'By Calm Water'
By Krimzonrayne no Akai Kou Hana and Rayne no Akai Hinageshi.
Chapter Three: All the eloquences of an equine
An example of an understatement would be that people have a knack for understatement, cause, didn't Einstein says something about there being only two things in the Universe which are constant… one being the speed of light in vacuum and another being human stupidity. And that he wasn't even sure about the former.
"I guess that settles it then." Kitsune said with a note of finality. The silver haired girl turned to the cute guy in the red Chinese T and smiled affectionately as she stood up.
"Well it's been a long day; I'm off to the bath." She announced before slinking off. As she passes Ranma, she leant over to him and whispered huskily into his ear. "You can join me if you want." Ignoring the outrageous look Naru and Motoko were giving her, Kitsune gave him a wink and scooted out of the living room.
As soon as her friend has left, Naru shifted her eyes back onto the handsome martial artist and blushed slightly. He looked like a more rugged and younger version of Mr. Seta, a Tokyo U's professor which she used to have a crush on. Sensing her attention, Ranma met her eyes and gave a small disarming smile that blew her away.
Poor Ranma, his goal has been to convince the tenants to let him stay. And if he know what he's doing to himself right then, he would definitely have strangled himself to prevent it.
Oh well, they did say hind sight is twenty, twenty.
Naru suppressed her blush and stood up. "I guess I'd better show you where you're sleeping." She said to Ranma, taking an extra care not to meet his eyes. It was bad enough that she blushes insanely whenever he smiles at her, she didn't need to be swooning on her feet as well.
Ranma followed suit and stood up after her. He was half way out of his seat when Motoko spoke out.
"Wait Naru-sempai." The swordswoman urged, rising from her seat slowly. Although she was still lightheaded from the cold and from having chased Keitaro around earlier, there was no mistaking the obvious attraction Naru and Kitsune has towards her brother. There's no way she'd let that happen, upperclassman and fellow tenant or not.
"You need not trouble yourself; after all, Saotome-san is my cousin. It would be my obligation to show him his place of rest for the night." She said, placing a hand on the dinner table to prop herself up. She gritted her teeth but didn't say anything even if her knees were about to give out under her.
"But Motoko-chan, shouldn't you be lying down or something?" Keitaro said. Motoko glared at him but this time his worry for her outweighed his fear of being launch into orbit and so he kept on going. "You're not helping yourself being up and about when you're sick like this."
"SICK!!!" Ranma cried out almost hysterically while the remaining occupants of the room sweat dropped. They could not believe this was the same man as the calm and collect martial artist who was practically exuding an air of confidant earlier. They watched on in slight wonderment as he rushed over to the stunned raven haired girl.
"Motoko-chan, are you all right? What's wrong? Will you be okay?!?!" The pig tailed boy fired off his questions in rapid succession at the poor girl, all the while shaking her back and forth like a rag doll.
"Pretty colors…" The kendo girl mumbled incoherently. Her eyes were spinning widely in there sockets and she was disorientated to say the least. "…oh swirlys…"
"Gah! She must be really burning up! She's delirious!" Ranma proclaimed, turning to the others who flinched as they backed away from the raving man. "Call the doctor!"
BONK!!!
"Let me go Saotome." Motoko said calmly, dropping the 'san' and glaring at him as she did so. Only once he allowed her to stand up on her own did she lower the sheathed sword that she smacked him with. She still held on to it of course, there's no telling when her bigger brother might go gah gah on her again.
"But Motoko-chan, you're…" Ranma began to interject but only to be cut off by the sword wielding girl. Not literally, of course, she wasn't quite strong enough to do that at the moment.
"I will be fine after a night of rest." She said cooling, still glaring at him as if she was daring him to argue with her. He didn't say anything but still to hold her gaze without backing down. He's Ranma Saotome after all, beside what kind of big brother would he be if he's afraid of his little sister?
Just as the air between them was about to ignite from all the tension, Keitaro cleared his throat nervously, breaking off the impromptu starring match.
"How about I show Saotome-san his room? After all, I'm the manager; it would be a part of my duty to do that anyway." He said slowly, looking back and forth between the two ersatz siblings.
Motoko opened her mouth then closed it again. She had wanted to protest at first but when she thought about it, there's no real reason for her to do that anymore. Beside, a futon was starting to sound wonderful right about then as well.
Now all that's left for her to do was…
"Naru-sempai," She called the brown haired girl over. "Would you care to join me for a few moments? I would like a word with you in private."
'There, done.'
She turned back to Ranma to give him one last glare before leaving the room.
Ranma sighed softly and followed her with his eyes. Darn it, why does she have to be so darn stubborn?
Oh the irony, it's too bad the pig tailed boy probably wouldn't get it even if someone came up to him and explained it in plain simple Japanese.
Shinobu Maehara introduced herself shyly, stuttering a bit but not too badly anymore. She didn't seem to be as afraid of him as she originally was. He guessed that's a good thing… but then again, it's always kind of hard to tell with him.
He glanced around the room in search for that rambunctious kid who was bouncing about a while back. The way she intoned 'playmate, playmate' earlier worried him a bit.
Finding no trace of her, Ranma turned to the only other male in the room and said nonchalantly. "I guess it's just me and you, huh?"
Keitaro shivered as a sudden chill swept down his spine.
He cautiously met the pig tailed boy's gaze. Expecting to find furious anger or cold malice, he was quite surprised to see that Ranma wasn't about to kill him any time soon.
Ranma smirked at the glassed man jovially, his eyes twinkling in merriment.
Still… it wouldn't do for Ranma to have a wrong impression of him. After all, if he's anything like Moto… Aoyama-san… if he's anything like Aoyama-san… it wouldn't be good for his health.
"Em, Saotome-san, about earlier…" The young manager began stammering his explanation about what happened earlier but he was abruptly cut off by Ranma.
"Say… weren't you about to show me to my room?" The martial artist said loudly, his voice overriding Keitaro's. Without giving him the chance to object, Ranma quickly ushered the older boy out the door. He gave Shinobu who was working in the kitchen a wave before following the manager out into the corridor.
"Saotome-san…?" Keitaro said nervously, wondering what the heck was going on.
Ranma shot him a deceptively sweet smile but didn't say anything in return. Not knowing what to do, Keitaro decided to leave the matter alone, if the man didn't want to bring it up then he saw no need to wake a sleeping dragon.
However, as they walked down the hall, he still kept sneaking glances at Ranma nervously. He was baffled by the younger boy's behavior… while on the roof, Keitaro was about lose control of his bladder from fright but now the pig tailed boy was acting all comfortable-like… as he was a different person…
Ranma, however, was enjoying the other guy's obvious distress. Sure he couldn't do anything big without pissing off Motoko-chan even further, but that didn't mean he couldn't do anything at all…
'Oho ho ho ho… huh?!?!'
Ranma suddenly dove to the side as his spider-sense tingled.
'Wait a second, I don't have spider-sense?!… Darn, I got to get that Spiderman's trailer thingie outta my head.'
His eyes flicked upwards just in time to caught sight of a blur flying over him. Ranma gulped; whatever it was, it would've caught him right on the neck, had he move a split second slower.
However, a certain two years ronin wasn't so lucky.
"Gackk!!!" Keitaro cried out as he took Kaolla Su's patented flying knee kick right on the kisser.
"Nice kid." Ranma deadpanned softly just loud enough for himself to hear.
The foreign girl blinked as she looked at the dazed looking manager beneath her.
"Keitaro? Dang I missed him." Kaolla muttered, soundly only slightly disappointed. She turned on her original target and narrowed her eyes at him. "How'd ya do that Ranma?"
"I was lucky?" The boy said teasingly, feigning innocence. Just as he'd predicted, Su didn't get all angry like a certain Tomboy would, instead she became very intrigued and quite taken with him. Ranma smiled, it seemed like he'd won over another one.
"Ranma's fun! Come on, come play with me." The young girl chirped cheerfully, scrambling towards said Ranma on all four like a playful dog.
Ranma dodged the flying tackle from her while trying to negotiate something out. "I'm sorry Su-chan, I need to get settled in first… How about I play with you later?"
Su looked at him thoughtfully for a moment before giving in. She chimed a loud 'Okie dokie!' and leapt away.
The pig tailed boy looked after her with a feeling of contentment. He'd seen her for a few minutes but he already knew he liked her. For him, Su was like a better version of Shampoo… she has all the Amazon's cheerful, vivacious energy, exoticism and none of her bad points… there's nothing complicate about her… playing with her was just simple and unadulterated fun, there was no string attach.
Ranma shook his head; this was not what he's here for, he'd better start paying attention to the matter at hand. Speaking of which…
He turned towards the guy who was picking on his little sister earlier and found him still slightly broken on the floor. He walked over the guy's prone form and gripped him by his collars. Then he began shaking.
"Are you alright, Keitaro?" Ranma asked with false sincerity. After all, it won't do if someone else saw him speaking rudely to the manager. No, that would ruin the whole illusion.
Muah ha ha ha.
Despite the fact that Ranma was shaking him back and forth like a sack of potato, Keitaro eventually recovered. After that he dazedly led Ranma up a flight of stairs and to one of the many vacant rooms.
Upon reaching their destination, Ranma took a look left and right, making sure no one was following them and promptly booted Keitaro into his room. The Tokyo entrance's exam flunkey gave a strangled cry as he landed nose first on the relatively solid tatami floor.
Ranma quickly closed the door behind them and walked menacingly over to the fallen manager who was eyeing him fearfully.
"S-Saotome-san…?" Keitaro intoned, his voice filled with dreads. He quickly scampered backward but the Anything Goes practitioner was faster. The pig tailed boy practically flew across the room and hoisted him up by the lapel before slamming him into the wall.
Gently, of course, Ranma didn't want him dead… yet.
Seeing that the other man was sufficiently cowed, Ranma spoke in a quiet voice that somehow carried a far more intimidating tenor than Motoko-chan's war cries.
"Alright Punk, listen and little closely, cause this will be the last time I'm saying this." He paused to make sure the other guy hasn't passed out or anything. "Stay the hell away from my little sister!"
"But I…" Keitaro tried to explain that it wasn't him who started the duel but his mouth stopped moving as soon as he saw what Ranma did.
What was it that Ranma did?
Well, he took one hand off of Keitaro and brought it up between the two of them before expending his 'ki' and summoned forth a ball of pulsating azure ball of blinding hot plasma… a inch from the young manager's nose…
It was far enough that it didn't affect him but close enough for him to feel the immense wave of heat radiating from it.
"…thought that Motoko-chan is your cousin." Keitaro finished lamely before snapping his jaw shut and swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
Ranma gave him the 'Do-I-look-like-I-care?' look and slowly lowered him back down to the ground, still keeping his grip on the man's collar however.
"Are we clear, Urashima-san?" He sneered at him evilly.
Keitaro nodded half a dozen times in a quick succession.
"Good." Ranma said simply before turning towards the door. Just as the young manager was about to let out a huge breath of relief, he quickly spun around and wagged a finger at the fallen man.
"Because I'll be watching you and if you do try anything…" He drifted off ominously.
Keitaro shook his head from side to side so quickly he thought his head was about to fall off. However, that didn't stop him from kept on shaking it until almost a minute after the boy had left.
Oh yes, after facing down ghosts, demons, mythical beings, a dragon descendent and a phoenix god, Ranma Saotome could be really scary when he wanted to be.
Motoko took in a deep breath and heaved her body up another step. She let loose a sigh upon seeing that it was the last one. Behind her was Naru-sempai, she was plodding up the stairs with a slightly dejected look on her face. Sure, she wanted to see to her friend well being and all that, but it's just a cold, right? She's missing out on some quality time with her Ranma for crying out loud!
The kendo practitioner looked over her shoulder at her dear sempai and frowned. Sure she was not familiar with all this romance stuff but even she could tell that there was something off about Naru-sempai, the girl has been blushing non stop since she'd first met Aniue, how obvious was that?
'Stupid Aniue, why did you have to grow up to be so handsome?' Motoko mentally grumbled.
Gack! Bad thought, bad thought… he's your brother dammit!
…
Okay, let's just pretend that that conversation never took place.
"Motoko-chan…?" Naru-sempai called out to the fever ridden girl, sounding slightly worried. Motoko-chan has always been really strong, how bad must her fever be to have caused her to walk right pass her room like that?
Motoko-chan seemed to have slowed down a bit, allowing the light brown haired girl to catch up with her. She steered the confused girl around and ushered into her room. Naru brought her to the futon and covers Motoko has left in disarray with her hasty departure earlier.
She tucked the sick girl in and sat down to watch over her with a contemplative look on her face.
What should she do? On one hand, she really, really wanted to know more about Ranma but at the same time, Motoko-chan, in her current condition, wasn't exactly up to playing twenty questions with her either. She didn't want to come across as interrogating the poor girl while she's sick or anything. Dilemma, dilemma…
"Alright, what is it?" A tired and annoyed voice interrupted Naru's musing.
"Huh? What did you say Motoko-chan?" Naru said in surprise. She looked at Motoko who was now sitting up on the futon with concern. "You should be resting Motoko-chan."
"I was trying to when a certain someone's constant muttering prevent me from doing so…"
Naru coughed nervously, looking away.
"I'm sorry for bothering you, Motoko-chan, it's just that your cousin is a very… interesting… person."
"That is alright Naru-sempai; I can understand your curiosity." Motoko said with resignation, she knew she'd be continuously pressed about this issue until she finally tell them about it, so she wasn't angry with Naru-sempai or anything… it just… couldn't they've waited one more day? Although, was it because she wanted to be well when she relay her story or because she wanted Ranma to be gone, she was not sure.
She sighed, oh well, it was best she get it over and done with.
"Please… ask whatever you wish." She told the older girl.
Naru has the decency to look slightly guilty but still… she wasn't about to let the opportunity goes to waste!
"Ahm… could you tell me a bit more about your cousin?" Naru asked somewhat hesitantly.
"As you know, Ani… Saotome-san is my cousin." Motoko started off slowly. "We first met when I was eight years old. He and his father, Genma, were on a martial artist's journey, traveling across the land to hone their skills and perfect their techniques."
"They stayed at our school for a couple of months as Ani… Ranma-san learned the basic swordsmanship. He quickly mastered those and the more advance ones as well. And…" Here, Motoko seemed strained… as if she had to force the words out of his mouth.
"…and eventually he moved on. He got what he was after and he moved on."
"After that, I have not seen or heard from him again for the last ten years. It wasn't until him and his mother, Aunty Nodoka, visited last New Years that I know he was still alive."
Naru blinked uneasily, she was sure there's a lot more to it than that but she'd respect Motoko-chan's desire for the matter to remain private… for now.
Seeing the look on the older girl's face, Motoko took a guess at what Naru-sempai wanted to ask.
"I have not been keeping contact with him since, therefore I have absolutely no idea what his taste in girl, cuisine or movie are. I cannot help you there, Naru-sempai."
Sufficient to say, she got it wrong.
"You know, I thought I'd never say this I a million year," Ranma pondered aloud to himself, trudging along what seemed like a foray of dense rainforest or a Brazilian jungle. "But, dammit Ryoga, I feel your pain."
Yep, Ranma Saotome, age eighteen, heir to the Anything Goes School of martial arts, fiancé of countless young women, arguably the most powerful martial artist in his generation … lost.
Lost as Ryoga in a one door room.
How the heck did he get himself into this situation anyway? It all started so innocently, first he complied with his promise to play with Su-chan then they decided to play tag. After agreeing to be 'oni' ('It' in Japanese Tag), he chased the young foreigner up and down the stairs for a bit, struggling not to lose sight of her. She was surprising fast, a heck of a lot faster than the pig tailed boy had expected.
The she disappeared into one of the room so he followed her into it as well.
Then he found himself in a jungle.
Ranma turned around a couple of times, trying to find some way of orientating himself before he get even more lost he already was. He was pretty sure he pulled a Ryoga and somehow left Hinata-sou… because there's no way there could be an rainforest inside a building, much less there being one on the second floor…
Right?
ROAR!!!
Ranma blinked as a big brown bear suddenly appeared in front of him. Without warning, it lashed out at him with its claws. It was the pig tailed boy's insane reflexes that saved him as he suddenly sprang backwards, out of the reach of the powerful claws.
Damn the thing was huge… He remembered seeing something about Alaskan Kodiak brown bears growing to the size of up to ten feet and weighing up to two thousand five hundreds pounds on the discovery channel when Nabiki was watching it to piss annoy off.
Hang on a sec, what's a Kodiak brown doing in Japan?
Shrugging those thoughts aside for the moment, Ranma dodged another furious swipe of the claws and retaliated with a jumping side kick.
CLANG!!!
Huh? What the heck was that? Since when did a bear go clang when he hits it?
The 'bear' took the kick badly and keeled over, hitting the ground with a loud mechanical clang once again. Ranma watched on, sweat dropping a little as tendrils of smoke began rise from its open mouth and ears.
Of course this hardly fazed him; after all, he'd been through much weirder stuffs in the past.
Self-destruct sequence initiated…3…2…1… Have a good day!
Or not…
KABOOM!!!
…
"Ack, gack gack… what the heck was that?" Ranma asked out loud after coughing a good lungful of sooths he'd inadvertently inhaled during the explosion. He slowly got up, feeling a bit relief that he was still alive.
The young martial artist's ears perked up, was that…? He quickly dove to the side once more as his danger sense suddenly went crazy. He wondered for whole split second whether it was just his imagination before a tell tale 'whoosh' passed by his raven locks.
'That exploding robot beat thingie was a distraction?'
He whipped his head back up and saw a familiar petite figure swinging by on a vine. One he recognized the pale blond hair and the tanned skin as Kaolla Su, his mouth curved up in a genuine smile.
That girl sure knew how to have fun. Too bad she's not quick enough to catch him off guard… for a second there he'd thought he'd found a decent AND fun challenge… oh well… it was too bad really…
SPLAT!!!
Ranma slowly reached up with a hand and scraped off the banana that went 'splat' against his face. His smile widened in glee, maybe there's hope after all.
"Su-chan!!!"
And with that the battle was joined.
(Half an hour later)
"Kaolla-san! Ranma-san!" Shinobu Maehara, the young chief of Hinata-sou, said urgently, knocking on the door leading to Su's room. She slowly slid the door opened, trying her best not to intrude whatever the two was doing. "Dinner is… ready?"
The reason her words kind of trailed off like that was because on the other side of the door were the two person she was seeking stuffing themselves at breakneck speed with bananas… mountains upon mountains of bananas.
"Aiam oot oozing! (I'm not losing!)" The pig tailed boy said through a mouthful of bananas.
"Aiam oot eider! (I'm not either!) Su said in much the same way in her accented Japanese.
They carried on along this same line for a few more pairs of bananas before both stopped their eating competition and turned to look at the newcomer, namely Shinobu. Su swallowed the half of the banana that was sticking out of her mouth whole and turned over to the young cooked.
"Ah Shinobu, whatcha doing here?" She asked her curiously.
"Ahm…I-I'm, t-that is, I-I came here to tell you that dinner is ready." Shinobu stammered out, looking back and forth between the two and the hem of her skirt. But her diffident was completely lost to the two gluttons…eh… food fanatics… em, I mean connoisseurs, yeah that's it, connoisseurs.
"Yay!" The two chorused, suddenly jumping up and began dancing as if they've been practicing for synchronization for a whole week.
"Food, food!" Su chanted almost zealously.
"Yeah, those bananas really got me hungry." Ranma chimed in his two cents.
The young Maehara looked at the two huge piles of banana peels by their side with only one thought in her mind.
Maybe she should've cooked up more food.
Dinner was a subdued affair at Hinata-sou that night.
Motoko, the resident swordswoman was absent due to her illness but that wasn't the course of the serious air which hung above them. No, the reason for that was because of a certain pig tailed martial artist.
"A-Are you okay Ranma-san?" Shinobu asked hesitantly, wondering why he was having trouble eating her food. It couldn't possibly be because her cooking was bad… could it?
Noooo!!!!
Unbeknownst to poor girl, that wasn't the case at all. Her cooking was great actually, almost up to par with Kasumi's heaven sent delicacies. Although, even if she was nothing more than an average cook, Ranma would've still be able to eat it with no trouble at all anyway… He wasn't picky… and heck, you'd probably be hard pressed to try to find a food that's worse than some of the stuff he had forced down his throat.
Ranma shivered, thoughts of Akane's cookings are NOT appetizing, no, they're in fact a lot closer to nightmarish to be honest.
In reality the reason for his difficulty with eating at the moment was quite opposite.
He's having trouble restraining himself to eating like a normal person.
"Would you like some more water?" Naru asked hopefully, relishing the idea of serving her new crush.
Ranma shook his head jerkily; he didn't want anymore worries right now. He slowly swallowed another mouthful of the heavenly food.
'Must. Eat. Slowly…. No matter how good the food is… ' He mentally reminded himself as he reached out slowly with his chopsticks and slowly took a strip of beef and slowly put it in his mouth and slowly chewed before slowly swallowed it.
'Oh god, this is torture.'
Just as he thought it couldn't get any worse Naru accidentally spilt her glass of water, sending a splash of gender altering liquid towards him!
"Oh wow! What a cool trick!" Kitsune cried.
"Yeah, I kinda picked it up in China." Ranma said carefully, trying to sound nonchalantly about it. His chopsticks were a single circular disk-shaped blur as he spun in like a helicopter rotor to deflect the incoming water.
Phew, that was a close one. If it wasn't for that weird prince who uses chopsticks, he would've been done for.
Finally deciding that it was far too dangerous for him to keep on staying at the table, Ranma, with great reluctant, stood up slowly and said.
"It's been a long day; I think I'm going to go check up on Motoko-chan one last time before turning in early." He announced morosely, still a bit miffed at having to leave all that yummy food. "Thanks for the meal, Shinobu-chan; it was really good."
Ignoring Kitsune's not so subtle hints at the possibility of him joining her far a late night clandestine later on in her room, Ranma made his way up to Motoko-chan room. He quietly slipped inside, being careful to disturb her rest. He moved across the tatami floor gracefully and without making a sound. He knelt down beside the slumbering girl and sighed softly.
"Motoko-chan…" He intoned softly, reaching out with his hand to brush aside a stray strand of hair that was draped across her otherwise tranquil face. "I miss you, you know that right?"
She continued to breathe in and out evenly, showing no sign of having heard his words.
"I'm sorry for leaving Motoko-chan…" He continued softly, resisting the urge to draw his little sister in for a tight embrace. He sat like that for almost ten minutes in silence before starting to get up to leave.
Just as he was sliding the door open, Motoko-chan began to toss and turn ever so slightly, causing him to turn around to look at her once more.
"No… don't go… Keitaro… my first love… please, don't leave…"
Ranma's eyes widened to the size of saucers… the flying kind.
The morning came like it usually does; its crimson rays roused the wearied mind of the residents of Hinata-sou… even one Motoko Aoyama.
Feeling a thousand times better than she was when she went to bed the previous night, the swordswoman was determined not to waste today as well. She quickly rose and changed before joining the other down below just as Maehara-san was about to bring out breakfast.
"Good morning Maehara-san. It seemed we have not been introduced properly the day before due to my sickness." She said formally but in a warm tone nonetheless.
"T-That's okay Motoko-san, you were ill, there's nothing to it." Shinobu said, still stammering slightly at talking to the tall girl.
Motoko smiled, it seemed she and Maehara-san would get on well after all. She walked over to the table and took her usual seat. Looking around she was beginning to realize that something was amiss.
"Where is my cousin, Saotome-san?" She asked casually, trying not to sound too concerned about his whereabouts.
"Oh I'm sorry Motoko-chan but your stud of a cousin, Ranma-kun, left this morning while you were still asleep." Kitsune answered, sounding slightly annoyed at missing her chance to snag one of the biggest catch she'd seen all year.
"Oh…" Motoko intoned, sounding subdued and disappointed.
'He did not even say goodbye.'
She stared down at her plate thoughtfully, picking at her food for a while before placing her chopsticks across her rice bowl.
"If there is no other matter which require my attention, please excuse me, I need to go practice." She said curtly, rising out of her seat.
"Actually I almost forgot, we're having a new tenant," Naru-sempai said suddenly. "She's coming over today too."
"I see," Motoko said with disinterest. She should be more polite about it but right now she could not bring herself to do so. Still…
"What is her name?" She asked, trying to sound like she cared.
"Naoko Tendo, I think."
Author's note: OH NOES!!! What are you doing? You're ruing it by bringing in a Mary Sue OC!?!?
… God, if any of you are going like that then you're a buncha idiots… seriously…
Anyway, a cookie to you if you can guess who 'Naoko' is. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out anyway. And no, it is not an original character.
So… how did you guys find the chapter? A heck of a lot more plot advancement than the last chapter huh? Please make me feel appreciated by reviewing in kind… cause 1st chapter reeled in more review than the last one… and I'm still feeling slightly unsure of how I'm doing…
Whatever! Enough rambling about my fragile ego… I should just go get a spinal replacement and be done with it.
Still… review please.
p.s. is it just me or are most, if not all, OCs turns out to be Mary-Sue or Self-Inserts? I mean, seriously, it's so hard to find a decent OC these days.