Mystery of Mount Horai, Chapter 5 [Herb's school story]

[Prince Herb]

This is a slightly different than planned chapter 5 - I reached a problematic passage and I decided to split the chapter in two as a result. Please let me know your thoughts.
By Saturday morning the gloomy weather had disappeared, carried away by the winds, leaving behind the promise of a bright spring day on Mount Horai. Most of the girls at the school were still fast asleep when the first rays of the sun fell upon the valley, but by no means all.
Some girls were perpetual early risers, particularly the keener members of the sporty set. Haruka Tenouh was already up and about, looking as sleek and as deadly a panther in her running gear, ready to start on her morning circuit. In the gymnasium, Herb, looking elfin and fragile in another of her many leotards, was beginning her own exercises, half-expecting to see Ranma and Akane turn up for another early morning session as they had been doing on weekdays.
Ranma, though, had other plans. Gently, quietly, so as not to disturb her sleeping roommate, she had risen, showered, and dressed herself in the Chinese outfit her mother had had made for her. School was all very well, but she needed time away from it to practice the Art. A training trip up into the mountains was what she needed.
It was going to feel odd to be training on her own, though, Ranma though. She turned slightly to look over at the bookshelf where the stuffed panda sat next to her schoolbooks, its faced turned to the wall. She gave it a look that a fantasy novelist would likely have described as a ‘baleful glance’. “Damn you, Pop,” she muttered to herself. “Why did you need to go and take us to Jusenkyou?”
Akane yawned and opened her eyes. She sat up in bed, and stretched her arms. “Hey, you didn’t wake me up for practice,” she said, then yawned. “Is something up?”
Akane rubbed her eyes and looked over at Ranma, instantly spotting the heavy looking rucksack that her room mate was trying to conceal behind her body. The red-head looked a little guilty for a moment.
“I was going to leave a note,” Ranma said, trying to brazen it out. “Y’know, so you didn’t have to worry.” She looked at Akane, and saw the doubtful expression on her friend’s face. “I’m not running away, or anything,” she said, trying to reassure her room mate. “I just need to go on a training trip up in the mountains for a day or two. Y’know, do kempo stuff.”
Akane nodded. She understood the concept, even though she’d never been on one herself. “Who are you going with?” she asked. “Matron won’t give you permission to go up the mountain without a partner.”
“Yeah, well, I kinda wasn’t gonna ask, y’know,” Ranma said, nervously rubbing the back of her neck. “You’d cover for me, right?” she asked pleadingly.
Akane shook her head. “No way, Ranma. I want to stay in Matron’s good books,” she said, while she considered the options open to her. “How would it be if I came with you? I could do with some training too, and I’ve always wondered what these trips are like. My father had given up going on them by the time I started kempo,” Akane said, remembering also how reticent her father had been in describing actually what happened on some of his journeys.
“Sure, I guess,” Ranma said, trying not to sound quite so pleased as she was. Well, as long as Akane didn’t try to spoil things by cooking. “It’s good to have company.”
---o0o---
Akari Unryuu was decidedly not one of the group of regular early risers, but nevertheless she too was awake this morning and keen to get going on her mission of mercy to the small black pig.
Ami watched as her room mate packed her pig-shaped rucksack with all the items she would need for a pig recovery mission : a soft blue blanket (‘in case he gets cold’); canned peaches (‘in case he’s hungry’); a porcine first aid kit; a book entitled ‘Pigs : a field guide’; and several other vital items. The senshi of Mercury, being of a more practical bent, was taking a map, a compass, her mobile phone, bento for both of them, and a flask of hot tea, as well as her copy of ‘A hillwalker’s guide to Mount Horai’.
“Where are we going to look for your pig, Akari-chan?” Ami asked, looking at the vast area covered by the map. “There’s a lot of mountain out there to search.”
Akari nodded in agreement. “That’s true,” she said as she studied Ami’s map, “but there aren’t many good places for a pig to feed. We should look in places where there’s likely to be food for a piglet.”
“All right,” Ami said, and considered the area covered by the map once more. “So, I suppose that means the wooded areas. There should be lots of roots and things that a piglet can root for in those,” she suggested, pointing out a few areas.
“Well, maybe,” Akari replied, giving a little shake of her head as she did so, “but I was really thinking of looking first around the tea-rooms, camping sites, and the picnic areas. If it’s a tame pig, it will associate humans with getting fed; and there’ll be plenty of scraps to eat.”
“You’re the expert, Akari-chan,” Ami said, picking up her own rucksack, which was a sombre blue nylon affair rather than a furry animal of any sort – but very well-made, waterproof, and strong. She folded up the map and placed it inside the waterproof map-pocket. “Shall we get going, then?” she asked, but her room mate was already ahead of her, picking up her own rucksack and jacket, and heading for the door.
---o0o---
Akane had to struggle to keep up with Ranma at first. The smaller girl was bursting with energy now, hopping from rock to rock as she made her way up the steep mountain paths that led into the wilder areas of Mount Horai. Perhaps she had been subconsciously suppressing her natural exuberance at the school; at any rate she was now bouncing around like a rubber ball on a sugar high. Akane had to run just to keep the super-charged redhead in sight. There was no time at all to take in the glorious spectacle of springtime on Mount Horai. The swathes of green, the flowering trees, the babbling brooks: all went past in a blur.
“I guess this is it,” Akane thought as she ran, “the training starts the moment we leave the school.”
As far as Ranma was concerned, however, this was barely more than a brisk walk, hardly training at all. To make it proper training she really needed something like a pack of hungry wolves or enraged hornets pursuing her. The need to use her wits would be what changed it from mere physical exercise to good solid martial arts training.
Even at this speed, it took quite a time for the two girls to climb out of sight of the valley where the school sat and up into the mountainous parts above that. The scrubby bushes on the valley sides gave way gradually to light woodland, and then to heavier old growth forest. Tall maple and rowan trees heavily shaded the broad pathway as it wound its way up the mountainside. Here and there, the path led the couple through small clearings delicately sprinkled with spring blossoms. Ranma wasn’t a fan of flowers, but Akane found the sight quite charming.
Whenever the path came to a junction, Ranma stopped and looked at the ground, and chose the path she thought looked less travelled. “A bit of seclusion’s what we need,” she said, though they’d seen few enough people in the couple of hours they’d been travelling.
At length, Ranma came to a halt. One of the clearings had clearly caught her eye as being a better training ground than the others. It was roughly triangular, with one side being taken up by a low cliff-face, perhaps ten metres or so in height. Spring water poured from a small crack around a third of the way up the cliff and ran down into a crystal clear pool below. “This’ll do,” she said as gruffly as she could manage, gesturing towards the open space. “Looks like a pretty good campsite.”
“It’s very pretty, Ranma,” Akane said as she took in the view. “I think it’s a good choice.” She put her pack down and began to change into her yellow gi. “Once I’ve changed, I’ll get the kettle boiling and we can have some tea,” she said. Ranma looked worried.
---o0o---
Tea, it has been observed, is a work of art and needs a master hand to bring out its nobler qualities. Okakura Tenshin would have admired the passion and energy Akane brought to the task, if not anything else. Certainly, he would have at least paused for a moment or two on seeing the amount of mud, bugs, and pondweed that went into the making of it, and the careless abandon with which she added handfuls of the precious leaves to the already pungent brew. By contrast, the brew that Ami had made earlier, and was now sharing with Akari as they lunched together in one of the mountain’s many picnicking spots, would have been the veriest nectar. That is to say, at least the great scholar would have been able to confidently recognise it as tea.
Akari sipped her tea thoughtfully. “There are still quite a few other places to look, Ami-chan,” she said, as she tried to work out where to go next in her search. A whole morning of investigating picnic spots and tea places had so far turned up little in the way of clues, apart from a few isolated sections of little piggy footprints, leading nowhere in particular. “The poor creature must be very confused,” Akari lamented, as she imagined a thin, shivering, unloved black pig stuck on the windswept hillside with no one to care for it, and wandering hither and yon. “We need to find it as soon as we can,” she said, eyes sparkling as she pictured herself cuddling the pig and nursing it back to health.
Ami looked at her map again, nibbling a rice ball as she did so. There were really quite a lot of places to look, but most of them were small roadside picnicking places that wouldn’t take much investigating. She put down her rice ball for a moment. “We should finish most of this side of the mountain today,” she said, sketching out a rough route on the map that would take them past the remaining likely spots and back towards the school before darkness.
Ami wouldn’t have minded spending a little more time over lunch. The view was marvellous and the green tea was strong and good. Akari, however, could spare no time for the contemplation of mountains, lakes, and the checkerboard of fields stretching across the valley floor beneath them, and was growing increasingly restless. Ami saw no reason to let her room mate keep fretting; the scenery, beautiful as it was could always with for another day. She quickly finished her cup of tea and swiftly repacked her rucksack with the empty bento boxes and thermos. Akari shouldered her own rucksack and the two girls headed back to the road to resume their tour of inspection.
As they walked along the road, the girls chatted idly about school, and pigs, and boys (or, more properly, the annoying absence of them), and the strange interconnection between all three. “Grandfather says I can’t date any man who can’t defeat my champion sumo pig in single combat,” Akari said, as she searched the verges of the road for signs of the little black pig’s passing. “Even if there were boys near here, I’d have to defer to his wishes.”
Ami had never seen Katsunishiki in the flesh, but she was familiar enough with the pig from the pictures that her room mate had all over her desk. The pig was as big as Ami’s mother’s Toyota Prius, and built to match. There weren’t going to be many teenage boys in Japan who could defeat a creature like that. “I think he just says that because he doesn’t want to see you dating yet, Akari-chan,” Ami said, making the logical deduction, “so he’s set your suitors an impossible task.”
Akari chuckled. “You may be right, Ami-chan. But whenever that happens in a story, doesn’t a prince come along who can do the impossible?”
“It’ll be a long time before we see a prince at Mount Horai,” Ami-chan countered. “Apart from Tuxedo Mask – and I think he’s spoken for.” She also knew that he was several thousand miles away on the other side of the Pacific right now, but wasn’t going to mention that.
Akari stopped suddenly, and stared at something on the side of the road. “What’s that?” she asked, sounding puzzled.
Ami looked at the object on the roadside. At first, she thought it was a bundle of rags, but then realised that it was something rather different. Ami walked across and bent over to study it further. “It’s a dead monkey,” she said. She touched it gingerly with the back of her hand. “It’s still warm too.” Akari put her hand to her mouth in disgust.
The dead monkey looked strangely unnatural as it lay crumpled in a little heap, its face turned to the sky. There was no calmness or serenity in death for the small creature. An expression of sheer terror seemed to be etched into its face. Its eyes were wide open and staring, and its lips were drawn back in a snarl, exposing a mouthful of sharp fangs. The monkey’s long fur rippled in the wind, giving the illusion of movement that had initially deceived Ami into seeing it as a pile of rags.
“I don’t know what killed it,” Ami said. “There aren’t any obvious wounds.” She had expected to find that it had been run over by a motorist and moved to the side of the road, but there was no sign of that at all. She looked around the nearby hillside for other clues, but saw nothing suspicious, except a fresh-looking hole in the ground some metres above her.
Akari stayed back, but Ami walked up the hillside to inspect the hole. It was several feet deep, and the spoil from the pit lay all around, but it seemed empty. On an impulse, she went back down the hill and picked up the little monkey’s corpse. “I’m going to bury this here,” she said, feeling rather sorry for the animal now. Akari nodded, but came no closer.
Ami placed the dead creature as far down the hole as she could reach, and rolled some of the larger rocks on top of it, then pushed as much of the soil down on it as she could. As she patted down the soil, she felt something unusual beneath her fingers. Whatever it was, it was something hard, cold, and metallic. She scraped away the earth again and looked at what she had found. It appeared to be a round bronze plaque, covered in mud and verdigris, with something engraved on either side. It was plainly very old.
“What have I got here?” Ami asked herself, turning the piece over in her hands. She could see that it had some sort of inscription around the edge, but could not read the characters, if that was indeed what they were. “A puzzle for later, I guess,” she said to herself. Ami wrapped the plaque in tissue paper, and put it away in her rucksack to keep it safe. When they got back to the school, she’d have time to clean it off and look at it properly.
“I’m finished,” she said, returning to where Akari was standing on the pathway beside the road. She looked at her dirty hands, and especially at the black earth beneath her fingernails, and continued, “but I’ll need to wash my hands somewhere. I don’t think lemon-scented wipes are going to be enough to cope with all this dirt.”
“That was a kind thing you did, Ami-chan,” Akari said, smiling at her room mate. “There’s bound to be somewhere along the way where we can find running water.”
“Sure,” Ami said, still thinking about the expression on the monkey’s face. “Let’s just get going. Maybe we can still find your pig today. Or maybe we’ll find your prince.”
---o0o---
Herb herself wasn’t feeling very princely at the moment. In more ways than one, she had been experiencing how the other half lives, and she was far from certain that she liked it. Right now, though, she was sitting in one of the benches outside the school gates, waiting for the next bus to town, and reading her way through ‘Martial Arts Synchronised Swimming for Beginners’. It was just bizarre, she reflected, quite how many weird new martial arts the Japanese seemed to have developed in recent years, and how few she had heard of. “Although, I suppose I was raised in a bubble,” she thought to herself, realising quite how odd these Japanese people would have found her own Musk upbringing.
Herb shrugged inwardly, and returned to studying the book, hoping to find a technique that would enable her to deal with some of the problems of the younger of the Tendou sisters. If this book had no ideas she could use, there were quite a few others in the Martial Arts: Swimming shelves in the library. There must be something out there she could use.
As Herb sat there on the bench, pondering the chapter on the use of freshwater crocodiles (which looked interesting, but wildly impractical), she was joined by a couple of newcomers. At first glance, she thought it was a boy and a girl walking out together, but after a moment, Herb realised it was Haruka and her girlfriend Michiru, Haruka in a green man’s suit, Michiru in a charming pink-and-white floral print dress.
“Damn,” Herb thought, rather jealously, “Tenouh-san really carries off that bifauxnen look perfectly.” It was true – with her man’s suit and her short, boyish crop of blonde hair, the tall and rather willowy Haruka looked just like a beautiful boy. Herb knew she herself was too small and too feminine in appearance to have a chance too look like that.
“Hello girls,” Herb said, as pleasantly as she could, trying to keep any hint of jealousy out of her voice. “You do look nice today, I must say. Do you have something planned in town?”
“Good afternoon, Miss Jakou-Oucho,” the two girls said politely, then Michiru continued, “Haruka-kun is taking me for tea, and then we’re going to the cinema.”
Haruka nodded, then took the opportunity to check out Herb’s outfit as she offered her girlfriend a seat beside the teacher on the bench. Black boots, dark tights, pleated black miniskirt, white polo neck sweater – nice and tight, Haruka noticed with pleasure – and tasteful (and rather expensive looking) emerald ear rings with a matching necklace. Miss Jakou-Ouchou was clearly not afraid of being mugged for her jewellery, Haruka decided and, given that the woman taught martial arts, this was probably quite reasonable. On the whole, Haruka approved.
Haruka sat down on the bench between her teacher and her girlfriend, and took Michiru’s hand. “So, Miss, do you have a date in town too? You look very smart today,” she said, as innocently as she could manage.
Herb blinked in surprise. Did she look like a girl going on a date? As far as she knew, she was just following the old timer’s advice to take care of her appearance, not to appear sloppy or masculine. “Um, no…” she replied carefully, “I’m just going to town to pick up something I ordered before the start of term. No dates involved.”
Who would she date anyway? Anyone who was attracted to her girl side now wouldn’t be attracted to her boy side if she managed to change back. “When I change back,” she corrected herself mentally. “Not if. Not if at all.” She couldn’t afford to think like that.
---o0o---
Ranma eyed the witches’ brew with some alarm. She had had a lot of sub-standard food and drink when she had been a boy on the road with her father, and usually had consumed it with some relish. Akane’s tea, though, broke new barriers of undesirability. It was thick and brown, with the consistency of porridge and the odour of rotten vegetation. Ranma thought she was more likely to poke it with a stick than drink it, but Akane seemed insistent.
“Um, gosh, is that the time?” Ranma asked in desperation. “No time to sit around drinkin’ tea! We need to practice!” She leapt to her feet, evaded Akane’s attempt to catch hold of her arm and force the noxious drink upon her, and ran like the wind, not stopping until she was safe in the branches of a tree on the far side of the clearing.
“The school of Indiscriminate Grappling focuses on aerial combat,” the red-headed girl declared from her place of safety in the trees, “so we should start our training with some of those manoeuvres.”
Akane nodded. “All right, teacher!” She really didn’t like the look of the tea herself, if truth were to be told, but her pride really wouldn’t let her make that kind of admission to anyone else. Moreover, it wouldn’t stop her suggesting to others that they might like to try it. She lived in hope eternal that one day she’d make a meal that was less-than-lethal – or (and this was more likely) find someone with a stomach of cast steel who could survive one of her meals unscathed. This was clearly not that day, so Akane placed the kettle carefully on a stone by the fire, and walked towards Ranma, ready to spar.
Ranma hopped down from the tree, landing softly on a mossy rock below and adopted a guard position. “Show me what you’ve got, Akane-chan,” she commanded, beckoning the dark-haired girl to attack her with a flexing of the fingers of her outstretched hand.
Akane nodded and leapt to the attack. Ranma leapt too, intercepting her in mid-air. A split-second later Akane was flat on her back on the soft mossy ground, unable for a moment to understand quite how she had ended up there. She looked up to see Ranma leaning over her. “Are you goin’ to lie there all day, Akane-chan?” she asked, grinning mischievously.
“I get the feeling I’m going to spend a lot of time on the ground today,” Akane-chan grumbled as she got to her feet. “You have to show me how you did that, Ranma-chan – you were moving too quickly for me to follow,” she said, brushing a few fragments of moss from her yellow gi as she did so.
Ranma was pleased by the compliment, but didn’t want to seem to girly and gushing by thanking Akane. “Yeah, well, that was nothin’,” she said, feigning nonchalance, and then, thoughtlessly added, “You should see me and Pop goin’ at it.” When she realised what she had just said, her shoulders slumped and she felt again the pain of her loss. “Yeah, not that you will now…”
Akane put her hand on the smaller girl’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said, not really knowing what consoling words she could offer.
“Not your fault,” Ranma said, looking at the ground. “Let’s just forget about it and spar, ‘kay? I’ll show you that move,” she said, knowing that the best way to get rid of her incipient self-pity was to concentrate on something else.
Akane looked at her friend with concern. “Okay, but you know you can talk about it if you want to, right?” she asked, feeling a little hypocritical as she did so. There were so many things she didn’t want to talk about herself, after all.
“Yeah, I know,” Ranma said, adopting her guard stance as before, “but I can’t. Not yet, anyhow. Can we just spar?”
“Sure,” Akane said, and moved to attack. Once again, she ended up on her back, but this time with a little more inkling of why. And so, the two girls sparred on, Ranma training Akane all afternoon long in the sunlit mountain glade.
They were not alone, however. At the edge of the clearing, lying concealed in the shade of a large mossy rock, was a certain small black pig. At some point in the afternoon, Ryouga had come across the glade, and become distracted by the sight of the two sparring.
Like a lot of men, Ryouga didn’t think much of women’s sports, and especially not women’s martial arts. Females just didn’t have what it took to be proper fighters, and that was that, he thought. Still, it was nice to see some kenpo again, and these girls were certainly more capable martial artists than he was at present with his little piggy body - the dark-haired girl was also pretty cute, if it came to that. He didn’t like the look of the red-headed girl, though - there was something about her that caused him unease, a niggling little something worrying away at the back of his mind.
In the meantime, while he tried to remember just what was so suspicious about that red-head, there was always what looked like a nice pot of tea brewing over there, nice and hot on a rock by a small fire. Ryouga hadn’t had tea in a good long while, had almost forgotten what it tasted like.
The sparring girls didn’t notice the little pig come from out of the shade, and sneak over to the tea pot. They didn’t even notice as he gripped the handle in his teeth and bounced up and down to pour a little of the liquid into a waiting cup.
“I don’t remember tea being quite this colour,” Ryouga thought as he peered into the cup, “or smelling quite like this.” Oblivious to the danger, and heedless of the warning signs, he decided that it must be a special blend. He poked his snout into the cup and began to drink.
“Squee-glurkle!” Ryouga’s squeal of joy was cut off halfway through the first sip. The little pig flushed red, white, yellow, blue, green, and black and began to sweat profusely as a wave of nausea passed through him. He stiffened up and fell over backwards, clanging off the kettle noisily as he did so.
Ranma paid no attention to the noise; her keen martial artists’ senses filtered out all such harmless distractions. Akane had less refined combat senses, but a far better developed sense of cuteness than her partner. She looked away from Ranma, over to where Ryouga was now lying shivering in shock. “Time out!” she squealed, just in time to stop the red-head throwing and pinning her once more. “There’s some kind of sick animal over there.”
Akane ran across to where the black pig lay. Ranma followed at a slow amble, not seeing what all the fuss was about. “Looks kind of sickly, don’t he?” Ranma said, looking at Ryouga. “Do you think he tried to drink your tea?” she asked, looking at the incriminating cup.
Akane bristled at the slur against her tea-making skills. “How do you know it’s a he?” she asked, in an annoyed tone.
“Eh, girls don’t usually come equipped with those, y’know,” Ranma said, pointing to the tiny pig’s perineum.
“Oh, right,” Akane said, feeling a little embarrassed at her own display of cluelessness.
“Yeah, who needs Sex Ed classes now?” Ranma continued, oblivious to Akane’s scowling.
“Someone who also needs a good malleting,” Akane growled. “Now be quiet for a bit, and let me think what to do.”
Akane’s veterinary skills were no better developed than her culinary ones. Luckily for Ryouga she knew this very well. “I’m going to phone the school for help,” she said, fishing the tiny silver mobile phone from the pocket of her rucksack.
Akane flipped the phone open and looked at the tiny display. “Oh blow,” she said. “Ranma, my battery’s dead. Can I use your phone?”
“Eh?” Ranma said, looking a little surprised. “I don’t have one. Who the heck do I have to phone?” Actually, Ranma suspected that if she had her own phone, her mother would phone her constantly to micromanage her transition to femininity, and that was something she was happy to forego. The fact that every other teenage girl in Japan had one cut no ice with her.
“We’ll just have to carry the poor thing down the mountain and get him some help,” Akane said, looking at Ryouga with concern. “He’s someone’s pet, after all, and I’d feel rotten if I let him die.”
Ranma looked at her friend’s worried expression. “Yeah, I guess,” she said, unhappy at the prospect of losing so much training time, but knowing that saving the little animal’s life was important to her friend. “I guess we can take the direct route, though. That won’t take so long.”
“The direct route?” Akane asked, wondering what the red-headed girl meant by that.
“As the crow flies,” Ranma said, gesturing in the rough direction of the school, and the exact direction of the nearby cliff. “These hills are nothing much.”
Akane peered at Ranma suspiciously. “Are you crazy?” she asked, running her hands across the other girl’s head, looking for lumps. “Did you land on your head or something?”
“Nah,” Ranma said, boastfully. “It’s more martial arts training…” Actually, and to be specific, it was Genma Saotome’s Debtor-Avoiding Technique, but Akane didn’t need to know that.
“I don’t think so,” Akane said. “We’ll just take the normal route. I don’t want to have to take you to the hospital as well.”
---o0o---
It was getting towards the end of a long day’s search for Ami and Akari. There had been no sign of the little black pig, and the pair were now approaching the last port of call on their voyage of exploration. A small sign by the side of the road pointed down a tree lined path, just wide enough for a tour party coach. Ami looked at the freshly-painted sign. Last year, it had been the Cherry Blossom Café. Now the sign said : “Little Dragon Café – now under new management.” The picture of a big-eyed manga-style Chinese dragon accompanied the words.
“Pretty cute,” Akari said. Dragons weren’t really her thing, but the big puppy eyes did somehow remind her of an adorable pig. “I wonder who’s taken it over?”
“No idea,” Ami said with a shrug. “The only way to find out is to go and have a look, I suppose.” She walked past the sign and started down the short path to the café.
In most respects, the café was unchanged since Ami’s last visit before winter, apart from a fresh coat of paint on the buildings. The café itself was part of a larger building where the owner and their family lived and was placed at the side of a large terrace where visitors could eat and drink in the open air on fine days. Beyond that terrace was a small ornamental lake flanked by the craggy and wooded hillside of the Mount Horai.
Carp played beneath the shimmering waters of the lake, and insects above them. The terrace was a peaceful and reflective place for a refreshing cup of green tea after a day out on the mountain, but it was early in the season so far, and only a handful of customers were visible, nothing like the coach load or two that it could seat.
The area around the café seemed spotless. Akari slumped dejectedly. “Not much chance of finding my pig here,” she said, very unhappily. “We’re going to have to come out tomorrow as well.”
“Well, don’t fret, Akari-chan,” Ami said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. “Let’s go inside and get a cup of tea, and see if any of the people who work here have seen any sign of your pig.”
But Akari did not move. She appeared transfixed, staring wide-eyed at a spot high up on the hillside above the café. “Are you all right, Akari-chan?” Ami asked, looking at her friend with concern.
“Ooooh”, Akari squealed and pointed wide-eyed at a tiny dot of colour bouncing down the hillside. Ami looked in that direction, shielding her eyes with her hand and squinting to try and get a better look at whatever it was.
“Isn’t that Tendou-san from our year?” Ami asked finally, as the little dot of colour became two and finally resolved itself into human figures.
“I don’t know,” Akari said, sounding rather cheerful now, “but I think I recognise the pig she’s carrying.”

[Frog]

Glad to see the next chapter of this story. I was looking forward to it. Aside from a few minor spelling errors I didn't really notice anything wrong with this chapter. My only real complaint would be that I'm left wanting more, but that's become normal when it comes to this story. I look forward to the next chapter.
One question though. I can't check because the previous chapters arent in the forum anymore, but did Akari really get to see Ryoga's piglet form before? Because I can't recall such a meeting and her saying that she recognizes the pig comes across as a bit strange.

[Dragon Man]

Very nice. I shouldn't be surprised that Akane ruined the tea, but I am since I never really thought of it as cooking. I'm eager to see where Ryoga's affections go, to Akane or Akari? As for Herb, I'm eager to see what she ordered. I also wish her luck with teaching Akane how to swim.

[Prince Herb]

One question though. I can't check because the previous chapters arent in the forum anymore, but did Akari really get to see Ryoga's piglet form before? Because I can't recall such a meeting and her saying that she recognizes the pig comes across as a bit strange.

I think you're right - I'll have to change that line to make it fit.

[J. St.C. Patrick]

An enjoyable chapter, I'll echo Frog in saying that I'm left wanting more.
Just a few minor things I noticed:

It was going to feel odd to be training on her own, though, Ranma though.

thought.

She turned slightly to look over at the bookshelf where the stuffed panda sat next to her schoolbooks, its faced turned to the wall.

face

Akane rubbed her eyes and looked over at Ranma, instantly spotting the heavy looking rucksack that her room mate was trying to conceal behind her body.
“I’m not running away, or anything,” she said, trying to reassure her room mate.
Ami watched as her room mate packed her pig-shaped rucksack with all the items she would need for a pig recovery mission :
“Shall we get going, then?” she asked, but her room mate was already ahead of her, picking up her own rucksack and jacket, and heading for the door.

roommate

The smaller girl was bursting with energy now, hopping from rock to rock as she made her way up the steep mountain paths that led into the wilder areas of Mount Horai. Perhaps she had been subconsciously suppressing her natural exuberance at the school; at any rate she was now bouncing around like a rubber ball on a sugar high.

I like the image.

To make it proper training she really needed something like a pack of hungry wolves or enraged hornets pursuing her.

heh.

Okakura Tenshin would have admired the passion and energy Akane brought to the task, if not anything else. Certainly, he would have at least paused for a moment or two on seeing the amount of mud, bugs, and pondweed that went into the making of it, and the careless abandon with which she added handfuls of the precious leaves to the already pungent brew.

Iron Chef Akane strikes again.

Ami saw no reason to let her room mate keep fretting; the scenery, beautiful as it was could always with for another day.
“That was a kind thing you did, Ami-chan,” Akari said, smiling at her room mate.

roommate

As Herb sat there on the bench, pondering the chapter on the use of freshwater crocodiles (which looked interesting, but wildly impractical),

heh

“Damn,” Herb thought, rather jealously, “Tenouh-san really carries off that bifauxnen look perfectly.”

Thank you. You have increased my vocabulary today.

Still, it was nice to see some kenpo again, and these girls were certainly more capable martial artists than he was at present with his little piggy body - the dark-haired girl was also pretty cute, if it came to that.

kenpo or kempo? - you have it as the latter earlier on in the story.

The sparring girls didn’t notice the little pig come from out of the shade, and sneak over to the tea pot.

teapot

“Squee-glurkle!” Ryouga’s squeal of joy was cut off halfway through the first sip. The little pig flushed red, white, yellow, blue, green, and black and began to sweat profusely as a wave of nausea passed through him. He stiffened up and fell over backwards, clanging off the kettle noisily as he did so.

nice imagery.

Actually, and to be specific, it was Genma Saotome’s Debtor-Avoiding Technique, but Akane didn’t need to know that.

Do you mean debtor or debtee?
The debtor being the one who owes something to the debtee.
There you go. minor stuff as I said.
Do you have the other chapters posted somewhere?

[ranger5]

Most common usage would be to just use Creditor for the person owed and Debtor for the person owing.
Not sure I've ever seen Debtee used ... it's not in my "giant" Websters ... and my Black's is at work so I can't check there.
However it is certain that Debtor isn't the word you wanted there.
Nice chapter. Still wondering how the Ranma got locked and just what the relationship is between Akane & Ranma. They seem like friends ...but not sure how they got to where they are now.

[J. St.C. Patrick]

Creditor - that's the word I was trying to think of. Debtee is pretty obscure.

[Cyber_Skaarj]

Being that it's been so long since I last read this fic, before I even get to reading this chapter and commenting on it, would you mind poating a link to where I can find the rest so I can re-read it and refresh my memory on what's happened? I've tried searching on both ff.net and google, but I can't find the damn thing.

[Prince Herb]

That's because the only place you could find the older chapters was the old Temple site. I wasn't going to stick them up anywhere else until the 5th chapter was ready, which I suppose is now, so I shall get down to it.