Learning to Play


Ranko tore through the underbrush, then leapt twenty feet to rebound off
a tree trunk, grinning madly. Ahead of her, Ranma leapt from branch to
branch, moving with a feline grace, and a power that kept him in the air
for upwards of fifty feet at a time.

Together they raced through the forest, startling the wildlife as they
tore through. Though this was meant for training, they were making
excellent time.

Ranma perked up when he heard a startled and plaintive yowl behind him,
and instantly redirected his momentum, barreling back the way he'd come
like a maddened pool ball, caroming off the trees with blinding speed,
and came to a sudden stop clinging to the tree trunk, supporting himself
with a single hand on the base of a higher branch that left him just
above Ranko.

She mewled piteously at him, but her eyes glared, daring him to laugh.
She'd managed to catch a short broken stub of a branch in the straps of
her backpack, and was hanging from it. Doubtless she could have gotten
herself down, but his reaction to her complaint had been too swift for
her to have a chance. 

He flicked out one finger, laying it against the branch, and canted his
head at her, giving her a playful meow. Her eyes widened as she caught
the implication, and she snarled, twisting towards the tree, just as he
flicked his finger, cleanly slicing of the branch. 

She stabbed out at the tree with her claws instinctively, as Ranma had
expected her too. He wasn't just playing around, or teasing her. They
both had to learn to correct the instincts of their cats. Some things
that a cat could do with its claws simply weren't possible when your
claws cut through anything that got in their way.

Ranko's eyes were wide indeed, and she yowled angrily at him, as she
began to slide down the tree, long curls of bark and wood peeling away
beneath her too efficient claws. She hissed at his bark of laughter, and
focused on her claws. 

Ranma silenced as her descent ceased and she scampered back up the trunk
towards him. He mewed questioningly, and she grinned at him, as she came
level with his branch. He gave a startled hiss when she slashed through
the branch supporting him, and he too found himself beginning a descent.

For just a moment he was tempted to simply kick off into a controlled
jump, but his ego stepped in. She had done it, so could he. He stabbed
his claws into the tree, slicing deep gouges, then focused on them,
until he came to a sudden bone-jarring stop. 

He grinned happily as he climbed back up to her level. When he reached
her and looked into her face, grinning, she moved forward, kissed him
quickly, then leapt away from the tree. He stayed still for a moment,
nonplussed, before shaking himself, and leaping to the pursuit.

The lead was swapped several times over the next hour. Ranma was leading
as the hour drew to a close, and coming upon a large clearing on the
side of a hill with a moderate slope, leapt for the center of the
clearing, and spun to face his onrushing pursuer.

As he spun to face her, he noticed that the clearing at the base of the
hill was lined by a thick patch of brambles, and he grinned at the
sight. It was a common factor that his father and he looked for in
sparring sites, some form of natural hazard, whether a spire of stone to
be slammed into, a cold pool or stream to fall in, or as in this case, a
nice patch of brambles, to add a bit of spice to the competition, and
take the sparring beyond the level of mere physical aggression.

Ranko appeared at the clearing's edge, and only barely held back from
throwing herself forward, claws digging into the tree trunk to hold her
back. 

She mewed curiously, eyeing him, then dropped from the tree to land
lightly on the ground and sat on her haunches, looking at him, waiting
for an explanation for his stillness.

He growled softly, a low rumbling challenge, as he crouched, tensed, and
raising a single hand, motioned her forward. She mewed an
acknowledgment, tensing her legs, then sprang forward, fingers
outstretched, ki claws safely sheathed.

He leapt as she neared, but she spun in midair as he sailed over her,
and she managed to catch his midriff with her foot, halting his momentum
rather precipitously. He was more ready for that than she had realized,
though, and had stolen his own momentum, burning it off with his ki, so
that even as her foot made contact, his forward motion had nearly
ceased. Since she hadn't been able to put significant force behind the
kick, it affected him far less than she'd intended. 

He folded over her leg, even as they hit the ground together, his back
contacting the dirt first, and he caught her side with his hands,
continuing the roll and sending her flying down the hill. 

She rolled to a stop inches from the brambles, and her eyes crossed as
she stared at the thorns, realizing that she'd fallen for his trap, in
taking the obvious attack against her flying opponent. 

She jumped again immediately, barely avoiding a second attack, for he had
not let up while she rolled, but had himself bounded to the attack again. 

They spent another hour rolling and leaping about the clearing, and both
impacted on the brambles several times. When they finally finished, they
spent several minutes finding and removing the thorns. Ranko
particularly enjoyed that. She was sure that Ranma would never have done
such a thing normally, but under the influence of the Neko-ken, he was
more susceptible to sensual pleasure, and so he permitted her to spend
time roaming his skin with her hands, looking for and removing the
smaller thorns, and particularly those that had broken off during their
continued tussles.

She also got the feeling that he would never have sparred so directly
with her if it were not for the Neko-ken, given how diffident and
apologetic he was after they came back to the clearing, having left it
to drop the cat-state without having to worry about sending each other
back into it.

Ranma for his part was quite abashed as he made their lunch, thinking
about how much he had enjoyed her attentions, her gentle hands running
over his skin. 

Just as Ranma finished his portion of lunch, Ranko went cat, embracing
it as lightly as she could. She was trying to work on his reactions, to
make his transition to the cat-state automatic, but at the same time,
she was indulging her own curiousity, wondering if she could keep more
of her human behavior while under the influence of the cat. She had
never given in wholly to the cat, as Ranma had, but if one could give in
to the cat completely, or share the mind with the cat, as they had been
doing, could she also get different degrees of cat?

She didn't feel much different, though Ranma's scent was immediately
more noticeable. He also failed to react. She tried to slowly increase
her embrace of the cat, but found it not as easy as she had expected,
and instead of the slow embrace she was trying for, she slipped directly
into the full embrace they had been using. 

Ranma immediately leapt away, but he had embraced the cat before
landing. He sat back, looking at her reproachfully and turned his head
away. She stalked over to him, and rubbed against him. He turned away,
but she slunk around him, rubbing against his other side, and he
relented, rubbing his cheek against her. 

She was about to pounce him, and initiate another spar, when the clouds
that had obscured the sun most of the day opened up, letting a strong
beam of sunlight fill the clearing. The warm sunlight bathing them just
after they finished a meal drove any thoughts of action out of their
heads, and in but a few moments, he was collapsed on his back in the
sun, and she lay bonelessly across him, as they luxuriated in the caress
of the sunlight.

Their distraction did not last too long, however, for a little more than
a half an hour later, the cloudy sky fulfilled its threatening promise,
and released a driving rain, startling them into wakefulness.

Ranma was a bit chagrined at having been so easily distracted from their
purpose, until Ranko told him of her attempt at attaining a partial
Neko-ken. The potential of deeper control of the technique caught his
attention, and they spent the next half day, as they walked further on,
discussing the techniques, and trying to control their depth of
immersion.

By the time they stopped for the night, Ranma had succeeded in attaining
use of the ki claws without deeper immersion. Ranko for her part had
managed to gain just the mindset and heightened senses. Ranma wasn't
certain that there was a point to that, but she pointed out that it
might use less ki, and thus be less noticeable. Besides, it was a step
in the right direction to getting just the heightened senses without the
mindset, which would be useful in populated areas. 

They also discovered, in their experimentations, that any immersion that
did not incorporate the mindset left them open to the fear, but did not
activate the fear in their partner.

At Ranma's suggestion, they both remained in the Neko-ken as they went
to sleep. Ranko was a bit worried about the possibility of the cat
waking up while she slept, but Ranma was focused on preventing the
methods that had been used to awaken him from the Neko-ken being used to
cut them off from the technique. 

So he wanted to work until they could retain the Neko-ken even while
sleeping, both to prevent sleep from being used against them, and
because of the potential benefits of subconsciously using the heightened
senses to protect them in their sleep. He also intended to work on
retaining the Neko-ken even while being splashed with cold water, a
technique his father had said sometimes brought him out. Not that it was
an easy thing to hit his Neko side with the water in the first place,
but if the Neko-ken was to be their ace against this dark force, they
needed surety that it could not be easily prevented.

When he awoke the next morning, he was not in the Neko, nor did he feel
any fear of her, meaning she too had lost the Neko-ken sometime in the
night, but his failure was expected, and besides, he had a more
important matter to think about. 

Specifically, the warm body that was pressed against his back, the arm
that passed under his own to clasp his chest, and the leg entwined with
his legs. He could feel her steady breathing against his back, and knew
she was still asleep, but he wondered how she would react to awakening
like this. 

Moving slowly, he brought his arm up, and clasped her hand, trying not
to think about how warm and small and delicate it felt in his, and
lifted it from his chest. 

He was just bringing her arm across his body when he felt her shift and
snuggle up tighter against him, then stiffen suddenly. He released her
hand immediately, and felt her leg withdraw slowly from where it wrapped
around his own. "Sorry," she whispered in his ear, and he heard the
sincerity in her voice. 

He was a bit surprised. His father had warned him that women would
always construe anything and everything to be his fault, and while he
had at least partially assumed that that might be simply his father's
experience, due to the fact that as far as he could see, everything
always had been his father's fault, he couldn't help but be afraid that
she would see this as his fault. That she would apologise to him, well,
that came as a complete surprise. 

"S'okay," he muttered, sitting up, but not looking toward her. He could
still feel that warmth against his back, and thinking of what it had
been made him flush. He didn't want her to see his blush, so he quickly
left the tent.

Ranko stared after him, wondering. She hadn't intended to move that
quickly with him, and felt a bit abashed at having been so forward. She
wondered if it had been the Neko-ken, for a moment, until she realized
that she wasn't embracing the cat. He hadn't objected. Maybe he had
enjoyed it as much as she had? She shivered, remembering the hard feel
of his muscles as she had pressed up against him in that first moment,
as she was just awakening.