Demonic Halo [Momo, Ranma]

”… Eh?” How’d he forget the name? Wait, he just tried to make his own spell right now – he thought he could, but maybe… Hinamori-sensei had a point. There was a fancy, funny Kidō plum spell right in front of him, ripe for use! But it did leave him wondering…

“Names sure have a lot of power.”

Good thing that she warned him against eating the Kidō plum, too. “Aww… understandable. It looks very juicy and tasty, though,” he sighed sadly, but he didn’t want to mess his mouth up even more than it was now. He was still wearing the damn bandages around his own teacher… oh yeah, he should probably take them off.

Gently unwrapping the bandages, Ranma expressed his comfort in her homely abode and revealed the cut that gave him the potential for a ghastly grin – akin to urban legend of some sort of ‘slit-mouthed woman’, he too was quite slit-mouthed. It looked like he’d tried to swallow a sword, and the blade cut through each side of his cheeks in the attempt.

“Aaaaaaalright, get in the Reishi plum, four-eyes,” he warned the target dummy before chanting the name, “Ume no Ki no Inkan… yeeeeeees, wrap him up in a plum, my precious Reishi…”

Ranma’s Reishi poured out, manifesting 8 orbs emitting a strong light. Kidō plum seal… it was like wrapping up a giftbox! With that in mind, he maintained his focus and manipulated the orbs to surround and circle around Four-Eyes until they unearthed themselves as spiritual ribbons. Great! He could go so far now…

But the ribbons had trouble shrinking the target. “Mnngh… I can wrap it in Reishi, but shrinking it is…”

Watching with interest as he went about his work, Momo would glance at Ranma briefly. He’d come along so far in such a short space of time that she’d have to say that he was one of her most determined students. Failure seemed to just bounce off of him and he was so quick to get up and have another go if something went awry. It was rather inspiring in truth and Momo wished she’d had more of that gumption in the past. Oh, she had it now in spades as what could anyone do to her now that would be more painful than what she’d already dealt with? The time in that dark abyss had in the end, only made her stronger as a person.

“You’re doing well.” She called out to him as he struggled. “You have the basics down, now just focus on precisely what you wish to do. Think about him as an enemy if it helps you and it most certainly does me. He’s an enemy to everything we know and everyone we love. Think about that as you cast.”

Giftbox… usually, you used ribbons and not balls to wrap up giftboxes. Why was he using orbs, again? I mean, Hinamori-sensei used them with ease, but he still remembered that this was a whole-ass broad school of Kidō, and he still remembered her words…

Expert Kidō needed just as much mental strength as it needed spiritual. How could he strengthen his mentality right now? By thinking! Thinking as much as he possibly could! Think until his thinkbox was cranking!

The Thinkbox:

Without warning, Ranma cast his next attempt: “Ume no Ki no Inkan!” The orbs that emerged from his palms darted forward, but they stretched in length mid-way and turned into long ribbons that wrapped around the four-eyed target. “… Ume… umeeeeeeeee, uh… Umetsugen!”

It wasn’t exactly a plum tree that he had in mind, so he figured he could use an altered name to reel his focus in. Clapping his hands together, he poured all of his mental focus into shrinking and reducing the target’s size by squeezing the ribbons wrapped around him, watching the spirit ribbons formed as rings contract around the entire target’s form until it looked like a shrinking… was that a honeycomb, but ball-shaped? It had shrunk, but it didn’t really have the plum-shape that he aimed for – was it because he changed the name? But the name had ‘ume’ in it!

“… That’s not a plum. That’s- that’s- that’s like a honey-ball thing…”

A bright smile crossed Momo’s face as he once again attempted to put his own spin on her technique. He was certainly rather bold when it came to such things but that was exactly what the dark haired woman wanted to see. Regular chants and the same old spells weren’t going to cut it anymore if he wanted to increase his Kido prowess and to see him so eager to try something of his own design was precisely the right attitude. Momo honestly thought that he had the potential to go far. Maybe she should be looking over her shoulder?

He was successful in his attempt and Momo clapped her hands as a form of congratulations as he did so, proud of his effort. “You did fantastically well there and it seems as though you have him nicely sealed away. In order to undo the seal, you simply have to focus your will upon the object that you’ve imprisoned him and infuse it with your spiritual energy. It’ll work like a key and let him out.”

Turning to the Kido plum that was now on the ground, she’d give him an example, focusing her energy upon it. After a few moments, the seal would burn away, returning the white haired target without a scratch.

With a chuckle, she’d turn to Ranma. “That’s your next task. You’ve managed to imprison your enemy, now let him out.”

Umetsugen… Plum String Ring? Halo? Plum String Halo! Plum Halo!

… The ’plum’ in the name didn’t have a lot of cool factor to it, though, but he couldn’t tell Hinamori-sensei. She seemed to like plums, even though… what she said earlier…

But hey! He made a honey-ball-thing! Great… and Hinamori-sensei confirmed it, too, so he must’ve done it right! With that size, he could definitely convince himself – four-eyes was totally gone. So… yeah… he didn’t at all think about unsealing and stuff until his sensei brought it up, which prompted a giant question mark to pop out from above his head.

Infuse his will and spiritual energy into the seal… so it was like a key? A spiritual key that he would set into the seal to unlock it again? How was he supposed to manifest that? Was it something you were to do by instinct? Intuity? He didn’t see himself as the best with intuit stuff. “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I’ll try…”

The lack of visual object to open the seal with was tough, but he followed her like a shadow. Turning towards his weird, volleyball-shaped seal, he stretched his palm out and focused… and focused…

…

His Reiryoku was pouring out towards the seal, but the whole ‘open it’ thing was much harder. Holy shit, it was much harder. Ranma had a subconscious desire to just keep it closed, so opening it again was like… going against his nature and shit. “Nggghh- wait wait, gimme a moment, I think I got it… uhm…”

“Try to visualise there being a lock on the seal and that you’re unlocking it with a key. That’s what I do most of the time. Keep it simple.” Momo answered, feeling the spike in his spiritual pressure as he attempted to complete his task. It was no great surprise that he was struggling a bit and to be honest she’d have been shocked if he’d mastered it on his first try. He’d reached the fun parts of Kido in Momo’s opinion but with that came a great deal more difficulty.

As he worked, her eyes would fall upon the target of Toshiro, a devious smirk crossing her face for a moment as she tapped into her own prowess. Rather than seal it away though, Momo would simply withdraw her zanpakuto and fire another ball of flame towards it, causing the target to fly across the garden, little more than a charred husk. It always amused her when she did that and the dark haired woman reckoned that it was time that she tried to improve her zanjutsu soon. It had been too long.

A key… he was thinking more like a chip, or a keycard, or something like that. A normal key would do. It was still somewhat difficult to shape with just his Reiryoku, but the seal had to be opened somehow.

Still, seals were trickly. While Ranma was feeling his way towards finding the ‘lock’ that this seal should have, his eyes darted to the side as Hinamori-sensei let off some steam by shooting the white-haired midget dummy down with a fireball…

Honestly, it was a bit unsettling. That guy must’ve really pissed her off. He wasn’t an ex, was he? Was he her bully? No no no, she said he was… uhhhh… based on the white haori, he was a Captain- wait, did she serve under him? Was he a shitty Captain? “Uhm…” Ranma found it difficult to bring out the right words in response to her unwinding, but hey, the seal began to open!

“H-Hey, now we’re talking! C’mon, honey-ball, ooooooooooopen up…”

… A terrifying reality would hit him upon watching the seal open up again – the ribbons forming the seal hadn’t shrunk the dummy down enough. It… it just looked like it ‘cuz the ribbons tightened around it so hard that- so he hadn’t actually sealed it! The realization was too much for him, and he fell flat on his butt on the grass as a result. The dummy was squashed. “… O-Oooooooooh nooooooooo… I thought I had it…”

…

…

…

“… Let’s try again, then! I got all day!”

He already forgot about Shura. Too bad, he hadn't told Hinamori-sensei anyway.

Smiling at his eagerness, Momo would click her fingers, causing not only the Toshiro but the puppet Ranma had attacked to return to their pristine forms. It would appear as though they’d never been attacked and the reason why would soon be clear as they would briefly glow with spiritual energy, as though they had regeneration. That wasn’t quite the truth but the ex Lieutenant had realised a long time ago that she was going to need something to repair her poor targets.

Noticing she still had her zanpakuto out, Momo would return it to her hip. “Oh, erm, just practising a little. If I was taught anything during the attack it’s that I need to get back to using Tobiume again. Something didn’t feel quite right and I reckon it’s because of lack of use. We still talk all the time though.”

Focusing back on the task at hand, she’d add. “Anyhow. If you’re ready to try again then be my guest. Let’s see what you’ve learned from your first attempt.”

Okay, let’s try this again… man, Hinamori-sensei was potent. She could just restore those dummies like nothing! However, her comment about her Zanpakutō put things into perspective – maybe she was an expert in Kidō, but… he could rival her in Zanjutsu? “It’s all good. I wanna achieve Bankai, too, one day,” he agreed with a bopping head full of air and energy.

Still, back to the task at hand. Remember, it was a seal, SEAL! He was supposed to seal four-eyes in, not squash it. “Umetsugen,” Ranma chanted, and the yellow, bright ribbons shot out of his palms once more, this time taking their sweet… well, time to circle around the target.

If he was shrinking the inanimate dummy object, then he needed to dig deeper into the core function of seals as Hinamori-sensei had showcased. That was their bread and butter, right? So once the ribbons spun faster, he could feel it… the force of his Reiryoku, his Reiatsu to be exact, impacting the dummy and making it smaller.

…

And voila! After clapping his hands together, he smushed the ribbons and formed another volleyball-looking honey ball of light. Plum String Ring… or Plum String Halo. He would come up with a better name later. “H-Hey, I got the hang of it… EEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAASY,” Ranma jubilated as he went to pick up the honeyball-

Was it even a honeyball? I don’t know, he looked at the orb – about ball-sized, made of yellow bands of bright Reishi binding it together, not in chaotic wrings but in horizontal levels… honeyball.

“It looks like a sports ball…”

“Easy, hmm?” Momo replied, raising an eyebrow at Ranma as he celebrated his success. She was just teasing him of course and soon enough she smiled as well. “You did an excellent job there and anyone you manage to trap inside your seal will have a heck of a time getting out. Bear in mind though that against opponents with greater spiritual pressure than your own, the odds of it working will decrease and they’ll find it to escape if they’re captured too.”

Approaching him and glancing at the orb, she’d then smirk at him. “Now that you’ve captured him, you know the next part, right? It’s time to have another try at undoing your work. If you can pull it off and bring the puppet back out without doing any damage to it then you’ll be more than ready to go out into the world and make all the sealing spells you want.”