. That was all merely training. The manner of punishment her master could inflict would be... interesting. One time, her master had complained of a lack of food, and so set a fire in the back yard and consumed the very flames themselves for nourishment.

"Before I announce your punishment, let us consider the exact manner in which you have been most foolish!" her master declared, snapping the chest shut with a deafening click. "You stole an ancient, forbidden scroll that this training hall has kept hidden for centuries precisely because misuse of it has terrible consequences, presumably because you intended to misuse the technique it described. Upon learning that the scroll was sealed to prevent such an event from occuring save use from a top level kunoichi, you set about attempting to subdue and defeat a top level kunoichi that was believed to be weaker due to his current living conditions. During the battle, you learn that he was male, and recalled warnings regarding what would occur if a man were to make use of the technique. Fearing you would become the target, you fled here with tail between legs."

Her master rose to her full height, and the foolish failure of a kunoichi shrunk down in her shadow. What terrible fate would await her? What cruel and unusual punishment was in her future?! The wait was bad enough, and some with limited imagination might say it would be worse than the impending suffering but they would be wrong! So impossibly wrong!

"I believe that a suitable punishment for you... Would be to confront your fears properly, and retrieve the scroll. But know this! Should you fall under the influence of the technique, we shall not rescue you from it when we ultimately retrieve the scroll for ourselves and wipe it from Konatsu's mind. You alone shall feel the grip it will have upon your mind. Know this, and do not return to this place lest I give you a worse punishment still!"

A gust of wind rolled through the room, entering from an open window to the north. By the time the air struck the southern wall, the room was empty.

---

For most of his young life, Konatsu had been forced to contend with a hard wooden floor to sleep on, with a scarf for a blanket and a damp sponge for a pillow. Needless to say that he became rather used to such harsh sleeping conditions very rapidly, coming to view it as a method of hardening himself up as a ninja in training. After all, a ninja might be required to hide from an enemy in any place at any time witihout warning. To set out a duvet, blanket and big fluffy pillow would serve as little more than a big flashing neon sign to any enemy in the vicinity. Hardly practical to advertise one's presence during the most vulnerable time of any life form's life. After all, the current theory is that sleep evolved as a means to aide small prey in remaining still to hide from big prey and more importantly their big, big sharp teeth. In the cutthroat world of ninja, the ruthless laws of nature applied just as vividly if not more so.

Since moving in with his beloved mistress Ukyo Kuonji, he had let that practise die out a little bit. Now he had a proper bed of sorts, much more comfortable than it migh have been, but he had developed that rather unusual quirk of never sleeping out in the open. He would sleep under camoflage, in hidden corners, in cupboards, on shelves, strapped to the ceiling. Such was the art of the ninja. In fact he made a point of never sleeping in the same location within the building twice in the same week. Furthermore if anyone broke in with the intention of finding him or hurting Miss Ukyo, well, his own personal alarm system atop that electronic nonsense Miss Ukyo had insisted upon would awaken him like a shot!

And so, imagine his suprise when his eyes would flicker open later on and above him was a rather new ceiling that most certainly did not belong to Miss Ukyo's. Which meant he'd been kidnapped in his sleep, a theory corroborated by the sheer agony - oh my goodness but the agony - that his body was in right about now.

"Thank goodness!" a female voice said to his right. "See, Ranma! He's alright!"

Konatsu looked around the room a bit more closely, trying not to move too fast for the time being. His head was still swimming a bit. He saw... Miss Akane sitting by his bedside, shooting disapproving looks towards Ranma, who was leaning against the wall and trying a little too hard not to look at him right now.

"How do you feel? That was a pretty nasty landing!" Akane asked, voice as sweet as honey. "Wasn't it, Ranma?"

"Huh!" Ranma rolled his eyes in disdain. "Not my fault, I mean, I didn't know that he was gonna kiss my forehead or anything like that. What sort of special technique involves kissing your opponent?!"

"It worked on you! Made you lose focus," Akane snapped back, and here they went again, into another of their lover's spats! Konatsu envied that mutual passion even as he knew he was unworthy of it. He was, after all, merely a humble kunoichi in the employ of the greatest okonomiyaki chef in all of history! He would only ever be worthy of such wonders if and when Miss Ukyo decreed it so.

"And wound up hurting Konatsu!" Ranma winced at his words, no doubt feeling guilty for a training accident that was not in truth his fault. After all, Konatsu knew that he should have better prepared for the landing. "Not - not that I care about that too much, I mean, not more than anyone would ever care about someone being hurt, and -"

Akane stood up and approached her fiance, her face transformed from frustration to concern. "Ranma? Are you feeling alright?"

"Yes, Mister Ranma!" Konatsu said. "Your behaviour seems slightly off. Are you feeling unwell? Or perhaps it is a side effect of the technique?" Oh goodness! If he had done something to interfere with Ranma's health, that simply could not do at all! If it was, and he had to miss out on school, then Konatsu's duty was clear! He would have to attend in Ranma's place while he stayed home to recover! Though first, it might be good if he recovered a little from this headache. His vision went a bit wibbly there for the merest of moments.

"Heck no!" Ranma declared, casually wiping some sweat from atop his flushed brow. "I'm just fine. All your technique did was catch me a little off guard, is all."

Konatsu's shoulders slumped, and she spun away from them with a microphone in her hand. "Oh, woe is me! I have failed to determine the effect of this mysterious new technique! I truly am such a pitiful kunoichi after all, if I cannot puzzle through a simple tech-"

"That's quite enough of that," Akane said, plucking the microphone out of his hand. "Given what you said, there must have been some effect. We've just not seen it yet. Right, Ranma?"

And then something a little bit peculiar happened, that Konatsu almost missed. Ranma opened his mouth to say something, closed it again, and then smiled with a mysterious twinkle in his eye. "You know what I think?" he said. "It's fake. A fake technique, hiding a real one."

"That... is a brilliant idea, Mister Ranma!" Konatsu exclaimed. Of course! Misdirection was always a key aspect to the ninja lifestyle! "If that really is the case, then do you know of any way we could properly determine it?"

Ranma beamed at the deserved praise. Had he the proper training, Mister Ranma would surely have made a tremendous ninja! Perhaps, if his pride would permit it, he could lower himself to learning from a mere humble Kunoichi like Konatsu? Surely he would surpass in all areas in no time at al! Something to consider for later on... Oof. But not right now thanks, his head was still spinning a bit from that landing.

After a moment's thought, Ranma lay out his line of thought while tapping his foot and looking up at the ceiling. "Hm... If it were me, I'd probably hide it in the actual instructions, and make it so that the whole thing is in there, but some other action in the middle cancels it all out or interrupts it or something. That way, only someone that knows how to read the scroll properly can understand it."

"Eh... I don't know about that Ranma," Akane said. "That seems a little obtuse -"

"For a ninja?" Ranma said. "Hide something in plain sight, right? We've seen supposedly smarter people do stupider stuff. Did you see anything weird when in an act of brilliant misdirection, that genius kunoichi did the technique to me?"

Akane shook her head, and Ranma scowled... but once again there was something dancing in his eyes, and it confused Konatsu a great deal. Was he caught up in the mystery? Excited by the process of unlocking a new technique? He could not honestly say. Konatsu rose to his feet, but had to rely on Akane to steady himself.

"I hate to suggest it," Ranma said. "But maybe you ought to try the technique out on Akane. Do it to her, I'll watch, and we see if anything happens."

"I-I couldn't possibly impose -"

"Nonsense!" Akane said, adjusting their position so that Konatsu could better hold on and regain his footing. "Anything to help... But given how wobbly you are right now, maybe we would be better off not sparring, okay?" Helpful as ever. It was so easy to see why as many boys pursued her as Miss Ukyo liked to joke. Truly, a worthy rival for Miss Ukyo in her pursuit of Ranma could not have been better picked.

"... If you insist," Konatsu sighed. His arms were already technically in an embrace, which was the first step of the technique. Next, he had to build his inner energy into his lips, which required concentration, which his head refused to do right at this particular moment. It felt as though a thousand tiny needles were racing towards his brain, with the grand prize being nothing less than the secret of exquisite pain. Perhaps it had been a mistake to attempt this so soon after awakening from being rendered unconscious? Who could say. Either way, Konatsu tipped forward and gave Akane the lightest of light kisses upon her hand, then slumped to the floor as exhaustion overtook him.

"No, tomboy," Ranma said when Akane went to touch the slumbering kunoichi. "Let our master sleep. He deserves a rest. Besides, we've got a lot to talk about while he does."


And I'm taking suggestions for options.