*Appears from the aether* Look who's back! Now you're going to get Senpai too, you who do not...
Senpai: A Story of Good Friends [Ranma ½]
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Chapter 1/?
*Appears from the aether* Look who's back! Now you're going to get Senpai too, you who do not wish to go to SB or... that other site...
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 1/?
If there was one thing that Katie Izland didn't like, it was a bully. Back when she was in grade school, she'd been bullied by kids in her class by the common grade school thugs who stole lunch money, shoved kids in lockers, and dumped pencil shavings on heads. It wasn't a good time for her at all, especially at that point in her young life–but don't get it twisted at all, while her experience wasn't great, theirs was awful when she was done with them.
A lesson Katie took from that traumatic point in her life was that when you knowingly messed with and provoked someone stronger than you and you got your ass handed to you on a silver platter for it, it was no one else's fault but your own. If you could learn your lesson and change your ways though, you had a chance at being a better person. If you kept doing it? You were beyond pity. It was this lesson that brought Katie to the following conclusion:
98% of Furinkan High School's male student body were irredeemable subhumans.
It was the fourth day in a row that the American transferee had to watch this sad display of lust and desperation take place in the front yard of the school–of a literal army of boys from first to third year armed with any weapon they could find getting ready to attack and be destroyed by a girl who the jackass top dog of the school said would date any of them provided they could beat her.
Apparently that wasn't exactly what he said, but these desperate losers interpreted it as such. Not that it stopped him, of course; apparently he got off on said walking war zone's brutality and would try to flatter her with praise of her prowess–before she destroyed him too. In fact, there he was at the back of this latest round of rabble, practicing the line he would try to woo the girl with after she demolished this crowd.
The object of their collective obsession had not arrived yet, but she was coming. Despite her being constantly at odds with these guys and having to crush them all every morning, she wasn't going to let them get in the way of her getting an education. Why would she? Even on the first day of this she mowed them all down before the bell could ring. She was either that good, or these guys were that weak. Either way, it was embarrassing to watch once, and yet here they all were for the fourth time, ready to do this again.
Four times was too many, the rule was after the third time you rethought your life choices and maybe tried something other than the same stupid thing. Unfortunately, the wrecking ball of a girl who tore through them, for all of her strength, was clearly too nice to leave them with lasting injuries. Which obviously translated to her opponents thinking that if they just worked a little harder, they'd win. It was the wrong lesson to take from it.
Katie had no qualms against the girl for going easy on 'em, she understood why she wouldn't want to actually maim any of them perfectly, but she also knew that if this kept up these idiots would probably be willing to go at this for weeks until it just became some twisted tradition that would never stop. Something had to be done before it came to that, she didn't come all the way to Japan just to be stuck in a shitty school full of guys who don't realize how rapey they were acting.
So, with that in mind, the tall, black haired girl with bright green eyes rolled her shoulders and began to make her through the crowd of spectating girls and somewhat smarter boys–the precious 2% who knew better–towards the front of the group of malcontents. It was pretty easy for her to move through the crowd, at 179cm she was taller than a lot of the boys, and the moody, intimidating aura of her foreignness combined with the flat, disinterested look she had on her face most of the time parted the more timid and polite without her having to ask.
Once past the onlookers, she made a line straight for the front gate, walking along the wall until she reached it. A glance to her left allowed her to catch sight of the girl in question, a cute girl with long dark hair walking with her slightly taller, bob-cut sporting older sister. Even from this distance, she could see that the girl of the hour was looking pretty agitated.
A glance to her right saw the slavering crowd, of young men from various clubs and groups readying weapons and psyching themselves up. Today was the day, some of them told themselves, one of them would do it. One of them would beat her and get to go on a date with her, it was the easiest way to a girl's heart they'd ever dreamed of!
Katie sighed and stopped, turning to face the group of idiots. Seeing her step forth, the horde of boys grew confused and stared at her. It wasn't like they didn't know who she was, the foreign transfer student from northwest America stood out like a sore thumb, being almost as tall as Kuno and emanating an aura of "Fuck off" that intimidated even the "AFY" wankers who worshipped everything red, white, and blue.
"Hey, you guys," she said in eloquent Japanese unexpected of a foreigner, "Don't you think this has gone on too long?"
|Good Grief…|
Akane Tendo woke up as she did every day for the last three days, ready to punch every boy on Earth. Over the course of them, she had to fight almost the entire male student body of her school because that idiot Tatewaki Kuno had mouthed off that only a man who could defeat her would be able to date her without getting his shit kicked in by Kuno.
Of course, a bunch of guys who were hot for Akane literally took that as "If you can beat Akane, then she HAD to go on a date with you" and here she was, with her knuckles still kind of raw from all the punching she had to do yesterday, getting ready to work over the same crowd of idiots again just so she could go to class.
Her morning routine, once such a pleasant thing, was now corrupted with her unbridled anger at immature boys who would gladly take any shortcut to get a girl to date them that didn't involve actually asking a girl out. She got dressed, knowing that these guys saw her as property to win, rather than a human being. She ate her breakfast, comfortable in the fact that these boys were content with physically harming the same person they'd want as a girlfriend. She walked to school, understanding that if it weren't for the fact that she was 100% straight and in love with a kind, if somewhat silly man over twice her age, she would dive into the first lesbian relationship offered to escape boys forever.
"Ugh, there they are, the stupid boys," Akane growled angrily at the sight of the waiting crowd.
Beside her was Nabiki Tendo, who totally did not harbor resentment towards her younger sister for turning the boys she once happily flirted with and dated off and on into slavering idiots who wouldn't give her the time of day because of "easier" odds in her younger sister.
"Well, you can't fault them for being determined," Nabiki pointed out.
"Yes I can," Akane shot back, not noticing the tall dark-haired girl who walked out in front of the crowd. "They're just going to keep coming, and coming, until one of them actually beats me."
Which would be never, even holding back Akane could lay them flat one-by-one with a one-hitter quitter and still be done with a crowd of over seventy in under a minute and a half. More to the point, even in the highly unlikely chance of one of those randos landing a lucky knock out blow, she wouldn't date him at all. In fact, the moment he showed up at her figurative or literal doorstep to cash in, she'd stomp him even harder.
"Why are they even obsessed with me? It's not like someone's selling pictures of me to give them something to work for."
"Oh my, someone would have to be a stone-cold money-loving bitch with a jealous streak a mile wide to be so petty," Nabiki dryly said.
Akane looked ahead, ready to take on the horde, when she saw that a different situation was brewing at the gate to the school. The tall dark-haired girl she hadn't noticed before was now fully noticed, and she seemed to be saying something to the boys. "What's going on there?"
Up ahead, Katie continued right from where she left off at the break. "It's been three days of this, and it's pretty obvious you're not gonna beat her. So why don't you give it a rest?"
She was expecting a more hostile response to her intervention–maybe someone calling her a filthy foreigner and telling her to mind her own business, maybe someone brusquely shoving her aside so they could get to the object of their desire. However, they all did neither; the only response she got from them was a slack-jawed stare that told her they were all having difficulty comprehending the words she said.
At the front, a boy in a karate gi was the one to finally say what was on all of their minds. "You want us to… stop?"
It was Katie's turn to be confused, how could they not understand her? Ten years of Japanese lessons did not let her down. "Yeah, she's not going to want to date any of you."
"Not until we beat her!" One enterprising young man said.
"Yeah!" A few others chorused.
"No, I mean, even if you beat her-" Katie tried to emphasize.
"Well, she has to. That's what Kuno said," an enterprising young boxer pointed out.
"No, if we beat her, then we have permission to ask her out, that's what Kuno said," a fencer clarified, receiving quite a few nods of agreement.
Katie needed the moment to process that one, this time around. "Wait, what?"
"You have to understand," said the boy in the gi, "Kuno-senpai is way stronger than all of us. If any of us tried to date Akane without his clearance, then he'd beat the crap out of us."
Katie stopped for another moment, before she resumed. "So let me see if this scans… the reason you're all lining up to get your shit pushed in is because you think you have better odds of beating her than you do Kuno?"
There were a lot of nods from the group.
Oh, this made this so much easier. Here she thought she was going to have to beat up all of these losers, it turned out she only had to bust open one asshole. Taking a deep breath, she called out. "Hey! Kuno!"
The crowd of boys parted immediately, Old Testament Biblically, revealing the tall and suave figure cut by one Tatewaki Kuno. He had heard the voice of a woman call him out, in a tone more befitting of a lout seeking challenge, and when he saw that it was the new foreign girl who'd darkened the halls of his school just days before, his intense eyes narrowed… intensely.
"Is there something that you request of the undisputed and undefeated champion of the High School Kendo circuit, I, Tatewaki Kuno?" He said as he began to walk towards the her, the wooden sword he carried in his right hand held low.
"Yeah," Katie said, "I'm going to ask you to leave that Akane girl and all of these guys alone, or I'm going to break your arms."
Kuno stopped, his eyes flying wide at the threat leveled at him by this foul-toned woman. "I beg your pardon?"
The threat similarly surprised the gathering students. Did the transfer really think she was going to go up against the strongest guy in school?
"I said: I am going to break your arms if you keep this shit up," Katie said. "These guys don't need your permission to ask anyone out, and if you're going to terrorize them into terrorizing some girl, then you need your arms broken, asshole."
Behind Katie, Akane and Nabiki came to a stop when they saw that the foreigner was getting into an escalating exchange with Kuno.
"That's the transfer in your class," Akane said, "What's she doing."
"It looks like she's calling Kuno out," Nabiki said.
"Why?" Akane frowned. "He's going to beat her to a pulp…"
"Maybe," Nabiki murmured as she pulled out a camera phone. "I wonder if I'll be able to upload this to that American site, Worldstar."
Kuno closed his eyes and let out a smooth laugh. "I see… your ignorance of our noble culture shall be forgiven, as you are from America. However, your insults towards my person shall not pass so easily! Apologize for your insolence!"
"Culture?" Katie replied. "I don't think even from a cultural standpoint that it's okay for a piece of shit with a sword to start telling total strangers who they can or can't date. You're not some shogun, you're just some guy with middle school fantasies that he didn't get over."
The other students winced, while one whistled, and another went "Oooooh…" in sympathetic pain. If there was one thing anyone didn't address, it was the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room that was Kuno's self-styled delusions of being a noble samurai that would be pathetic if not for the fact that he could smash through concrete with the air displaced by a swing of a wooden sword.
A nerve was deeply touched with Kuno, naturally. "Even when shown mercy, you continue this foolishness. Well, let it be said that I, the Shooting Star of Furinkan High School, did not give you fair warning!"
"Welp, she's dead," Nabiki quipped.
Both hands gripping his bokken, Kuno shot straight for Katie, sword raised above his head. "I STRIKE!"
"Oh no," Akane murmured as she tensed to act. She could handle Kuno just fine, she was stronger than most nearly everyone in the school, but Kuno was still a monster. She dropped her bag aside and prepared to dive in to intercept the attack, block it, or something–but it was too late, as a very loud crack sounded that silenced the schoolyard.
A well-known myth of Muay Thai is that practitioners of the sport increase the power of their devastating kicks by repeatedly kicking a sturdy tree over and over, until their legs were so strong that the tree eventually succumbed to the power of the practitioner's mighty tibia. The truth is far more mundane, with the so-called sturdy tree being the soft and malleable wood of the banana tree, which eventually evolved into the heavy kicking bags more popularly known inside the sport.
That said, with repeated kickings of a training bag, eventually through ossification repairing tiny fractures created by the impact, one's leg bones do get tougher, harder to break. This is important, especially in the case of Katie, who had delivered a roundhouse kick that connected her tibia into Kuno's left arm with tremendous force.
The crack that silenced schoolyard was the Shooting Star of Furinkan High School's humerus snapping like a dry twig on impact.
Kuno didn't even get flung that far. Heck, he didn't even get knocked off his feet. When he missed, and she landed her kick, he just stumbled on his feet, his eyes wide and watering as the pain of having his arm clearly smashed to pieces registered through even his thick skull.
Unharmed entirely in the exchange, or rather oblivious to the pain of hitting someone that hard with her leg–another well-known benefit of the kicking training–Katie lowered her leg as the students all around her recoiled to a chorus of "EHHHH?!"
"Did… did she just break Kuno's arm?" A very much disbelieving Akane asked as she stared, stunned at the violence.
Nabiki, ever the unflappable, continued to film.
Katie turned to Kuno, who had let go of his sword with his left hand and–to his merit–was holding in that overwhelming impulse to start screaming and crying in pain. He kept his head bowed, his well groomed hair hiding his face, as he tried his ardent best to play cool the pain he was in… it was not working.
"So, that's one arm, asshole. Ready to lose the other one for a while?" She asked.
"You… you…!" Kuno spat out, as he focused all of his energy, all of his pain, into gripping his trusted bokken so tight the wood splintered. He then took a deep breath and turned around, his face streaked with tears, snot, and sweat but still looking completely calm and composed.
"You think that merely crippling an arm will stop the majestic ace of Furinkan High School?" He said coolly.
"Not really," she replied as she entered a loose fighting stance, "That's why I said I was going to break them both."
Nabiki looked over to Akane. "So uh, weren't you going to stop this?"
Akane had picked up her bag, and was just watching intently now. "No, this is fine."
Panting loudly, trying to focus on anything but the pain, Kuno was just too stubborn to cut his losses, and brandished his sword. "The only thing being shattered, is you… you… American… harlot!"
He staggered towards her, each shift of his arm causing flashes of pain that blurred his vision momentarily, either from the agony or the tears that were forced out. "I am the chosen hero… of this school… the strongest sword…"
"Whatever," Katie said with a casual eyeroll.
"I will not… fall this day…!" He declared as he turned his stagger into a lunge, bokken held up and behind him to swing down with maximum force. "I WILL SLAY YOU, INVADER-!"
Katie watched his sword come down as she moved out of its path to catch him by the forearm, which she guided down, down, and down, so that her rising knee met his arm right at the elbow. After the immediately following snap, even Nabiki winced.
"Oh, arms do not bend that way," she said.
Akane looked a little green. "That one does."
Katie let Kuno go, and stepped back, letting him stand there, his whole body shaking. In his agony he foamed at the mouth, trying his darnedest to try to focus on his opponent and having little luck. Due to the pain he could only really do one thing at a time, and what he was trying to do now was not scream and break down crying.
Other students, not at all expecting this outcome, actually began to feel sorry for Kuno. Not surprisingly, most of them were from the Kendo Club, as one such young man called out to him in clear distress. "Captain! Oh no!"
Another student, a girl, called Katie out. "Y-you didn't need to do that to Kuno-senpai!"
"Ew… he looks like he's going to pass out standing up," a third student called over the growing rabble.
"You… you're going to pay for this!" That was certainly another member of the kendo club.
Katie snorted, and turned away from them to Akane. "Hey, uh… Tendo, right?"
Akane jumped when she suddenly had her attention. "Eh, yes?"
Katie hooked a thumb at Kuno. "Do you think I went too far?"
Akane stared at the foreign girl, then looked at Kuno still foaming at the mouth, and then back to the girl. She did this a couple more times, almost calmly contemplating her answer, before she stated it succinctly.
"No."
Katie nodded and rolled her right arm, to loosen kinks that probably weren't even in it. "Great. That's all I wanted to know."
She turned around to face her audience, ostensibly to lay down the new law as it were, but instead found herself facing Kuno as he was in the middle of picking up his bokken in his teeth and standing upright. As he stood tall, he took in a deep breath and began to scream, howling loudly as he bit down on the bokken like one would a strap of leather while being amputated in the old days.
"OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Katie blinked. "… Uh."
She looked back to Akane and Nabiki, who were staring at this new development with matching blank expressions. "Hey, does he think he can turn super saiya-jin or something, too?"
"This is new, actually," Nabiki admitted. Hilarious, too.
"He's just trying not to give away that he's crying. He did this when I beat him in a kendo match, too," Akane flatly added.
The same kendoist who promised revenge to Katie gaped in awe at the Kendo Club Captain's sudden rush of determination. "Captain… even in his state, he's showing his true power!"
"Go Kuno-senpai!" Another kendo club member called out, as others began to cheer him on.
"I! FIGHT! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!" Kuno screamed in pain, going for as loud and forceful as he could to not sound like he was bawling his eyes out like a child. "I WILL SHOW YOU… THE TRUE POWER OF THE PROUD KUNO BLOODLIIIIIINE!"
Katie watched him with a mix of bemusement and disinterest. "Okay."
Digging his heels into the ground, and his teeth into his bokken, Kuno crouched and sprang off, to charge straight for this evil, vile woman and plunge his bokken square into her heart with the power of his love, his anger, and all of his sorr-
Katie's knee collided full force with his chin, snapping the bokken, shattering his jaw, and interrupting completely the narrator's dramatic description of Kuno's intent.
"Why don't you just," Katie said as her kneecap ground against his smashed face, "FUCK…!" She then released the pent up potential energy, completing the full motion of her knee and launching Kuno. "OFF?!"
The recoil of her blow caused her to perform a backflip, as Kuno–a trail of condensation rings around a trail behind him–smashed into the clock at the center of the school's tower and hitting the bell behind it with a loud, warped clang followed by an uncomfortable grinding of gears.
The schoolyard was quiet again, as Katie landed on her feet and dusted off her uniform's skirt. Letting her hands hang limp at her sides, she looked at the group of students staring at the hole in the building where Kuno had gone, and waited. Sure enough, one by one all eyes returned to the foreign girl who just made an embarrassment out of who had been once the undisputed lord of the school, and this time around nobody talked shit.
"She… she put him through the school's clock," a student in the crowd murmured in amazement.
"Is he dead?" Another student asked.
Everyone waited and listened. Sure enough, they could hear a high-pitched whine of pain from a man too durable to avoid being knocked unconscious, but not durable enough for when it it counted.
"Oh okay, he's not. This is still a comedy!" The same student said in relief.
Akane walked over to Katie, cautiously entering her field of view. When she noticed her, the taller girl turned her head and glanced down at her. "Sup?"
"You're really strong," Akane stated.
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "I'd better be, 'else all that martial arts training was a huge waste of time and money."
She looked back up at where Kuno's legs dangled out of the school. "Like with that guy; he should really start looking for a refund."
"Wait, hang on," one of the boys part of the horde of Akane's would-be suitors said, "Does this mean we can ask Akane out on dates like normal people now? We don't have to do this fighting thing anymore?"
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "I guess? It's not like he's going to be kicking anyone's ass anytime soon, but uh… I don't think that's even going to help you at this point."
Before any of them could ask, Akane laid it out quite plainly for them. "I wouldn't go out with any of you if my life depended on it!"
Almost every boy in the group suddenly turned titanium white with Akane's words.
"Why would I want to date any of you, after you guys attacked me every morning for the last three days?!"
A bit of color actually appeared, a faint blue shade appearing on their foreheads and descending down their faces.
"You think that I'd give you the time of day, when I had to put up with you shouting at me to go out with you, while you were swinging for my face?!"
A dark, gloomy cloud now appeared over their heads, weighing down their shoulders and forcing their heads down in shame.
"None of you are even that strong! Even if I did like boys–which I don't–I WOULDN'T DATE WEAKLINGS LIKE YOU!"
Katie immediately looked in Akane's direction her eyes lighting up with interest at her declaration. On the other end of the verbal assault, what had once been a fair large percentage of the male student body were now extras for a zombie apocalypse film. Realization had properly dawned, that in their desperation to get Akane's attention and be able to ask her out without being killed by Kuno, they had poisoned the well that was her opinion of them, ensuring that none of them would ever get a chance to date her… or perhaps any girl if word got out that their idea of courtship was to physically assault someone.
"Now get out of my sight, you losers!" Akane yelled at them.
They obeyed, completely cowed, and one by one began to listlessly walk towards the front doors of the school. There was no hope for them, no light. Any and all romantic aspirations for all of them were dashed with their irrational decisions. There would never be a springtime of their high school days, or real love and companionship to look forward to. All that was lost forever, in lieu of a dark, lonely future surrounded by plastic figurines and posters of unattainable fictional representations of women, warmed only by the light of computer generated wives programmed to worship them but feel nothing.
And Akane couldn't imagine a more fitting punishment for them.
Nabiki sighed in annoyance. Either this was going to be very good, or very bad for her business, and she really didn't like economic uncertainty.
"Well, that's all squared away," Katie said as she dusted off her hands. "I can now go back to enjoying some peace and quiet."
As she began to walk away, however, Akane called to her. "Excuse me, Izurando-san?"
Katie stopped and looked back at Akane. "Sup?"
Akane bowed deeply to the foreign transfer girl. "You didn't have to do it, but you stepped in and helped me with these guys. So, thank you."
Katie waved it off. "Nah, it was no big deal. You're a really nice girl, and those boys had no business picking on you." She shrugged her shoulders after. "Besides, it's been a while since I got a chance to actually fight a dude, so…"
"Um, I've seen slaughterhouses that gave the cows a fairer fight." Nabiki hadn't actually, but the sheer one-sidedness of that beating warranted the comparison.
Akane was a little flattered by Katie's compliment. "Oh, um… thank you for that as well, uh…" She then brightened a bit. "Did you want to have lunch together? I want to know how you were able to kick Kuno that hard."
Nabiki raised an eyebrow, as Katie gave Akane a probing glance, and then put on a small smile herself.
"Sure, you don't mind eating lunch on the roof, do you?" She asked Akane.
Akane shook her head. "No, that's fine."
Katie smiled, a little broader and reached out to give Akane the V-sign. "Cool. I'll see you then."
With that, Katie turned and began walking back to the school along with the rest of the dispersing students. As they watched her go, Nabiki looked over to Akane, who was now looking a lot happier than she had for a few days.
"She's really cool, isn't she?" Akane asked Nabiki.
Nabiki shrugged her shoulders. "Eh, she's all right I guess? Let me know when a hot guy comes along."
Akane huffed noisily at that. "A hot boy? Here? If I ever meet a hot boy, that'll be the day I'm engaged to one!"
"ACHOO!"
The sneeze of a sixteen year old Japanese boy in a karate gi with brown eyes and dark hair ending in a tightly-braided pigtail made his father and their tour guide, both middle aged, folically challenged men, jump.
Sniffling loudly, Ranma Saotome brought his fingers to his nose. "Aw geez, I hope I'm not coming down with a cold."
"Don't you worry, son," his father, Genma Saotome, declared, "These springs will cure all that ails you even as we train."
Ranma sniffled again and shivered. The air here was kind of chilly, for a place that was supposed to be a spring. "I hope so, it don't feel like no hot spring though, Pop."
"It not hot-spring, honored guests, it cursed spring. Very dangerous, you no want to fall in," their tour guide warned them in his very basic Japanese.
"Whatever," Genma said, dismissing the tour guide. "Even if they're not hot springs. There's nothing that a good workout won't cure!"
Ranma, however, had caught that last bit. "Wait, what about not falling in?"
"Don't worry about it," Genma insisted. "Besides, that's the whole point of this training, you won't fall in."
The two of them looked ahead, at the cursed pools of the Jusenkyo Springs spread out before them.
"Trust your old man, son. Nothing will go wrong."
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 1/?
|Right and Wrong Lessons|
If there was one thing that Katie Izland didn't like, it was a bully. Back when she was in grade school, she'd been bullied by kids in her class by the common grade school thugs who stole lunch money, shoved kids in lockers, and dumped pencil shavings on heads. It wasn't a good time for her at all, especially at that point in her young life–but don't get it twisted at all, while her experience wasn't great, theirs was awful when she was done with them.
A lesson Katie took from that traumatic point in her life was that when you knowingly messed with and provoked someone stronger than you and you got your ass handed to you on a silver platter for it, it was no one else's fault but your own. If you could learn your lesson and change your ways though, you had a chance at being a better person. If you kept doing it? You were beyond pity. It was this lesson that brought Katie to the following conclusion:
98% of Furinkan High School's male student body were irredeemable subhumans.
It was the fourth day in a row that the American transferee had to watch this sad display of lust and desperation take place in the front yard of the school–of a literal army of boys from first to third year armed with any weapon they could find getting ready to attack and be destroyed by a girl who the jackass top dog of the school said would date any of them provided they could beat her.
Apparently that wasn't exactly what he said, but these desperate losers interpreted it as such. Not that it stopped him, of course; apparently he got off on said walking war zone's brutality and would try to flatter her with praise of her prowess–before she destroyed him too. In fact, there he was at the back of this latest round of rabble, practicing the line he would try to woo the girl with after she demolished this crowd.
The object of their collective obsession had not arrived yet, but she was coming. Despite her being constantly at odds with these guys and having to crush them all every morning, she wasn't going to let them get in the way of her getting an education. Why would she? Even on the first day of this she mowed them all down before the bell could ring. She was either that good, or these guys were that weak. Either way, it was embarrassing to watch once, and yet here they all were for the fourth time, ready to do this again.
Four times was too many, the rule was after the third time you rethought your life choices and maybe tried something other than the same stupid thing. Unfortunately, the wrecking ball of a girl who tore through them, for all of her strength, was clearly too nice to leave them with lasting injuries. Which obviously translated to her opponents thinking that if they just worked a little harder, they'd win. It was the wrong lesson to take from it.
Katie had no qualms against the girl for going easy on 'em, she understood why she wouldn't want to actually maim any of them perfectly, but she also knew that if this kept up these idiots would probably be willing to go at this for weeks until it just became some twisted tradition that would never stop. Something had to be done before it came to that, she didn't come all the way to Japan just to be stuck in a shitty school full of guys who don't realize how rapey they were acting.
So, with that in mind, the tall, black haired girl with bright green eyes rolled her shoulders and began to make her through the crowd of spectating girls and somewhat smarter boys–the precious 2% who knew better–towards the front of the group of malcontents. It was pretty easy for her to move through the crowd, at 179cm she was taller than a lot of the boys, and the moody, intimidating aura of her foreignness combined with the flat, disinterested look she had on her face most of the time parted the more timid and polite without her having to ask.
Once past the onlookers, she made a line straight for the front gate, walking along the wall until she reached it. A glance to her left allowed her to catch sight of the girl in question, a cute girl with long dark hair walking with her slightly taller, bob-cut sporting older sister. Even from this distance, she could see that the girl of the hour was looking pretty agitated.
A glance to her right saw the slavering crowd, of young men from various clubs and groups readying weapons and psyching themselves up. Today was the day, some of them told themselves, one of them would do it. One of them would beat her and get to go on a date with her, it was the easiest way to a girl's heart they'd ever dreamed of!
Katie sighed and stopped, turning to face the group of idiots. Seeing her step forth, the horde of boys grew confused and stared at her. It wasn't like they didn't know who she was, the foreign transfer student from northwest America stood out like a sore thumb, being almost as tall as Kuno and emanating an aura of "Fuck off" that intimidated even the "AFY" wankers who worshipped everything red, white, and blue.
"Hey, you guys," she said in eloquent Japanese unexpected of a foreigner, "Don't you think this has gone on too long?"
|Good Grief…|
Akane Tendo woke up as she did every day for the last three days, ready to punch every boy on Earth. Over the course of them, she had to fight almost the entire male student body of her school because that idiot Tatewaki Kuno had mouthed off that only a man who could defeat her would be able to date her without getting his shit kicked in by Kuno.
Of course, a bunch of guys who were hot for Akane literally took that as "If you can beat Akane, then she HAD to go on a date with you" and here she was, with her knuckles still kind of raw from all the punching she had to do yesterday, getting ready to work over the same crowd of idiots again just so she could go to class.
Her morning routine, once such a pleasant thing, was now corrupted with her unbridled anger at immature boys who would gladly take any shortcut to get a girl to date them that didn't involve actually asking a girl out. She got dressed, knowing that these guys saw her as property to win, rather than a human being. She ate her breakfast, comfortable in the fact that these boys were content with physically harming the same person they'd want as a girlfriend. She walked to school, understanding that if it weren't for the fact that she was 100% straight and in love with a kind, if somewhat silly man over twice her age, she would dive into the first lesbian relationship offered to escape boys forever.
"Ugh, there they are, the stupid boys," Akane growled angrily at the sight of the waiting crowd.
Beside her was Nabiki Tendo, who totally did not harbor resentment towards her younger sister for turning the boys she once happily flirted with and dated off and on into slavering idiots who wouldn't give her the time of day because of "easier" odds in her younger sister.
"Well, you can't fault them for being determined," Nabiki pointed out.
"Yes I can," Akane shot back, not noticing the tall dark-haired girl who walked out in front of the crowd. "They're just going to keep coming, and coming, until one of them actually beats me."
Which would be never, even holding back Akane could lay them flat one-by-one with a one-hitter quitter and still be done with a crowd of over seventy in under a minute and a half. More to the point, even in the highly unlikely chance of one of those randos landing a lucky knock out blow, she wouldn't date him at all. In fact, the moment he showed up at her figurative or literal doorstep to cash in, she'd stomp him even harder.
"Why are they even obsessed with me? It's not like someone's selling pictures of me to give them something to work for."
"Oh my, someone would have to be a stone-cold money-loving bitch with a jealous streak a mile wide to be so petty," Nabiki dryly said.
Akane looked ahead, ready to take on the horde, when she saw that a different situation was brewing at the gate to the school. The tall dark-haired girl she hadn't noticed before was now fully noticed, and she seemed to be saying something to the boys. "What's going on there?"
Up ahead, Katie continued right from where she left off at the break. "It's been three days of this, and it's pretty obvious you're not gonna beat her. So why don't you give it a rest?"
She was expecting a more hostile response to her intervention–maybe someone calling her a filthy foreigner and telling her to mind her own business, maybe someone brusquely shoving her aside so they could get to the object of their desire. However, they all did neither; the only response she got from them was a slack-jawed stare that told her they were all having difficulty comprehending the words she said.
At the front, a boy in a karate gi was the one to finally say what was on all of their minds. "You want us to… stop?"
It was Katie's turn to be confused, how could they not understand her? Ten years of Japanese lessons did not let her down. "Yeah, she's not going to want to date any of you."
"Not until we beat her!" One enterprising young man said.
"Yeah!" A few others chorused.
"No, I mean, even if you beat her-" Katie tried to emphasize.
"Well, she has to. That's what Kuno said," an enterprising young boxer pointed out.
"No, if we beat her, then we have permission to ask her out, that's what Kuno said," a fencer clarified, receiving quite a few nods of agreement.
Katie needed the moment to process that one, this time around. "Wait, what?"
"You have to understand," said the boy in the gi, "Kuno-senpai is way stronger than all of us. If any of us tried to date Akane without his clearance, then he'd beat the crap out of us."
Katie stopped for another moment, before she resumed. "So let me see if this scans… the reason you're all lining up to get your shit pushed in is because you think you have better odds of beating her than you do Kuno?"
There were a lot of nods from the group.
Oh, this made this so much easier. Here she thought she was going to have to beat up all of these losers, it turned out she only had to bust open one asshole. Taking a deep breath, she called out. "Hey! Kuno!"
The crowd of boys parted immediately, Old Testament Biblically, revealing the tall and suave figure cut by one Tatewaki Kuno. He had heard the voice of a woman call him out, in a tone more befitting of a lout seeking challenge, and when he saw that it was the new foreign girl who'd darkened the halls of his school just days before, his intense eyes narrowed… intensely.
"Is there something that you request of the undisputed and undefeated champion of the High School Kendo circuit, I, Tatewaki Kuno?" He said as he began to walk towards the her, the wooden sword he carried in his right hand held low.
"Yeah," Katie said, "I'm going to ask you to leave that Akane girl and all of these guys alone, or I'm going to break your arms."
Kuno stopped, his eyes flying wide at the threat leveled at him by this foul-toned woman. "I beg your pardon?"
The threat similarly surprised the gathering students. Did the transfer really think she was going to go up against the strongest guy in school?
"I said: I am going to break your arms if you keep this shit up," Katie said. "These guys don't need your permission to ask anyone out, and if you're going to terrorize them into terrorizing some girl, then you need your arms broken, asshole."
Behind Katie, Akane and Nabiki came to a stop when they saw that the foreigner was getting into an escalating exchange with Kuno.
"That's the transfer in your class," Akane said, "What's she doing."
"It looks like she's calling Kuno out," Nabiki said.
"Why?" Akane frowned. "He's going to beat her to a pulp…"
"Maybe," Nabiki murmured as she pulled out a camera phone. "I wonder if I'll be able to upload this to that American site, Worldstar."
Kuno closed his eyes and let out a smooth laugh. "I see… your ignorance of our noble culture shall be forgiven, as you are from America. However, your insults towards my person shall not pass so easily! Apologize for your insolence!"
"Culture?" Katie replied. "I don't think even from a cultural standpoint that it's okay for a piece of shit with a sword to start telling total strangers who they can or can't date. You're not some shogun, you're just some guy with middle school fantasies that he didn't get over."
The other students winced, while one whistled, and another went "Oooooh…" in sympathetic pain. If there was one thing anyone didn't address, it was the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room that was Kuno's self-styled delusions of being a noble samurai that would be pathetic if not for the fact that he could smash through concrete with the air displaced by a swing of a wooden sword.
A nerve was deeply touched with Kuno, naturally. "Even when shown mercy, you continue this foolishness. Well, let it be said that I, the Shooting Star of Furinkan High School, did not give you fair warning!"
"Welp, she's dead," Nabiki quipped.
Both hands gripping his bokken, Kuno shot straight for Katie, sword raised above his head. "I STRIKE!"
"Oh no," Akane murmured as she tensed to act. She could handle Kuno just fine, she was stronger than most nearly everyone in the school, but Kuno was still a monster. She dropped her bag aside and prepared to dive in to intercept the attack, block it, or something–but it was too late, as a very loud crack sounded that silenced the schoolyard.
|The Breaker|
A well-known myth of Muay Thai is that practitioners of the sport increase the power of their devastating kicks by repeatedly kicking a sturdy tree over and over, until their legs were so strong that the tree eventually succumbed to the power of the practitioner's mighty tibia. The truth is far more mundane, with the so-called sturdy tree being the soft and malleable wood of the banana tree, which eventually evolved into the heavy kicking bags more popularly known inside the sport.
That said, with repeated kickings of a training bag, eventually through ossification repairing tiny fractures created by the impact, one's leg bones do get tougher, harder to break. This is important, especially in the case of Katie, who had delivered a roundhouse kick that connected her tibia into Kuno's left arm with tremendous force.
The crack that silenced schoolyard was the Shooting Star of Furinkan High School's humerus snapping like a dry twig on impact.
Kuno didn't even get flung that far. Heck, he didn't even get knocked off his feet. When he missed, and she landed her kick, he just stumbled on his feet, his eyes wide and watering as the pain of having his arm clearly smashed to pieces registered through even his thick skull.
Unharmed entirely in the exchange, or rather oblivious to the pain of hitting someone that hard with her leg–another well-known benefit of the kicking training–Katie lowered her leg as the students all around her recoiled to a chorus of "EHHHH?!"
"Did… did she just break Kuno's arm?" A very much disbelieving Akane asked as she stared, stunned at the violence.
Nabiki, ever the unflappable, continued to film.
Katie turned to Kuno, who had let go of his sword with his left hand and–to his merit–was holding in that overwhelming impulse to start screaming and crying in pain. He kept his head bowed, his well groomed hair hiding his face, as he tried his ardent best to play cool the pain he was in… it was not working.
"So, that's one arm, asshole. Ready to lose the other one for a while?" She asked.
"You… you…!" Kuno spat out, as he focused all of his energy, all of his pain, into gripping his trusted bokken so tight the wood splintered. He then took a deep breath and turned around, his face streaked with tears, snot, and sweat but still looking completely calm and composed.
"You think that merely crippling an arm will stop the majestic ace of Furinkan High School?" He said coolly.
"Not really," she replied as she entered a loose fighting stance, "That's why I said I was going to break them both."
Nabiki looked over to Akane. "So uh, weren't you going to stop this?"
Akane had picked up her bag, and was just watching intently now. "No, this is fine."
Panting loudly, trying to focus on anything but the pain, Kuno was just too stubborn to cut his losses, and brandished his sword. "The only thing being shattered, is you… you… American… harlot!"
He staggered towards her, each shift of his arm causing flashes of pain that blurred his vision momentarily, either from the agony or the tears that were forced out. "I am the chosen hero… of this school… the strongest sword…"
"Whatever," Katie said with a casual eyeroll.
"I will not… fall this day…!" He declared as he turned his stagger into a lunge, bokken held up and behind him to swing down with maximum force. "I WILL SLAY YOU, INVADER-!"
Katie watched his sword come down as she moved out of its path to catch him by the forearm, which she guided down, down, and down, so that her rising knee met his arm right at the elbow. After the immediately following snap, even Nabiki winced.
"Oh, arms do not bend that way," she said.
Akane looked a little green. "That one does."
Katie let Kuno go, and stepped back, letting him stand there, his whole body shaking. In his agony he foamed at the mouth, trying his darnedest to try to focus on his opponent and having little luck. Due to the pain he could only really do one thing at a time, and what he was trying to do now was not scream and break down crying.
Other students, not at all expecting this outcome, actually began to feel sorry for Kuno. Not surprisingly, most of them were from the Kendo Club, as one such young man called out to him in clear distress. "Captain! Oh no!"
Another student, a girl, called Katie out. "Y-you didn't need to do that to Kuno-senpai!"
"Ew… he looks like he's going to pass out standing up," a third student called over the growing rabble.
"You… you're going to pay for this!" That was certainly another member of the kendo club.
Katie snorted, and turned away from them to Akane. "Hey, uh… Tendo, right?"
Akane jumped when she suddenly had her attention. "Eh, yes?"
Katie hooked a thumb at Kuno. "Do you think I went too far?"
Akane stared at the foreign girl, then looked at Kuno still foaming at the mouth, and then back to the girl. She did this a couple more times, almost calmly contemplating her answer, before she stated it succinctly.
"No."
Katie nodded and rolled her right arm, to loosen kinks that probably weren't even in it. "Great. That's all I wanted to know."
She turned around to face her audience, ostensibly to lay down the new law as it were, but instead found herself facing Kuno as he was in the middle of picking up his bokken in his teeth and standing upright. As he stood tall, he took in a deep breath and began to scream, howling loudly as he bit down on the bokken like one would a strap of leather while being amputated in the old days.
"OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Katie blinked. "… Uh."
She looked back to Akane and Nabiki, who were staring at this new development with matching blank expressions. "Hey, does he think he can turn super saiya-jin or something, too?"
"This is new, actually," Nabiki admitted. Hilarious, too.
"He's just trying not to give away that he's crying. He did this when I beat him in a kendo match, too," Akane flatly added.
The same kendoist who promised revenge to Katie gaped in awe at the Kendo Club Captain's sudden rush of determination. "Captain… even in his state, he's showing his true power!"
"Go Kuno-senpai!" Another kendo club member called out, as others began to cheer him on.
"I! FIGHT! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!" Kuno screamed in pain, going for as loud and forceful as he could to not sound like he was bawling his eyes out like a child. "I WILL SHOW YOU… THE TRUE POWER OF THE PROUD KUNO BLOODLIIIIIINE!"
Katie watched him with a mix of bemusement and disinterest. "Okay."
Digging his heels into the ground, and his teeth into his bokken, Kuno crouched and sprang off, to charge straight for this evil, vile woman and plunge his bokken square into her heart with the power of his love, his anger, and all of his sorr-
Katie's knee collided full force with his chin, snapping the bokken, shattering his jaw, and interrupting completely the narrator's dramatic description of Kuno's intent.
"Why don't you just," Katie said as her kneecap ground against his smashed face, "FUCK…!" She then released the pent up potential energy, completing the full motion of her knee and launching Kuno. "OFF?!"
The recoil of her blow caused her to perform a backflip, as Kuno–a trail of condensation rings around a trail behind him–smashed into the clock at the center of the school's tower and hitting the bell behind it with a loud, warped clang followed by an uncomfortable grinding of gears.
|Senpai|
The schoolyard was quiet again, as Katie landed on her feet and dusted off her uniform's skirt. Letting her hands hang limp at her sides, she looked at the group of students staring at the hole in the building where Kuno had gone, and waited. Sure enough, one by one all eyes returned to the foreign girl who just made an embarrassment out of who had been once the undisputed lord of the school, and this time around nobody talked shit.
"She… she put him through the school's clock," a student in the crowd murmured in amazement.
"Is he dead?" Another student asked.
Everyone waited and listened. Sure enough, they could hear a high-pitched whine of pain from a man too durable to avoid being knocked unconscious, but not durable enough for when it it counted.
"Oh okay, he's not. This is still a comedy!" The same student said in relief.
Akane walked over to Katie, cautiously entering her field of view. When she noticed her, the taller girl turned her head and glanced down at her. "Sup?"
"You're really strong," Akane stated.
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "I'd better be, 'else all that martial arts training was a huge waste of time and money."
She looked back up at where Kuno's legs dangled out of the school. "Like with that guy; he should really start looking for a refund."
"Wait, hang on," one of the boys part of the horde of Akane's would-be suitors said, "Does this mean we can ask Akane out on dates like normal people now? We don't have to do this fighting thing anymore?"
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "I guess? It's not like he's going to be kicking anyone's ass anytime soon, but uh… I don't think that's even going to help you at this point."
Before any of them could ask, Akane laid it out quite plainly for them. "I wouldn't go out with any of you if my life depended on it!"
Almost every boy in the group suddenly turned titanium white with Akane's words.
"Why would I want to date any of you, after you guys attacked me every morning for the last three days?!"
A bit of color actually appeared, a faint blue shade appearing on their foreheads and descending down their faces.
"You think that I'd give you the time of day, when I had to put up with you shouting at me to go out with you, while you were swinging for my face?!"
A dark, gloomy cloud now appeared over their heads, weighing down their shoulders and forcing their heads down in shame.
"None of you are even that strong! Even if I did like boys–which I don't–I WOULDN'T DATE WEAKLINGS LIKE YOU!"
Katie immediately looked in Akane's direction her eyes lighting up with interest at her declaration. On the other end of the verbal assault, what had once been a fair large percentage of the male student body were now extras for a zombie apocalypse film. Realization had properly dawned, that in their desperation to get Akane's attention and be able to ask her out without being killed by Kuno, they had poisoned the well that was her opinion of them, ensuring that none of them would ever get a chance to date her… or perhaps any girl if word got out that their idea of courtship was to physically assault someone.
"Now get out of my sight, you losers!" Akane yelled at them.
They obeyed, completely cowed, and one by one began to listlessly walk towards the front doors of the school. There was no hope for them, no light. Any and all romantic aspirations for all of them were dashed with their irrational decisions. There would never be a springtime of their high school days, or real love and companionship to look forward to. All that was lost forever, in lieu of a dark, lonely future surrounded by plastic figurines and posters of unattainable fictional representations of women, warmed only by the light of computer generated wives programmed to worship them but feel nothing.
And Akane couldn't imagine a more fitting punishment for them.
Nabiki sighed in annoyance. Either this was going to be very good, or very bad for her business, and she really didn't like economic uncertainty.
"Well, that's all squared away," Katie said as she dusted off her hands. "I can now go back to enjoying some peace and quiet."
As she began to walk away, however, Akane called to her. "Excuse me, Izurando-san?"
Katie stopped and looked back at Akane. "Sup?"
Akane bowed deeply to the foreign transfer girl. "You didn't have to do it, but you stepped in and helped me with these guys. So, thank you."
Katie waved it off. "Nah, it was no big deal. You're a really nice girl, and those boys had no business picking on you." She shrugged her shoulders after. "Besides, it's been a while since I got a chance to actually fight a dude, so…"
"Um, I've seen slaughterhouses that gave the cows a fairer fight." Nabiki hadn't actually, but the sheer one-sidedness of that beating warranted the comparison.
Akane was a little flattered by Katie's compliment. "Oh, um… thank you for that as well, uh…" She then brightened a bit. "Did you want to have lunch together? I want to know how you were able to kick Kuno that hard."
Nabiki raised an eyebrow, as Katie gave Akane a probing glance, and then put on a small smile herself.
"Sure, you don't mind eating lunch on the roof, do you?" She asked Akane.
Akane shook her head. "No, that's fine."
Katie smiled, a little broader and reached out to give Akane the V-sign. "Cool. I'll see you then."
With that, Katie turned and began walking back to the school along with the rest of the dispersing students. As they watched her go, Nabiki looked over to Akane, who was now looking a lot happier than she had for a few days.
"She's really cool, isn't she?" Akane asked Nabiki.
Nabiki shrugged her shoulders. "Eh, she's all right I guess? Let me know when a hot guy comes along."
Akane huffed noisily at that. "A hot boy? Here? If I ever meet a hot boy, that'll be the day I'm engaged to one!"
|Qinghai Province, China|
"ACHOO!"
The sneeze of a sixteen year old Japanese boy in a karate gi with brown eyes and dark hair ending in a tightly-braided pigtail made his father and their tour guide, both middle aged, folically challenged men, jump.
Sniffling loudly, Ranma Saotome brought his fingers to his nose. "Aw geez, I hope I'm not coming down with a cold."
"Don't you worry, son," his father, Genma Saotome, declared, "These springs will cure all that ails you even as we train."
Ranma sniffled again and shivered. The air here was kind of chilly, for a place that was supposed to be a spring. "I hope so, it don't feel like no hot spring though, Pop."
"It not hot-spring, honored guests, it cursed spring. Very dangerous, you no want to fall in," their tour guide warned them in his very basic Japanese.
"Whatever," Genma said, dismissing the tour guide. "Even if they're not hot springs. There's nothing that a good workout won't cure!"
Ranma, however, had caught that last bit. "Wait, what about not falling in?"
"Don't worry about it," Genma insisted. "Besides, that's the whole point of this training, you won't fall in."
The two of them looked ahead, at the cursed pools of the Jusenkyo Springs spread out before them.
"Trust your old man, son. Nothing will go wrong."
Last edited:
Chapter 2/?
Chapter 2!
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 2/?
"Muay Thai, Karate, Systema, Northern Mantis Style, Taekwondo, and Capoeira," Katie said to Akane on the roof of the school, after being asked the question as to what martial arts she'd been trained in. "I also know some Italian Fencing and picked up a little Kendo. Other than that, everything I do nowadays is stuff I pick up watching other artists…"
Akane, who was enjoying the bento lovingly prepared by her eldest sister, was surprised to hear the lengthy resume of her new friend. "All of that? You must be a regular battle maniac."
"I'm not, really," Katie said, "I have an uncle who's a battle maniac, he used to fight in wars and stuff. He convinced my Mom and Dad that training me would be a good hobby to keep my nose clean."
She couldn't help a suggestive snicker after that, which Akane missed. "So every summer he'd pick me up and we'd go to some random country and I'd spend every day there training and doing like… nothing else. Ever. I've been training since I was four."
Akane hummed after taking a bite from her bento. "Mm… I've never met anyone that dedicated to martial arts."
"Well, you met me," Katie cheekily replied.
And she'd meet another one soon enough.
"I guess," Akane replied. "I thought I was strong. I don't think I've kicked anyone through a building before, or broken anyone's arms."
She had, on all three occasions she fought Kuno after flattening the crowd, punted him over the roof of the school though.
"That's because you're too nice, not because you can't," Katie replied. "It's a mentality thing. If you pull on your punches, you won't kill or really hurt anyone no matter how hard you can hit 'em on paper."
Akane looked down at her food, Katie did have a point. The idea of seriously injuring one of her classmates, even if it was a boy, didn't sit too well with her conscience. Kuno maybe, but anyone else? Not likely, she couldn't imagine hating anyone that much.
That would change.
"How are you able to do it?" Akane asked.
Katie smirked. "Obviously, I'm not a nice person. Hell, I'm the meanest person you'll ever meet."
That would change, too.
"Are you sure?" Akane asked. "You did help me because you thought I was nice."
"I guess so, but having a sense of justice doesn't mean being a nice person," Katie replied. "It's the right thing to do, sticking up for someone else. Especially when no one else was."
She clicked her teeth in disgust. "Like seriously, I bet if any of those jackoffs stood up to Kuno instead of ganging up on you, you'd probably be eating lunch with one of them right now."
Akane immediately made a face. "No way, I can't even imagine that!"
"I don't blame you," Katie chuckled. "That's their fault, not yours."
Cheerfully smiling again, Akane nodded and took another bite of her lunch. Now that she was free of the vile horde, everything was great and wonderful. The sun seemed to shine brighter, the birds sang sweeter, even her sister's delicious food tasted nicer! She was so happy now, and she had this cool foreign girl to thank for it!
"I really can't thank you enough," she said, "I don't even know what I can do to repay you."
"Having lunch with me more would be cool, hanging out in general." Katie replied. "You're good company."
Akane smiled, before she noticed that Katie had yet to start eating. "Where is your lunch, anyway?"
Katie looked up. "I was told it'd be here soon, so…"
Akane looked up as well. "What, are you having it delivered?"
She heard of takeout martial artists, like the legendary Daikoku clan, but delivering from the air? She searched the sky, eager to see what Katie was looking for, until she caught sight of a fast approaching object.
It was a quadrotor drone, bearing underneath a container half its size. Buzzing in, it came to a hover, turned in place to point its camera first at her, then at Katie, before lowering itself down to land at the latter's feet.
"Oh, a drone!" Akane said, quite surprised to see one. "Who delivers with that?"
She always wanted to try delivery by drone, but never had anything she couldn't just go out and buy.
"My roommate," Katie replied as she knelt down and slid the container from under the drone. "She's a hardcore NEET who never leaves her place, so when I want her to bring me food or just stuff in particular, she sends drones."
Akane was surprised. "Your friend sounds like she has a lot of money, if she can afford this."
"I do have a lot of money!" A girl's voice suddenly snapped from the drone. "And I'm not a NEET, you bitch!"
Akane jumped back, surprised that said roommate had been listening in via the drone. "Oh, sorry for that…"
"Don't worry, don't worry," the girl speaking via drone replied. "I'm Misao, and I guess I am kind of a shut in." Clearly irritated by Katie's comment, she added in reference to it "But I do have a God damned job!"
Katie stared down at the drone when Akane jumped. "Playing video games while dudes stare at your tits is not a job."
Akane's eyes grew wide. What kind of girl was this Misao?
"It is when you have tits dudes will pay to stare at," Misao smartly shot back, and Katie's face darkened.
An entirely innocent glance in that direction, and Akane realized that the tall American girl had a less substantial chest than her own. It was surprising, given the media stereotype of all western girls being extremely top-heavy, and a little ego-boosting that there was someone in the bra size department smaller than her. Not that she'd point that out to Katie at all ever.
"When I get home I'm kicking your ass!" Katie shouted at the drone.
"Hot, but I kind of can't have you in tonight," Misao replied. "I'm doing an R18 show for like six hours, and you know… legal reasons? Even having you walk by in the background might get me banhammered."
At that, Akane blushed. Misao… she did those kinds of things? On camera? On the internet?
Katie frowned. "Ugh, I'll have to go all the way to Minato tonight, then. Fantastic."
"Sorry bae, but you know the rules. I can't wait though, in six months, you'll be my co-star!"
"No thanks," Katie quickly replied. "I don't want people ogling my pale ass."
"You'll say yes one day~" Misao cooed back. "Anyway, my lunch break's almost over so it's back to tourney training. Call me when you get to Auntie's, kay bitch?"
"Yeah, I'll see you. Love you," Katie replied as she removed her lunch from the box and slipped it back into the drone. With an electric whine from its engines, the drone lifted into the air and began its flight back home.
As the drone flew away, Katie opened her lunch to find some hastily assembled fried chicken sandwiches, a bottled water, and some tossed in fried edamame. A smile creased her lips. "Aw, she took the time to make it herself."
She took a bite into her sandwich and looked at Akane, who was gaping at her. "Mm?"
"Is… is your roommate… an AV Girl?" Akane asked, not even sure how to wrap her head around that.
"Worse, she's an video game otaku," Katie replied. "But yeah, she's a camwhore who does stuff on camera for money… mostly just play video games with her shirt off."
That made Akane outright flinch. "How do you live with that?"
"She's not that bad, really. She's actually kind of nice, a good cook, and basically letting me live with her for free." Katie took another bite of her sandwich and swallowed it. "All I have to do is be her bodyguard the rare few times she actually decides to leave the house."
Akane hummed in amazement. For someone as strong as her, a job like that was a walk in the park! "Wow, that's all you do?"
"It's why I'm even in the country," Katie replied.
No wonder she had such an instinct to protect people, it was literally her job! "You know, you don't have to go all the way to Minato if you don't want to."
Katie hummed. "Oh yeah? Know any good hotels around here?"
"No, you could stay at my house overnight. It wouldn't be a problem at all," Akane offered.
It was Katie's turn to be surprised. "Huh? That's awfully generous of you-"
"Well, I'm really grateful for what you did. if you hadn't, I'd probably be miserable forever," Akane insisted, smiling kindly. "Besides, you did say you wanted to hang out with me more in general."
Katie watched Akane's hopeful expression for a moment, before she averted her eyes and took another bite out of her sandwich to distract herself from the warm and gooey feeling in her chest. This girl was way too cute, there was no way she could say no to that. "Good grief, if it's okay with you then sure. I'll sleep at your place tonight."
Akane beamed. "Great! I'll call my older sister and tell to prepare a little more for dinner tonight. This is going to be the best!"
Katie chuckled and gave her a playful smile of her own. "If you say so."
A distance away, in the tall trees that grew in Furinkan High's vicinity, a small shadowy figure glared darkly at the two young women smiling and eating lunch on the roof. His beady eyes burned with a vengeful fire beneath his bushy brows as he brought an older-style flip phone to his ear.
For what that awful girl did to his master, there would be no peace–only revenge.
"Kodachi-sama, it is your loyal servant, Sasuke Sarugakure-san. I have grievous news regarding your dear brother."
As it was mentioned previously, Nabiki shared classes with Katie, and as such she had more familiarity with the transfer student than her younger sister. For the few days she was here, Katie was just a quiet girl who didn't try to ingratiate herself with others, and just did her schoolwork and spoke when spoken to. Other girls were intimidated by her, the America-fanboys had been driven off by the fact that she wasn't culturally inept, blonde-haired, and with big tits like all American girls were supposed to be, and all the other guys in school were too busy trying to beat up Akane to even notice her.
Nabiki herself, being completely indomitable, wasn't intimidated by Katie. However, living with Akane did tell her what a wild animal was when she saw it and Katie was the very picture of savagery–someone who actually liked being waist deep in a fight and knee deep in blood. She didn't anticipate, however, for the American to be a tier above Kuno or that she'd go straight for breaking him, ensuring him being out for at least a month from school.
The Kuno family had money, and that money would go into getting him back on his feet disconcertingly fast. That money would also not be going into Nabiki's wallet, and that's actually what had her a little pissed off at Katie.
Nabiki liked not having her arms broken, so any aggression she would have to act out on this girl would have to be completely passive. Maybe start up a rumor mill, get some compromising pictures circling around. Try to drum up the drama between her and Akane, all perfectly viable options that didn't need the damn monster coming home with Akane that very afternoon.
"She can't go back to her place tonight, and she was going to have to go all the way across town," Akane reasoned with Nabiki as they walked home with Katie trailing a bit behind her.
"So you just kind of tell her to come on over without even asking anyone else?" Nabiki quietly asked back.
"I texted Kasumi, she said she was happy that I was bringing a friend over," Akane replied.
Oh she would be, ever since the whole "Akane is a Violent Maniac" thing started going around, the only people who ever came over to see Akane were people wanting to beat her up or wanting her to beat people up. She didn't have friends in the traditional sense beyond clingers-on who took shelter under her strength and tolerated everything else.
On the bright side, at least that meant that Kasumi would be cooking extra well to make a good impression on Akane's new friend.
"What about Daddy? He's in one of his moods," Nabiki muttered back.
Akane quickly began to get a fix. Nabiki didn't want Katie around at all. "Since when did you ever care about Daddy?"
"I'm not a total bitch," Nabiki said. No she was a complete monster, but Akane didn't know about the pictures… yet.
Akane rolled her eyes. Normally Nabiki didn't care about much of anything, actually, but the day's events and the change that came with it told ever everything. "Oh, I get it…"
Nabiki narrowed hers. "Get what?"
"You're mad because Katie beat up your boyfriend."
Nabiki's eyes flew wide at the insinuation, but she looked more disgusted than enraged. She was honestly nauseous at the very idea. "W-what-?!"
"Oh man, you were holding a torch for that asshole?" Katie then asked. "Good girls like bad boys, and bad girls just don't have taste at all, right?"
That just pushed the knife deeper, until Nabiki snapped. "That fucker is not my boyfriend!"
Akane recoiled a bit, surprised at how angry Nabiki could sound when her very pride was at stake. Alas, it was not every day she touched a nerve with her normally cool and collected big sister. She narrowed her eyes, and smirked as she leaned closer to Nabiki. "Are you suuuuuurrrrrre?"
"The lady doth protest too much," Katie pointed out.
Nabiki wasn't used to being on the defensive, and even when she was she normally had a way out against most anyone. However, rarely was she double-teamed, and even rarer was she cornered with such an infuriating insult. So, she did the only thing she could immediately do, she stormed off, her face red with fury and eyes filled with blood and fire.
"Fuck both of you!" She snarled angrily as she marched ahead. Oh they were both going to get it!
Katie looked to Akane, and made sure Nabiki and anyone else in earshot heard what she said next. "Oh man, she has got it bad for Kuno!"
Akane followed suit, speaking extra loudly, turning the heads of a few other students also on their way home from school. "She's probably going to go sit by Kuno-senpai's hospital bed right after dinner!"
Nabiki actually screamed in anger, and her march turned into a sprint for the house and a lot of door slamming that could be heard as Akane and Katie reached the front gate of the Tendo Home and Dojo.
"Man, that's the first time I've ever seen Nabiki… emote," Akane said.
"Normally she's a sly, cool bitch who gets away with everything despite being as flimsy as tissue paper because she's hot and smart?" Katie asked. She liked that type, especially when all that cool bitchiness turned into unstoppable rage.
"You know the type?" Akane was sure there was a story behind it.
"Freshman year, biggest bully in the school was a gossip with her finger on the pulse of the school and with a hand in the wallet of every boy. Tried to blackmail me. I broke three of her ribs and stole her boyfriend in retaliation."
She hummed. "I got expelled for it, but it was cathartic."
"What happened to the boyfriend?" Akane asked.
"Turned out he was a meth head, stole my laptop and my phone," Katie said somewhat bitterly. "My uncle got that stuff back from him, but I haven't heard from the asshole since to kick his ass myself. They say he just up and skipped town."
That kind of downed the mood a bit. "Wow, I'm sorry that had to happen to you…"
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "It's cool. That whole fiasco is why I'm here in Japan, so… silver lining!" She flashed her a small smile, and Akane returned it in spades.
Kasumi Tendo was well-used to doors being slammed in greeting, especially in the last three days. Ever since boys had begun trying to ask her out, Akane has been coming home completely steamed, slamming doors as she changed to work out her pent up frustrations in the dojo. From what Nabiki told her, the boys who were interested in their youngest sister were just really aggressive in their asking her out, and she wasn't used to it.
What the mature, beautiful 19 year-old eldest of the Tendo sisters didn't expect, was for the person slamming doors to be Nabiki, given the chain of expletives spoken as soon as the front door was shut. Concerned and curious, Kasumi hurried from the kitchen to intercept her younger sister, who was stomping towards the stairs.
"Nabiki-chan?" She called after her. "Is everything all right?"
"Give me a few days and a list of phone numbers and everything will be," Nabiki growled as she turned and began up the stairs.
"What happened?" Kasumi asked.
"Why don't you let Akane and her new best friend tell you all about it!" Nabiki shouted back, and bedroom her door slammed shut a moment later. Music then could be heard through the floor, loud, angry music about evil genocidal space emperors and balls.
That exchange reminded Kasumi of the exciting news that Akane was having a friend over. "Oh my, that's right!"
Quickly she forgot all about Nabiki's seething fury, she put on a big smile again and went right to the door, just as Akane was opening it.
"Three ribs, though? That doesn't seem like much," Akane said back to Katie.
"You should've seen what I did to her little clique of girls, the wrestling team, and half the football team," Katie reassured her. "She thought they could protect her from me? I wouldn't put that weak sauce on my sandwich."
Both then noticed Kasumi standing in the door, and Akane brightened. "Hey Kasumi!"
"Welcome home, Akane-chan," Kasumi said gently to her youngest sister, before looking to address Katie. "And welcome to our home, Izurando-san."
Katie had a hard time immediately responding at that instant, because the very sight of Kasumi Tendo had stolen her breath away the instant before. This stunningly beautiful woman with long brown hair worn in a ponytail slung over her shoulder, looking like a perfect housewife in her dress and apron, and wearing a smile that reminded Katie of coming home from school to cookies, milk, and Disney Movies… this woman was Akane's older sister?!
This, on top of the definitely sexy (in the bitchy way, no less!) Nabiki and the irresistibly cute Akane, told Katie one thing. One important, life-changing thing:
She was going to be so gay for them.
"Uh… hi," Katie barely managed to squeak out in a low, shy voice.
Kasumi continued to smile. "There's no need to be shy. Please, come in, it's so wonderful to meet a friend of Akane-chan's."
The eldest Tendo turned to walk back inside, giving her a friendly nod over her shoulder to her as she headed in. When she broke eye contact, Katie couldn't help but scan her up and down, her pale cheeks turning a nice shade of pink, before she looked over to Akane and then away.
Akane noticed it. "Heh, my older sister's like the polar opposite of Nabiki. Super nice and stuff."
Katie quickly nodded, while putting one hand on the wall and slipping out of her shoes. "Yeah, uh… yeah she's really pretty… uh… nice… and stuff…"
Akane chuckled at Katie's expression. She so totally had a girl-crush on her older sister. This wasn't anything new to her, Kasumi had this effect on a lot of girls back when she went to High School.
"So, come on, let me show the dojo!" Akane offered. "We can even get some training in, too!"
"Sure, that sound's good," Katie replied, still distracted by Kasumi's radiance. By the beauty of all the Tendo girls really, but that Kasumi though…
"Good golly molly," Katie thought to herself–a phrase she'd NEVER say to anyone aloud–as she followed Akane in. "I don't think anyone has ever turned me on that much by just existing. Damn."
As Kasumi went back to the kitchen to resume working on dinner, Akane led Katie down the hall adjacent to the rather spacious Tendo Dojo, a broad, high-ceiling building that was half the size of the main house itself. Snapping out of her Kasumi-induced daze, Katie let out an impressed whistle as she looked around.
"You could train quite a few students here," she said as Akane went to a small closet adjacent to the door.
"We used to have a whole class, but then my mother died and Daddy lost interest in training anyone," Akane said as she began to strip out of her uniform.
Katie looked over, and disguised her appreciative hum as one of understanding when she watched the uniform come off. She did a double-take, though when she saw that the unassuming in her uniform Akane looked had the body of a champion female MMA fighter off the front cover of a magazine, pulling off the beautiful and powerful look they strived for without any of the photo manipulation and camera tricks that normally went into it.
Stunned, Katie bit her lower lip and averted her eyes, before she decided that maybe she should get rid of her uniform herself.
As Akane slipped on her gi's pants and went to pull on the top, she kept talking. "After that the class shrank until eventually I was the only one left. I mean I tried to keep it going, but no boys really wanted a girl to teach them… and I guess I was a little too intense for them."
"I can't imagine that," Katie joked as she pulled her own uniform off and pulled a hair scrunchie to tie her long black hair up into a ponytail.
Akane finished tying her gi tight around her waist and turned to face Katie. She stopped herself, when she saw the athletic figure cut by the girl, looking like an olympic athlete wearing a pair of black and green bike shorts that ended just below mid-thigh, and a matching sports bra. The American girl was definitely thinner and wiry because of her height, but her muscle tone was impossible to ignore.
"Wow…" Akane murmured.
Katie glanced over at her and smirked. "Wow yourself, lookin' like you could be on a magazine cover."
Akane blushed a bit at the praise, and walked towards the center of the dojo, Katie following. "So, how do you want this spar to go?"
"How about first to fall loses?" Katie said.
Akane nodded and smiled. "Well, you asked for it."
Rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck, Katie stood directly across from Akane as she finished her own stretching. Turning to face one another, the bowed respectfully–acknowledging the friendly terms of their spar–then assumed fighting stances.
"Ready?" Akane asked.
"Yeah, let's dance," Katie replied.
"Then here I come!" Akane called out as she came right at Katie with a powerful punch that seemed slow to Katie right up until she realized she had to do something to block and evade it. She did, bringing up her hands like a baseball catcher's and blocking the punch, the full force pushing her back despite her braced feet.
Surprised, but undaunted, Katie vaulted right up and over Akane, crossing up and over her, twisting her body around to deliver a kick that Akane blocked by raising one arm before kicking back just as she landed, forcing Katie to skip backwards to avoid the heel aimed to connect with her cheek.
As she escaped the limits of Akane's reach, the older girl took advantage of hers, going back in with quick jabs that Akane parried and deflected, using her footwork to stay at the limit of Katie's reach while trying to scope out an opening to break out with. Her opponent was so quick though, with barely any gap between her blows or hesitation in her moves.
"Good moves, good moves!" Katie complimented as she feinted a punch again–but suddenly pivoted to use that devastating roundhouse kick she destroyed Kuno with.
Akane was much smaller than Kuno though, and she used it, ducking under it to attack. It was then that she realized that the angle was too high up, and she quickly rolled back as Katie's leg came down much faster, the impact from her axe kick causing the entire dojo to shake.
"Whoa!" Akane scrambled back after she stopped her roll, avoiding slash-like low kicks that Katie kept her from capitalizing against with wild and unpredictable feints.
"Her footwork is so good… she really loves kicking…" Akane thought right before she fired off a high kick that crossed legs with Katie's, parrying her kick. When Katie was pushed back, Akane suddenly came up from bringing her leg down with an uppercut, forcing her to somersault backwards and land a much safer distance away, bouncing from one foot to the other as she resumed her loose fighting stance.
"Good grief, that almost grazed me," Katie teased.
Akane began to mimic Katie's bouncing motion, she was starting to feel a rush she hadn't since she went head on with Kuno in kendo. "The next one should do more than that!"
"C'mon, c'mon~!" Katie invited, right before the two danced right back into it and swung at each other.
Inside the sitting room, a sound Soun Tendo hadn't heard in quite a while began to fill his ears: The muffled thumping of footsteps, jumping, and stomping. The shouts of kiais, and even the smacks of blows being traded. Ah, what a nostalgic sound, it took him back to happier days, before the tragedy of his wife's passing, a dojo full of students practicing their moves, sparring, training… all under his watchful eyes.
The mustachioed head of the Tendo family smiled and brought up his hand to stroke his chin. Ah, he remembered those old days so fondly. Maybe… maybe he ought to go back to that. Round up some students, and teach the art of fighting as he'd been taught.
… Well, maybe not exactly as he'd been taught, but in a manner that wouldn't have the authorities (or worse, lawyers) knocking on his door.
An especially loud thump made Soun jump, and it was then that he finally realized that the racket wasn't just him spacing out and reminiscing. "Hm?"
There was another, and now Soun was curious. "Kasumi-chan, what's that racket. Is Akane upset about something?"
"Oh no, she's sparring with a friend from school!" Kasumi said, quite giddily. It sounded like they were having so much fun in there!
There was an especially loud bang, from the sound of another of Katie's kicks barely missing its mark, followed by the thumping and shouting of Akane attempting to punish it.
Soun's curiosity could take it no longer, and so he rose and made his way over to the dojo. He knew how his youngest daughter was when it came to training, and usually affairs such as sparring were far less violent and far more brief.
Upon reaching the doorway, he was certainly surprised to see Akane jump off the opposite wall and swing a spinning kick straight for Katie's head, the blow connecting with her raised arms but still having enough force behind it to lift her off her feet and slam her into the wall with enough force to splinter the sturdy wooden planks that went halfway up its sides.
Upon landing, a horrified Akane recoiled. "Oh… oh no! Katie, are you all right?!"
Soun was surprised himself. "Akane, what on Earth are you doing?"
He looked at the girl embedded in his wall, a definitely foreign girl, and paled. It was an unfortunate fact that when Soun's interest in training students began to wane, Akane attempted to pick up his slack. This led to the vast remainder of his students fleeing the dojo–or more specifically, fleeing Akane's wrath. While the girl knew enough to hold back from killing anyone (probably due to her nature) she was just clumsy enough to break someone short of killing them.
It was one thing for local boys to taste her wrath, but a foreigner? This was a lawsuit waiting to happen!
Akane looked over. "Daddy? Oh, I was sparring but-"
Katie, looking none the worse for wear, pushed herself out of the indent she made in the wooden planks. "Don't worry, I'm okay."
And then Akane was looking right back at Katie, awash with relief. "Are you sure?"
"I can keep going if you like," Katie insisted as she went right back into a fighting stance. She grinned. "I'm starting to have fun, you know?"
Akane's relief turned into the brightest smile Soun had ever seen her with, before she to returned to her stance and began circling around the center of the dojo floor opposite of Katie, like two binary stars around the same point.
Soun was amazed. This strange foreign girl–she was bringing out such a happiness in his youngest daughter. He almost wanted to interrupt their spar, and inquire more about this person, but they looked like they were having so much fun, so he decided to just step back and watch with a proud smile to see his daughter so happy.
Ultimately, the spar would be interrupted, by several smoke bombs suddenly rolling across the floor around Akane and Katie and exploding.
"Ah, what the fuck?!" Katie called out in English, as the smoke filled her nose with a disgusting smell, and her eyes with tears. "It stinks like shit, oh God!"
Akane was similarly covering her face in vain as the smoke got to her, too. "Eek!"
Soun, out of the radius of the smoke bombs, brought the sleeve to his gi up to cover his face, as the bold laughter of a young man filled the room. This laughter caused both Akane and Katie to freeze.
"K-Kuno?!" Akane gasped.
"What the…?" Katie managed to open one eye and look through the blinding smoke, when she heard Akane. "Are you kidding me…?"
She could clearly see the silhouette of Kuno in his kimono, with what should be a broken arm holding out a bokken at his side as his laughter died down.
"As you can plainly see, I, Tatewaki Kuno the Invincible Blade, stand unharmed before you." He declared. "Your flashy moves and foul demeanor, amusing as they are, were merely style to make up for substance you truly lacked!"
Katie wiped her eyes again, and her surprised look became one of confusion, and then just became a flat glare.
Kuno's silhouetted chuckled again and pointed his bokken at her. "However, if you pack up your things and leave Japan immediately, to never be seen again, I will forgive you for your transgression and spare you a truly awful fate."
He then brought the bokken to his shoulder and laughed again. "You must also pay a restitution fee, as well. I do not ask for much, just drop what money you have on the floor and leave at once."
By this point the smoke had cleared enough for Akane, Katie, and Soun to see that "Kuno" was actually a tall bar stool wearing Kuno's pants, with a bushy-eyebrowed, monkey-like man in a ninja gi wearing the top part of his usual kimono. He was wearing a wig that helped complete the illusion, and in the hand not holding the bokken he held a microphone to his mouth as he tried to emote the suaveness of Kuno and let the voice modulator do the rest.
"And Akane Tendo must go on a date with me, for allowing me to suffer such indignity!" He added.
Katie walked right up to the ninja, and kicked the stool out from under him as he laughed again, causing him to fall flat on his face and swallow the microphone.
"Sup?" She snarled in a low, dark voice as she looked down on the small man.
The ninja, one Sasuke Sarugakure, quickly got up, groaning from the nasty sensation of having a working microphone in his stomach. Hacking from being forced to swallow a microphone, he looked up at Katie, shocked. "H-how did you resist my poison smoke?!"
"Lookup CS Gas, and then imagine waking up to it once a week for a month," Katie growled at him. "It ain't pretty, and your shit 'poison gas' is a stink bomb compared to it."
He pointed at her defiantly. "No matter, I will not forgive you for what you have done to my master!"
"Your Master?" Katie asked. "Wait, are you like Kuno's pet ninja or something?"
"He is," Akane said with no small hint of anger in her own voice.
Katie looked down at him. "I don't need your forgiveness, but hey… since you're a ninja for hire and stuff how about you work for me? I always wanted a pet ninja."
"I AM NO ONE'S PET! ESPECIALLY NOT TO A LOOSE, LEWD WOMAN!" Sasuke roared while looking Katie's toned body over. Honestly, wearing such brief attire! She was supposed to be sparring, not posing like some debased AV woman. Not that he would know about that.
"I am a loyal servant to the Kuno family, and for them I would gladly lay down my life!" He prepared more smoke bombs between his fingers. "Prepare for a taste of true hell-!"
A simple front kick scooped Sasuke straight up into the air, before Katie spun around and swung a high kick straight up into his stomach with such force, that there was feedback from the unseen speakers he'd used with the mic. This was followed by a muffled pop and Sasuke belching fire from the whole microphone exploding in his gut.
Her leg held high, Katie balanced the folded over ninja on her heel, as she stared up at him.
"Blood, fire, gasoline, and lead… that's what Hell tastes like," Katie whispered to Sasuke in English as she looked up at him, her green eyes alight with malice.
Through his pain, Sasuke suddenly found himself regretting being fluent in so many languages, as a good ninja servant ought to be.
"And I love it."
Because those words and their tone were terrifying.
"Here, have a taste!" She brought Sasuke over in an arc, and slammed him into the floor of the dojo with enough force to buckle the planks and send him straight through the bottom of the dojo and into the cold, bare dirt under the building.
As splinters rained down around the edge of the hole made in the floor, she leaned down abd looked. He was still conscious, and in quite a lot of pain. Good, she wanted to make sure he understood completely how badly he fucked up.
"If you or your master come after me or Akane or any of her family," she warned him in English, "I'm going to bury yours."
Soun was impressed. Such power, such ferocity, such brutality! His dear Akane had made a friend that shared her interests so well!
Katie looked up from the hole and to Soun as she realized the damage she'd done. "Oh shit, I'm sorry about the floor. My friend has money, she'll pay for fixing it, I promise."
Soun brightened more. She wasn't a cheapskate either. "Well, as long as you're taking responsibility I don't see the harm done."
"Wow, Katie-senpai! That was great!" Akane said eagerly as she joined her side.
Katie looked over to her. "Senpai?" She cocked her head slightly, to look at Akane from a slight angle. "I'm not much of one…"
"Well, you took care of Kuno's little servant pretty well," Akane said. "And Kuno too."
"I guess, but that just sounds so… flattering…" Katie said. "I'm not used to that kind of respect…"
She looked back at the hole. "Besides, I didn't put the little guy out completely."
Sure enough Sasuke began to haul himself out of the floor. He had an evil smile on his face, a dark grin, as if getting his ass kicked had been a part of his plan the whole time.
"Hmhmhm… indeed… you were clever to hold yourself back as I expected you to be," he revealed.
Akane looked from Sasuke to Katie. "You held back, why?"
"Because we're being watched," Katie revealed, prompting a surprised Akane and Soun to start looking around quickly.
"That is correct!" Sasuke said. "Kodachi-sama, have you seen enough?"
"Oh my yes, I certainly have," a new voice, that of a noble young woman, answered.
Then, the entire inside of the dojo was subject to a gentle fall of black rose petals.
"Rose petals?" Akane asked.
Katie caught one that fell close to her. "They're black."
She felt it between her fingers; they were real too.
When she looked ahead, her eyes widened again at the sight of a woman in a green leotard sauntering towards them. She was, much like Akane, the picture of athleticism, but her body definitely reflected one toned for the rigors of graceful gymnastics–barring her exceptional chest. She had the face of a fashion model to match the beauty of her physique, complete with alluringly done black lipstick and eyeliner, and her long black hair was tied off in a ponytail that extended down the right side of her head.
"So this is the part of town where all the hot, dangerous girls live," Katie immediately thought.
"Who are you?" Akane asked, unnerved by the arrival of this unknown, if weirdly alluring, woman.
"Allow me to introduce myself properly," the strange woman said. "I am Kodachi Kuno, sister of the man you may know as Tatewaki, and mistress of this one here."
She gestured to Sasuke, who was still grinning maliciously at them.
Akane was almost immediately in a fighting stance, as was Katie.
"Geez, the House of Kuno is looking to go bankrupt with medical bills, huh?" The latter asked.
"You bet," Akane agreed.
"Now, given your reactions, it isn't too much of a stretch to believe that what my servant has described to me is true. You humiliated my brother, shattering his bones, his pride, and his spirit. You left him a hollow wreck of a man, who had to be carted to hospital nearly in pieces." Kodachi looked between the two of them, before settling on Katie. "All because you took objection to his courtship of this homely girl?"
When she indicated Akane, Akane almost lunged to start punching her bloody. Homely? Homely?!
Katie held her arm out, holding Akane back. "I kicked his ass, yeah. Because he was bullying the whole school into beating her up. Why wouldn't I step in on that?"
"Well, it doesn't matter why, what matters is you did," Kodachi said darkly. "For that, I believe a fitting… reward is in order, for your selfless intervention at my brother's expense."
Sasuke weakly laughed. He knew well of Kodachi-sama's madness, and how deadly she could be in a battle. If that vicious beast of a woman thought his poison smoke was a joke, then his mistress would show her what a real master of toxins was like! He clenched a fist, eager to see Kodachi's first blow.
Katie snorted. "Oh, and what would that be?"
Kodachi, seemingly out of nowhere, then produced a beautifully engraved hand-crafted, handheld mirror lined with a black rose pattern. "Here, a token of my gratitude. A one of a kind artisanal mirror commissioned as a gift for me for my sixteenth birthday and valued well over two hundred thousand yen."
Both Akane and Katie immediately dropped their stances, growing confused at the offer of a genuine reward instead of some sinister attack. Looking at it, Katie reached out and with slight hesitation took it. "Okay…?"
"I would also like to offer my sincerest apologies," Kodachi went on. "My brother can be something of a boor when it comes to things he cannot have, throwing tantrums this way and that. This treatment of you, Tendo-san, is absolutely unacceptable to the proud name of the Kuno family."
Sasuke could not believe what he was hearing. "K-Kodachi-sama, but your brother… his love…!"
"Lust more like! You would never catch me acting like this, assembling a rabble to coerce another to become my lover and companion! A true scion of the Kuno family needs not to resort to such underhanded tactics to get what they desire!" Kodachi lifted her head up, and put on a regal smirk. "One must attain what they desire through any means, but through their hands alone! Ohohohoho!"
Katie bit her lower lip again. Okay, she was hot, crazy, and had the ojou-sama laugh. Girls in this neighborhood were amazing.
At this moment, Kasumi poked her head in, and saw the mess made and the new girl who'd arrived. It'd been so long since so many people had come to visit all at once. "Oh hello, are you another friend of Akane-chan's?"
"An acquaintance, at best," Kodachi replied, "But I bear no ill-will to her. In fact I am here to apologize for my brother's behavior to her. I am Kodachi Kuno."
Kasumi brightened. "Well there's no need to be a stranger, please sit down for dinner with us. I've just finished it."
Akane was on the fence about this. On one hand, being friends with Kodachi didn't seem so bad if her idea for showing apology was handing out expensive gifts. On the other, it'd give her brother an excuse to come straight to the house. On a third, heretofore unnoticed hand, Tatewaki Kuno was a broken shell of a man who could probably do little more than harmlessly, hopelessly annoy her. On top of that if she was as athletic (and close to her brother) as she looked, she could probably learn a few things from her (and about Kuno) and incorporate that into her style so in case Tatewaki did come to bother her, Akane would have no problem pummeling the pompous ponce.
A new friend and a window into her enemy's soul? Sold! "Please, Kodachi-san, join us for dinner. Kasumi is a very good cook."
Kodachi hummed. "Well, it has been some time since I've had a meal prepared by someone other than my servant…" She looked down at a still disbelieving and shamed Sasuke, much as one would look upon an insect needing to be stomped on. "And since my servant will be indisposed due to his injuries, I will gratefully take your offer."
Akane and Katie both smiled, for different but partially overlapping reasons. "Great!"
Kasumi was pleased as well. "Wonderful, please come to the sitting room."
Soun couldn't help his own smile. When did this house suddenly get so lively?
It wasn't a well-known fact, but Nabiki Tendo had a vindictive streak that rivaled most Middle Eastern antagonism. Indeed, if any two opposing nations were to learn of the pettiness of the grudges Nabiki could hold against others, they'd rethink their own quarrels and the road to world peace would lose the vast majority of its roadblocks.
In this instance, for the crime of actually getting a rise out of her, Nabiki just went online and hired someone to completely humiliate Katie. Not kill her or even significantly injure her, but to leave her exposed and embarrassed in front of everyone and ensure that she'd never want to see the light of day. It cost quite a bit of money, but for Nabiki Tendo's pride, like any Tendo sister's pride, money was not an object.
With revenge assured, she'd gone back to being her normally aloof self by the time dinner rolled around, though she was intrigued to find that they were being joined by Kuno's little sister. Kodachi was quite curious about the young woman who turned her brother into a bigger buffoon than he normally was.
"I've been long curious about this girl who has bewitched my brother's heart, between the constant ravings, the poetry, the pictures, the shrine, the body pillows–I was beginning to wonder if you were in fact some celebrity," Kodachi revealed.
"Oh no, she's just the most popular girl in school," Kasumi praised, to Akane's embarrassment.
"I'm not that popular…" She tried to humbly reply.
"Yes, you are," Katie and Nabiki said in unison, though with more bitterness on the part of the latter. All those boys, worthless garbage now…
"Well, not anymore now that those idiot boys know I don't want anything to do with them," she grumbled.
Kodachi hummed. "Not a single one of them?"
Akane shook her head. "Those desperate dweebs may as well be dead to me, they're dead to pretty much every girl in the whole town after what they did."
Katie nodded in agreement. "Damn right."
Kasumi was rather blithe about it. "Well, I don't really care for younger men so it's no loss to me."
Katie glanced over to the eldest Tendo. "Really; what sort is your type?"
Put on the spot, Kasumi brought a hand to her cheek, her cheeks tinting pink. "Oh my, it's kind of embarrassing really… and maybe not dinner table conversation for me."
Kodachi seemed quite interested in this development. "So there is literally a school full of strapping young men untouchable to the women–literal burakumin in the eyes of women everywhere?"
Akane nodded. "That's about it."
Kodachi let out a silky laugh. "Interesting, I might be visiting your school in coming days, would you be so generous as to show me around when I come by?"
"As long as you don't plan on taking your brother's place as the resident lunatic," Akane offered.
The next laugh was not as silky, in fact it was that ojou-sama laugh that prompted a shiver to go down Katie's spine, and her thighs to clench together as she near-visibly shuddered.
"Ohohoho! Tendo-san, as a token of my forgiveness, you needn't worry about me. I swear upon my family's honor that I, Kodachi Kuno, will be your friend and confidante for life. I'll do what I can to make up for my boorish buffoon of a brother."
That had Nabiki lifting an eyebrow in surprise. "Wait, what?"
Kasumi, for her merit, was touched by the gesture. "That's so kind of you!"
Akane was flattered as well. "Aw, geez, really?"
"Truly!" Kodachi said before looking to Katie. "And to you as well, Izurando-san. I don't want any bad blood between our houses. Let us let bygones be bygones."
Katie didn't hesitate. "Sure, that sounds good. Long as you keep your brother out of our hair."
"You have permission from me to deal with him as you see fit, short of actually killing him of course."
Katie nodded. "In that case, next time I'll break his legs."
"That will be fine by me," Kodachi said with another ojou-sama laugh.
Kodachi's generosity was unexpected, suspicious even. It was as if she was getting something pretty big out of this and Nabiki wanted to know what it was. It barely took her a half second after she mused over this for her to realize it, and her eyes grew wide for a moment when she did.
"That magnificent bitch," Nabiki said as suddenly this Kodachi girl became as much of a threat to her business in the long run as Akane's other new friend was right now.
Soun, who was quite impressed by Kodachi's little vow–and seeing the possible financial benefits–was more than happy to welcome this new development. "Akane-chan, your friend Kodachi-kun here is more than welcome in my home."
"Just so long as her brother isn't." Not that it would probably stop him, Akane was just saying.
"I'll keep him out when you can't," Katie said, to which Akane responded with a smile.
"So you'll be coming over more often too, right?"
"Whenever you need me," Katie promised. "We're friends right?"
Akane let out a small laugh, as she beamed right back at Katie. "Yeah, we are!" She looked to Kodachi. "You, too!"
Kodachi found herself quite taken by the happy girl's smile, just about as much as every other hopeless soul who saw it tended to be. She returned the smile. "It is an honor."
Nabiki sulked a bit, her gaze darting between Akane, Katie, and Kodachi. In one day, in less than one, everything just got flipped on its head. How annoying it all was… what was once a comfy status quo was a mess of uncertainty, and uncertain times tended to be hard times.
There was no bringing Kuno back, and the boys of Furinkan High School were completely broken. If Nabiki was going to make any money, she would have to adapt and improvise. What a pain.
"Well, dinner was fabulous, Tendo-san, but I must be on my way," Kodachi suddenly said as she rose. "I have class in the morning and homework to complete."
She then produced from seemingly a stack of yen and set it on the table right in front of Nabiki. "A token of appreciation and gratitude for the lovingly crafted meal." She then bowed politely to them, before going outside. "I will see you tomorrow, Akane-san, Izurando-san!"
Laughing that laugh Katie found so incredible, Kodachi took off into the night, leaving Nabiki staring blankly down at the stack of 100,000 yen casually tossed down by the younger Kuno sibling.
That was 100,000 yen.
Right there. In front of her eyes.
"She really is generous," Kasumi said, surprised herself by the amount of money offered.
"I'll say!" Soun said as he reached for it, only for Nabiki to move faster than she ever moved to snatch it up herself.
"Mine," she said impulsively, earning two pointed looks from her younger sister and her beastly friend. Recoiling, she tried to look less money grubbing and forced a crooked smile. "Er… as in… I will make sure that this is safely deposited."
The pointed looks cooled off, and Nabiki instead looked down at the tremendous amount of money with no small amount of giddiness. Maybe things won't be so bad with the new status quo–long as nothing else upset it before she could get used to it again.
Everything went wrong.
First, in clear defiance and disregard of the warnings, Genma and Ranma leaped into action, to train atop the bamboo poles of the Jusenkyo Springs. Everything was fine and dandy, with no sign of anything going wrong–aside from the protestations of the guide–but then Ranma kicked his father into the Spring of the Immersed Panda. An apt name, because instead of his father, what emerged from it was a grizzly bear-sized and indignant panda which promptly batted Ranma straight into the Spring of the Immersed Young Girl.
As expected, Ranma emerged from the spring in the body of a short, buxom, and unbelievably cute redheaded girl.
With a scream of horror, and then of rage, father and son–rather panda and daughter–spent the next few hours with the former being chased and pummeled by the latter.
At some point during this chase, Ranma may have knocked someone else into a spring, but in her rage she did not see who or what spring they fell in. She wasn't even sure if it actually happened, and she was angry about that, too.
Now she was a girl, her dad as a panda, she was tired, angry, hungry-
"AHCHOO!"
-And coming down with a cold now, too. Today was the worst day ever and she was not sure how it could get worse.
"Hey, tour guide you've been walking us down this path for hours. How can you be sure that there's a place that can help us here?" She asked their tour guide.
"There place, yes," the tour guide revealed. "Place with wise elders who know very much of curses, yes? You get good cure here."
"Can I get a warm bed and a meal, too? Because I'm tired and I'm starving!" Ranma moaned, her panda dad agreeing with a growl right as a modest-sized village came into view.
"Honored Guests, you need not worry, we is here," the tour guide revealed. "This is village of Women Warriors, they fix everything. It all be a-okay one hundred percent."
Ranma looked with relief at the village, and sighed. Though the words weren't exactly what he'd go for in terms of reassurance, it sounded like this nightmare was finally coming to an end.
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 2/?
|Best Friend|
"Muay Thai, Karate, Systema, Northern Mantis Style, Taekwondo, and Capoeira," Katie said to Akane on the roof of the school, after being asked the question as to what martial arts she'd been trained in. "I also know some Italian Fencing and picked up a little Kendo. Other than that, everything I do nowadays is stuff I pick up watching other artists…"
Akane, who was enjoying the bento lovingly prepared by her eldest sister, was surprised to hear the lengthy resume of her new friend. "All of that? You must be a regular battle maniac."
"I'm not, really," Katie said, "I have an uncle who's a battle maniac, he used to fight in wars and stuff. He convinced my Mom and Dad that training me would be a good hobby to keep my nose clean."
She couldn't help a suggestive snicker after that, which Akane missed. "So every summer he'd pick me up and we'd go to some random country and I'd spend every day there training and doing like… nothing else. Ever. I've been training since I was four."
Akane hummed after taking a bite from her bento. "Mm… I've never met anyone that dedicated to martial arts."
"Well, you met me," Katie cheekily replied.
And she'd meet another one soon enough.
"I guess," Akane replied. "I thought I was strong. I don't think I've kicked anyone through a building before, or broken anyone's arms."
She had, on all three occasions she fought Kuno after flattening the crowd, punted him over the roof of the school though.
"That's because you're too nice, not because you can't," Katie replied. "It's a mentality thing. If you pull on your punches, you won't kill or really hurt anyone no matter how hard you can hit 'em on paper."
Akane looked down at her food, Katie did have a point. The idea of seriously injuring one of her classmates, even if it was a boy, didn't sit too well with her conscience. Kuno maybe, but anyone else? Not likely, she couldn't imagine hating anyone that much.
That would change.
"How are you able to do it?" Akane asked.
Katie smirked. "Obviously, I'm not a nice person. Hell, I'm the meanest person you'll ever meet."
That would change, too.
"Are you sure?" Akane asked. "You did help me because you thought I was nice."
"I guess so, but having a sense of justice doesn't mean being a nice person," Katie replied. "It's the right thing to do, sticking up for someone else. Especially when no one else was."
She clicked her teeth in disgust. "Like seriously, I bet if any of those jackoffs stood up to Kuno instead of ganging up on you, you'd probably be eating lunch with one of them right now."
Akane immediately made a face. "No way, I can't even imagine that!"
"I don't blame you," Katie chuckled. "That's their fault, not yours."
Cheerfully smiling again, Akane nodded and took another bite of her lunch. Now that she was free of the vile horde, everything was great and wonderful. The sun seemed to shine brighter, the birds sang sweeter, even her sister's delicious food tasted nicer! She was so happy now, and she had this cool foreign girl to thank for it!
"I really can't thank you enough," she said, "I don't even know what I can do to repay you."
"Having lunch with me more would be cool, hanging out in general." Katie replied. "You're good company."
Akane smiled, before she noticed that Katie had yet to start eating. "Where is your lunch, anyway?"
Katie looked up. "I was told it'd be here soon, so…"
Akane looked up as well. "What, are you having it delivered?"
She heard of takeout martial artists, like the legendary Daikoku clan, but delivering from the air? She searched the sky, eager to see what Katie was looking for, until she caught sight of a fast approaching object.
It was a quadrotor drone, bearing underneath a container half its size. Buzzing in, it came to a hover, turned in place to point its camera first at her, then at Katie, before lowering itself down to land at the latter's feet.
"Oh, a drone!" Akane said, quite surprised to see one. "Who delivers with that?"
She always wanted to try delivery by drone, but never had anything she couldn't just go out and buy.
"My roommate," Katie replied as she knelt down and slid the container from under the drone. "She's a hardcore NEET who never leaves her place, so when I want her to bring me food or just stuff in particular, she sends drones."
Akane was surprised. "Your friend sounds like she has a lot of money, if she can afford this."
"I do have a lot of money!" A girl's voice suddenly snapped from the drone. "And I'm not a NEET, you bitch!"
Akane jumped back, surprised that said roommate had been listening in via the drone. "Oh, sorry for that…"
"Don't worry, don't worry," the girl speaking via drone replied. "I'm Misao, and I guess I am kind of a shut in." Clearly irritated by Katie's comment, she added in reference to it "But I do have a God damned job!"
Katie stared down at the drone when Akane jumped. "Playing video games while dudes stare at your tits is not a job."
Akane's eyes grew wide. What kind of girl was this Misao?
"It is when you have tits dudes will pay to stare at," Misao smartly shot back, and Katie's face darkened.
An entirely innocent glance in that direction, and Akane realized that the tall American girl had a less substantial chest than her own. It was surprising, given the media stereotype of all western girls being extremely top-heavy, and a little ego-boosting that there was someone in the bra size department smaller than her. Not that she'd point that out to Katie at all ever.
"When I get home I'm kicking your ass!" Katie shouted at the drone.
"Hot, but I kind of can't have you in tonight," Misao replied. "I'm doing an R18 show for like six hours, and you know… legal reasons? Even having you walk by in the background might get me banhammered."
At that, Akane blushed. Misao… she did those kinds of things? On camera? On the internet?
Katie frowned. "Ugh, I'll have to go all the way to Minato tonight, then. Fantastic."
"Sorry bae, but you know the rules. I can't wait though, in six months, you'll be my co-star!"
"No thanks," Katie quickly replied. "I don't want people ogling my pale ass."
"You'll say yes one day~" Misao cooed back. "Anyway, my lunch break's almost over so it's back to tourney training. Call me when you get to Auntie's, kay bitch?"
"Yeah, I'll see you. Love you," Katie replied as she removed her lunch from the box and slipped it back into the drone. With an electric whine from its engines, the drone lifted into the air and began its flight back home.
As the drone flew away, Katie opened her lunch to find some hastily assembled fried chicken sandwiches, a bottled water, and some tossed in fried edamame. A smile creased her lips. "Aw, she took the time to make it herself."
She took a bite into her sandwich and looked at Akane, who was gaping at her. "Mm?"
"Is… is your roommate… an AV Girl?" Akane asked, not even sure how to wrap her head around that.
"Worse, she's an video game otaku," Katie replied. "But yeah, she's a camwhore who does stuff on camera for money… mostly just play video games with her shirt off."
That made Akane outright flinch. "How do you live with that?"
"She's not that bad, really. She's actually kind of nice, a good cook, and basically letting me live with her for free." Katie took another bite of her sandwich and swallowed it. "All I have to do is be her bodyguard the rare few times she actually decides to leave the house."
Akane hummed in amazement. For someone as strong as her, a job like that was a walk in the park! "Wow, that's all you do?"
"It's why I'm even in the country," Katie replied.
No wonder she had such an instinct to protect people, it was literally her job! "You know, you don't have to go all the way to Minato if you don't want to."
Katie hummed. "Oh yeah? Know any good hotels around here?"
"No, you could stay at my house overnight. It wouldn't be a problem at all," Akane offered.
It was Katie's turn to be surprised. "Huh? That's awfully generous of you-"
"Well, I'm really grateful for what you did. if you hadn't, I'd probably be miserable forever," Akane insisted, smiling kindly. "Besides, you did say you wanted to hang out with me more in general."
Katie watched Akane's hopeful expression for a moment, before she averted her eyes and took another bite out of her sandwich to distract herself from the warm and gooey feeling in her chest. This girl was way too cute, there was no way she could say no to that. "Good grief, if it's okay with you then sure. I'll sleep at your place tonight."
Akane beamed. "Great! I'll call my older sister and tell to prepare a little more for dinner tonight. This is going to be the best!"
Katie chuckled and gave her a playful smile of her own. "If you say so."
A distance away, in the tall trees that grew in Furinkan High's vicinity, a small shadowy figure glared darkly at the two young women smiling and eating lunch on the roof. His beady eyes burned with a vengeful fire beneath his bushy brows as he brought an older-style flip phone to his ear.
For what that awful girl did to his master, there would be no peace–only revenge.
"Kodachi-sama, it is your loyal servant, Sasuke Sarugakure-san. I have grievous news regarding your dear brother."
|Best Family|
As it was mentioned previously, Nabiki shared classes with Katie, and as such she had more familiarity with the transfer student than her younger sister. For the few days she was here, Katie was just a quiet girl who didn't try to ingratiate herself with others, and just did her schoolwork and spoke when spoken to. Other girls were intimidated by her, the America-fanboys had been driven off by the fact that she wasn't culturally inept, blonde-haired, and with big tits like all American girls were supposed to be, and all the other guys in school were too busy trying to beat up Akane to even notice her.
Nabiki herself, being completely indomitable, wasn't intimidated by Katie. However, living with Akane did tell her what a wild animal was when she saw it and Katie was the very picture of savagery–someone who actually liked being waist deep in a fight and knee deep in blood. She didn't anticipate, however, for the American to be a tier above Kuno or that she'd go straight for breaking him, ensuring him being out for at least a month from school.
The Kuno family had money, and that money would go into getting him back on his feet disconcertingly fast. That money would also not be going into Nabiki's wallet, and that's actually what had her a little pissed off at Katie.
Nabiki liked not having her arms broken, so any aggression she would have to act out on this girl would have to be completely passive. Maybe start up a rumor mill, get some compromising pictures circling around. Try to drum up the drama between her and Akane, all perfectly viable options that didn't need the damn monster coming home with Akane that very afternoon.
"She can't go back to her place tonight, and she was going to have to go all the way across town," Akane reasoned with Nabiki as they walked home with Katie trailing a bit behind her.
"So you just kind of tell her to come on over without even asking anyone else?" Nabiki quietly asked back.
"I texted Kasumi, she said she was happy that I was bringing a friend over," Akane replied.
Oh she would be, ever since the whole "Akane is a Violent Maniac" thing started going around, the only people who ever came over to see Akane were people wanting to beat her up or wanting her to beat people up. She didn't have friends in the traditional sense beyond clingers-on who took shelter under her strength and tolerated everything else.
On the bright side, at least that meant that Kasumi would be cooking extra well to make a good impression on Akane's new friend.
"What about Daddy? He's in one of his moods," Nabiki muttered back.
Akane quickly began to get a fix. Nabiki didn't want Katie around at all. "Since when did you ever care about Daddy?"
"I'm not a total bitch," Nabiki said. No she was a complete monster, but Akane didn't know about the pictures… yet.
Akane rolled her eyes. Normally Nabiki didn't care about much of anything, actually, but the day's events and the change that came with it told ever everything. "Oh, I get it…"
Nabiki narrowed hers. "Get what?"
"You're mad because Katie beat up your boyfriend."
Nabiki's eyes flew wide at the insinuation, but she looked more disgusted than enraged. She was honestly nauseous at the very idea. "W-what-?!"
"Oh man, you were holding a torch for that asshole?" Katie then asked. "Good girls like bad boys, and bad girls just don't have taste at all, right?"
That just pushed the knife deeper, until Nabiki snapped. "That fucker is not my boyfriend!"
Akane recoiled a bit, surprised at how angry Nabiki could sound when her very pride was at stake. Alas, it was not every day she touched a nerve with her normally cool and collected big sister. She narrowed her eyes, and smirked as she leaned closer to Nabiki. "Are you suuuuuurrrrrre?"
"The lady doth protest too much," Katie pointed out.
Nabiki wasn't used to being on the defensive, and even when she was she normally had a way out against most anyone. However, rarely was she double-teamed, and even rarer was she cornered with such an infuriating insult. So, she did the only thing she could immediately do, she stormed off, her face red with fury and eyes filled with blood and fire.
"Fuck both of you!" She snarled angrily as she marched ahead. Oh they were both going to get it!
Katie looked to Akane, and made sure Nabiki and anyone else in earshot heard what she said next. "Oh man, she has got it bad for Kuno!"
Akane followed suit, speaking extra loudly, turning the heads of a few other students also on their way home from school. "She's probably going to go sit by Kuno-senpai's hospital bed right after dinner!"
Nabiki actually screamed in anger, and her march turned into a sprint for the house and a lot of door slamming that could be heard as Akane and Katie reached the front gate of the Tendo Home and Dojo.
"Man, that's the first time I've ever seen Nabiki… emote," Akane said.
"Normally she's a sly, cool bitch who gets away with everything despite being as flimsy as tissue paper because she's hot and smart?" Katie asked. She liked that type, especially when all that cool bitchiness turned into unstoppable rage.
"You know the type?" Akane was sure there was a story behind it.
"Freshman year, biggest bully in the school was a gossip with her finger on the pulse of the school and with a hand in the wallet of every boy. Tried to blackmail me. I broke three of her ribs and stole her boyfriend in retaliation."
She hummed. "I got expelled for it, but it was cathartic."
"What happened to the boyfriend?" Akane asked.
"Turned out he was a meth head, stole my laptop and my phone," Katie said somewhat bitterly. "My uncle got that stuff back from him, but I haven't heard from the asshole since to kick his ass myself. They say he just up and skipped town."
That kind of downed the mood a bit. "Wow, I'm sorry that had to happen to you…"
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "It's cool. That whole fiasco is why I'm here in Japan, so… silver lining!" She flashed her a small smile, and Akane returned it in spades.
|The Goddess|
Kasumi Tendo was well-used to doors being slammed in greeting, especially in the last three days. Ever since boys had begun trying to ask her out, Akane has been coming home completely steamed, slamming doors as she changed to work out her pent up frustrations in the dojo. From what Nabiki told her, the boys who were interested in their youngest sister were just really aggressive in their asking her out, and she wasn't used to it.
What the mature, beautiful 19 year-old eldest of the Tendo sisters didn't expect, was for the person slamming doors to be Nabiki, given the chain of expletives spoken as soon as the front door was shut. Concerned and curious, Kasumi hurried from the kitchen to intercept her younger sister, who was stomping towards the stairs.
"Nabiki-chan?" She called after her. "Is everything all right?"
"Give me a few days and a list of phone numbers and everything will be," Nabiki growled as she turned and began up the stairs.
"What happened?" Kasumi asked.
"Why don't you let Akane and her new best friend tell you all about it!" Nabiki shouted back, and bedroom her door slammed shut a moment later. Music then could be heard through the floor, loud, angry music about evil genocidal space emperors and balls.
That exchange reminded Kasumi of the exciting news that Akane was having a friend over. "Oh my, that's right!"
Quickly she forgot all about Nabiki's seething fury, she put on a big smile again and went right to the door, just as Akane was opening it.
"Three ribs, though? That doesn't seem like much," Akane said back to Katie.
"You should've seen what I did to her little clique of girls, the wrestling team, and half the football team," Katie reassured her. "She thought they could protect her from me? I wouldn't put that weak sauce on my sandwich."
Both then noticed Kasumi standing in the door, and Akane brightened. "Hey Kasumi!"
"Welcome home, Akane-chan," Kasumi said gently to her youngest sister, before looking to address Katie. "And welcome to our home, Izurando-san."
Katie had a hard time immediately responding at that instant, because the very sight of Kasumi Tendo had stolen her breath away the instant before. This stunningly beautiful woman with long brown hair worn in a ponytail slung over her shoulder, looking like a perfect housewife in her dress and apron, and wearing a smile that reminded Katie of coming home from school to cookies, milk, and Disney Movies… this woman was Akane's older sister?!
This, on top of the definitely sexy (in the bitchy way, no less!) Nabiki and the irresistibly cute Akane, told Katie one thing. One important, life-changing thing:
She was going to be so gay for them.
"Uh… hi," Katie barely managed to squeak out in a low, shy voice.
Kasumi continued to smile. "There's no need to be shy. Please, come in, it's so wonderful to meet a friend of Akane-chan's."
The eldest Tendo turned to walk back inside, giving her a friendly nod over her shoulder to her as she headed in. When she broke eye contact, Katie couldn't help but scan her up and down, her pale cheeks turning a nice shade of pink, before she looked over to Akane and then away.
Akane noticed it. "Heh, my older sister's like the polar opposite of Nabiki. Super nice and stuff."
Katie quickly nodded, while putting one hand on the wall and slipping out of her shoes. "Yeah, uh… yeah she's really pretty… uh… nice… and stuff…"
Akane chuckled at Katie's expression. She so totally had a girl-crush on her older sister. This wasn't anything new to her, Kasumi had this effect on a lot of girls back when she went to High School.
"So, come on, let me show the dojo!" Akane offered. "We can even get some training in, too!"
"Sure, that sound's good," Katie replied, still distracted by Kasumi's radiance. By the beauty of all the Tendo girls really, but that Kasumi though…
"Good golly molly," Katie thought to herself–a phrase she'd NEVER say to anyone aloud–as she followed Akane in. "I don't think anyone has ever turned me on that much by just existing. Damn."
|A Friendly Spar|
As Kasumi went back to the kitchen to resume working on dinner, Akane led Katie down the hall adjacent to the rather spacious Tendo Dojo, a broad, high-ceiling building that was half the size of the main house itself. Snapping out of her Kasumi-induced daze, Katie let out an impressed whistle as she looked around.
"You could train quite a few students here," she said as Akane went to a small closet adjacent to the door.
"We used to have a whole class, but then my mother died and Daddy lost interest in training anyone," Akane said as she began to strip out of her uniform.
Katie looked over, and disguised her appreciative hum as one of understanding when she watched the uniform come off. She did a double-take, though when she saw that the unassuming in her uniform Akane looked had the body of a champion female MMA fighter off the front cover of a magazine, pulling off the beautiful and powerful look they strived for without any of the photo manipulation and camera tricks that normally went into it.
Stunned, Katie bit her lower lip and averted her eyes, before she decided that maybe she should get rid of her uniform herself.
As Akane slipped on her gi's pants and went to pull on the top, she kept talking. "After that the class shrank until eventually I was the only one left. I mean I tried to keep it going, but no boys really wanted a girl to teach them… and I guess I was a little too intense for them."
"I can't imagine that," Katie joked as she pulled her own uniform off and pulled a hair scrunchie to tie her long black hair up into a ponytail.
Akane finished tying her gi tight around her waist and turned to face Katie. She stopped herself, when she saw the athletic figure cut by the girl, looking like an olympic athlete wearing a pair of black and green bike shorts that ended just below mid-thigh, and a matching sports bra. The American girl was definitely thinner and wiry because of her height, but her muscle tone was impossible to ignore.
"Wow…" Akane murmured.
Katie glanced over at her and smirked. "Wow yourself, lookin' like you could be on a magazine cover."
Akane blushed a bit at the praise, and walked towards the center of the dojo, Katie following. "So, how do you want this spar to go?"
"How about first to fall loses?" Katie said.
Akane nodded and smiled. "Well, you asked for it."
Rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck, Katie stood directly across from Akane as she finished her own stretching. Turning to face one another, the bowed respectfully–acknowledging the friendly terms of their spar–then assumed fighting stances.
"Ready?" Akane asked.
"Yeah, let's dance," Katie replied.
"Then here I come!" Akane called out as she came right at Katie with a powerful punch that seemed slow to Katie right up until she realized she had to do something to block and evade it. She did, bringing up her hands like a baseball catcher's and blocking the punch, the full force pushing her back despite her braced feet.
Surprised, but undaunted, Katie vaulted right up and over Akane, crossing up and over her, twisting her body around to deliver a kick that Akane blocked by raising one arm before kicking back just as she landed, forcing Katie to skip backwards to avoid the heel aimed to connect with her cheek.
As she escaped the limits of Akane's reach, the older girl took advantage of hers, going back in with quick jabs that Akane parried and deflected, using her footwork to stay at the limit of Katie's reach while trying to scope out an opening to break out with. Her opponent was so quick though, with barely any gap between her blows or hesitation in her moves.
"Good moves, good moves!" Katie complimented as she feinted a punch again–but suddenly pivoted to use that devastating roundhouse kick she destroyed Kuno with.
Akane was much smaller than Kuno though, and she used it, ducking under it to attack. It was then that she realized that the angle was too high up, and she quickly rolled back as Katie's leg came down much faster, the impact from her axe kick causing the entire dojo to shake.
"Whoa!" Akane scrambled back after she stopped her roll, avoiding slash-like low kicks that Katie kept her from capitalizing against with wild and unpredictable feints.
"Her footwork is so good… she really loves kicking…" Akane thought right before she fired off a high kick that crossed legs with Katie's, parrying her kick. When Katie was pushed back, Akane suddenly came up from bringing her leg down with an uppercut, forcing her to somersault backwards and land a much safer distance away, bouncing from one foot to the other as she resumed her loose fighting stance.
"Good grief, that almost grazed me," Katie teased.
Akane began to mimic Katie's bouncing motion, she was starting to feel a rush she hadn't since she went head on with Kuno in kendo. "The next one should do more than that!"
"C'mon, c'mon~!" Katie invited, right before the two danced right back into it and swung at each other.
|Nostalgia Bomb|
Inside the sitting room, a sound Soun Tendo hadn't heard in quite a while began to fill his ears: The muffled thumping of footsteps, jumping, and stomping. The shouts of kiais, and even the smacks of blows being traded. Ah, what a nostalgic sound, it took him back to happier days, before the tragedy of his wife's passing, a dojo full of students practicing their moves, sparring, training… all under his watchful eyes.
The mustachioed head of the Tendo family smiled and brought up his hand to stroke his chin. Ah, he remembered those old days so fondly. Maybe… maybe he ought to go back to that. Round up some students, and teach the art of fighting as he'd been taught.
… Well, maybe not exactly as he'd been taught, but in a manner that wouldn't have the authorities (or worse, lawyers) knocking on his door.
An especially loud thump made Soun jump, and it was then that he finally realized that the racket wasn't just him spacing out and reminiscing. "Hm?"
There was another, and now Soun was curious. "Kasumi-chan, what's that racket. Is Akane upset about something?"
"Oh no, she's sparring with a friend from school!" Kasumi said, quite giddily. It sounded like they were having so much fun in there!
There was an especially loud bang, from the sound of another of Katie's kicks barely missing its mark, followed by the thumping and shouting of Akane attempting to punish it.
Soun's curiosity could take it no longer, and so he rose and made his way over to the dojo. He knew how his youngest daughter was when it came to training, and usually affairs such as sparring were far less violent and far more brief.
Upon reaching the doorway, he was certainly surprised to see Akane jump off the opposite wall and swing a spinning kick straight for Katie's head, the blow connecting with her raised arms but still having enough force behind it to lift her off her feet and slam her into the wall with enough force to splinter the sturdy wooden planks that went halfway up its sides.
Upon landing, a horrified Akane recoiled. "Oh… oh no! Katie, are you all right?!"
Soun was surprised himself. "Akane, what on Earth are you doing?"
He looked at the girl embedded in his wall, a definitely foreign girl, and paled. It was an unfortunate fact that when Soun's interest in training students began to wane, Akane attempted to pick up his slack. This led to the vast remainder of his students fleeing the dojo–or more specifically, fleeing Akane's wrath. While the girl knew enough to hold back from killing anyone (probably due to her nature) she was just clumsy enough to break someone short of killing them.
It was one thing for local boys to taste her wrath, but a foreigner? This was a lawsuit waiting to happen!
Akane looked over. "Daddy? Oh, I was sparring but-"
Katie, looking none the worse for wear, pushed herself out of the indent she made in the wooden planks. "Don't worry, I'm okay."
And then Akane was looking right back at Katie, awash with relief. "Are you sure?"
"I can keep going if you like," Katie insisted as she went right back into a fighting stance. She grinned. "I'm starting to have fun, you know?"
Akane's relief turned into the brightest smile Soun had ever seen her with, before she to returned to her stance and began circling around the center of the dojo floor opposite of Katie, like two binary stars around the same point.
Soun was amazed. This strange foreign girl–she was bringing out such a happiness in his youngest daughter. He almost wanted to interrupt their spar, and inquire more about this person, but they looked like they were having so much fun, so he decided to just step back and watch with a proud smile to see his daughter so happy.
Ultimately, the spar would be interrupted, by several smoke bombs suddenly rolling across the floor around Akane and Katie and exploding.
|No Ninja, No Ninja, No!|
"Ah, what the fuck?!" Katie called out in English, as the smoke filled her nose with a disgusting smell, and her eyes with tears. "It stinks like shit, oh God!"
Akane was similarly covering her face in vain as the smoke got to her, too. "Eek!"
Soun, out of the radius of the smoke bombs, brought the sleeve to his gi up to cover his face, as the bold laughter of a young man filled the room. This laughter caused both Akane and Katie to freeze.
"K-Kuno?!" Akane gasped.
"What the…?" Katie managed to open one eye and look through the blinding smoke, when she heard Akane. "Are you kidding me…?"
She could clearly see the silhouette of Kuno in his kimono, with what should be a broken arm holding out a bokken at his side as his laughter died down.
"As you can plainly see, I, Tatewaki Kuno the Invincible Blade, stand unharmed before you." He declared. "Your flashy moves and foul demeanor, amusing as they are, were merely style to make up for substance you truly lacked!"
Katie wiped her eyes again, and her surprised look became one of confusion, and then just became a flat glare.
Kuno's silhouetted chuckled again and pointed his bokken at her. "However, if you pack up your things and leave Japan immediately, to never be seen again, I will forgive you for your transgression and spare you a truly awful fate."
He then brought the bokken to his shoulder and laughed again. "You must also pay a restitution fee, as well. I do not ask for much, just drop what money you have on the floor and leave at once."
By this point the smoke had cleared enough for Akane, Katie, and Soun to see that "Kuno" was actually a tall bar stool wearing Kuno's pants, with a bushy-eyebrowed, monkey-like man in a ninja gi wearing the top part of his usual kimono. He was wearing a wig that helped complete the illusion, and in the hand not holding the bokken he held a microphone to his mouth as he tried to emote the suaveness of Kuno and let the voice modulator do the rest.
"And Akane Tendo must go on a date with me, for allowing me to suffer such indignity!" He added.
Katie walked right up to the ninja, and kicked the stool out from under him as he laughed again, causing him to fall flat on his face and swallow the microphone.
"Sup?" She snarled in a low, dark voice as she looked down on the small man.
The ninja, one Sasuke Sarugakure, quickly got up, groaning from the nasty sensation of having a working microphone in his stomach. Hacking from being forced to swallow a microphone, he looked up at Katie, shocked. "H-how did you resist my poison smoke?!"
"Lookup CS Gas, and then imagine waking up to it once a week for a month," Katie growled at him. "It ain't pretty, and your shit 'poison gas' is a stink bomb compared to it."
He pointed at her defiantly. "No matter, I will not forgive you for what you have done to my master!"
"Your Master?" Katie asked. "Wait, are you like Kuno's pet ninja or something?"
"He is," Akane said with no small hint of anger in her own voice.
Katie looked down at him. "I don't need your forgiveness, but hey… since you're a ninja for hire and stuff how about you work for me? I always wanted a pet ninja."
"I AM NO ONE'S PET! ESPECIALLY NOT TO A LOOSE, LEWD WOMAN!" Sasuke roared while looking Katie's toned body over. Honestly, wearing such brief attire! She was supposed to be sparring, not posing like some debased AV woman. Not that he would know about that.
"I am a loyal servant to the Kuno family, and for them I would gladly lay down my life!" He prepared more smoke bombs between his fingers. "Prepare for a taste of true hell-!"
A simple front kick scooped Sasuke straight up into the air, before Katie spun around and swung a high kick straight up into his stomach with such force, that there was feedback from the unseen speakers he'd used with the mic. This was followed by a muffled pop and Sasuke belching fire from the whole microphone exploding in his gut.
Her leg held high, Katie balanced the folded over ninja on her heel, as she stared up at him.
"Blood, fire, gasoline, and lead… that's what Hell tastes like," Katie whispered to Sasuke in English as she looked up at him, her green eyes alight with malice.
Through his pain, Sasuke suddenly found himself regretting being fluent in so many languages, as a good ninja servant ought to be.
"And I love it."
Because those words and their tone were terrifying.
"Here, have a taste!" She brought Sasuke over in an arc, and slammed him into the floor of the dojo with enough force to buckle the planks and send him straight through the bottom of the dojo and into the cold, bare dirt under the building.
As splinters rained down around the edge of the hole made in the floor, she leaned down abd looked. He was still conscious, and in quite a lot of pain. Good, she wanted to make sure he understood completely how badly he fucked up.
"If you or your master come after me or Akane or any of her family," she warned him in English, "I'm going to bury yours."
Soun was impressed. Such power, such ferocity, such brutality! His dear Akane had made a friend that shared her interests so well!
Katie looked up from the hole and to Soun as she realized the damage she'd done. "Oh shit, I'm sorry about the floor. My friend has money, she'll pay for fixing it, I promise."
Soun brightened more. She wasn't a cheapskate either. "Well, as long as you're taking responsibility I don't see the harm done."
"Wow, Katie-senpai! That was great!" Akane said eagerly as she joined her side.
Katie looked over to her. "Senpai?" She cocked her head slightly, to look at Akane from a slight angle. "I'm not much of one…"
"Well, you took care of Kuno's little servant pretty well," Akane said. "And Kuno too."
"I guess, but that just sounds so… flattering…" Katie said. "I'm not used to that kind of respect…"
She looked back at the hole. "Besides, I didn't put the little guy out completely."
Sure enough Sasuke began to haul himself out of the floor. He had an evil smile on his face, a dark grin, as if getting his ass kicked had been a part of his plan the whole time.
"Hmhmhm… indeed… you were clever to hold yourself back as I expected you to be," he revealed.
Akane looked from Sasuke to Katie. "You held back, why?"
"Because we're being watched," Katie revealed, prompting a surprised Akane and Soun to start looking around quickly.
"That is correct!" Sasuke said. "Kodachi-sama, have you seen enough?"
"Oh my yes, I certainly have," a new voice, that of a noble young woman, answered.
Then, the entire inside of the dojo was subject to a gentle fall of black rose petals.
|Lean a little bit closer see that roses really smell like poo-ooh-oooh|
"Rose petals?" Akane asked.
Katie caught one that fell close to her. "They're black."
She felt it between her fingers; they were real too.
When she looked ahead, her eyes widened again at the sight of a woman in a green leotard sauntering towards them. She was, much like Akane, the picture of athleticism, but her body definitely reflected one toned for the rigors of graceful gymnastics–barring her exceptional chest. She had the face of a fashion model to match the beauty of her physique, complete with alluringly done black lipstick and eyeliner, and her long black hair was tied off in a ponytail that extended down the right side of her head.
"So this is the part of town where all the hot, dangerous girls live," Katie immediately thought.
"Who are you?" Akane asked, unnerved by the arrival of this unknown, if weirdly alluring, woman.
"Allow me to introduce myself properly," the strange woman said. "I am Kodachi Kuno, sister of the man you may know as Tatewaki, and mistress of this one here."
She gestured to Sasuke, who was still grinning maliciously at them.
Akane was almost immediately in a fighting stance, as was Katie.
"Geez, the House of Kuno is looking to go bankrupt with medical bills, huh?" The latter asked.
"You bet," Akane agreed.
"Now, given your reactions, it isn't too much of a stretch to believe that what my servant has described to me is true. You humiliated my brother, shattering his bones, his pride, and his spirit. You left him a hollow wreck of a man, who had to be carted to hospital nearly in pieces." Kodachi looked between the two of them, before settling on Katie. "All because you took objection to his courtship of this homely girl?"
When she indicated Akane, Akane almost lunged to start punching her bloody. Homely? Homely?!
Katie held her arm out, holding Akane back. "I kicked his ass, yeah. Because he was bullying the whole school into beating her up. Why wouldn't I step in on that?"
"Well, it doesn't matter why, what matters is you did," Kodachi said darkly. "For that, I believe a fitting… reward is in order, for your selfless intervention at my brother's expense."
Sasuke weakly laughed. He knew well of Kodachi-sama's madness, and how deadly she could be in a battle. If that vicious beast of a woman thought his poison smoke was a joke, then his mistress would show her what a real master of toxins was like! He clenched a fist, eager to see Kodachi's first blow.
Katie snorted. "Oh, and what would that be?"
Kodachi, seemingly out of nowhere, then produced a beautifully engraved hand-crafted, handheld mirror lined with a black rose pattern. "Here, a token of my gratitude. A one of a kind artisanal mirror commissioned as a gift for me for my sixteenth birthday and valued well over two hundred thousand yen."
Both Akane and Katie immediately dropped their stances, growing confused at the offer of a genuine reward instead of some sinister attack. Looking at it, Katie reached out and with slight hesitation took it. "Okay…?"
"I would also like to offer my sincerest apologies," Kodachi went on. "My brother can be something of a boor when it comes to things he cannot have, throwing tantrums this way and that. This treatment of you, Tendo-san, is absolutely unacceptable to the proud name of the Kuno family."
Sasuke could not believe what he was hearing. "K-Kodachi-sama, but your brother… his love…!"
"Lust more like! You would never catch me acting like this, assembling a rabble to coerce another to become my lover and companion! A true scion of the Kuno family needs not to resort to such underhanded tactics to get what they desire!" Kodachi lifted her head up, and put on a regal smirk. "One must attain what they desire through any means, but through their hands alone! Ohohohoho!"
Katie bit her lower lip again. Okay, she was hot, crazy, and had the ojou-sama laugh. Girls in this neighborhood were amazing.
At this moment, Kasumi poked her head in, and saw the mess made and the new girl who'd arrived. It'd been so long since so many people had come to visit all at once. "Oh hello, are you another friend of Akane-chan's?"
"An acquaintance, at best," Kodachi replied, "But I bear no ill-will to her. In fact I am here to apologize for my brother's behavior to her. I am Kodachi Kuno."
Kasumi brightened. "Well there's no need to be a stranger, please sit down for dinner with us. I've just finished it."
Akane was on the fence about this. On one hand, being friends with Kodachi didn't seem so bad if her idea for showing apology was handing out expensive gifts. On the other, it'd give her brother an excuse to come straight to the house. On a third, heretofore unnoticed hand, Tatewaki Kuno was a broken shell of a man who could probably do little more than harmlessly, hopelessly annoy her. On top of that if she was as athletic (and close to her brother) as she looked, she could probably learn a few things from her (and about Kuno) and incorporate that into her style so in case Tatewaki did come to bother her, Akane would have no problem pummeling the pompous ponce.
A new friend and a window into her enemy's soul? Sold! "Please, Kodachi-san, join us for dinner. Kasumi is a very good cook."
Kodachi hummed. "Well, it has been some time since I've had a meal prepared by someone other than my servant…" She looked down at a still disbelieving and shamed Sasuke, much as one would look upon an insect needing to be stomped on. "And since my servant will be indisposed due to his injuries, I will gratefully take your offer."
Akane and Katie both smiled, for different but partially overlapping reasons. "Great!"
Kasumi was pleased as well. "Wonderful, please come to the sitting room."
Soun couldn't help his own smile. When did this house suddenly get so lively?
|Friends of the Black Rose|
It wasn't a well-known fact, but Nabiki Tendo had a vindictive streak that rivaled most Middle Eastern antagonism. Indeed, if any two opposing nations were to learn of the pettiness of the grudges Nabiki could hold against others, they'd rethink their own quarrels and the road to world peace would lose the vast majority of its roadblocks.
In this instance, for the crime of actually getting a rise out of her, Nabiki just went online and hired someone to completely humiliate Katie. Not kill her or even significantly injure her, but to leave her exposed and embarrassed in front of everyone and ensure that she'd never want to see the light of day. It cost quite a bit of money, but for Nabiki Tendo's pride, like any Tendo sister's pride, money was not an object.
With revenge assured, she'd gone back to being her normally aloof self by the time dinner rolled around, though she was intrigued to find that they were being joined by Kuno's little sister. Kodachi was quite curious about the young woman who turned her brother into a bigger buffoon than he normally was.
"I've been long curious about this girl who has bewitched my brother's heart, between the constant ravings, the poetry, the pictures, the shrine, the body pillows–I was beginning to wonder if you were in fact some celebrity," Kodachi revealed.
"Oh no, she's just the most popular girl in school," Kasumi praised, to Akane's embarrassment.
"I'm not that popular…" She tried to humbly reply.
"Yes, you are," Katie and Nabiki said in unison, though with more bitterness on the part of the latter. All those boys, worthless garbage now…
"Well, not anymore now that those idiot boys know I don't want anything to do with them," she grumbled.
Kodachi hummed. "Not a single one of them?"
Akane shook her head. "Those desperate dweebs may as well be dead to me, they're dead to pretty much every girl in the whole town after what they did."
Katie nodded in agreement. "Damn right."
Kasumi was rather blithe about it. "Well, I don't really care for younger men so it's no loss to me."
Katie glanced over to the eldest Tendo. "Really; what sort is your type?"
Put on the spot, Kasumi brought a hand to her cheek, her cheeks tinting pink. "Oh my, it's kind of embarrassing really… and maybe not dinner table conversation for me."
Kodachi seemed quite interested in this development. "So there is literally a school full of strapping young men untouchable to the women–literal burakumin in the eyes of women everywhere?"
Akane nodded. "That's about it."
Kodachi let out a silky laugh. "Interesting, I might be visiting your school in coming days, would you be so generous as to show me around when I come by?"
"As long as you don't plan on taking your brother's place as the resident lunatic," Akane offered.
The next laugh was not as silky, in fact it was that ojou-sama laugh that prompted a shiver to go down Katie's spine, and her thighs to clench together as she near-visibly shuddered.
"Ohohoho! Tendo-san, as a token of my forgiveness, you needn't worry about me. I swear upon my family's honor that I, Kodachi Kuno, will be your friend and confidante for life. I'll do what I can to make up for my boorish buffoon of a brother."
That had Nabiki lifting an eyebrow in surprise. "Wait, what?"
Kasumi, for her merit, was touched by the gesture. "That's so kind of you!"
Akane was flattered as well. "Aw, geez, really?"
"Truly!" Kodachi said before looking to Katie. "And to you as well, Izurando-san. I don't want any bad blood between our houses. Let us let bygones be bygones."
Katie didn't hesitate. "Sure, that sounds good. Long as you keep your brother out of our hair."
"You have permission from me to deal with him as you see fit, short of actually killing him of course."
Katie nodded. "In that case, next time I'll break his legs."
"That will be fine by me," Kodachi said with another ojou-sama laugh.
Kodachi's generosity was unexpected, suspicious even. It was as if she was getting something pretty big out of this and Nabiki wanted to know what it was. It barely took her a half second after she mused over this for her to realize it, and her eyes grew wide for a moment when she did.
"That magnificent bitch," Nabiki said as suddenly this Kodachi girl became as much of a threat to her business in the long run as Akane's other new friend was right now.
Soun, who was quite impressed by Kodachi's little vow–and seeing the possible financial benefits–was more than happy to welcome this new development. "Akane-chan, your friend Kodachi-kun here is more than welcome in my home."
"Just so long as her brother isn't." Not that it would probably stop him, Akane was just saying.
"I'll keep him out when you can't," Katie said, to which Akane responded with a smile.
"So you'll be coming over more often too, right?"
"Whenever you need me," Katie promised. "We're friends right?"
Akane let out a small laugh, as she beamed right back at Katie. "Yeah, we are!" She looked to Kodachi. "You, too!"
Kodachi found herself quite taken by the happy girl's smile, just about as much as every other hopeless soul who saw it tended to be. She returned the smile. "It is an honor."
Nabiki sulked a bit, her gaze darting between Akane, Katie, and Kodachi. In one day, in less than one, everything just got flipped on its head. How annoying it all was… what was once a comfy status quo was a mess of uncertainty, and uncertain times tended to be hard times.
There was no bringing Kuno back, and the boys of Furinkan High School were completely broken. If Nabiki was going to make any money, she would have to adapt and improvise. What a pain.
"Well, dinner was fabulous, Tendo-san, but I must be on my way," Kodachi suddenly said as she rose. "I have class in the morning and homework to complete."
She then produced from seemingly a stack of yen and set it on the table right in front of Nabiki. "A token of appreciation and gratitude for the lovingly crafted meal." She then bowed politely to them, before going outside. "I will see you tomorrow, Akane-san, Izurando-san!"
Laughing that laugh Katie found so incredible, Kodachi took off into the night, leaving Nabiki staring blankly down at the stack of 100,000 yen casually tossed down by the younger Kuno sibling.
That was 100,000 yen.
Right there. In front of her eyes.
"She really is generous," Kasumi said, surprised herself by the amount of money offered.
"I'll say!" Soun said as he reached for it, only for Nabiki to move faster than she ever moved to snatch it up herself.
"Mine," she said impulsively, earning two pointed looks from her younger sister and her beastly friend. Recoiling, she tried to look less money grubbing and forced a crooked smile. "Er… as in… I will make sure that this is safely deposited."
The pointed looks cooled off, and Nabiki instead looked down at the tremendous amount of money with no small amount of giddiness. Maybe things won't be so bad with the new status quo–long as nothing else upset it before she could get used to it again.
|Meanwhile, back in China|
Everything went wrong.
First, in clear defiance and disregard of the warnings, Genma and Ranma leaped into action, to train atop the bamboo poles of the Jusenkyo Springs. Everything was fine and dandy, with no sign of anything going wrong–aside from the protestations of the guide–but then Ranma kicked his father into the Spring of the Immersed Panda. An apt name, because instead of his father, what emerged from it was a grizzly bear-sized and indignant panda which promptly batted Ranma straight into the Spring of the Immersed Young Girl.
As expected, Ranma emerged from the spring in the body of a short, buxom, and unbelievably cute redheaded girl.
With a scream of horror, and then of rage, father and son–rather panda and daughter–spent the next few hours with the former being chased and pummeled by the latter.
At some point during this chase, Ranma may have knocked someone else into a spring, but in her rage she did not see who or what spring they fell in. She wasn't even sure if it actually happened, and she was angry about that, too.
Now she was a girl, her dad as a panda, she was tired, angry, hungry-
"AHCHOO!"
-And coming down with a cold now, too. Today was the worst day ever and she was not sure how it could get worse.
"Hey, tour guide you've been walking us down this path for hours. How can you be sure that there's a place that can help us here?" She asked their tour guide.
"There place, yes," the tour guide revealed. "Place with wise elders who know very much of curses, yes? You get good cure here."
"Can I get a warm bed and a meal, too? Because I'm tired and I'm starving!" Ranma moaned, her panda dad agreeing with a growl right as a modest-sized village came into view.
"Honored Guests, you need not worry, we is here," the tour guide revealed. "This is village of Women Warriors, they fix everything. It all be a-okay one hundred percent."
Ranma looked with relief at the village, and sighed. Though the words weren't exactly what he'd go for in terms of reassurance, it sounded like this nightmare was finally coming to an end.
Chapter 3/?
Chapter 3
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 3/?
The winds of change blew quickly at Furinkan High School. What had once been a vibrant and healthy male student body, full of life and vigor, became almost a non-entity as the former suitors of Akane Tendo resigned themselves to a life of mediocrity and loneliness. What were once hot-blooded young men with ambition segregated themselves from their female counterparts, traveling in commiserating groups, pitying themselves for their stupid life choices.
Little did any of them realize that this self-flagellation would only lead to a worse life choice.
Without Tatewaki Kuno around stirring up a frenzy and any boys to be frenzied, Furinkan became a much more peaceful place. Students went to class, took part in clubs, and basically the atmosphere of a rich slice-of-life anime began to settle in–one could even hear a calming, cheerful musical theme if one listened.
The girls of Furinkan High School, after briefly lamenting the loss of any dateable stock, found themselves breathing sighs of relief now there were fewer perverts running around. They also found that boys from other schools were a thing and that they were all pretty great–except for those assholes from Tomobiki High School. If there were boys worse than the Furinkan crowd before or after the defeat of Tatewaki Kuno…
Akane and Katie were the ones who reaped the most benefit of this high school renaissance. Without weirdboys being weird on them, a lot of the female class loosened up with Akane, and two of her clingers-on, Sayuri and Yuka, even began to actually hang out with her for reasons other than wanting to ward off a lecherous boy. Katie, on the other hand, found herself being worshipped by most girls in her class and below for getting rid of the school's biggest pervert. Though the clique of informants and satellite bitches that orbited Nabiki Tendo still forwarded her nasty looks and snide comments on the regular.
Katie was fine with that, after all Nabiki wasn't the first stuck-up bitch that would eventually get hers.
As for Nabiki herself, business took a hit. No boy in any class level wanted pictures of Akane, with the driving force being that even the allegation of owning one would cost them an arm or a leg–to be paid in full to Katie. However, organizing dates between girls at Furinkan and with boys from other schools had turned out fairly lucrative, it also boosted her gossip ring quite a bit, so all that really ached was her pride.
But that would be assuaged.
Life was normal, for the first time in a while, for everyone at Furinkan High School. It was such a shame that it was going to end.
"Katie-senpai~!" Akane called to her as she prepared to step out into the rainy courtyard, followed by Sayuri and Yuka. At this point, Akane called her senpai because Katie wasn't used to it, and because pretty much every girl in her grade level called her it, too.
"Geez, could you not…?" Katie asked as she readied her umbrella. "What's up?"
"Yuka, Sayuri, and I were going to go shopping. Did you want to come along?" Akane asked.
Katie really wanted to, because a shopping trip with Akane usually meant going back to the Tendo Dojo and eating Kasumi's delicious food for dinner after. Alas…
"Sorry, I'd love to but I have to go clean up my apartment," Katie revealed. "It's been a few days and Misao's been training for Internationals, so takeout boxes and water bottles have piled near to the ceiling."
In addition to the dirty clothes. Why did someone who never went outside for more than a few minutes a week insist on wearing different clothes every day? She didn't even do shows in them!
"Aw, that's a shame," Akane said with a pout.
"Why don't you invite your friend to come shopping with us?" Yuka asked, in the far-off hope of being seen in public with an elusive celebrity with an apparently large amount of money.
Katie and Akane didn't have the heart–or rather had the common decency–to tell her that the big part of her celebrity was because of all the pornography.
"I'll never get that shut-in out until she actually has to go to Seoul for the championship," Katie said, "Maybe some other time, though."
Akane made a face. "She relies on you too much for her housework. What would she do if something happened to you?"
Katie smirked. "Probably charm one of her fans into doing it for free."
Akane was about to comment on that, when her phone buzzed. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled it out and looked at the screen. Disappointment appeared on her features. "What? Oh man…"
"What is it?" Yuka asked.
Akane dropped her shoulders. "That was Kasumi, she said that something just came up and me and Nabiki have to go straight home."
Katie frowned. "Is it anything serious?"
Akane shrugged her shoulders. "She says it's family stuff. I guess I'm not going shopping today, either."
"Aw!" Sayuri and Yuka both lamented.
Katie smiled. "Hey, hey, don't be down… I'll try to finish up my housework, and if it's not super late, we can go to the karaoke bar that's below my place."
Akane brightened. "You sure?"
"Yeah, definitely. That place is open super late and it's always bouncin'," Katie revealed. "I might even be able to drag Misao away from the computer long enough for it."
To finally meet Misao in person? Katie was making it too tempting for all three of her kohai.
"Sounds like a plan, keep us posted!" Sayuri said. "We're still going to the shopping center though."
"Yeah, see you Akane! Katie-senpai!" Yuka said as both opened their umbrellas and headed off.
Akane waved after them, and then looked to Katie. "Sorry again for your chores thing."
"It's fine, it's fine," Katie said. "Besides, when the place is clean, Misao's actually motivated to cook instead of takeout. So it has its own rewards."
She patted Akane on the head, and then headed off, her green and black hexagon-pattern umbrella opening wide under the pelting rain. "See you around, Akaneko."
As Katie strolled off, Nabiki came up alongside Akane, looking at her phone. "I hope we're not in debt with some jerk and have to sell the dojo or our bodies to pay it off or something stupid like that."
Akane looked to her sister. "That would be stupid, especially since you're supposed to be the one keeping an eye on the books."
Nabiki nodded. "Well financial records are one thing, but Dad was a travelling martial artist remember? He's probably made some oral man-to-man honor agreement with a huge asshole or two that he's neglected to tell us about out of convenience."
"Now that would be stupid," Akane decided.
"If he did, what would you do?" Nabiki asked.
"Well, that depends on the asshole he made the agreement with."
A few blocks over, on one of the busier streets of the Nerima ward, a curious sight was stopping pedestrians and drivers alike. Right before the eyes of many of a part of Tokyo already well-used to weird phenomena, a free-running redhead girl dressed like she came straight out of rural China was being pursued by a parkouring panda.
As many of these witnesses would later attest in social gatherings and on social media, you haven't lived until you've witnessed a panda doing a two-handed vault at full pelt in pursuit of a petite little redhead that no-hand somersaulted right over it a second before.
Leaping over another parked car and breaking into a sprint, Ranma Saotome was dead set on doing everything she could to stay outside of her cursed father's paws. In her hands she held tightly onto a pair of shoes and a backpack, which were currently slowing her down as the panda closed in.
She looked back, and after damning her father's animal physique, threw her bag and shoes at him. "Knock it off!"
Genma Saotome, despite being a large endangered mammal, saw the feint a mile away, and batted the bag away with a right paw before bringing his southpaw up to block Ranma's flying side kick. The force of the blow was still enough to push Genma back quite a bit, the Panda letting out a growl and shaking his head.
People were starting to film the chaotic scene, while others were calling the zoo about an escaped wild animal.
"Picking my fiancé for me, without even asking? That's what was so important that we had to come back here for?! You're just dead set on making my life a living hell, aren't you?!" She yelled at him.
To the spectators surprise, the panda produced a sign that read "I'm doing what's best for you, boy!" which safe to say confused a whole lot of people for a whole lot of reasons. The panda assuming a fighting stance did not help.
"What's best for me? Oh that's it." Ranma quickly assumed her own fighting stance. "Your move, but you're gonna regret it!"
Genma moved, rushing in close and launching a barrage of quick strikes, and Genma did regret it, as Ranma caught the last muscular thrust from the panda's arm and lifted him up and over her head to slam him into a street sign, bending it until it snapped like a twig. Dusting off her hands, a useless reflex given the pouring rain, Ranma turned away from him and gave him a caustic look from the corner of her eye.
"Suck on that, old man, I'm going back to China," she declared.
Genma raised his wooden sign, which now read "So more things can ruin your life?"
Ranma was appropriately triggered. "Excuse you?! When it comes to things ruining my life, you're batting a thousand! I'm getting out of here before this engagement shackles me with some really dumb bull-!"
Genma threw his sign at Ranma, forcing her to kick it away quickly. The panda was gone, as was the sign that he'd broken. "Shit!"
Both showed up again in short order, with the former bringing the latter down on Ranma's head from behind, knocking her flat out. Ranma didn't even hit the ground, before her Panda Dad caught her and hoisted her up over his shoulder. As the giant panda picked up his fool son-turned-daughter's travel belongings, he finally noticed the crowd of gawkers gawking.
A quick bout of snarls and roars at the peanut gallery scattered them well enough, and Genma continued on his way with a growl of satisfaction. Using that old throw something at your target to distract him from the real attack maneuver was something he mastered before Ranma was a twinkle in his eye. This fool son of his was going to learn that there were just some things he couldn't pull on his old man.
Then, out the corner of his eye to his right, Genma spotted what was definitely a closed green and black umbrella thrown at him like a spear. With a sweep of the bag he carried, Genma knocked it up, flipping into the air back towards the sidewalk.
When he looked towards his new attacker, he was left completely open to Katie falling down on him from directly above, tumbling like a wheel in order to swing her heel down onto the top of his head with the greatest force possible.
It paid off, Genma hitting the ground so fast that the unconscious Ranma was left floating in the air for a moment, as the panda bear's face planted with the street complete with the force to make a full body imprint of it a meter deep. Ranma landing on the unconscious panda's back only added the insult to injury.
After recovering her umbrella, Katie walked over towards Genma and looked down at him. "I've knocked out my share of bears, but seriously Po? I wouldn't put that weak sauce on my sandwich."
She then looked over to the crowd. "Is someone gonna call a zoo or something? I'm gonna get this one out of the rain."
A few hands went up, and upon finding that satisfactory Katie gingerly picked up Ranma, her shoes, and her backpack. Looking down at the unconscious girl, and then in the direction of her place, she let out a sigh.
"Welp, at least Misao will be too busy training to care," she muttered as she headed on for home with Ranma in her arms.
When Nabiki and Akane came home, they found Soun was more emotional than usual, clutching in his hands a postcard from China stamped posted in the last couple of days. Kasumi, on the other hand, was looking uncharacteristically distressed by something–presumably the contents of the postcard.
Nabiki could smell bullshit in the air like a shark could smell blood in the water, and she was already mentally preparing herself for some real bullshit. "Okay, what happened?"
Kasumi looked to her younger sisters. "Well, um…"
"Girls… a truly happy day has come!" Soun declared. "This day, the day where I will get to introduce one of you to your fiancé!"
Nabiki wasn't prepared for that. "Say what?"
Neither was Akane. "A fiancé?"
"So I wasn't caught in a momentary delusion where Daddy was acting like this was the 19th Century," Nabiki said before she let out a sigh. "Disappointed."
Soun, wiping his tears on the sleeve of his gi, set down his postcard. "Yes. The son of a good friend of mine, the son's name is Ranma Saotome. Years ago, before any of you were born, we made a promise to one day join our schools together."
"Was it a man-to-man honor agreement?" Nabiki asked.
"Correct!" Soun said proudly.
"Oh fuck me," Nabiki muttered.
"This is so stupid," Akane whispered.
Soun didn't hear that. "If one of you three were to marry him and carry on this dojo, then the legacy of the Tendo Family will be secure."
"What, the dojo that you don't even actively teach students in?" Nabiki asked, and Soun looked physically harmed by the verbal jab.
Kasumi gave Nabiki a look. "Don't be mean."
It was true, though.
"Don't we have a say in who we marry?" Akane asked, somewhat more subdued in her objections.
Kasumi was in full agreement. "That's right father, it's our lives here."
Nabiki voiced her own protests. "Yeah, if they're friends of yours, they're probably too poor to afford dirt."
Akane didn't let that pass without comment. "Nabiki! Is that really the only thing you care about?"
"Well excuuuuuse me for not wanting to worry about bills or food or anything like that." Nabiki snapped back.
The practicality of the answer even stunned Soun for a second.
"Nabiki..." Akane said, somewhat respecting her older sister.
"And, you know, being able to spoil myself a little too." Nabiki couldn't resist adding.
"And there goes the respect." Akane thought bitterly, a sour look on her face.
"Well, we do all have our concerns. Today's economy isn't exactly inviting to the Art or single income households." Kasumi decided to diffuse the situation between her sisters before it could escalate. It would not do for them to be arguing, still, when the Saotomes arrived.
"Nonsense! There will always be an interest in the martial arts. You needn't be too concerned," Soun reassured his daughters, eager to calm down Akane and Nabiki's tensions as well. "And also, you'll have a chance to meet Ranma before any of you decide which of you will marry him."
Though he knew in his mind it would most likely be Akane in the end, because she was the only martial artist of his daughters, and Nabiki and Kasumi would almost certainly throw their youngest sibling under the bus to avoid getting hitched to it.
In which, case Akane would have to learn how to lift buses. Fast.
"So, what's this Ranma guy like?" Akane asked.
"Is he cute? Is he ripped?" Nabiki could put a bag over the head if not the former, but if he wasn't rocking at least a four-pack then it was a deal-breaker.
"He's not a little boy, is he? I like older men," Kasumi insisted.
"Way older," Nabiki murmured with an edge of disgust.
Akane shot Nabiki a glare that would make a solid brick wall back the fuck off. Nabiki didn't budge an inch, and instead coolly examined her fingernails.
"I don't know. Never met the boy."
All three sisters fell dead silent for a moment and looked at their father as if he had spontaneously been replaced with a talking, dancing radish. Then, while he sheepishly laughed off his ignorance, Kasumi stepped forward, gently wrapped her delicate fingers around his lapels and lifted him into the air while smiling oh, so sweetly at him.
"Father, could you please elaborate on that?" Kasumi asked, projecting an angelic aura that was as tall as the house they were standing in–standing on its side. "I do not think I understood what you were saying correctly."
"Oh, it's really nothing complicated," Soun obliviously said. "I've simply arranged for one of you to marry a boy when the only things I know about him are his name, and that he's the son of my best and dearest friend, who I have not seen in the better part of twenty or so years."
"I see. So that is how it is," Kasumi calmly, oh so calmly said. The serene smile on her face widened just a touch. "Thank you for clarifying, father dearest."
Akane and Nabiki both scooted away from the eldest sister, wary of the frightening presence they felt from her, before the sound of people talking among themselves caught their attention. The moment they looked towards the door, a traffic officer stepped up to the open patio door of the sitting room, and out of the pelting rain.
"A cop?" Nabiki asked, turning her bemusement from on Kasumi to this development.
"Is something the matter, officer?" Soun asked. Kasumi gently put him down.
The officer scanned the confused family. "Ah, is this the Tendo residence?"
"Yes, what is it? Has something happened?" Soun now demanded.
The officer nodded. "Oh, good. We've found something that belongs to you, apparently."
He looked towards the front of the house, just outside their field of view. "Well, it claims it belongs to you."
Soun, now quite baffled, stepped onto the patio to afford a better view. Seeing a giant panda surrounded by a dozen police officers while waving a sign gently in its paw did not help his confusion. It didn't help Akane, Nabiki, and Kasumi's either, when they peered out to look.
"Is… is that a fucking panda?" Akane murmured.
"I swear to christ if this is Ranma…" Nabiki whispered. Then repeated it louder when her mind fully digested that possibility.
"I… Don't have a pet… hrm?"
The panda itself was waving around a sign. "Hello Tendo! It's been a long time. Hot water?"
"... Father?" Kasumi said, resting her hand on Soun's shoulder. "I don't think you elaborated enough after all."
With an icepack on her head, and wrapped up in a warm blanket, Ranma regained consciousness on the most comfortable bed she'd ever woken up in. It was huge bed, bigger than a King Size, and the material was so cozy that it felt like it was heated under her, soothing her sore and tired body as she laid in it. The sheets were crimson with a gold trim, matching well with her hair, coincidentally, and her head was resting on one of four large pillows at the head of the bed.
Unwinding herself from the blanket, Ranma sat up and looked around. In addition to an expensive bed, the rest of the room matched it. To her left was a huge walk-in closet, with clothes and a few boxes strewn around it, but on the wall to her right and directly in front of her were two huge flat screen televisions.
Underneath and flanking the sides of the television were three huge cabinets whose contents sent Ranma's pulse racing: video game consoles! New ones, old ones, foreign ones, and handhelds! And games in cartridges, cartridge cases, disc cases, and so many different controllers neatly organized by generation! There had to be thousands of games!
For someone who thought herself blessed to see an arcade cabinet during her travels, this was stepping into some sort of paradise!
"Where the heck am I?" She asked before she looked down and realized that she was only wearing her boxers and a t-shirt. "And where are my clothes?"
Suddenly this was less awesome. All those consoles and games? She was definitely in the house of some game otaku, and she was almost naked in the house of a game otaku who presumably carried her off after her old man knocked her out.
Her mind raced. Was this the place she was being taken to? Where was the panda bastard then? Did he just drop her off here? Was this the guy she was supposed to be engaged to? That thought made her blood boil, he wouldn't dare just marry her off to a guy because she was turned into a girl, would he?!
If he did, the Panda was dead, and so was this super creepo pervert! With her resolution aflame, Ranma leaped out of bed and onto the carpeted floor, before she stomped for the bedroom door. "Time to find out what the heck is going on here."
She swung open the door revealing a short hallway leading to a spacious living room with two love seats and a couch arranged around the three sides of a rectangle-shaped rug. On the other side of the otherwise wooden-paneled floor, Ranma saw another big screen television mounted on the wall, but under this one was a large computer desk, with an unoccupied monitor and PC tower sitting on it. There was someone sitting at the main couch, a girl with vibrant pink and teal dyed hair, wearing a virtual reality headset on top of her head but not over her eyes.
"Is it a fun game? Well, yeah of course it's a fun game. I did an entire LP of it, which can be found on my Youtube Channel BansheeDeadSix." The girl giggled. "I wouldn't have if I didn't think it was fun. Is it a good game, though? Nah it's an awful game. The story is paper thin and full of plot holes, the character voice-work is cringe-inducing, and in my LP I do nothing but talk shit about the game, the head writer, and the fact that his wife and sister have tweeted at length about how they want to make a porno with me."
Ranma was confused at the contradiction she just heard. How could something be both fun and terribly written, with paper-thin characters and relentless plot-holes? Huh. That sounded familiar for some reason, but she couldn't place where from.
Wait, want to make a what?!
"P-Porno?!" She said, surprised that someone would speak so flippantly about something like that.
Her unexpected exclamation caused the girl to jump and then quickly turn back to look at her. The strange gamer girl turned out to be extremely cute, if looking somewhat on the chubbier side. Her wide silver-gray widened a bit more when she saw Ranma standing there.
"Who the hell are you and why are you in my house… in your underwear?" Misao asked.
Ranma blinked twice as she tried to process that, before she asked. "You mean you don't know?"
Misao Darlian pointed a remote control at the web camera and laptop sitting on the coffee table in front of her couch to click it off, and stood up. When she did, Ranma did a double-take: The two-toned hair girl was barely taller than she herself was, though she must have outweighed her by thirty pounds. And she was only a bit soft around the waist, the rest of it packed into some serious curves. More specifically, Misao happened to be extremely top-heavy, her t-shirt stretched out around a chest that outdid even a certain purple-haired Chinese nightmare.
Ranma's brain shorted out for a second there, when she realized that in addition to the aforementioned shirt, she was only wearing a pair of very brief pink lace panties. "… Buh."
Misao raised an eyebrow, before she gave the more athletically-figured girl a quick look over, but focused on her impeccably cute face. "Buh yourself, you're pretty easy on the eyes, too."
Ranma didn't know how to take that compliment. "Uh…"
"Subject at hand, though, why are you in my house?"
"I don't know, I woke up here with an icepack on my head!"
Misao stopped and looked to her right, towards the apartment's kitchen, separated from the sitting room by a countertop and cabinets directly above it. She then called to Katie. "Hey, what did I tell you about sneaking in strays, bae?"
English? Ranma repressed a sigh of annoyance, that was her worst class in school.
Katie, who was washing dishes with a pair of headphones on, dried her hands off to remove the headphone cups from over her ears. Out of courtesy to Ranma, she spoke in Japanese. "Oh uh… I found her outside, she was fighting a panda and lost. I figured I'd bring her here because she was soaked from the rain and had a bump on her head."
To Ranma, she added, "I threw your clothes in the washer because they were soaked and kind of filthy."
Ranma was a little surprised. "Oh? Huh… thanks."
Misao was confused about one thing in that explanation. "Fighting a what?"
"A panda," Katie replied. "I am dead serious."
Ranma responded as she would later become known for, with righteous indignation. "He got me with a cheap shot, too."
Misao turned back to Ranma. "Why were you fighting a panda?"
With a grimace, Ranma looked away. "It's kind of complicated, okay? I don't think you'd even believe it if I told you everything."
"I saw a panda doing parkour and martial arts. My suspension of disbelief is stoned out of its mind right now," Katie said.
Misao once again looked to Katie. "Are you sure you're not actually high right now?" Then back to Ranma. "Or you?"
Ranma grew a bit more indignant. "I don't do drugs! That panda was trying to take me to some guy's house so I could get engaged, and I didn't want to!"
Misao stared blankly at Ranma, as did Katie.
"A sex-slave trafficking panda that does parkour and martial arts?" Misao said, almost numbly, her gaze turning to Katie.
"I guess?" Katie replied.
"No, the Panda is my father!"
Misao looked back at Ranma again, wide-eyed. "… So… your father is a sex-slave trafficking panda-"
"He's not a sex-slave trafficker! He was engaging me to the daughter of his best friend!" Ranma said in exasperation.
Katie hummed. "Well, at least he's progressive."
"No one in Japan is that progressive," Misao said.
Katie snorted. "Says you-"
"Born in a lab in Hamburg, Germany," Misao said counting off on her fingers, "Raised on the French Riviera, went to middle school in Stockholm, Sweden and went to high school in Los Angeles, California. I am not that Japanese."
"Damn it, I'm a guy!" Ranma declared, hitching her shoulders and accidentally doing so in such a manner that made her chest jiggle in a way healthy males don't tend to.
Misao stopped. "Okay, maybe someone in Japan is that progressive."
That rightly tore it for Ranma."Oh for the love of…!"
Ranma stormed off into the kitchen, grabbed the nearest glass, and filled it with hot water from the sink. Marching back out into the living room, she promptly upended the glass over her head, instantaneously changing from a petite, busty and cute redhead to a relatively tall, handsome young man with jet black hair and a well-toned body that filled out what were before loose-fitting undergarments.
"See?! I'm a guy!" Ranma yelled at them both.
If Katie had been holding anything, she would've dropped it on the floor in her shock. The panda had been weird enough, but the whole girl turning into a guy thing? This was a whole new level of what the fuck, it surpassed what the actual fuck, and stretched even beyond the territory of furthermore fuck right off with that.
She looked to Misao, who was similarly wide-eyed at the transformation. She had dropped the remote she carried, and it clattered to the floor forgotten. After a few moments, her expression softened back to her initial blank reaction, and she nodded. "Huh."
Misao turned and walked over to the computer desk. Reaching into one of its cabinets, she pulled out a glass bong, a lighter, and a plastic bag filled with dried green plants, before walking back over to one of the love seats and sitting down. She then looked to Ranma, and gestured for him to sit down across from her.
"I'm gonna need you to sit down and explain this from the top for me… as soon I take a couple hits to get me in the right mindset."
"Hold up, I want in on that," Katie mumbled while watching Ranma as if he might vanish into the ether if she so much as blinked. "Got a funny feeling my suspension of disbelief ain't quite high enough yet."
Ranma, let out a sigh. Okay, a couple of strange girls who smoke marijuana. At least he wasn't getting engaged to some weird girl. That reminded him. "Hey, what happened after my old man knocked me out? Where is he?"
With steam rising from the freshly poured hot water on his head and shoulders, Genma Saotome sat before a blankly staring Kasumi, Nabiki, and Akane. Next to him, a grim-faced Soun stood, holding the kettle that had just been poured upon Genma. Next to Genma, a wooden sign on the floor read "I will explain the whole situation as soon as you pour some hot water on me."
"Two weeks ago," he began solemnly, "My son and I, tired, weakened, and hungry, had left the ancient training grounds of Jusenkyo in search of food, water, and a warm bed. We traveled for hours, until we came across the curious town called Nyucheizu."
"A village of women heroes?" Soun asked.
"Indeed. Though warmly invited to their company, it turned out that they were a treacherous and conniving lot. They housed and fed us, but when the night came, they attempted to carry off Ranma… as he was–by their description–a virile and strong specimen worthy of adding to the village's proud bloodline."
Actually, they had stumbled into the village during a martial arts tournament. Unnoticed, while everyone else was preoccupied with the incredible prowess of a young woman who would become the tournament's champion, they ate the feast that was meant for said champion.
"How despicable!" Soun said.
"Yes, however they sorely underestimated my boy's strength. In minutes, twenty of their finest warriors were defeated by his hands, and another thirty were repulsed in fear of his power. We made a hasty retreat then."
Soun rose from his seat, shocked by the story. "Incredible, an entire village of Chinese Martial Arts Masters, out for revenge. Ranma must be an impressive young man to garner such a hatred!"
"He defeated their village champion like it was child's play!" Genma boasted. "All it took was a single kick to send her flying."
Actually, Ranma only fought and beat up one of their warriors–the above-mentioned champion–after she rightfully called him and Genma out for eating what would've been her victory feast.
"Yes, they howled and roared in anger, shouting vows of revenge at our backs. When we made it back to civilization, we thought we'd escaped them… but that turned out to be further from the truth. Their warriors had pursued us all the way down from those mist-shrouded mountains, attacking us at random and without warning. For days we fled, escaping their ambushes and traps… until finally we escaped to Japan–or so we thought."
Actually, upon beating the warrior girl, said warrior girl gave Ranma a kiss vowing that she would pursue her better to the ends of the Earth and kill her in order to restore her village's damaged pride.
Genma gussied up the story because he was extremely eager to sell Ranma to a prospective fiancée. Going by their still stunned looks, it appeared he knocked it out of the park.
"They followed you… and then they attacked you to make off with Ranma!" A horrified Soun said. "We must hurry and rescue Ranma, the future of our schools depends on it!"
He looked to his daughters, though specifically Akane. "This will require your help, Akane!"
Akane was still staring at Genma. All three of the girls were. When she finally noticed that her father was speaking to her, she looked up at him. "I'm sorry, but are we not going to address the fact that a panda bear turned into a human being when we poured hot water on its head?"
"A trivial matter," Genma dismissed.
"You were a panda," Kasumi said.
"Yes, but that is not the point-"
"A big, stupid looking black and white bear that feasts on bamboo, and has no ecological value because its dietary needs and low breeding drive are literally pushing it to its own extinction more than any human intervention against it," Nabiki droned.
Genma grimaced in disgust. That part about low breeding drive in the wild actually wasn't true, and his time as a panda unfortunately gave him a terrifying insight on that. "Let's focus please! Now, about rescuing Ranma-"
Akane and Nabiki then jumped onto their feet, Akane holding blue pompoms while Nabiki held red.
"P-A-N-D-A-W-T-F?!" They spelled out together while doing a well-choreographed, yet improvised Cheerleader drill. While they did this, Kasumi wandered behind them with a piece of cardboard that had a panda drawn on it underneath the words "What is even happening?" written on it in cursive English.
On the edge of his patience, Genma looked over at Soun. "Your daughters are very energetic, Tendo! You've given them some good training, I'm sure they'll be quite capable of helping save Ranma, once we actually focus and get past this panda issue-"
"Hey, does Ranma turn into something, too?" Nabiki then asked, now that it reminded her.
Genma rolled his eyes. "We can discuss that later. Ranma's life could be in jeopardy-"
"Hey, this is important" Nabiki insisted. "He could turn into a cat, or a duck, or a pig…"
Akane hummed. "That actually would be kind of cute. Like something out of Dr. Slump."
Kasumi then proposed as she stashed away her sign, "Or he could turn into a flying minotaur with tentacles, or some insane rage monster that destroys everything around it in a rampage."
Akane grimaced. "Not as cute."
"That first one sounds like every monster in an H-doujin ever," Nabiki said with a shudder.
"Does it really matter what my son transforms into?!" Genma asked, exasperated.
"So he does transform into something," Kasumi observed.
"For goodness sake, yes!" Genma finally admitted in frustration. "NOW ARE WE GOING TO RESCUE HIM OR NOT?!"
"Fantastic, a would-be significant other with an ancient–possibly Chinese–curse, and a mark of death from an entire village of women warriors who care not for borders or collateral damage, because that is really attractive," "Nabiki said. Then, fake coughing into her fist, she said "Notthefiancée!"
"What?" Akane began-
"Not the fiancée," Kasumi clarified for Akane, while calling it herself.
When she realized, Akane looked downright betrayed. "Et tu, Kasumi? Then fall, Akane."
Soun had called it, like a boss. "Now's not the time to be overly dramatic. We must begin the search for Ranma, post-haste."
Akane rose up to her feet and looked between her father and Genma. "Before we go out looking for him, let me call up my friend. She can help us look for him."
Genma looked a tad nervous. "We don't really need to pull in people outside of the family for this-"
Soun disagreed. "It's all right, Saotome. Akane has a rather reliable friend, who's quite a talented martial artist herself."
Katie pulled the bong away from her lips, and held in her breath. Leaning back, she parted her lips and breathed out a rolling cloud of white smoke that joined the misty clouds that were being drawn off into a ventilation grate on the ceiling. Lowering her head, she huffed a bit, a few more clouds of smoke rolling out from her mouth and nose as she passed the bong and lighter back to Misao.
"Nope, I'm high as fuck and it's still making no sense," she declared.
Misao was kind of in agreement. "I literally just watched it happen twice and I'm like what the fuck."
Ranma, who was a girl again after demonstrating the curse during her explanation, sighed. "Believe me, I don't want it to be real either, but it's true. In China there are these cursed springs that if you fall into one, you become whatever fell in first. Thanks to my old man knocking me into the girl spring, I'm like this now."
"It's still fucking absurd," Misao said.
"I can literally kick a car in half and I call bullshit," Katie added.
Ranma considered that for a second. "One, we are sparring when you're not high, two I know and I'm living it."
"We can spar now, I'm good," Katie insisted.
"Fuck that, not in my house," Misao warned before she took a hit from the water pipe.
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "Okay. But we can still talk shop, right? What sorta training you had?"
"I've trained from when I was way little," Ranma revealed. "My Dad took me out on a training trip as soon as I could walk."
Katie stared at Ranma. "… My Uncle started training me when I was four."
At that, Ranma brightened. "Wait, you've been on training journeys, too?"
"Yeah!" Katie quickly said. "Every summer when I wasn't in school, I'd be in a different country learning to fight non-stop!"
At that moment, everything changed. All of her life, in all of her training Ranma had never met another kid under her circumstances, forever on the road to martial arts to the point where socializing was minimal. Sure, she met other kids who were pretty talented at the art, but even then he easily clobbered them. She was always the odd man out–an ironic phrasing yes–there was no one she could ever really relate to, someone who understood the struggle.
But that was over.
"Did… did we just become best friends?" Ranma asked.
Katie nodded. "I think so."
Misao, smoke drifting from her mouth as she spoke, deadpanned. "Oh my God, there's two of them."
On the bright side, this one was also a hottie, as a girl and even hotter as a guy. So, win-win?
"So, going back to your Panda Dad, what are you gonna do about all of that?" She asked.
Ranma folded her arms. "Well I'm not getting engaged, that's for sure. Knowing my pop it's probably going to be the kind of chick that makes me wish Xian Pu would catch up to me."
Misao grunted. "Ugh, I know this scrublord from China who goes by Shampoo, and when she isn't feeding because she absolutely refuses to team play, she's focusing down on whichever player kills her until she actually gets a kill herself–which is usually never since she doesn't farm and just hard lanes loud and stupid every time."
Ranma stared mystified at her. "I didn't even understand half of what you just said."
"Don't play Dota , and hopefully you never will." She passed the bong back to Katie and got up. "Well I am now starving, so it's time for me to cook dinner. Do we still have any hamburger in the fridge?"
Katie nodded. "Yeah."
She looked to Ranma. "You look like a big-eater. Six or seven good for you?"
"Uh, yeah," Ranma replied, surprised that Misao would peg her as one who ate quite a bit.
Katie chuckled. "You're definitely a martial artist. My calorie load is huge, too."
Misao nodded. "Swear to God, a hundred grand a week goes into feeding this monster."
Katie brought the bong to her lips. "I don't eat that much, besides like half of it goes to your tits and ass."
Misao flipped Katie off as she walked into the kitchen, before she called to Ranma. "Yo, you can play some video games while you wait. If you want."
That just reminded her. "Aw fuck, my stream. Oh well, maybe I can make a thing out of this?" She then called to Ranma. "Are you okay with being on webcam for a bit?"
"Since nobody knows who I am? Sure." Ranma replied.
At that moment, Katie's phone rang, and she slipped a hand into her pocket to fish it out. It was Akane, probably hoping to see if they were still on for Karaoke. She quickly answered it. "Sup, Akaneko?"
"Hey, are you busy right now?" Akane asked. "Because something weird is going on."
"Tell me about it," Katie said, "On my way home I saw the craziest shit."
Akane looked at Genma and Soun, who were actually politely waiting for Akane to finish before they went on with their mission to save Ranma. "Was it a strange Chinese warrior woman?"
"What? No." It was funny that she would mention that, though.
Akane looked at Genma and Soun again, with emphasis on the former. "… Was it a panda?"
At that, Genma went stiff.
On her end of the line, Katie's eyebrows quirked. Across from her Ranma had picked up a controller and was playing a fighting game off Misao's computer. "… Yes."
Akane now looked directly at Genma, and spoke into the phone. "… Go on?"
"Well, the panda was fighting this redheaded girl in the street because she didn't want to go get engaged, and I thought it was pretty weird and stuff. But then the panda turned around and clobbered her with a road sign, so I figured there was something wrong with that and I clobbered the panda."
Akane nodded, while her gaze narrowed at Genma. "Let me guess, that girl's at your place and turns into a guy when you pour hot water on him?"
"Uh… yeah… she does…" Katie murmured before she turned and called at Misao, before indicating the bong. "Who's your guy now? Because this shit is amazing."
"Wait, who are you talking to?" Ranma, who looked over from his pummeling of his opponent, asked.
"A friend of mine," Katie told him. "Misao, answer the damn question!."
"It's nothing new," Misao said as she beat her meat into patties for frying. "Why?"
"Because Akane apparently knows all about this already and isn't freaking out?"
Oh, she was freaking out about it, because she had just thrown her phone at Genma hard, pegging him right between the eyes. "YOU LYING ASSHOLE!"
"He turns into a girl?!" Nabiki asked, sounding as incredulous as she could muster.
"Oh, my…" Kasumi suddenly had second thoughts about dumping the engagement on Akane.
"Akane, what's gotten into you?!" Soun demanded.
"He wasn't kidnapped by Chinese Warriors! He didn't want to get engaged! You literally tried to knock him out so you could drag him here!" Akane yelled, pointing accusingly at Genma.
Genma, rubbing his face, then shouted back at Akane. "It had to have been! What the hell hit me?!"
"My friend! She thought you were kidnapping him!" Akane roared in reply.
She picked up her phone, whose famous Finnish furnish allowed it to survive the impact with ease. "Senpai. Turn your speaker on."
Looking at her phone, after hearing all of that shouting in the background, Katie gave a questioning look to Ranma before she set the phone down and turned on the speakerphone option. On her end, Akane did the same thing and set the phone down in front of her.
"Hello, Katie-chan," Kasumi said extra pleasantly to the phone when she saw that this was now a conference call.
"Sup?" Katie replied.
Ranma paused the game and looked over. That one girl sounded cute.
"Ranma, right?" Akane asked. "I'm really sorry about this. Our Dad sprang this whole engagement thing on us, too."
And she sounded even nicer.
"Yeah, imagine our surprise when we came home to us being engaged to some guy we never met," Nabiki chimed in.
Ranma wasn't keen on that one, her tone was kind of bitchy. In a hot way, though. "Uh hey, this is Ranma Saotome, I'm kind of glad you're not in on it too."
"Your voice, are you a girl right now?" Akane asked.
"Yeah," Ranma said.
"I can confirm," Katie said.
"She's really fuckin' cute!" Misao called in. "And her guy form is super hot!"
"How hot, are we talking an eight? Eight-point-nine…?" Nabiki then cut in.
"Ten all around!" Misao called back.
"Could you not?" Katie snapped at her.
Now Nabiki was having second thoughts.
"I was kind of worried that this was my old man trying to pull off a scam or something."
All three sisters turned in unison and glared at Genma.
"Imagine that," Akane said icily before she warmed up a little more for Ranma. "Anyway, I'm Akane."
"I'm Nabiki," Nabiki introduced.
"And I'm Kasumi, it's a pleasure to meet you, Ranma-kun."
Soun then barged in. "Ah yes, hello there Ranma my boy! This is Soun Tendo, the father the girls–and I assure you this is no scam. Your father and I have been friends for decades, and the promise to bring our school together through uniting our families is a very real one. So what do you say you come on over to the dojo and pick one of my girls out, hm?"
"Hey, I thought we were going to have a say in this," Nabiki spoke up.
"Ranma certainly didn't, what chance do we have?" Akane asked.
"Yeah, I'm gonna have to put a rain check on that? I'm not interested in marrying anyone until I get a cure for this curse," Ranma said sternly.
"Why?" Katie suddenly asked.
"Yes, why?" Kasumi asked as well, prompting a strange look from Nabiki.
"I turn into a girl?" Ranma asked, wondering if they had really just gone over that or if she was getting a contact high. "I mean, I'm a really cute girl, but still a girl."
"Oh sweet summer child," Misao called from the kitchen. "You have no idea what kind of goldmine you are sitting on."
Ranma looked back. "What do you mean?"
Katie looked over as well, she didn't like the sound of that. In fact… it sounded like Misao had happened upon an idea.
Making sure her burgers didn't burn, Misao turned and began sauntering off from the kitchen for the living room, her brief ensemble made somehow more inappropriate with the apron she wore over it. Standing before Ranma and Katie, she rested one hand on her hip and gave them both a toothy, evil smile.
"I have a little proposition for you myself, Ranma-chan," she said. "One that can make you a very rich person."
Ranma's gaze darted to Katie, before she turned to face Misao entirely. "… What?"
"I'll pay you six hundred thousand yen per month to do let's plays with me. You just have to keep the curse and do them as a girl, someone as cute as you will pull in crazy viewers."
Six hundred thousand yen a month? Just for people watching her play video games as a girl? Misao was right… she was sitting on a goldmine that she didn't realize.
On the other end of the line, Genma found himself torn on something. On one hand, his son suddenly had a job. On the other, his daughter had a job.
Akane was entirely neutral on the position. "It couldn't hurt."
Nabiki was extremely tense because now she really wanted in on this fiancée shindig if Ranma was going to cash in that well on his cursed form.
Kasumi was curious about trying this playing video games for money thing herself, it sounded fun.
With Akane's mild encouragement, and the promise of getting paid well, Ranma shrugged her shoulders. "Sure, why not? It doesn't sound too bad."
Misao beamed. "Awesome! I'm going to get some paperwork going after dinner and we'll set this up!"
Katie smirked wryly. "Ah yes, the prodigal child gets what she wants again."
Ranma looked to her. "Well, at least I don't have to trudge back to China."
"That's the spirit," Katie said, "China sucks."
"You had a bad experience there, too?"
"Like you wouldn't believe, the stories I could tell you," Katie said before she looked back to the phone. "So, what's going to happen now?"
"Well, what's going to happen now is that my son is going to come to the Tendo Dojo and pick his fiancée," Genma said.
"You know what? That sounds nice and all, but I'm still gonna pass on that," Ranma then said. "I'm not going to date anybody until I get to know 'em first, much less marry!"
"Well that's why you're going to come here to the dojo!" Genma ordered.
"Meeting someone for an hour isn't going to determine who I'm going to marry, you jackass!" Ranma argued back.
It was Akane who stepped up to be the mediator. "All right, calm down everybody!" She glared at Genma. "Especially you."
Kasumi agreed. "If Ranma doesn't want to get engaged to us that's fine. In fact, I would prefer it if he met each one of us… and got to know us…"
Nabiki too agreed. "You know what? I'm down with that."
Akane gave both her older sisters distasteful looks. A steady high paying job doing nothing sure changed their tune. She'd have expected that from Nabiki, but Kasumi too? For shame!
Genma wanted to protest this, but Soun seemed even more ecstatic about the proposition. "Well then! I see no harm in that, it's nice to see that all three of you are eager to meet Ranma now."
"I'm not eager, but…" Akane stopped and just shook her head. "Yeah, actually sitting down and talking this out wouldn't hurt."
Genma grumbled. Oh well, at least the engagement wasn't completely off the table. "Fine, but you're still coming over ASAP, boy."
"Gonna have to say no to that, too. I'm about to have dinner, and my hosts have been nice enough to wash my clothes for me," Ranma said. "Oh, and they haven't even tried knocking me out or anything. So courteous!"
"Yeah, it's fine if Ranma stays the night here," Katie said.
"Be careful, they could be a treacherous and conniving lot," Akane said while leveling a harsh glare at Genma.
Genma quietly looked away, but he would actually have the last laugh on that one… sort of.
"Well, dinner's ready and my phone's dyin'," Katie said. "We'll continue this tomorrow, eh Akaneko?"
Akane smiled big. "Sure!"
Genma then remembered. "Hey, Ranma! You're enrolled in the local high school. You'd better head over there tomorrow morning, and come right here after!"
Ranma grimaced. "Sure old man, whatever."
"All right, bye senpai!" Akane said, before she ended the call.
Nabiki was quite pleased to hear this. A chance to meet Ranma in person was an opportunity she wasn't going to start on the wrong foot. With a quick look to Akane, she was already plotting how to remove her from any competition. Kasumi wore her own blithe smile, hiding her own intent to win the affections of Ranma.
Soun, as perceptive as a father could be, couldn't feel like more a winner. Not only were all three of his daughters interested in Saotome's son, but the fires of jolly competition could be seen burning in their eyes. Whoever married him, he was quite confident that the Tendo Dojo would be in good hands.
Genma, however, wanted to be happy but he couldn't help but sense that something was deadly off. He had himself a bad feeling about this, like this was just the tip of a very big iceberg, and he was pretty sure that those external factors–those two strange girls–were responsible for what would lie beneath.
He was right, of course, but this berg went so deep.
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 3/?
|Two Weeks Later|
The winds of change blew quickly at Furinkan High School. What had once been a vibrant and healthy male student body, full of life and vigor, became almost a non-entity as the former suitors of Akane Tendo resigned themselves to a life of mediocrity and loneliness. What were once hot-blooded young men with ambition segregated themselves from their female counterparts, traveling in commiserating groups, pitying themselves for their stupid life choices.
Little did any of them realize that this self-flagellation would only lead to a worse life choice.
Without Tatewaki Kuno around stirring up a frenzy and any boys to be frenzied, Furinkan became a much more peaceful place. Students went to class, took part in clubs, and basically the atmosphere of a rich slice-of-life anime began to settle in–one could even hear a calming, cheerful musical theme if one listened.
The girls of Furinkan High School, after briefly lamenting the loss of any dateable stock, found themselves breathing sighs of relief now there were fewer perverts running around. They also found that boys from other schools were a thing and that they were all pretty great–except for those assholes from Tomobiki High School. If there were boys worse than the Furinkan crowd before or after the defeat of Tatewaki Kuno…
Akane and Katie were the ones who reaped the most benefit of this high school renaissance. Without weirdboys being weird on them, a lot of the female class loosened up with Akane, and two of her clingers-on, Sayuri and Yuka, even began to actually hang out with her for reasons other than wanting to ward off a lecherous boy. Katie, on the other hand, found herself being worshipped by most girls in her class and below for getting rid of the school's biggest pervert. Though the clique of informants and satellite bitches that orbited Nabiki Tendo still forwarded her nasty looks and snide comments on the regular.
Katie was fine with that, after all Nabiki wasn't the first stuck-up bitch that would eventually get hers.
As for Nabiki herself, business took a hit. No boy in any class level wanted pictures of Akane, with the driving force being that even the allegation of owning one would cost them an arm or a leg–to be paid in full to Katie. However, organizing dates between girls at Furinkan and with boys from other schools had turned out fairly lucrative, it also boosted her gossip ring quite a bit, so all that really ached was her pride.
But that would be assuaged.
Life was normal, for the first time in a while, for everyone at Furinkan High School. It was such a shame that it was going to end.
"Katie-senpai~!" Akane called to her as she prepared to step out into the rainy courtyard, followed by Sayuri and Yuka. At this point, Akane called her senpai because Katie wasn't used to it, and because pretty much every girl in her grade level called her it, too.
"Geez, could you not…?" Katie asked as she readied her umbrella. "What's up?"
"Yuka, Sayuri, and I were going to go shopping. Did you want to come along?" Akane asked.
Katie really wanted to, because a shopping trip with Akane usually meant going back to the Tendo Dojo and eating Kasumi's delicious food for dinner after. Alas…
"Sorry, I'd love to but I have to go clean up my apartment," Katie revealed. "It's been a few days and Misao's been training for Internationals, so takeout boxes and water bottles have piled near to the ceiling."
In addition to the dirty clothes. Why did someone who never went outside for more than a few minutes a week insist on wearing different clothes every day? She didn't even do shows in them!
"Aw, that's a shame," Akane said with a pout.
"Why don't you invite your friend to come shopping with us?" Yuka asked, in the far-off hope of being seen in public with an elusive celebrity with an apparently large amount of money.
Katie and Akane didn't have the heart–or rather had the common decency–to tell her that the big part of her celebrity was because of all the pornography.
"I'll never get that shut-in out until she actually has to go to Seoul for the championship," Katie said, "Maybe some other time, though."
Akane made a face. "She relies on you too much for her housework. What would she do if something happened to you?"
Katie smirked. "Probably charm one of her fans into doing it for free."
Akane was about to comment on that, when her phone buzzed. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled it out and looked at the screen. Disappointment appeared on her features. "What? Oh man…"
"What is it?" Yuka asked.
Akane dropped her shoulders. "That was Kasumi, she said that something just came up and me and Nabiki have to go straight home."
Katie frowned. "Is it anything serious?"
Akane shrugged her shoulders. "She says it's family stuff. I guess I'm not going shopping today, either."
"Aw!" Sayuri and Yuka both lamented.
Katie smiled. "Hey, hey, don't be down… I'll try to finish up my housework, and if it's not super late, we can go to the karaoke bar that's below my place."
Akane brightened. "You sure?"
"Yeah, definitely. That place is open super late and it's always bouncin'," Katie revealed. "I might even be able to drag Misao away from the computer long enough for it."
To finally meet Misao in person? Katie was making it too tempting for all three of her kohai.
"Sounds like a plan, keep us posted!" Sayuri said. "We're still going to the shopping center though."
"Yeah, see you Akane! Katie-senpai!" Yuka said as both opened their umbrellas and headed off.
Akane waved after them, and then looked to Katie. "Sorry again for your chores thing."
"It's fine, it's fine," Katie said. "Besides, when the place is clean, Misao's actually motivated to cook instead of takeout. So it has its own rewards."
She patted Akane on the head, and then headed off, her green and black hexagon-pattern umbrella opening wide under the pelting rain. "See you around, Akaneko."
As Katie strolled off, Nabiki came up alongside Akane, looking at her phone. "I hope we're not in debt with some jerk and have to sell the dojo or our bodies to pay it off or something stupid like that."
Akane looked to her sister. "That would be stupid, especially since you're supposed to be the one keeping an eye on the books."
Nabiki nodded. "Well financial records are one thing, but Dad was a travelling martial artist remember? He's probably made some oral man-to-man honor agreement with a huge asshole or two that he's neglected to tell us about out of convenience."
"Now that would be stupid," Akane decided.
"If he did, what would you do?" Nabiki asked.
"Well, that depends on the asshole he made the agreement with."
|As far as assholes go, this guy's un-bear-able|
A few blocks over, on one of the busier streets of the Nerima ward, a curious sight was stopping pedestrians and drivers alike. Right before the eyes of many of a part of Tokyo already well-used to weird phenomena, a free-running redhead girl dressed like she came straight out of rural China was being pursued by a parkouring panda.
As many of these witnesses would later attest in social gatherings and on social media, you haven't lived until you've witnessed a panda doing a two-handed vault at full pelt in pursuit of a petite little redhead that no-hand somersaulted right over it a second before.
Leaping over another parked car and breaking into a sprint, Ranma Saotome was dead set on doing everything she could to stay outside of her cursed father's paws. In her hands she held tightly onto a pair of shoes and a backpack, which were currently slowing her down as the panda closed in.
She looked back, and after damning her father's animal physique, threw her bag and shoes at him. "Knock it off!"
Genma Saotome, despite being a large endangered mammal, saw the feint a mile away, and batted the bag away with a right paw before bringing his southpaw up to block Ranma's flying side kick. The force of the blow was still enough to push Genma back quite a bit, the Panda letting out a growl and shaking his head.
People were starting to film the chaotic scene, while others were calling the zoo about an escaped wild animal.
"Picking my fiancé for me, without even asking? That's what was so important that we had to come back here for?! You're just dead set on making my life a living hell, aren't you?!" She yelled at him.
To the spectators surprise, the panda produced a sign that read "I'm doing what's best for you, boy!" which safe to say confused a whole lot of people for a whole lot of reasons. The panda assuming a fighting stance did not help.
"What's best for me? Oh that's it." Ranma quickly assumed her own fighting stance. "Your move, but you're gonna regret it!"
Genma moved, rushing in close and launching a barrage of quick strikes, and Genma did regret it, as Ranma caught the last muscular thrust from the panda's arm and lifted him up and over her head to slam him into a street sign, bending it until it snapped like a twig. Dusting off her hands, a useless reflex given the pouring rain, Ranma turned away from him and gave him a caustic look from the corner of her eye.
"Suck on that, old man, I'm going back to China," she declared.
Genma raised his wooden sign, which now read "So more things can ruin your life?"
Ranma was appropriately triggered. "Excuse you?! When it comes to things ruining my life, you're batting a thousand! I'm getting out of here before this engagement shackles me with some really dumb bull-!"
Genma threw his sign at Ranma, forcing her to kick it away quickly. The panda was gone, as was the sign that he'd broken. "Shit!"
Both showed up again in short order, with the former bringing the latter down on Ranma's head from behind, knocking her flat out. Ranma didn't even hit the ground, before her Panda Dad caught her and hoisted her up over his shoulder. As the giant panda picked up his fool son-turned-daughter's travel belongings, he finally noticed the crowd of gawkers gawking.
A quick bout of snarls and roars at the peanut gallery scattered them well enough, and Genma continued on his way with a growl of satisfaction. Using that old throw something at your target to distract him from the real attack maneuver was something he mastered before Ranma was a twinkle in his eye. This fool son of his was going to learn that there were just some things he couldn't pull on his old man.
Then, out the corner of his eye to his right, Genma spotted what was definitely a closed green and black umbrella thrown at him like a spear. With a sweep of the bag he carried, Genma knocked it up, flipping into the air back towards the sidewalk.
When he looked towards his new attacker, he was left completely open to Katie falling down on him from directly above, tumbling like a wheel in order to swing her heel down onto the top of his head with the greatest force possible.
It paid off, Genma hitting the ground so fast that the unconscious Ranma was left floating in the air for a moment, as the panda bear's face planted with the street complete with the force to make a full body imprint of it a meter deep. Ranma landing on the unconscious panda's back only added the insult to injury.
After recovering her umbrella, Katie walked over towards Genma and looked down at him. "I've knocked out my share of bears, but seriously Po? I wouldn't put that weak sauce on my sandwich."
She then looked over to the crowd. "Is someone gonna call a zoo or something? I'm gonna get this one out of the rain."
A few hands went up, and upon finding that satisfactory Katie gingerly picked up Ranma, her shoes, and her backpack. Looking down at the unconscious girl, and then in the direction of her place, she let out a sigh.
"Welp, at least Misao will be too busy training to care," she muttered as she headed on for home with Ranma in her arms.
|Coming atcha like a Dark Horse|
When Nabiki and Akane came home, they found Soun was more emotional than usual, clutching in his hands a postcard from China stamped posted in the last couple of days. Kasumi, on the other hand, was looking uncharacteristically distressed by something–presumably the contents of the postcard.
Nabiki could smell bullshit in the air like a shark could smell blood in the water, and she was already mentally preparing herself for some real bullshit. "Okay, what happened?"
Kasumi looked to her younger sisters. "Well, um…"
"Girls… a truly happy day has come!" Soun declared. "This day, the day where I will get to introduce one of you to your fiancé!"
Nabiki wasn't prepared for that. "Say what?"
Neither was Akane. "A fiancé?"
"So I wasn't caught in a momentary delusion where Daddy was acting like this was the 19th Century," Nabiki said before she let out a sigh. "Disappointed."
Soun, wiping his tears on the sleeve of his gi, set down his postcard. "Yes. The son of a good friend of mine, the son's name is Ranma Saotome. Years ago, before any of you were born, we made a promise to one day join our schools together."
"Was it a man-to-man honor agreement?" Nabiki asked.
"Correct!" Soun said proudly.
"Oh fuck me," Nabiki muttered.
"This is so stupid," Akane whispered.
Soun didn't hear that. "If one of you three were to marry him and carry on this dojo, then the legacy of the Tendo Family will be secure."
"What, the dojo that you don't even actively teach students in?" Nabiki asked, and Soun looked physically harmed by the verbal jab.
Kasumi gave Nabiki a look. "Don't be mean."
It was true, though.
"Don't we have a say in who we marry?" Akane asked, somewhat more subdued in her objections.
Kasumi was in full agreement. "That's right father, it's our lives here."
Nabiki voiced her own protests. "Yeah, if they're friends of yours, they're probably too poor to afford dirt."
Akane didn't let that pass without comment. "Nabiki! Is that really the only thing you care about?"
"Well excuuuuuse me for not wanting to worry about bills or food or anything like that." Nabiki snapped back.
The practicality of the answer even stunned Soun for a second.
"Nabiki..." Akane said, somewhat respecting her older sister.
"And, you know, being able to spoil myself a little too." Nabiki couldn't resist adding.
"And there goes the respect." Akane thought bitterly, a sour look on her face.
"Well, we do all have our concerns. Today's economy isn't exactly inviting to the Art or single income households." Kasumi decided to diffuse the situation between her sisters before it could escalate. It would not do for them to be arguing, still, when the Saotomes arrived.
"Nonsense! There will always be an interest in the martial arts. You needn't be too concerned," Soun reassured his daughters, eager to calm down Akane and Nabiki's tensions as well. "And also, you'll have a chance to meet Ranma before any of you decide which of you will marry him."
Though he knew in his mind it would most likely be Akane in the end, because she was the only martial artist of his daughters, and Nabiki and Kasumi would almost certainly throw their youngest sibling under the bus to avoid getting hitched to it.
In which, case Akane would have to learn how to lift buses. Fast.
"So, what's this Ranma guy like?" Akane asked.
"Is he cute? Is he ripped?" Nabiki could put a bag over the head if not the former, but if he wasn't rocking at least a four-pack then it was a deal-breaker.
"He's not a little boy, is he? I like older men," Kasumi insisted.
"Way older," Nabiki murmured with an edge of disgust.
Akane shot Nabiki a glare that would make a solid brick wall back the fuck off. Nabiki didn't budge an inch, and instead coolly examined her fingernails.
"I don't know. Never met the boy."
All three sisters fell dead silent for a moment and looked at their father as if he had spontaneously been replaced with a talking, dancing radish. Then, while he sheepishly laughed off his ignorance, Kasumi stepped forward, gently wrapped her delicate fingers around his lapels and lifted him into the air while smiling oh, so sweetly at him.
"Father, could you please elaborate on that?" Kasumi asked, projecting an angelic aura that was as tall as the house they were standing in–standing on its side. "I do not think I understood what you were saying correctly."
"Oh, it's really nothing complicated," Soun obliviously said. "I've simply arranged for one of you to marry a boy when the only things I know about him are his name, and that he's the son of my best and dearest friend, who I have not seen in the better part of twenty or so years."
"I see. So that is how it is," Kasumi calmly, oh so calmly said. The serene smile on her face widened just a touch. "Thank you for clarifying, father dearest."
Akane and Nabiki both scooted away from the eldest sister, wary of the frightening presence they felt from her, before the sound of people talking among themselves caught their attention. The moment they looked towards the door, a traffic officer stepped up to the open patio door of the sitting room, and out of the pelting rain.
"A cop?" Nabiki asked, turning her bemusement from on Kasumi to this development.
"Is something the matter, officer?" Soun asked. Kasumi gently put him down.
The officer scanned the confused family. "Ah, is this the Tendo residence?"
"Yes, what is it? Has something happened?" Soun now demanded.
The officer nodded. "Oh, good. We've found something that belongs to you, apparently."
He looked towards the front of the house, just outside their field of view. "Well, it claims it belongs to you."
Soun, now quite baffled, stepped onto the patio to afford a better view. Seeing a giant panda surrounded by a dozen police officers while waving a sign gently in its paw did not help his confusion. It didn't help Akane, Nabiki, and Kasumi's either, when they peered out to look.
"Is… is that a fucking panda?" Akane murmured.
"I swear to christ if this is Ranma…" Nabiki whispered. Then repeated it louder when her mind fully digested that possibility.
"I… Don't have a pet… hrm?"
The panda itself was waving around a sign. "Hello Tendo! It's been a long time. Hot water?"
"... Father?" Kasumi said, resting her hand on Soun's shoulder. "I don't think you elaborated enough after all."
|The Gamer|
With an icepack on her head, and wrapped up in a warm blanket, Ranma regained consciousness on the most comfortable bed she'd ever woken up in. It was huge bed, bigger than a King Size, and the material was so cozy that it felt like it was heated under her, soothing her sore and tired body as she laid in it. The sheets were crimson with a gold trim, matching well with her hair, coincidentally, and her head was resting on one of four large pillows at the head of the bed.
Unwinding herself from the blanket, Ranma sat up and looked around. In addition to an expensive bed, the rest of the room matched it. To her left was a huge walk-in closet, with clothes and a few boxes strewn around it, but on the wall to her right and directly in front of her were two huge flat screen televisions.
Underneath and flanking the sides of the television were three huge cabinets whose contents sent Ranma's pulse racing: video game consoles! New ones, old ones, foreign ones, and handhelds! And games in cartridges, cartridge cases, disc cases, and so many different controllers neatly organized by generation! There had to be thousands of games!
For someone who thought herself blessed to see an arcade cabinet during her travels, this was stepping into some sort of paradise!
"Where the heck am I?" She asked before she looked down and realized that she was only wearing her boxers and a t-shirt. "And where are my clothes?"
Suddenly this was less awesome. All those consoles and games? She was definitely in the house of some game otaku, and she was almost naked in the house of a game otaku who presumably carried her off after her old man knocked her out.
Her mind raced. Was this the place she was being taken to? Where was the panda bastard then? Did he just drop her off here? Was this the guy she was supposed to be engaged to? That thought made her blood boil, he wouldn't dare just marry her off to a guy because she was turned into a girl, would he?!
If he did, the Panda was dead, and so was this super creepo pervert! With her resolution aflame, Ranma leaped out of bed and onto the carpeted floor, before she stomped for the bedroom door. "Time to find out what the heck is going on here."
She swung open the door revealing a short hallway leading to a spacious living room with two love seats and a couch arranged around the three sides of a rectangle-shaped rug. On the other side of the otherwise wooden-paneled floor, Ranma saw another big screen television mounted on the wall, but under this one was a large computer desk, with an unoccupied monitor and PC tower sitting on it. There was someone sitting at the main couch, a girl with vibrant pink and teal dyed hair, wearing a virtual reality headset on top of her head but not over her eyes.
"Is it a fun game? Well, yeah of course it's a fun game. I did an entire LP of it, which can be found on my Youtube Channel BansheeDeadSix." The girl giggled. "I wouldn't have if I didn't think it was fun. Is it a good game, though? Nah it's an awful game. The story is paper thin and full of plot holes, the character voice-work is cringe-inducing, and in my LP I do nothing but talk shit about the game, the head writer, and the fact that his wife and sister have tweeted at length about how they want to make a porno with me."
Ranma was confused at the contradiction she just heard. How could something be both fun and terribly written, with paper-thin characters and relentless plot-holes? Huh. That sounded familiar for some reason, but she couldn't place where from.
Wait, want to make a what?!
"P-Porno?!" She said, surprised that someone would speak so flippantly about something like that.
Her unexpected exclamation caused the girl to jump and then quickly turn back to look at her. The strange gamer girl turned out to be extremely cute, if looking somewhat on the chubbier side. Her wide silver-gray widened a bit more when she saw Ranma standing there.
"Who the hell are you and why are you in my house… in your underwear?" Misao asked.
Ranma blinked twice as she tried to process that, before she asked. "You mean you don't know?"
Misao Darlian pointed a remote control at the web camera and laptop sitting on the coffee table in front of her couch to click it off, and stood up. When she did, Ranma did a double-take: The two-toned hair girl was barely taller than she herself was, though she must have outweighed her by thirty pounds. And she was only a bit soft around the waist, the rest of it packed into some serious curves. More specifically, Misao happened to be extremely top-heavy, her t-shirt stretched out around a chest that outdid even a certain purple-haired Chinese nightmare.
Ranma's brain shorted out for a second there, when she realized that in addition to the aforementioned shirt, she was only wearing a pair of very brief pink lace panties. "… Buh."
Misao raised an eyebrow, before she gave the more athletically-figured girl a quick look over, but focused on her impeccably cute face. "Buh yourself, you're pretty easy on the eyes, too."
Ranma didn't know how to take that compliment. "Uh…"
"Subject at hand, though, why are you in my house?"
"I don't know, I woke up here with an icepack on my head!"
Misao stopped and looked to her right, towards the apartment's kitchen, separated from the sitting room by a countertop and cabinets directly above it. She then called to Katie. "Hey, what did I tell you about sneaking in strays, bae?"
English? Ranma repressed a sigh of annoyance, that was her worst class in school.
Katie, who was washing dishes with a pair of headphones on, dried her hands off to remove the headphone cups from over her ears. Out of courtesy to Ranma, she spoke in Japanese. "Oh uh… I found her outside, she was fighting a panda and lost. I figured I'd bring her here because she was soaked from the rain and had a bump on her head."
To Ranma, she added, "I threw your clothes in the washer because they were soaked and kind of filthy."
Ranma was a little surprised. "Oh? Huh… thanks."
Misao was confused about one thing in that explanation. "Fighting a what?"
"A panda," Katie replied. "I am dead serious."
Ranma responded as she would later become known for, with righteous indignation. "He got me with a cheap shot, too."
Misao turned back to Ranma. "Why were you fighting a panda?"
With a grimace, Ranma looked away. "It's kind of complicated, okay? I don't think you'd even believe it if I told you everything."
"I saw a panda doing parkour and martial arts. My suspension of disbelief is stoned out of its mind right now," Katie said.
Misao once again looked to Katie. "Are you sure you're not actually high right now?" Then back to Ranma. "Or you?"
Ranma grew a bit more indignant. "I don't do drugs! That panda was trying to take me to some guy's house so I could get engaged, and I didn't want to!"
Misao stared blankly at Ranma, as did Katie.
"A sex-slave trafficking panda that does parkour and martial arts?" Misao said, almost numbly, her gaze turning to Katie.
"I guess?" Katie replied.
"No, the Panda is my father!"
Misao looked back at Ranma again, wide-eyed. "… So… your father is a sex-slave trafficking panda-"
"He's not a sex-slave trafficker! He was engaging me to the daughter of his best friend!" Ranma said in exasperation.
Katie hummed. "Well, at least he's progressive."
"No one in Japan is that progressive," Misao said.
Katie snorted. "Says you-"
"Born in a lab in Hamburg, Germany," Misao said counting off on her fingers, "Raised on the French Riviera, went to middle school in Stockholm, Sweden and went to high school in Los Angeles, California. I am not that Japanese."
"Damn it, I'm a guy!" Ranma declared, hitching her shoulders and accidentally doing so in such a manner that made her chest jiggle in a way healthy males don't tend to.
Misao stopped. "Okay, maybe someone in Japan is that progressive."
That rightly tore it for Ranma."Oh for the love of…!"
Ranma stormed off into the kitchen, grabbed the nearest glass, and filled it with hot water from the sink. Marching back out into the living room, she promptly upended the glass over her head, instantaneously changing from a petite, busty and cute redhead to a relatively tall, handsome young man with jet black hair and a well-toned body that filled out what were before loose-fitting undergarments.
"See?! I'm a guy!" Ranma yelled at them both.
If Katie had been holding anything, she would've dropped it on the floor in her shock. The panda had been weird enough, but the whole girl turning into a guy thing? This was a whole new level of what the fuck, it surpassed what the actual fuck, and stretched even beyond the territory of furthermore fuck right off with that.
She looked to Misao, who was similarly wide-eyed at the transformation. She had dropped the remote she carried, and it clattered to the floor forgotten. After a few moments, her expression softened back to her initial blank reaction, and she nodded. "Huh."
Misao turned and walked over to the computer desk. Reaching into one of its cabinets, she pulled out a glass bong, a lighter, and a plastic bag filled with dried green plants, before walking back over to one of the love seats and sitting down. She then looked to Ranma, and gestured for him to sit down across from her.
"I'm gonna need you to sit down and explain this from the top for me… as soon I take a couple hits to get me in the right mindset."
"Hold up, I want in on that," Katie mumbled while watching Ranma as if he might vanish into the ether if she so much as blinked. "Got a funny feeling my suspension of disbelief ain't quite high enough yet."
Ranma, let out a sigh. Okay, a couple of strange girls who smoke marijuana. At least he wasn't getting engaged to some weird girl. That reminded him. "Hey, what happened after my old man knocked me out? Where is he?"
|At the Tendo Dojo|
With steam rising from the freshly poured hot water on his head and shoulders, Genma Saotome sat before a blankly staring Kasumi, Nabiki, and Akane. Next to him, a grim-faced Soun stood, holding the kettle that had just been poured upon Genma. Next to Genma, a wooden sign on the floor read "I will explain the whole situation as soon as you pour some hot water on me."
"Two weeks ago," he began solemnly, "My son and I, tired, weakened, and hungry, had left the ancient training grounds of Jusenkyo in search of food, water, and a warm bed. We traveled for hours, until we came across the curious town called Nyucheizu."
"A village of women heroes?" Soun asked.
"Indeed. Though warmly invited to their company, it turned out that they were a treacherous and conniving lot. They housed and fed us, but when the night came, they attempted to carry off Ranma… as he was–by their description–a virile and strong specimen worthy of adding to the village's proud bloodline."
Actually, they had stumbled into the village during a martial arts tournament. Unnoticed, while everyone else was preoccupied with the incredible prowess of a young woman who would become the tournament's champion, they ate the feast that was meant for said champion.
"How despicable!" Soun said.
"Yes, however they sorely underestimated my boy's strength. In minutes, twenty of their finest warriors were defeated by his hands, and another thirty were repulsed in fear of his power. We made a hasty retreat then."
Soun rose from his seat, shocked by the story. "Incredible, an entire village of Chinese Martial Arts Masters, out for revenge. Ranma must be an impressive young man to garner such a hatred!"
"He defeated their village champion like it was child's play!" Genma boasted. "All it took was a single kick to send her flying."
Actually, Ranma only fought and beat up one of their warriors–the above-mentioned champion–after she rightfully called him and Genma out for eating what would've been her victory feast.
"Yes, they howled and roared in anger, shouting vows of revenge at our backs. When we made it back to civilization, we thought we'd escaped them… but that turned out to be further from the truth. Their warriors had pursued us all the way down from those mist-shrouded mountains, attacking us at random and without warning. For days we fled, escaping their ambushes and traps… until finally we escaped to Japan–or so we thought."
Actually, upon beating the warrior girl, said warrior girl gave Ranma a kiss vowing that she would pursue her better to the ends of the Earth and kill her in order to restore her village's damaged pride.
Genma gussied up the story because he was extremely eager to sell Ranma to a prospective fiancée. Going by their still stunned looks, it appeared he knocked it out of the park.
"They followed you… and then they attacked you to make off with Ranma!" A horrified Soun said. "We must hurry and rescue Ranma, the future of our schools depends on it!"
He looked to his daughters, though specifically Akane. "This will require your help, Akane!"
Akane was still staring at Genma. All three of the girls were. When she finally noticed that her father was speaking to her, she looked up at him. "I'm sorry, but are we not going to address the fact that a panda bear turned into a human being when we poured hot water on its head?"
"A trivial matter," Genma dismissed.
"You were a panda," Kasumi said.
"Yes, but that is not the point-"
"A big, stupid looking black and white bear that feasts on bamboo, and has no ecological value because its dietary needs and low breeding drive are literally pushing it to its own extinction more than any human intervention against it," Nabiki droned.
Genma grimaced in disgust. That part about low breeding drive in the wild actually wasn't true, and his time as a panda unfortunately gave him a terrifying insight on that. "Let's focus please! Now, about rescuing Ranma-"
Akane and Nabiki then jumped onto their feet, Akane holding blue pompoms while Nabiki held red.
"P-A-N-D-A-W-T-F?!" They spelled out together while doing a well-choreographed, yet improvised Cheerleader drill. While they did this, Kasumi wandered behind them with a piece of cardboard that had a panda drawn on it underneath the words "What is even happening?" written on it in cursive English.
On the edge of his patience, Genma looked over at Soun. "Your daughters are very energetic, Tendo! You've given them some good training, I'm sure they'll be quite capable of helping save Ranma, once we actually focus and get past this panda issue-"
"Hey, does Ranma turn into something, too?" Nabiki then asked, now that it reminded her.
Genma rolled his eyes. "We can discuss that later. Ranma's life could be in jeopardy-"
"Hey, this is important" Nabiki insisted. "He could turn into a cat, or a duck, or a pig…"
Akane hummed. "That actually would be kind of cute. Like something out of Dr. Slump."
Kasumi then proposed as she stashed away her sign, "Or he could turn into a flying minotaur with tentacles, or some insane rage monster that destroys everything around it in a rampage."
Akane grimaced. "Not as cute."
"That first one sounds like every monster in an H-doujin ever," Nabiki said with a shudder.
"Does it really matter what my son transforms into?!" Genma asked, exasperated.
"So he does transform into something," Kasumi observed.
"For goodness sake, yes!" Genma finally admitted in frustration. "NOW ARE WE GOING TO RESCUE HIM OR NOT?!"
"Fantastic, a would-be significant other with an ancient–possibly Chinese–curse, and a mark of death from an entire village of women warriors who care not for borders or collateral damage, because that is really attractive," "Nabiki said. Then, fake coughing into her fist, she said "Notthefiancée!"
"What?" Akane began-
"Not the fiancée," Kasumi clarified for Akane, while calling it herself.
When she realized, Akane looked downright betrayed. "Et tu, Kasumi? Then fall, Akane."
Soun had called it, like a boss. "Now's not the time to be overly dramatic. We must begin the search for Ranma, post-haste."
Akane rose up to her feet and looked between her father and Genma. "Before we go out looking for him, let me call up my friend. She can help us look for him."
Genma looked a tad nervous. "We don't really need to pull in people outside of the family for this-"
Soun disagreed. "It's all right, Saotome. Akane has a rather reliable friend, who's quite a talented martial artist herself."
|A regular one-hitter quitter|
Katie pulled the bong away from her lips, and held in her breath. Leaning back, she parted her lips and breathed out a rolling cloud of white smoke that joined the misty clouds that were being drawn off into a ventilation grate on the ceiling. Lowering her head, she huffed a bit, a few more clouds of smoke rolling out from her mouth and nose as she passed the bong and lighter back to Misao.
"Nope, I'm high as fuck and it's still making no sense," she declared.
Misao was kind of in agreement. "I literally just watched it happen twice and I'm like what the fuck."
Ranma, who was a girl again after demonstrating the curse during her explanation, sighed. "Believe me, I don't want it to be real either, but it's true. In China there are these cursed springs that if you fall into one, you become whatever fell in first. Thanks to my old man knocking me into the girl spring, I'm like this now."
"It's still fucking absurd," Misao said.
"I can literally kick a car in half and I call bullshit," Katie added.
Ranma considered that for a second. "One, we are sparring when you're not high, two I know and I'm living it."
"We can spar now, I'm good," Katie insisted.
"Fuck that, not in my house," Misao warned before she took a hit from the water pipe.
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "Okay. But we can still talk shop, right? What sorta training you had?"
"I've trained from when I was way little," Ranma revealed. "My Dad took me out on a training trip as soon as I could walk."
Katie stared at Ranma. "… My Uncle started training me when I was four."
At that, Ranma brightened. "Wait, you've been on training journeys, too?"
"Yeah!" Katie quickly said. "Every summer when I wasn't in school, I'd be in a different country learning to fight non-stop!"
At that moment, everything changed. All of her life, in all of her training Ranma had never met another kid under her circumstances, forever on the road to martial arts to the point where socializing was minimal. Sure, she met other kids who were pretty talented at the art, but even then he easily clobbered them. She was always the odd man out–an ironic phrasing yes–there was no one she could ever really relate to, someone who understood the struggle.
But that was over.
"Did… did we just become best friends?" Ranma asked.
Katie nodded. "I think so."
Misao, smoke drifting from her mouth as she spoke, deadpanned. "Oh my God, there's two of them."
On the bright side, this one was also a hottie, as a girl and even hotter as a guy. So, win-win?
"So, going back to your Panda Dad, what are you gonna do about all of that?" She asked.
Ranma folded her arms. "Well I'm not getting engaged, that's for sure. Knowing my pop it's probably going to be the kind of chick that makes me wish Xian Pu would catch up to me."
Misao grunted. "Ugh, I know this scrublord from China who goes by Shampoo, and when she isn't feeding because she absolutely refuses to team play, she's focusing down on whichever player kills her until she actually gets a kill herself–which is usually never since she doesn't farm and just hard lanes loud and stupid every time."
Ranma stared mystified at her. "I didn't even understand half of what you just said."
"Don't play Dota , and hopefully you never will." She passed the bong back to Katie and got up. "Well I am now starving, so it's time for me to cook dinner. Do we still have any hamburger in the fridge?"
Katie nodded. "Yeah."
She looked to Ranma. "You look like a big-eater. Six or seven good for you?"
"Uh, yeah," Ranma replied, surprised that Misao would peg her as one who ate quite a bit.
Katie chuckled. "You're definitely a martial artist. My calorie load is huge, too."
Misao nodded. "Swear to God, a hundred grand a week goes into feeding this monster."
Katie brought the bong to her lips. "I don't eat that much, besides like half of it goes to your tits and ass."
Misao flipped Katie off as she walked into the kitchen, before she called to Ranma. "Yo, you can play some video games while you wait. If you want."
That just reminded her. "Aw fuck, my stream. Oh well, maybe I can make a thing out of this?" She then called to Ranma. "Are you okay with being on webcam for a bit?"
"Since nobody knows who I am? Sure." Ranma replied.
At that moment, Katie's phone rang, and she slipped a hand into her pocket to fish it out. It was Akane, probably hoping to see if they were still on for Karaoke. She quickly answered it. "Sup, Akaneko?"
"Hey, are you busy right now?" Akane asked. "Because something weird is going on."
"Tell me about it," Katie said, "On my way home I saw the craziest shit."
Akane looked at Genma and Soun, who were actually politely waiting for Akane to finish before they went on with their mission to save Ranma. "Was it a strange Chinese warrior woman?"
"What? No." It was funny that she would mention that, though.
Akane looked at Genma and Soun again, with emphasis on the former. "… Was it a panda?"
At that, Genma went stiff.
On her end of the line, Katie's eyebrows quirked. Across from her Ranma had picked up a controller and was playing a fighting game off Misao's computer. "… Yes."
Akane now looked directly at Genma, and spoke into the phone. "… Go on?"
"Well, the panda was fighting this redheaded girl in the street because she didn't want to go get engaged, and I thought it was pretty weird and stuff. But then the panda turned around and clobbered her with a road sign, so I figured there was something wrong with that and I clobbered the panda."
Akane nodded, while her gaze narrowed at Genma. "Let me guess, that girl's at your place and turns into a guy when you pour hot water on him?"
"Uh… yeah… she does…" Katie murmured before she turned and called at Misao, before indicating the bong. "Who's your guy now? Because this shit is amazing."
"Wait, who are you talking to?" Ranma, who looked over from his pummeling of his opponent, asked.
"A friend of mine," Katie told him. "Misao, answer the damn question!."
"It's nothing new," Misao said as she beat her meat into patties for frying. "Why?"
"Because Akane apparently knows all about this already and isn't freaking out?"
Oh, she was freaking out about it, because she had just thrown her phone at Genma hard, pegging him right between the eyes. "YOU LYING ASSHOLE!"
"He turns into a girl?!" Nabiki asked, sounding as incredulous as she could muster.
"Oh, my…" Kasumi suddenly had second thoughts about dumping the engagement on Akane.
"Akane, what's gotten into you?!" Soun demanded.
"He wasn't kidnapped by Chinese Warriors! He didn't want to get engaged! You literally tried to knock him out so you could drag him here!" Akane yelled, pointing accusingly at Genma.
Genma, rubbing his face, then shouted back at Akane. "It had to have been! What the hell hit me?!"
"My friend! She thought you were kidnapping him!" Akane roared in reply.
She picked up her phone, whose famous Finnish furnish allowed it to survive the impact with ease. "Senpai. Turn your speaker on."
Looking at her phone, after hearing all of that shouting in the background, Katie gave a questioning look to Ranma before she set the phone down and turned on the speakerphone option. On her end, Akane did the same thing and set the phone down in front of her.
"Hello, Katie-chan," Kasumi said extra pleasantly to the phone when she saw that this was now a conference call.
"Sup?" Katie replied.
Ranma paused the game and looked over. That one girl sounded cute.
"Ranma, right?" Akane asked. "I'm really sorry about this. Our Dad sprang this whole engagement thing on us, too."
And she sounded even nicer.
"Yeah, imagine our surprise when we came home to us being engaged to some guy we never met," Nabiki chimed in.
Ranma wasn't keen on that one, her tone was kind of bitchy. In a hot way, though. "Uh hey, this is Ranma Saotome, I'm kind of glad you're not in on it too."
"Your voice, are you a girl right now?" Akane asked.
"Yeah," Ranma said.
"I can confirm," Katie said.
"She's really fuckin' cute!" Misao called in. "And her guy form is super hot!"
"How hot, are we talking an eight? Eight-point-nine…?" Nabiki then cut in.
"Ten all around!" Misao called back.
"Could you not?" Katie snapped at her.
Now Nabiki was having second thoughts.
"I was kind of worried that this was my old man trying to pull off a scam or something."
All three sisters turned in unison and glared at Genma.
"Imagine that," Akane said icily before she warmed up a little more for Ranma. "Anyway, I'm Akane."
"I'm Nabiki," Nabiki introduced.
"And I'm Kasumi, it's a pleasure to meet you, Ranma-kun."
Soun then barged in. "Ah yes, hello there Ranma my boy! This is Soun Tendo, the father the girls–and I assure you this is no scam. Your father and I have been friends for decades, and the promise to bring our school together through uniting our families is a very real one. So what do you say you come on over to the dojo and pick one of my girls out, hm?"
"Hey, I thought we were going to have a say in this," Nabiki spoke up.
"Ranma certainly didn't, what chance do we have?" Akane asked.
"Yeah, I'm gonna have to put a rain check on that? I'm not interested in marrying anyone until I get a cure for this curse," Ranma said sternly.
"Why?" Katie suddenly asked.
"Yes, why?" Kasumi asked as well, prompting a strange look from Nabiki.
"I turn into a girl?" Ranma asked, wondering if they had really just gone over that or if she was getting a contact high. "I mean, I'm a really cute girl, but still a girl."
"Oh sweet summer child," Misao called from the kitchen. "You have no idea what kind of goldmine you are sitting on."
Ranma looked back. "What do you mean?"
Katie looked over as well, she didn't like the sound of that. In fact… it sounded like Misao had happened upon an idea.
Making sure her burgers didn't burn, Misao turned and began sauntering off from the kitchen for the living room, her brief ensemble made somehow more inappropriate with the apron she wore over it. Standing before Ranma and Katie, she rested one hand on her hip and gave them both a toothy, evil smile.
"I have a little proposition for you myself, Ranma-chan," she said. "One that can make you a very rich person."
Ranma's gaze darted to Katie, before she turned to face Misao entirely. "… What?"
"I'll pay you six hundred thousand yen per month to do let's plays with me. You just have to keep the curse and do them as a girl, someone as cute as you will pull in crazy viewers."
Six hundred thousand yen a month? Just for people watching her play video games as a girl? Misao was right… she was sitting on a goldmine that she didn't realize.
On the other end of the line, Genma found himself torn on something. On one hand, his son suddenly had a job. On the other, his daughter had a job.
Akane was entirely neutral on the position. "It couldn't hurt."
Nabiki was extremely tense because now she really wanted in on this fiancée shindig if Ranma was going to cash in that well on his cursed form.
Kasumi was curious about trying this playing video games for money thing herself, it sounded fun.
With Akane's mild encouragement, and the promise of getting paid well, Ranma shrugged her shoulders. "Sure, why not? It doesn't sound too bad."
Misao beamed. "Awesome! I'm going to get some paperwork going after dinner and we'll set this up!"
Katie smirked wryly. "Ah yes, the prodigal child gets what she wants again."
Ranma looked to her. "Well, at least I don't have to trudge back to China."
"That's the spirit," Katie said, "China sucks."
"You had a bad experience there, too?"
"Like you wouldn't believe, the stories I could tell you," Katie said before she looked back to the phone. "So, what's going to happen now?"
"Well, what's going to happen now is that my son is going to come to the Tendo Dojo and pick his fiancée," Genma said.
"You know what? That sounds nice and all, but I'm still gonna pass on that," Ranma then said. "I'm not going to date anybody until I get to know 'em first, much less marry!"
"Well that's why you're going to come here to the dojo!" Genma ordered.
"Meeting someone for an hour isn't going to determine who I'm going to marry, you jackass!" Ranma argued back.
It was Akane who stepped up to be the mediator. "All right, calm down everybody!" She glared at Genma. "Especially you."
Kasumi agreed. "If Ranma doesn't want to get engaged to us that's fine. In fact, I would prefer it if he met each one of us… and got to know us…"
Nabiki too agreed. "You know what? I'm down with that."
Akane gave both her older sisters distasteful looks. A steady high paying job doing nothing sure changed their tune. She'd have expected that from Nabiki, but Kasumi too? For shame!
Genma wanted to protest this, but Soun seemed even more ecstatic about the proposition. "Well then! I see no harm in that, it's nice to see that all three of you are eager to meet Ranma now."
"I'm not eager, but…" Akane stopped and just shook her head. "Yeah, actually sitting down and talking this out wouldn't hurt."
Genma grumbled. Oh well, at least the engagement wasn't completely off the table. "Fine, but you're still coming over ASAP, boy."
"Gonna have to say no to that, too. I'm about to have dinner, and my hosts have been nice enough to wash my clothes for me," Ranma said. "Oh, and they haven't even tried knocking me out or anything. So courteous!"
"Yeah, it's fine if Ranma stays the night here," Katie said.
"Be careful, they could be a treacherous and conniving lot," Akane said while leveling a harsh glare at Genma.
Genma quietly looked away, but he would actually have the last laugh on that one… sort of.
"Well, dinner's ready and my phone's dyin'," Katie said. "We'll continue this tomorrow, eh Akaneko?"
Akane smiled big. "Sure!"
Genma then remembered. "Hey, Ranma! You're enrolled in the local high school. You'd better head over there tomorrow morning, and come right here after!"
Ranma grimaced. "Sure old man, whatever."
"All right, bye senpai!" Akane said, before she ended the call.
Nabiki was quite pleased to hear this. A chance to meet Ranma in person was an opportunity she wasn't going to start on the wrong foot. With a quick look to Akane, she was already plotting how to remove her from any competition. Kasumi wore her own blithe smile, hiding her own intent to win the affections of Ranma.
Soun, as perceptive as a father could be, couldn't feel like more a winner. Not only were all three of his daughters interested in Saotome's son, but the fires of jolly competition could be seen burning in their eyes. Whoever married him, he was quite confident that the Tendo Dojo would be in good hands.
Genma, however, wanted to be happy but he couldn't help but sense that something was deadly off. He had himself a bad feeling about this, like this was just the tip of a very big iceberg, and he was pretty sure that those external factors–those two strange girls–were responsible for what would lie beneath.
He was right, of course, but this berg went so deep.
Chapter 4/?
Four!
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 4/?
Of the many things that could be said about Kodachi Kuno, having a firm grasp on reality would not be one of them. Indeed, she was a whole 'nother ball of 8th grader syndrome delusions that were tolerated more due to the fact that she was hotter than hell and prone to run around in a leotard for fun. Her best assets usually on display, she had no trouble gaining male attention.
Keepin' it was another story and most of the males of her peerage were boorish dullards like her foolish older brother. And the lower class might as well be fleas on a dog's ass in her eyes. But a while back, she had been struck by inspiration, as if delivered from the heaven's above.
It totally didn't have anything to do with a popular Instagram picture posted by her nominal rival and all around annoyance Asuka Saginomiya.
As if a woman of her class should flaunt gaining the fleeting attention of a singular male who was not really all that good looking to begin with. If you were going to brag, you had to do something worthy of bragging. That was the motto she had strived to live for, the great do great because they are great and are acknowledged as great only when they have achieved the greatness.
Which leads back to her friendship with Akane and Katie, a lone beacon of sanity in the maelstrom of batshit insanity that perked inside the mind of the Black Rose. They had revealed to her the very means she would achieve her greatness, unwittingly so. So the boys of Furinkan High were a bunch of undateable slobs who would be relegated to never know the light of a woman's grace?
She, the Black Rose, would mold them into something to be respectable. Something to be admired and even desired. And they would worship her as the one true Goddess, not like the sweaty unwashed masses who populated Asuka's lame circle of fanboys. Oh how then would that trashy flower know her place under the heel of the Black Rose Kodachi Kuno!
"Ohohohohoho!" Kodachi cackled to herself as she tended her garden, admiring the black rose bush in front of her. "It is so simple! Am I not the Black Rose? From these hands, does not the life of the resplendent garden flow forth? What a fitting project for myself: The Garden of Men shall open and I will ascend to my rightful place! OHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!" She cackled again, scaring away even the cockroaches.
For the last… most of his life, Ranma Saotome was awoken pretty much the same way. With a surprise attack from his father, prompting an early morning spar that Ranma only started winning on a regular basis as his body got used to going from zero to one-hundred. Very rarely did he actually get a chance to wake up to something other than a fight, but in all honesty every opportunity was a happily welcomed one.
Like this morning for example, as Ranma opened his eyes not to a kiai from his father and the rush of adrenaline that spurred him to act, but to the sound of food being cooked and the enticing smell of breakfast. When he opened his eyes, he had changed into a male before settling for bed, he found the unfamiliar ceiling of Misao's apartment waiting for him, and rose from his bed without any particularly philosophical musings because he wasn't that kind of guy.
"Mm… I slept great." Even if it was on a loveseat in a living room. He'd been expressly warned not to sleep on the couch Misao used to game on. Apparently it had a history.
"Good morning there, sleeping beauty," Misao called over to Ranma.
Slowly turning his head to look, he rapidly did a double-take when he saw that she appeared to be just wearing her apron again, like she had last night.This time, though, she didn't appear to be wearing a top this time around in addition to wearing whatever brief thing she wore to make it look like she wasn't wearing panties either.
Quickly, Ranma averted his eyes, and Misao snickered. "So yeah, you got school, right? I'm not sure if it's your size, but Katie's got a Furinkan guy's uniform you can use. She hasn't worn it since I convinced her to finally wear the girl's."
Ranma shrugged his shoulders. "I'll wear my own clothes, thanks. I'm not a fan of uniforms."
Misao shrugged her shoulders. "Your call. You want a lunch, too? I'm making that as well."
A bento, now there was something Ranma hadn't had in a long time. Well, ever actually. Whenever he went to school, he had to fight near to the death for the free food they tossed out at the end of lunch.
That was a normal thing they did at school, right?
"Uh, thanks…" He said coolly.
"Hope you like Italian Sausage, then," Misao said before she tossed him a wink. "I love it, personally."
She seemed like the sort of girl who adored sausage, a ruder part of Ranma almost said before he stopped himself from effectively insulting his boss. Misao turned back to the stove and Ranma did a second double-take–because this time around Misao was topless.underneath that apron, and wearing shorts so short they may as well have been black denim panties.
He wrenched his eyes away, a bright red shade descending down his face, as a door opened in the hallway leading to Misao's room opened and Katie emerged freshened up and ready for the day.
With a glance towards Misao, Katie rolled her eyes. "Hey, go easy on the guy, this is his first morning here."
"Hey, this is all for you." Misao cooed back.
"Whatever," Katie strolled into the kitchen and grabbed a plate to pile on a mix of scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, and breakfast sausage links.
"Actually it's for my morning show, which is about to start soon, and is R18 so you guys need to eat your breakfast and get the hell out," Misao said as she piled on a second plate.
"R18?" Ranma asked, surprised. "You do those…?"
Honestly, with a body like hers, he should've expected it. Such an amazing, lewd body…
"Yeah?" Misao answered. "But only I do them, since I'm 18," she explained. "Now eat your breakfast and get moving, schoolchildren~"
Katie, after taking the second plate, walked over and set down one full of delicious-looking western breakfast staples in front of Ranma, complete with a fork rather than chopsticks.
As she dropped down onto the end of the couch closest to Ranma, he grabbed his fork and began to wolf down his food like a dog quick to get his fill before another animal got at his prize first. Katie was no different, holding the plate close to her mouth and shoveling the food in.
Misao, quite content to see the ravenous beasts wearing human skin enjoy her food, leaned forward on the counter. "So, I got a question. How does the whole change work?"
Ranma looked over at her, mouth partially full. "What do you mean? I told you like three times, didn't I?"
Was she too high to remember, then? He remembered hearing that marijuana messed with your heard.
"Yeah, you told me, but like… you're eating all that food right now, right? When you change into a girl, is the food still there or does it go away with wherever your guy form does?"
Ranma stopped eating just to stare at her, momentarily struggling to comprehend the question she just asked. "Uh… the food is still there. It doesn't just go away, I just… change."
Misao nodded. "What about the extra mass? I mean, you lose like fifteen centimeters when you become a girl, and at least six kilos."
Ranma shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno, it just gets magicked away, I guess."
Misao pouted, frustrated by Ranma's own lack of insight dampening her efforts to gain any. "Ugh, magic is dumb."
"Yeah it is," Ranma agreed.
Katie set down her fork for just a moment. "I don't know, I think I wouldn't mind being cursed to turn into something. I could be a monkey, or a tiger, or a bird, or a dragon… or maybe even a guy."
Misao's face lit up, at that. "Oh man, being able to turn into a guy would be kind of cool!" She looked from Ranma to Katie. "Could you imagine how hot I'd be?!"
"That's your first thought?" Katie asked, as Ranma made a face… only to become more introspective about it.
"Well, given that Ranma is as cute as a girl as he is good-looking as a guy, I'd be stone-cold handsome as a dude, and so would you," Misao said.
Katie's cool expression warmed, just a little, at Misao's compliment.
"I'm not one to toot my own horn." Ranma actually totally was. "But I do guess I'm pretty good looking, guy or girl."
Misao smiled and winked at Ranma. "I'll toot that horn for you anytime, sweetie."
Ranma rather innocently found it nice that Misao would sing his praises. "Thanks!"
Katie however just gave a baleful look at her roommate for deliberately shooting her innuendo over Ranma's head like so many warning shots over an enemy ship's bows.
Misao just stuck her tongue out at Katie.
Ranma missed the by-play entirely and settled in to think about what to say next. "Okay... so I can see why you'd want it but I dunno if it'd work out for you like that."
Katie couldn't help but tease him. "What, are you saying we'd make ugly guys?"
Ranma furrowed his brow. "Not that, it just seems like the actual curse of the place is that you don't get something you might like. Kinda like you'd end up with something that'd cause you problems." His answer was a little hostile, the annoyance at the joke leaking through.
Misao thought about the redheaded version of the boy and could immediately identify two huge problems. "Did the guide say that?"
"Uh, he didn't know as much as you'd think. Mostly where the springs are and their stories." Ranma answered, feeling a little conscious talking about it but finding himself unable to be rude considering the asker. "Anything useful he didn't seem to know."
Katie could only silently observe the differences in how he talked to Misao and herself. What was it that prompted that? He surely didn't have a crush on Misao did he?
Misao, meanwhile, decided to push things on. "So it's an annoyance huh?"
"I've... well, I've just had some bad times with it." Ranma said, evading details to these bad times.
"Relax the bleeding is totally normal." Misao replied, guessing at a possible bad time.
"… Bleeding?" Ranma asked, sounding both confused and scared.
Katie and Misao shared a look.
"What do you mean bleeding?" Ranma found himself a little panicked by the lack of response.
"You haven't been a girl enough for that huh?" Misao asked, somewhat rhetorically.
"Long enough for what?" Ranma asked, still a little concerned.
"A period." Katie clarified.
"What does the end of a sentence have to do with this?" Ranma asked, now more confused than concerned.
Katie and Misao stared at him for a long second, before the former turned to the latter and spoke in English. "I'm going to kick his Father in the head really hard next time I see him."
"Make it a double shot." Misao said, feeling very annoyed at the ignorance of her new employee.
"Personwhogetstoexplainittohimsayswhat." Katie coughed out.
"What?" Misao asked on reflex, before her brain processed what was said. "You bitch!"
Ranma, still completely not fluent in English, was lost. Concerned with how their private conversation had taken a turn, he decided to ask an obvious question. "Everything all right?"
Katie answered before Misao. "It's fine, just hashing out a few things between us."
"Yeah, nothing to worry about." Misao said, before checking the time. "You guys should finish up soon and go. No sense in you being late and all." Plus it'd delay her stream.
On that thought, filming his reaction to the less hygienic aspects of womanhood might be worth a few million views and extra subs. It was something entirely worth considering, from a business standpoint, and from the sadistic bitch standpoint, two points that Misao occupied simultaneously.
"When you get back, I'll teach you all about the ups and downs of being a woman," Misao promised. "Prepare yourself, though… you're in for quite a bit."
And that, Ranma found, left him feeling pretty uneasy.
Nabiki was wearing makeup.
Okay, that wasn't normally a big deal in the Tendo home. All three wore makeup because they cared about appearances, but Nabiki was rocking it. An eye-catching hint of colorful eyeshadow and darker eye-liner, a brighter, attractive shade of lipstick, a light foundation and blush. She wanted to be flawless today, and for all intents and purpose she was. Nabiki wanted to make a good impression on who could very well be her future husband and even by Akane's reckoning she was on her way to that.
"You know, Nabiki, I have to say that even when I don't really care for you, I do respect you," Akane said as they walked to school together.
"Is it because I'm being entirely honest about my intentions of marrying a man simply because of his projected financial stability?" Nabiki asked.
"Yes," Akane replied in a deadpan.
"I'll have you know it's not just because he's going to be well off financially," Nabiki corrected, "It's also because BansheeDeadSix says that he's a ten out of ten."
"Even if he turns into a girl?" Akane asked.
"That just means he isn't a guy half the time, I don't see what's wrong with that." Nabiki then smiled at her sister. "What about you? Any intentions that I have to plan accordingly for?"
"Nope, he's all yours. I'm going to enjoy my life doing what I want to do and not saddle myself with Daddy's burdens."
Nabiki gave her a sharp-eyed look, before shrugging her shoulders. "And when you see him in person and decide that not all boys are as icky as you have become accustomed too, I promise I won't laugh too loud in your face when you realize you let that ship sail all on your own."
"No boy is that good looking," Akane argued.
Nabiki's gaze left Akane for the path ahead, and she did a quick double-take when she saw the young man who looked nearly even in height with the foreign girl he walked alongside. He was wearing a bright red Chinese-style silk shirt, with the sleeves rolled up, black pants, and a pair of well-worn, laceless black shoes. He was–by Nabiki's every metric–a total heart-throbbing hottie, having a handsome face and jet black hair ending in even a cute pigtail that extended down his neck.
"What about him?" She said to Akane, drawing her attention to the dreamboat of a man approaching them.
Akane stared, and then her eyes grew wide. For there indeed before her… was the first attractive boy in her age group she'd met since her trip to a very scary wildlife preserve. It was with this acknowledgement that a cold, awful dread formed a pit in her stomach.
She turned back to Nabiki, and she was already there, waiting with her face centimeters from where hers stopped.
"Ha. Ha. Ha."
Akane looked like she had just drank some curdled milk.
"Yo, Akaneko, Nabiki." Katie said as she approached the sisters with Ranma in tow. "Here he is, in the flesh." She stepped aside and just sort of gestured to Ranma, who looked embarrassed.
Their reactions only deepened the embarrassment, though he was more confused by Akane looking rather angry about something. "Uh, hi?"
"Well, hello." Nabiki said, giving Ranma a thorough once over. "I'm Nabiki and I must say it is very nice to meet you in person."
Akane blew out an angry sigh and decided to let it go. "Hi I'm Akane, it's nice to meet you."
Ranma looked from Nabiki, decked out in makeup and overly enthusiastic to see him, to Akane, not dressed up and looking like she just ruined all of her dreams at once. Interesting girls to say the least. "I'm Ranma, nice to meet you I guess."
Katie poked him in the side. "You guess?"
"How nice is it to be introduced to somebody at sword point?" Ranma snapped back.
Nabiki found his rough speech endearing in a way. Obviously, her decision to throw herself into the pursuit of him had put some rose colored glasses on her.
Akane, by contrast, thought he was funny at least. Damn damn damn it all, she shot off her mouth without thinking and she'd never ever hear the end of it if she went back.
"So how do the two of you feel about this?" Katie asked, serving as the mediator to keep things going smooth.
"I had my reservations but there have been some revelations that have eased my worries." Nabiki said, not even remembering she hated Katie for destroying her business. "As far as blunders by our father, you're easily the most enjoyable."
Akane hated that she couldn't argue. "Oh yeah, I had almost forgotten how he almost sold the house and dojo off to some American company." It was deadpanned to the point that it really conveyed that Ranma's worst fear was realized: There was another one of his father out there.
"I can now understand how they're friends." Ranma said, resisting the urge to burying his face in his palms and weep.
"Yeah, it's rough eh?" Nabiki asked, feigning sympathy, or maybe it was genuine. She was usually the only one who felt deep down in her soul the crushing idiocy of her father.
"We'll do our best to get this engagement nonsense out of their minds." Akane said, nudging Nabiki in the side with an elbow.
"If I wanted a captive fiancé, I'd wait until I was old enough for government matchmaking." Nabiki said, going along with it because she didn't want to alienate him by supporting the idiots.
"Well I won't hold it against you when it inevitably fails at least." Ranma said, shaking his head.
"So that's how it is, huh?" Katie thought, as she observed the young Saotome who was going to be joining in on Misao's NEET bullshit. "He can't relax around me." His battle senses must have been honed beyond what was even remotely sensible if he was wary of her without even seeing her in action.
"That's so nice of you." Nabiki cooed, smiling for effect.
"Yes, thanks." Akane said, adding her own wattage to the affair.
"Aw geez." Ranma looked rather affected by the two girls' affectionate behavior.
"And yet, he could break the two of them in half without really trying.' Katie silently observed. From the way he carried himself, he was certain to be a martial artist of a high quality. Even more than the brief show he had put on as a girl the other day. How very interesting… "We'll have to spar. I wanna know his measure."
Merely because she was Akane's senpai, and not because she was a battle maniac. That'd be creepy if that were the case. Just out and out lunacy right? Right.
"Good grief, you're both already going gaga for him," Katie said deliberately, and achieving the expected result.
"I'm not…!" Akane stopped and blushed a bit in embarrassment. "He's only being nice."
"He's 'being nice' now, but before you know it you'll be fighting over him with your sister to be the one to say 'I do'," Katie teased–earning another protest from Akane–before glancing at Nabiki. "It'd be a short fight."
Nabiki only huffed a whatever back.
Katie then looked over to Ranma, who was watching this exchange in mild amusement. "But before you two get to any of that, I want to take him for a spin myself."
Ranma did a double-take. "You want to do what?"
"Fight," Katie said, not paying much mind to how sexual she sounded before, "To see if you're as good as you look. I saw some promise against your panda-dad, I want to know if you can keep it."
Given her earlier claim of being a traveling martial artist like him, Ranma was actually curious to see what she actually had to offer, and he was pleased to find out she felt the same way. He turned a look over to Akane, who was suddenly well-vested in the confrontation. Nabiki, on the other hand, looked mildly annoyed. He didn't know that this was her default expression yet.
To Nabiki he asked. "Hey, hold my bags?"
Nabiki did so with gusto. "If I were you, I would try to end it quickly."
"Where's the fun in that?" Ranma asked before he walked closer to Katie, his hands relaxed at his sides.
The sight of the strange new boy entering the schoolyard and facing off against Katie quickly drew a small crowd, other students curious about who this out-of-uniform and wildish-looking kid was. The fact that it looked like he was about to take Katie in a fight was especially interesting. Katie rolled her shoulders, then lifted up her right leg up to the back of her head to stretch it, before doing the same with the left. Ranma just tilted his head left and right, he was already well loosened up.
"So, how do you want to do this? First to hit wins?" She asked him.
"That sounds good," Ranma replied, "But we might be here all day at that rate."
Katie let out an amused sound. "Is that a fact?"
Ranma still didn't assume fighting stance. "I'm pretty good."
Katie nodded, before she adopted one. "We'll see."
For a moment the two of them stayed perfectly still, staring each other down. A hush fell, and everyone watching held their breath in anticipation. It was as though the two of them were in a staring contest with one another, or waiting for an invisible signal to begin.
That signal happened when Ranma blinked. Katie crossed the distance between them with a stern kick aimed right for the chest, or it would have if Ranma had stayed put. The pigtailed martial artist hopped into the air, cleanly above the kick–which was followed by a second higher kick that changed its aim with the speed of a laser guided missile.
Regardless Ranma caught the kick and batted it aside to create an opening in Katie's guard that he attempted to exploit with a lightning-fast jab before he even hit the ground, except his wrist was caught and twisted, which made him cartwheel in place. When Katie tried to hit him in turn, Ranma caught her punch in turn and twisted her around to reverse their positions.
"You're stronger than you look," Ranma observed.
"You're faster than you look," Katie grunted. One thing was for certain, this wasn't going to be a pushover.
The two circled each other now, wary of the other now that they had a taste for what the other could do. Katie wasn't content with waiting too long, coming forward with a punch that was faster than the one she threw earlier. It didn't come close to hitting, but Ranma avoided it instead of deflecting it.
"Interesting." Ranma thought as he poked at Katie with a front kick. "She's not really holding all that much back."
Katie dodged around the kick and came towards Ranma, twisting around into an elbow aimed right for his left collarbone. Owing to his great agility, Ranma was able to throw himself out of the way of the attack. Airborne and spinning like a top, he lashed out with a kick that missed by mere inches.
"Seems he got my message loud and clear." Katie thought, a confident smirk on her face as she threw jabs with each arm, advancing with every slip Ranma made. "Sorry kid, but holding back won't tell me what I need to know."
Ranma finally could understand the unease he felt around her, it wasn't the fact she clobbered his pop. It was the fact that she was really damn good! He threw back, blocking or deflecting anything he didn't feel was necessary to dodge.
"Having fun?" Katie asked after they broke apart, her forward momentum finally halted.
"A little." He admitted, though slightly more reserved than he might normally talk. Her blows were thrown with enough force to crack bone. "I hope I'm not boring you."
"Trust me, if you were boring you'd already be on the floor." She retorted, snapping out a kick when she reached what she felt was the edge of his effective range.
"Then I'll try to keep you entertained," Ranma said as he flipped back from the strike gracefully.
"Start by giving me the best you've got!" Katie then said as he landed.
Then in that instant Ranma was suddenly in very close, the burst of speed surprising her as much as it did Akane, Nabiki, and the crowd of onlookers. He was kicking her stomach, his strike so fast for a moment Katie thought it was a feint right up to the moment she raised a knee to block it. However the next six kicks seemed to come all at once, aiming everywhere there wasn't a limb to stop it.
A sound much like a short, quick round of applause followed, before Katie and Ranma broke from their closeness. It looked as though Ranma had kicked Katie and she blocked it, but then the two of them became blurry after that, like something had happened even faster than Ranma's speed before.
Ranma drew back his foot and lowered it towards the ground, but kept his knee raised as Katie finished sliding back, her hands raised in front of her. She had open-palmed each of his kicks, cancelling them out in such succession that it surprised him. It's a good thing that wasn't his "best" or he'd be a little unnerved, too. No, he was actually impressed. She was definitely quicker than his old man!
"Wait, what… what was that just now?" Nabiki asked. That last exchange was so fast that she couldn't even see it. It looked like one kick, but there were definitely more, it sounded like it!
She glanced at Akane, who was suddenly sharply focused on the two. She had seen it, but she was having trouble believing it. Ranma had attacked faster than even Kuno ever could, and Katie had stopped it with the same speed!
Katie began to shift her weight from one leg to the other, her body swaying organically as she watched Ranma relax and slip into his own groove. In that brief instant where he attacked her with those kicks, she actually worried–no, feared that he was going to connect, and end up laid out laid out with a trail of footprints from her groin to her forehead. There was no doubt in her mind that any of those kicks alone would've put her down.
And with that assertion, Katie never felt more alive. She was panting audibly and happily, like she'd just run twenty kilometers and then had some crazy good sex right after, but the rush she was feeling right now made those even put together feel like an utter drag.
"Again," she breathed out.
Ranma tensed up, she was going to attack, and he was eager to see what she could do. "Again?"
"Do it again!" She yelled before she charged like a rocket sled and swung her right leg with all the force of a runaway freight train, the air making the sharp sound of a blade passing through it as Ranma ducked under the kick. He lashed out to punch her, but she flowed around his blow, swinging her elbow for his neck.
His open palm caught the blow, and he turned the other way to plow the back of his fist into her face, but he quickly blocked her strike. She turned around and jabbed him in the face with her other hand, and he swayed his entire body to move himself out of the way of the strike. In the same motion, he fired back a punch that Katie deflected from its track to her face while returning her own powerful strike, a palm-thrust to the chin that Ranma caught by the wrist. He then pivoted and swung down, guiding Katie over and flipping her forward to drop her onto her back.
Katie sped up the throw however, kicking off before her feet left the ground, allowing her to complete it while getting free. Landing on her feet one hand, she swung her right leg right back up, her tibia colliding with his raised arms with enough for Ranma to be shoved back.
"Whoa…! That stung!" He thought during his unrequested acceleration.
As Ranma came to a stop, Katie was descending upon him, her green eyes wild and wide while swinging an axe kick down on him. Ranma cartwheeled to the side, the kick creating a long narrow fissure in front and behind the point of impact.
Turning around, Katie strong-arm blocked a roundhouse kick from Ranma, then switched feet to lash out with a kick straight out of the barrel of a rifle. The blow missed, as did Ranma's return strike, then Katie's, then Ranma's. They were in such constant motion, with so much power behind their blows, that dust and dirt and loose blades of grass were being picked up, the air currents stirring around the circling fighters, like a tornado beginning to form.
As Ranma's punch grazed her cheek, Katie's lips split into a grin. Just a little closer, and that would've cut her cheek wide open.
With his nimble footwork and flexibility, Ranma avoided Katie's heel. The force of wind displaced by the strike felt strong enough to throw him back on its own! While he didn't share her smile, his blood boiled from the intensity, the excitement, just like hers!
"Katie-senpai is so strong," Akane said, suddenly feeling conflicted. On one hand, she did destroy Kuno, but on the other hand now she was wondering just how much Katie had been holding back on her in the dojo.
"Yeah, but that Ranma, though," Nabiki said before there was a near-deafening crack, that scattered the gathering tornado with such force that the hair of everyone closest to it was blown back.
Katie and Ranma had crossed legs in attempting to roundhouse kick one another, the very blow made for their target blocking the one meant for them.
Katie had struck Ranma with the same force she destroyed Kuno's arm with, and not only was she pleased to find that his leg was still intact, he had returned in kind the same amount of force.
"Man, he was right," she realized with a growing smile.
Ranma was of the same opinion, as a smirk appeared on his lips. "We really are gonna be here all day!"
But before they could invite one another to fight until the heat death of the universe, there was a bang and a brilliant light suddenly illuminated the courtyard, momentarily blinding everyone standing there. The light was coming from the very front of the school, shining through the front doors thrown open by a tremendous force.
"What the hell…?!" Katie growled as she shielded her eyes.
Ranma was likewise protecting his eyes as the light bathed them, the rays intense enough that the onlookers could actually feel heat from them.
Nabiki had managed to put on a pair of sunglasses, and was still unable to look directly into the center of the light. "I'm having the weirdest sense of deja vu right now."
Akane was wearing arc welders goggles. "You too?"
Despite the intensity of the light, the other students were gathered at its edges, mostly the downtrodden males, cloistered together to keep the girls away from them, and the girls stayed back, edging around the mob of sad sacks to slip into the gates of the school. Straight out from the center of the light, a long carpet rolled out, unfurling to a stop just a few feet from Katie and Ranma, who abandoned their spar and retreated to Nabiki and Akane to see what was going on.
From the center of the cone of light, which began to diminish in intensity to something people could stare into without risking permanent damage, a figure in a brilliant black ball gown emerged as a silhouette, before coming fully into view. It was Kodachi Kuno, wearing a halter top ball gown with a matching stole. The black dress was patterned with roses so much darker than the fabric that they hurt to look at for long, and her stole was adorned with black roses in full bloom. In her hands, however, she held a shinai, a bamboo sword for use in kendo, a long black ribbon wrapped around its length.
"Kodachi-san?" Akane asked when she recognized her.
"I was wondering where my new best friend has been," Nabiki said.
Ranma, now completely out of fight mode stared in surprise. "Geez, I've seen more nice-looking girls in this town in two days than I've seen anywhere else in the last five years."
"I know, right?" Katie asked.
Akane glanced in Ranma's direction after hearing that, while Nabiki basked somewhat in the roundabout praise.
At either side of Kodachi, fourteen boys dressed smartly in tuxedos placed their right arms across their chest and bowed reverently to her. They were almost immediately recognized as the entirety of the Kendo Club's membership, Tatewaki Kuno's core elite supporters inside of the school.
The crowd of Furinkan High School's destitute male population immediately became filled with equal parts awe and sorrow. Such a beautiful and elegant woman had come to appear before them, reminding them of their lower than dirt status even more. Why would someone so breathtaking have to show up at their school now?
As she reached the end of her carpet, Kodachi stopped and scanned this hopeless crowd with a piercing gaze, as if she could see the very despair they felt. She sneered in disgust of it. "Boys of Furinkan High, my name is Kodachi Kuno, The Black Rose. I am the sister of the one you know as Tatewaki."
The mere speaking of her name caused a wave of murmurs from all of the students. To this point, no one else had known that Tatewaki Kuno had a younger sister, not even rumors of such a person existed. Before such murmurs could become too distracting, Kodachi lifted the shinai and rammed the tip into the floor, the resulting bang silencing the peanut gallery.
Katie and Ranma both gave a start. Such a sound, through the carpet?
"I have come here because you are truly the lowest of the wretched. You filth took the gift of your youth and turned it into a tool of terror and abuse. To selfishly slake your desires, you assaulted the very idol you worshipped, and to add injury to your insult you were all handily beaten by her! By the dozens! Within seconds!"
Katie's head tilted in a nod of agreement. Ranma looked over at Akane. "These guys did what?"
"They tried to beat me up so they'd have permission to date me from the strongest guy in the school," Akane explained.
Ranma was part ways impressed, all of those guys she beat up? That quickly? "What happened to that douchenozzle?"
"I broke his arms and kicked him through the clock up there," Katie said, gesturing to the since repaired clock.
Ranma probably would've done the same thing.
She sneered at them all. "Indeed, you lot are no more than pigs in human clothing! You slop about, squealing and whining to get what you want because you are too weak to take it for yourselves. When it was time for you to stand up for yourselves and what you wanted, you retreated back into the safety of your pathetic boyhoods and took the coward's path."
Kodachi chuckled. "I can see it in all of you, the despair, the self-loathing. You have rightfully lost any claim to youth with your barbarism, and earned the sickening title of enemy to all women. You know it, and you own it. Your sin and shame is inerasable…"
By the time she finished, the dark miasma of regret that manifested when Akane verbally tore into them had returned, a crushing weight that brought most of them down to their hands and knees, with their heads bowed near to the ground. They would be weeping, were it not for the fact their tears had dried up long ago.
"But you are not without hope! For where all in the world, including yourselves, see only useless wastes… I see potential unrealized! I see greatness that can still be reached!" She declared.
Even the background ambience vanished with Kodachi's last statement. For the first time in weeks, someone had offered an encouraging word to the wretched boys of Furinkan that wasn't tinged awkwardly with pity.
Nabiki's mouth fell open. "Kodachi Kuno, you magnificent bitch!"
Ranma tilted his head the other way. "So, what's she doing?"
Katie tilted her head. "I don't know, pretending to be Satsuki Kiryuin?"
"Who?" Ranma asked.
"Do not choose the coward's way as penance! Do not believe that you must languish and live a truly wretched life to make up for your sins." She took a deep breath and let it out of her nostrils, before jamming the shinai into the ground again to ensure she had their utmost attention. "Instead, heat your blood up with the waning fires of your wretched youth and be reborn! Burn away the pathetic Boy who cries and begs his betters for what he should want and need, and instead become a Man who decides for himself!"
There were other murmurs again, for a few seconds, before one of the boys closest to her, an ex-member of the Kendo club, spoke up. "Is it even possible? W-what makes you think that we-?"
Kodachi suddenly pointed the shinai at the kendoist, causing him to flinch instinctively. "A sparrow knows not the eagle's splendor! Do not doubt my ambition! Unfetter yourselves of the shackles of the impossible and believe!"
She slammed the shinai back down. "Ask yourselves this: Do you want to be another one of those disgusting parasites who cling to body pillows and watch that awful dreck they dare pass off as anime for the rest of your lives? Or would you rather take the chance and be reborn into that which invokes desire in the women of this world?!"
Fire was blazing in her dark eyes as she lifted her chin slightly to ensure her voice carried. "Follow me, and I will lead you to your salvation, and to true manhood!"
It started with a single domino, as the first boy sank to his knees in realization. What did they have to lose? He was already at the absolute bottom of where a human being could go… what else could he lose if he didn't try to redeem himself–no, rebuild himself?! As if reading that same thought another fell, then another, and in seconds all of the boys who bore the stigma of being one of Akane's "suitors" were on their knees, gazing up at her as if she were a God.
The hope and adoration in their eyes mixed with admiration and loyalty, all for her, nearly made Kodachi orgasm on the spot.
"What say you? Shall you be Men or Boys?" Kodachi asked, looking around the crowd.
"Men!" was the universal call from the boys.
"How far would you follow me then? What lengths would you go?" She demanded.
"Beyond hell, wherever you would have us go." The first boy responded, seemingly the spokesman. "Any and all lengths, as long as they are what you deem necessary."
The mad grin that split Kodachi's face was instantly mistaken for the graceful smile of an Angel. "Then you will heed my orders as I melt you down back into your basest form, to that lump of untapped potential you all possess. I will then forge you into Men, and you will show this world your True Beauty!"
"Yes!" The boys all answered.
"Yes Black Rose-sama!" Kodachi corrected.
"Yes Black Rose-sama!" They didn't even hesitate to respond.
"Louder! Shout your praise to me!" Kodachi roared.
As the boys broke into fervent chants, Nabiki was kicking herself harder than she'd ever imagined she would. Akane was somewhat apprehensive at this turn. Sure, Kodachi declared herself a friend, but this was now a disturbingly familiar scene: the male student body falling under the uncontestable sway of a delusional nutjob named Kuno.
"Man, I still have no idea what's going on," Ranma said.
Katie agreed. "Seems to have worked, though."
Nabiki didn't smirk, despite the desire to. It was that grave to her, or so it seemed. "It's like this: Kodachi just swooped in and picked up a willing harem of guys. Sure, they're all a bunch of losers but she has the income to erase all the negatives about them. What's the top thing you hate about boys, Akane?"
Akane gave her sister a look, trying to determine if she was being led into a trap. After a couple seconds, she finally answered. "Their immaturity."
"And that's exactly what she's going to beat out of them." Nabiki said, sighing at the lost opportunity. "There's two kinds of guys most girls like: Bad boys and the cool, mature man. Kodachi now has the chance to run around town followed by an army of the latter. She's going to be the envy almost every schoolgirl in the country if she pulls this off."
Ranma was still lost but he figured there was a lot of backstory he needed. "And this is bad?"
Nabiki would have laughed at him, but she was trying to make a decent first impression so she let it slide. "Bad? It's absolutely awful."
"How?" Akane and Katie asked at the same time.
For the first time in Akane's life, she saw Nabiki's composure slip, as she reached up and grabbed at her hair in frustration. "Because I didn't think of it first!"
She then threw her hands up. "It's fucking brilliant! Take a bunch of losers with nothing else to live for then build them back up into a cult that worships the ground you walk on? I could've done that, I should've done that!"
Akane then leaned over. "But how much would it have cost you?"
Nabiki stopped, and in that instant her composure returned. "Yeah, fuck that noise."
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "Well, on the bright side, a little bit of culture and rehabilitation might really turn them into respectable guys."
Akane brightened. "There's that."
"Well, long as I don't get dragged into it, live and let die," Ranma said. "I got plenty of culture."
Nabiki couldn't resist trying to butter him up. "Don't worry, from where I'm standing. You're already a man."
Akane rolled her eyes to look from Nabiki to Kodachi, and jumped back when she found that her most recent acquisition of friendship was standing directly before her, the shinai she carried low at her side. Behind her, her mass of newly minted sycophants were being organized by the fourteen sharp-dressed young men who first appeared with her.
"Good morning to you Tendo Akane-san, and you Izurando Katie-san," she said cheerfully. "It has been a while."
"It has," Akane said. "Have you been spending all this time setting this up?"
"Oh yes!" Kodachi replied. "That and making the appropriate arrangements to transfer to this school as well."
Nabiki was quite pleased to hear that her rich friend was to be a classmate as well. "That's nice to know. If our first meeting was any indication, we're going to get along great."
"So what, you're going for the whole Host Club aesthetic with these guys?" Katie asked.
"Ohohoho!" Kodachi laughed, and Katie almost swooned a bit. "My darling friends, it is no mere aesthetic, and certainly not a Host Club. I am embarking on a great crusade, and when I am finished with those slobs, they will be my great army."
That caught Ranma's ear and he stepped up. "What are you crusading against?"
Kodachi looked to the young man that she had observed sparring with Katie, and regarded him coolly. "You needn't concern yourself, it is strictly a matter to be settled among women."
Not that much of anything around here was Ranma's business to begin with, but seeing as this was his school, and these guys were clearly being used by Kodachi for some bad-sounding purpose. "Even if it's none of my business, I don't think I'm down with anyone just signing up these guys for something like a fight."
He looked towards Akane and Katie. "Especially if what you've said about them being not that good is true."
Kodachi scowled at Ranma a bit, and about to question his continued interest in business that was not his, when Nabiki's ambition illuminated in her eyes, and she moved decisively. "Well hang on, if you're concerned about them, Ran-chan, why not train them yourself? Show them some moves and make sure no one's taking advantage of them?"
Ranma hummed, not minding that arrangement too much, but still finding this a little sketchy. "I suppose…"
She looked over to Kodachi and gestured to Ranma. "This is Saotome Ranma, bound by an honor agreement to be my fiancée."
"Your fiancée?" Akane asked.
"Not like you're going to marry him," Nabiki shot out the corner of her mouth at her.
Kodachi's eyes widened as she understood it. "Oh is that a fact! Well then…"
She tilted her chin up slightly as she regarded Ranma with a more respectable tone. "Saotome-san, I did witness your strength in your spar with Izurando-san and I was impressed with your strength. I would consider it an honor for your strength to be held as an example for these young men to follow."
Ranma as an example, huh? He didn't see too much harm in that. "Long as it doesn't interfere with my job."
"If it does, I will compensate you handsomely," Kodachi said. "Whatever income you desire to make up for what you can't make at your other job I will generously compensate."
"She will," Nabiki quickly testified.
Ranma liked the sound of that. Two jobs from two attractive girls in as many days? He was sold. "Sounds good to me.
"Oi, Kodachi," Katie then brusquely butted-in. "If you're offering trainer slots, then I want in on this, too."
It was then that Akane too saw a moment of decision that could not be allowed to slip. In fact, it was quite possibly the boldest and most ambitious of them all. "We could train them at the Tendo Dojo, if you like. It's large enough for them, and that way you can have Ranma, Katie-senpai, and I all training them."
"For a fee, of course," Katie added.
A stingier person would quickly noticed they were being milked. However, the Kuno family's wealth made even their nearest financial rivals the Mendou family look like a bunch of lower-middle class chumps who went to Denny's once a month to convince themselves that they weren't toeing the poverty line.
"That's acceptable! I demand nothing but the best caretakers for my newly sown garden!" She declared boldly. "It would do me little to surround myself with anything less than the absolute best, so I shall make a new decree here and now!"
She then pointed the shinai at the four. "Attention! Furinkan High School! I, The Black Rose Kuno Kodachi hereby declare the formation of Furinkan High School's Student Council! I am your Student Council President, and the following are my council, second only to me!"
As if illuminated from the heavens, four lights shone down, illuminating Ranma, Akane, Nabiki, and Katie.
"They are Tendo Akane, Tendo Nabiki, Izurando Katie, and Saotome Ranma!" She introduced. "You will regard their authority as you would my own, and I am certain that you have seen enough of their prowess to respect their authority as well!"
For anyone who doubted Katie's skillful dispatch of Tatewaki as a fluke, the violence of the spar with this mysterious new student sealed the deal. And there were quick nods of acknowledgement to the rule of the new Student Council.
Kodachi narrowed her eyes in disgust at the meager response, and then slammed the shinai back into the ground, creating a spiderweb of cracks that spread out a good thirty meters.
"YOU WILL RESPOND WITH YES BLACK ROSE-SAMA!" She roared.
And the students did, immediately crossing their right arm over their chests as her butlers did, and standing erect. "YES, BLACK ROSE-SAMA!"
Hearing the chorus of replies, Kodachi bit her lower lip from the thrill, and threw her head back to laugh maniacally. "YES! VERY GOOD! OHHHHHHHHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
Ranma folded his hands behind the back of his head; as far as first days of school were concerned, becoming one of the big dogs and ending up in a clique full of pretty and dangerous girls certainly wasn't the worst.
Katie folded her arms, trying to ignore how sexy Kodachi was, and looked to Akane, who smiled up to her. "Is this okay to you, senpai?"
Smirking a bit, Katie replied, "I always wanted to know what it was like to look down from the top of the mountain."
Nabiki was overflowing with excitement for different reasons. Everything was going so smoothly now, all she needed for things to be perfect were for her to win the rather studly Ranma's attention… and maybe remember that bounty she put on Katie's head out of spite.
Of all the sounds of children crying ranked easily among the worst of them. The idea of a hurt child never failed to invoke sympathy, unless you were a particularly evil bastard who delighted in making children cry. Enter a man so evil, so sadistic, and so underhanded that making children cry wasn't just what he liked to do, it was how he made money.
A fat, blonde-haired middle-aged man with the face right off a King playing card sat at a small table on what was normally a quiet side street in a far away Japanese town, shuffling a deck of cards as he stared across it at an elementary school-aged boy who looked straight out of a shounen anime with his dark spiky hair and determined eyes. He also looked quite angry at the middle-ager, and behind him explained why: there stood a group of smaller children, some watching weepy-eyed, and others crying their eyes outright, while pleading for him to win.
The middle-ager quickly doled out a hand of cards between himself and the boy, before picking up his own and looking at it.
"You old bastard…" The older boy said. "This is it, all or nothing! I'm going to get back my friends' money, and my little sister's bike!"
Behind the older man, a bright pink bicycle with training wheels sat. From behind his hand, his blue eyes shaded slightly by his straw hat, the middle-ager looked quite confident in his cards. "We'll see about that, kiddo. So… shall we begin?"
"Yes!" The boy said as he shot a hand forth, bringing it to a stop just before edges of his cards. They hovered there, his fingertips trembling as small beads of sweat manifested on his brow. Then they began to move, his fingers hovering back and forth over each card, careful to make his choice.
From behind his cards, the man watched his far younger opponent's hand, his expression unchanged from smug confidence, as if every choice was certain failure.
Growing tense, the boy glared at the hand of cards. He had one chance, it was all or nothing! His sister, his friends, their happiness! It all depended on him! He had to believe! He had to win!
He immediately drew a Joker.
"You lose," The Gambling King said as he took the last of the boy's money.
The boy dropped onto the ground on his hands and knees, overcome with despair as The Gambling King collected his winnings. The other children began bawling loudly, all hope lost.
The Gambling King was quite proud of himself, as he leaned over the counter. "You dumb brat, I suppose that'll teach you to come around and act like real life is an anime."
Childishly, he made a rude face to the boy when he looked up, earning the child's fury. Sitting back, he began to shuffle his cards again. "If you have anything else to wager, though, we can continue playing. You might just win something back."
The boy tensed up. He didn't have anything left. Nothing of his at least, that was his allowance for the entire week! If he couldn't get his sister's bike back, not only would his parents kill him, but he could never call himself a big brother again! He needed… he had to do something… but what?
A hand came down on the table, placing a large stack of yen on it, and both the boy and the cruel King looked up at the man who stepped up. He was a foreigner, wearing steel toe boots, khaki pants, and a matching vest over a gray shirt. He also wore a well-worn dark brown fedora, the right side of the wide brim pinned up against the side of the hat with what appeared to be a senbon needle. He had the face of a middle-aged man, complete with a moderate beard and mustache, and had limp, scraggly black hair that reached down to his shoulders.
"Hey there, man, there's no need to be a sore winner," the newcomer said. "If you're going to swindle kids out of their money, at least be nice about it. Make 'em feel like they tried, not like you outsmarted them."
He leaned forward. "There's an etiquette to these sorta things, and your attitude? Definitely uncool."
The Gambling King looked down at the money, and then up at this man as he set his deck in front of him. "Do you want to play a hand?"
"Sure, but none of that Old Maid shit," the newcomer replied, before sitting down across from him. "I'm gonna tell you what the name of this game is."
With a swiftness that none could see, the newcomer slammed a deck of cards onto the table, launching the deck the Gambling King had assembled into the air. Seven face cards, and all the rest Jokers came raining down around them, one such card being snatched from the air betwixt the newcomer's fingers.
"H-he's a cheater!" The young boy said in shocked realization.
The Gambling King flushed, as the man held the Joker to him.
"We're going to play a game of Poker, if you win, you get to keep all this stuff and carry on your way–I'm a man of my word, and if you lose…" the newcomer said before he flipped the Joker around, revealing it changed to the Ace of Spades. "This will be your card."
The Gambling King recoiled at his table, before looking down at the stranger's deck, he then looked up at him again.
"And if you try to cut and run? Don't. I'm faster than you," he added.
With that, The Gambling King pale, before he reached out and placed a hand on the deck. "D-Deal…"
The man raised the brim of his hat, revealing piercing green eyes as the beginnings of a bloodthirsty smile spread across his bearded face.
"Cool."
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 4/?
|Back in Black|
Of the many things that could be said about Kodachi Kuno, having a firm grasp on reality would not be one of them. Indeed, she was a whole 'nother ball of 8th grader syndrome delusions that were tolerated more due to the fact that she was hotter than hell and prone to run around in a leotard for fun. Her best assets usually on display, she had no trouble gaining male attention.
Keepin' it was another story and most of the males of her peerage were boorish dullards like her foolish older brother. And the lower class might as well be fleas on a dog's ass in her eyes. But a while back, she had been struck by inspiration, as if delivered from the heaven's above.
It totally didn't have anything to do with a popular Instagram picture posted by her nominal rival and all around annoyance Asuka Saginomiya.
As if a woman of her class should flaunt gaining the fleeting attention of a singular male who was not really all that good looking to begin with. If you were going to brag, you had to do something worthy of bragging. That was the motto she had strived to live for, the great do great because they are great and are acknowledged as great only when they have achieved the greatness.
Which leads back to her friendship with Akane and Katie, a lone beacon of sanity in the maelstrom of batshit insanity that perked inside the mind of the Black Rose. They had revealed to her the very means she would achieve her greatness, unwittingly so. So the boys of Furinkan High were a bunch of undateable slobs who would be relegated to never know the light of a woman's grace?
She, the Black Rose, would mold them into something to be respectable. Something to be admired and even desired. And they would worship her as the one true Goddess, not like the sweaty unwashed masses who populated Asuka's lame circle of fanboys. Oh how then would that trashy flower know her place under the heel of the Black Rose Kodachi Kuno!
"Ohohohohoho!" Kodachi cackled to herself as she tended her garden, admiring the black rose bush in front of her. "It is so simple! Am I not the Black Rose? From these hands, does not the life of the resplendent garden flow forth? What a fitting project for myself: The Garden of Men shall open and I will ascend to my rightful place! OHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!" She cackled again, scaring away even the cockroaches.
|Well, that was ominous|
For the last… most of his life, Ranma Saotome was awoken pretty much the same way. With a surprise attack from his father, prompting an early morning spar that Ranma only started winning on a regular basis as his body got used to going from zero to one-hundred. Very rarely did he actually get a chance to wake up to something other than a fight, but in all honesty every opportunity was a happily welcomed one.
Like this morning for example, as Ranma opened his eyes not to a kiai from his father and the rush of adrenaline that spurred him to act, but to the sound of food being cooked and the enticing smell of breakfast. When he opened his eyes, he had changed into a male before settling for bed, he found the unfamiliar ceiling of Misao's apartment waiting for him, and rose from his bed without any particularly philosophical musings because he wasn't that kind of guy.
"Mm… I slept great." Even if it was on a loveseat in a living room. He'd been expressly warned not to sleep on the couch Misao used to game on. Apparently it had a history.
"Good morning there, sleeping beauty," Misao called over to Ranma.
Slowly turning his head to look, he rapidly did a double-take when he saw that she appeared to be just wearing her apron again, like she had last night.This time, though, she didn't appear to be wearing a top this time around in addition to wearing whatever brief thing she wore to make it look like she wasn't wearing panties either.
Quickly, Ranma averted his eyes, and Misao snickered. "So yeah, you got school, right? I'm not sure if it's your size, but Katie's got a Furinkan guy's uniform you can use. She hasn't worn it since I convinced her to finally wear the girl's."
Ranma shrugged his shoulders. "I'll wear my own clothes, thanks. I'm not a fan of uniforms."
Misao shrugged her shoulders. "Your call. You want a lunch, too? I'm making that as well."
A bento, now there was something Ranma hadn't had in a long time. Well, ever actually. Whenever he went to school, he had to fight near to the death for the free food they tossed out at the end of lunch.
That was a normal thing they did at school, right?
"Uh, thanks…" He said coolly.
"Hope you like Italian Sausage, then," Misao said before she tossed him a wink. "I love it, personally."
She seemed like the sort of girl who adored sausage, a ruder part of Ranma almost said before he stopped himself from effectively insulting his boss. Misao turned back to the stove and Ranma did a second double-take–because this time around Misao was topless.underneath that apron, and wearing shorts so short they may as well have been black denim panties.
He wrenched his eyes away, a bright red shade descending down his face, as a door opened in the hallway leading to Misao's room opened and Katie emerged freshened up and ready for the day.
With a glance towards Misao, Katie rolled her eyes. "Hey, go easy on the guy, this is his first morning here."
"Hey, this is all for you." Misao cooed back.
"Whatever," Katie strolled into the kitchen and grabbed a plate to pile on a mix of scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, and breakfast sausage links.
"Actually it's for my morning show, which is about to start soon, and is R18 so you guys need to eat your breakfast and get the hell out," Misao said as she piled on a second plate.
"R18?" Ranma asked, surprised. "You do those…?"
Honestly, with a body like hers, he should've expected it. Such an amazing, lewd body…
"Yeah?" Misao answered. "But only I do them, since I'm 18," she explained. "Now eat your breakfast and get moving, schoolchildren~"
Katie, after taking the second plate, walked over and set down one full of delicious-looking western breakfast staples in front of Ranma, complete with a fork rather than chopsticks.
As she dropped down onto the end of the couch closest to Ranma, he grabbed his fork and began to wolf down his food like a dog quick to get his fill before another animal got at his prize first. Katie was no different, holding the plate close to her mouth and shoveling the food in.
Misao, quite content to see the ravenous beasts wearing human skin enjoy her food, leaned forward on the counter. "So, I got a question. How does the whole change work?"
Ranma looked over at her, mouth partially full. "What do you mean? I told you like three times, didn't I?"
Was she too high to remember, then? He remembered hearing that marijuana messed with your heard.
"Yeah, you told me, but like… you're eating all that food right now, right? When you change into a girl, is the food still there or does it go away with wherever your guy form does?"
Ranma stopped eating just to stare at her, momentarily struggling to comprehend the question she just asked. "Uh… the food is still there. It doesn't just go away, I just… change."
Misao nodded. "What about the extra mass? I mean, you lose like fifteen centimeters when you become a girl, and at least six kilos."
Ranma shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno, it just gets magicked away, I guess."
Misao pouted, frustrated by Ranma's own lack of insight dampening her efforts to gain any. "Ugh, magic is dumb."
"Yeah it is," Ranma agreed.
Katie set down her fork for just a moment. "I don't know, I think I wouldn't mind being cursed to turn into something. I could be a monkey, or a tiger, or a bird, or a dragon… or maybe even a guy."
Misao's face lit up, at that. "Oh man, being able to turn into a guy would be kind of cool!" She looked from Ranma to Katie. "Could you imagine how hot I'd be?!"
"That's your first thought?" Katie asked, as Ranma made a face… only to become more introspective about it.
"Well, given that Ranma is as cute as a girl as he is good-looking as a guy, I'd be stone-cold handsome as a dude, and so would you," Misao said.
Katie's cool expression warmed, just a little, at Misao's compliment.
"I'm not one to toot my own horn." Ranma actually totally was. "But I do guess I'm pretty good looking, guy or girl."
Misao smiled and winked at Ranma. "I'll toot that horn for you anytime, sweetie."
Ranma rather innocently found it nice that Misao would sing his praises. "Thanks!"
Katie however just gave a baleful look at her roommate for deliberately shooting her innuendo over Ranma's head like so many warning shots over an enemy ship's bows.
Misao just stuck her tongue out at Katie.
Ranma missed the by-play entirely and settled in to think about what to say next. "Okay... so I can see why you'd want it but I dunno if it'd work out for you like that."
Katie couldn't help but tease him. "What, are you saying we'd make ugly guys?"
Ranma furrowed his brow. "Not that, it just seems like the actual curse of the place is that you don't get something you might like. Kinda like you'd end up with something that'd cause you problems." His answer was a little hostile, the annoyance at the joke leaking through.
Misao thought about the redheaded version of the boy and could immediately identify two huge problems. "Did the guide say that?"
"Uh, he didn't know as much as you'd think. Mostly where the springs are and their stories." Ranma answered, feeling a little conscious talking about it but finding himself unable to be rude considering the asker. "Anything useful he didn't seem to know."
Katie could only silently observe the differences in how he talked to Misao and herself. What was it that prompted that? He surely didn't have a crush on Misao did he?
Misao, meanwhile, decided to push things on. "So it's an annoyance huh?"
"I've... well, I've just had some bad times with it." Ranma said, evading details to these bad times.
"Relax the bleeding is totally normal." Misao replied, guessing at a possible bad time.
"… Bleeding?" Ranma asked, sounding both confused and scared.
Katie and Misao shared a look.
"What do you mean bleeding?" Ranma found himself a little panicked by the lack of response.
"You haven't been a girl enough for that huh?" Misao asked, somewhat rhetorically.
"Long enough for what?" Ranma asked, still a little concerned.
"A period." Katie clarified.
"What does the end of a sentence have to do with this?" Ranma asked, now more confused than concerned.
Katie and Misao stared at him for a long second, before the former turned to the latter and spoke in English. "I'm going to kick his Father in the head really hard next time I see him."
"Make it a double shot." Misao said, feeling very annoyed at the ignorance of her new employee.
"Personwhogetstoexplainittohimsayswhat." Katie coughed out.
"What?" Misao asked on reflex, before her brain processed what was said. "You bitch!"
Ranma, still completely not fluent in English, was lost. Concerned with how their private conversation had taken a turn, he decided to ask an obvious question. "Everything all right?"
Katie answered before Misao. "It's fine, just hashing out a few things between us."
"Yeah, nothing to worry about." Misao said, before checking the time. "You guys should finish up soon and go. No sense in you being late and all." Plus it'd delay her stream.
On that thought, filming his reaction to the less hygienic aspects of womanhood might be worth a few million views and extra subs. It was something entirely worth considering, from a business standpoint, and from the sadistic bitch standpoint, two points that Misao occupied simultaneously.
"When you get back, I'll teach you all about the ups and downs of being a woman," Misao promised. "Prepare yourself, though… you're in for quite a bit."
And that, Ranma found, left him feeling pretty uneasy.
|Meeting the Tendos|
Nabiki was wearing makeup.
Okay, that wasn't normally a big deal in the Tendo home. All three wore makeup because they cared about appearances, but Nabiki was rocking it. An eye-catching hint of colorful eyeshadow and darker eye-liner, a brighter, attractive shade of lipstick, a light foundation and blush. She wanted to be flawless today, and for all intents and purpose she was. Nabiki wanted to make a good impression on who could very well be her future husband and even by Akane's reckoning she was on her way to that.
"You know, Nabiki, I have to say that even when I don't really care for you, I do respect you," Akane said as they walked to school together.
"Is it because I'm being entirely honest about my intentions of marrying a man simply because of his projected financial stability?" Nabiki asked.
"Yes," Akane replied in a deadpan.
"I'll have you know it's not just because he's going to be well off financially," Nabiki corrected, "It's also because BansheeDeadSix says that he's a ten out of ten."
"Even if he turns into a girl?" Akane asked.
"That just means he isn't a guy half the time, I don't see what's wrong with that." Nabiki then smiled at her sister. "What about you? Any intentions that I have to plan accordingly for?"
"Nope, he's all yours. I'm going to enjoy my life doing what I want to do and not saddle myself with Daddy's burdens."
Nabiki gave her a sharp-eyed look, before shrugging her shoulders. "And when you see him in person and decide that not all boys are as icky as you have become accustomed too, I promise I won't laugh too loud in your face when you realize you let that ship sail all on your own."
"No boy is that good looking," Akane argued.
Nabiki's gaze left Akane for the path ahead, and she did a quick double-take when she saw the young man who looked nearly even in height with the foreign girl he walked alongside. He was wearing a bright red Chinese-style silk shirt, with the sleeves rolled up, black pants, and a pair of well-worn, laceless black shoes. He was–by Nabiki's every metric–a total heart-throbbing hottie, having a handsome face and jet black hair ending in even a cute pigtail that extended down his neck.
"What about him?" She said to Akane, drawing her attention to the dreamboat of a man approaching them.
Akane stared, and then her eyes grew wide. For there indeed before her… was the first attractive boy in her age group she'd met since her trip to a very scary wildlife preserve. It was with this acknowledgement that a cold, awful dread formed a pit in her stomach.
She turned back to Nabiki, and she was already there, waiting with her face centimeters from where hers stopped.
"Ha. Ha. Ha."
Akane looked like she had just drank some curdled milk.
"Yo, Akaneko, Nabiki." Katie said as she approached the sisters with Ranma in tow. "Here he is, in the flesh." She stepped aside and just sort of gestured to Ranma, who looked embarrassed.
Their reactions only deepened the embarrassment, though he was more confused by Akane looking rather angry about something. "Uh, hi?"
"Well, hello." Nabiki said, giving Ranma a thorough once over. "I'm Nabiki and I must say it is very nice to meet you in person."
Akane blew out an angry sigh and decided to let it go. "Hi I'm Akane, it's nice to meet you."
Ranma looked from Nabiki, decked out in makeup and overly enthusiastic to see him, to Akane, not dressed up and looking like she just ruined all of her dreams at once. Interesting girls to say the least. "I'm Ranma, nice to meet you I guess."
Katie poked him in the side. "You guess?"
"How nice is it to be introduced to somebody at sword point?" Ranma snapped back.
Nabiki found his rough speech endearing in a way. Obviously, her decision to throw herself into the pursuit of him had put some rose colored glasses on her.
Akane, by contrast, thought he was funny at least. Damn damn damn it all, she shot off her mouth without thinking and she'd never ever hear the end of it if she went back.
"So how do the two of you feel about this?" Katie asked, serving as the mediator to keep things going smooth.
"I had my reservations but there have been some revelations that have eased my worries." Nabiki said, not even remembering she hated Katie for destroying her business. "As far as blunders by our father, you're easily the most enjoyable."
Akane hated that she couldn't argue. "Oh yeah, I had almost forgotten how he almost sold the house and dojo off to some American company." It was deadpanned to the point that it really conveyed that Ranma's worst fear was realized: There was another one of his father out there.
"I can now understand how they're friends." Ranma said, resisting the urge to burying his face in his palms and weep.
"Yeah, it's rough eh?" Nabiki asked, feigning sympathy, or maybe it was genuine. She was usually the only one who felt deep down in her soul the crushing idiocy of her father.
"We'll do our best to get this engagement nonsense out of their minds." Akane said, nudging Nabiki in the side with an elbow.
"If I wanted a captive fiancé, I'd wait until I was old enough for government matchmaking." Nabiki said, going along with it because she didn't want to alienate him by supporting the idiots.
"Well I won't hold it against you when it inevitably fails at least." Ranma said, shaking his head.
"So that's how it is, huh?" Katie thought, as she observed the young Saotome who was going to be joining in on Misao's NEET bullshit. "He can't relax around me." His battle senses must have been honed beyond what was even remotely sensible if he was wary of her without even seeing her in action.
"That's so nice of you." Nabiki cooed, smiling for effect.
"Yes, thanks." Akane said, adding her own wattage to the affair.
"Aw geez." Ranma looked rather affected by the two girls' affectionate behavior.
"And yet, he could break the two of them in half without really trying.' Katie silently observed. From the way he carried himself, he was certain to be a martial artist of a high quality. Even more than the brief show he had put on as a girl the other day. How very interesting… "We'll have to spar. I wanna know his measure."
Merely because she was Akane's senpai, and not because she was a battle maniac. That'd be creepy if that were the case. Just out and out lunacy right? Right.
"Good grief, you're both already going gaga for him," Katie said deliberately, and achieving the expected result.
"I'm not…!" Akane stopped and blushed a bit in embarrassment. "He's only being nice."
"He's 'being nice' now, but before you know it you'll be fighting over him with your sister to be the one to say 'I do'," Katie teased–earning another protest from Akane–before glancing at Nabiki. "It'd be a short fight."
Nabiki only huffed a whatever back.
Katie then looked over to Ranma, who was watching this exchange in mild amusement. "But before you two get to any of that, I want to take him for a spin myself."
Ranma did a double-take. "You want to do what?"
"Fight," Katie said, not paying much mind to how sexual she sounded before, "To see if you're as good as you look. I saw some promise against your panda-dad, I want to know if you can keep it."
Given her earlier claim of being a traveling martial artist like him, Ranma was actually curious to see what she actually had to offer, and he was pleased to find out she felt the same way. He turned a look over to Akane, who was suddenly well-vested in the confrontation. Nabiki, on the other hand, looked mildly annoyed. He didn't know that this was her default expression yet.
To Nabiki he asked. "Hey, hold my bags?"
Nabiki did so with gusto. "If I were you, I would try to end it quickly."
"Where's the fun in that?" Ranma asked before he walked closer to Katie, his hands relaxed at his sides.
|Tornado|
The sight of the strange new boy entering the schoolyard and facing off against Katie quickly drew a small crowd, other students curious about who this out-of-uniform and wildish-looking kid was. The fact that it looked like he was about to take Katie in a fight was especially interesting. Katie rolled her shoulders, then lifted up her right leg up to the back of her head to stretch it, before doing the same with the left. Ranma just tilted his head left and right, he was already well loosened up.
"So, how do you want to do this? First to hit wins?" She asked him.
"That sounds good," Ranma replied, "But we might be here all day at that rate."
Katie let out an amused sound. "Is that a fact?"
Ranma still didn't assume fighting stance. "I'm pretty good."
Katie nodded, before she adopted one. "We'll see."
For a moment the two of them stayed perfectly still, staring each other down. A hush fell, and everyone watching held their breath in anticipation. It was as though the two of them were in a staring contest with one another, or waiting for an invisible signal to begin.
That signal happened when Ranma blinked. Katie crossed the distance between them with a stern kick aimed right for the chest, or it would have if Ranma had stayed put. The pigtailed martial artist hopped into the air, cleanly above the kick–which was followed by a second higher kick that changed its aim with the speed of a laser guided missile.
Regardless Ranma caught the kick and batted it aside to create an opening in Katie's guard that he attempted to exploit with a lightning-fast jab before he even hit the ground, except his wrist was caught and twisted, which made him cartwheel in place. When Katie tried to hit him in turn, Ranma caught her punch in turn and twisted her around to reverse their positions.
"You're stronger than you look," Ranma observed.
"You're faster than you look," Katie grunted. One thing was for certain, this wasn't going to be a pushover.
The two circled each other now, wary of the other now that they had a taste for what the other could do. Katie wasn't content with waiting too long, coming forward with a punch that was faster than the one she threw earlier. It didn't come close to hitting, but Ranma avoided it instead of deflecting it.
"Interesting." Ranma thought as he poked at Katie with a front kick. "She's not really holding all that much back."
Katie dodged around the kick and came towards Ranma, twisting around into an elbow aimed right for his left collarbone. Owing to his great agility, Ranma was able to throw himself out of the way of the attack. Airborne and spinning like a top, he lashed out with a kick that missed by mere inches.
"Seems he got my message loud and clear." Katie thought, a confident smirk on her face as she threw jabs with each arm, advancing with every slip Ranma made. "Sorry kid, but holding back won't tell me what I need to know."
Ranma finally could understand the unease he felt around her, it wasn't the fact she clobbered his pop. It was the fact that she was really damn good! He threw back, blocking or deflecting anything he didn't feel was necessary to dodge.
"Having fun?" Katie asked after they broke apart, her forward momentum finally halted.
"A little." He admitted, though slightly more reserved than he might normally talk. Her blows were thrown with enough force to crack bone. "I hope I'm not boring you."
"Trust me, if you were boring you'd already be on the floor." She retorted, snapping out a kick when she reached what she felt was the edge of his effective range.
"Then I'll try to keep you entertained," Ranma said as he flipped back from the strike gracefully.
"Start by giving me the best you've got!" Katie then said as he landed.
Then in that instant Ranma was suddenly in very close, the burst of speed surprising her as much as it did Akane, Nabiki, and the crowd of onlookers. He was kicking her stomach, his strike so fast for a moment Katie thought it was a feint right up to the moment she raised a knee to block it. However the next six kicks seemed to come all at once, aiming everywhere there wasn't a limb to stop it.
A sound much like a short, quick round of applause followed, before Katie and Ranma broke from their closeness. It looked as though Ranma had kicked Katie and she blocked it, but then the two of them became blurry after that, like something had happened even faster than Ranma's speed before.
Ranma drew back his foot and lowered it towards the ground, but kept his knee raised as Katie finished sliding back, her hands raised in front of her. She had open-palmed each of his kicks, cancelling them out in such succession that it surprised him. It's a good thing that wasn't his "best" or he'd be a little unnerved, too. No, he was actually impressed. She was definitely quicker than his old man!
"Wait, what… what was that just now?" Nabiki asked. That last exchange was so fast that she couldn't even see it. It looked like one kick, but there were definitely more, it sounded like it!
She glanced at Akane, who was suddenly sharply focused on the two. She had seen it, but she was having trouble believing it. Ranma had attacked faster than even Kuno ever could, and Katie had stopped it with the same speed!
Katie began to shift her weight from one leg to the other, her body swaying organically as she watched Ranma relax and slip into his own groove. In that brief instant where he attacked her with those kicks, she actually worried–no, feared that he was going to connect, and end up laid out laid out with a trail of footprints from her groin to her forehead. There was no doubt in her mind that any of those kicks alone would've put her down.
And with that assertion, Katie never felt more alive. She was panting audibly and happily, like she'd just run twenty kilometers and then had some crazy good sex right after, but the rush she was feeling right now made those even put together feel like an utter drag.
"Again," she breathed out.
Ranma tensed up, she was going to attack, and he was eager to see what she could do. "Again?"
"Do it again!" She yelled before she charged like a rocket sled and swung her right leg with all the force of a runaway freight train, the air making the sharp sound of a blade passing through it as Ranma ducked under the kick. He lashed out to punch her, but she flowed around his blow, swinging her elbow for his neck.
His open palm caught the blow, and he turned the other way to plow the back of his fist into her face, but he quickly blocked her strike. She turned around and jabbed him in the face with her other hand, and he swayed his entire body to move himself out of the way of the strike. In the same motion, he fired back a punch that Katie deflected from its track to her face while returning her own powerful strike, a palm-thrust to the chin that Ranma caught by the wrist. He then pivoted and swung down, guiding Katie over and flipping her forward to drop her onto her back.
Katie sped up the throw however, kicking off before her feet left the ground, allowing her to complete it while getting free. Landing on her feet one hand, she swung her right leg right back up, her tibia colliding with his raised arms with enough for Ranma to be shoved back.
"Whoa…! That stung!" He thought during his unrequested acceleration.
As Ranma came to a stop, Katie was descending upon him, her green eyes wild and wide while swinging an axe kick down on him. Ranma cartwheeled to the side, the kick creating a long narrow fissure in front and behind the point of impact.
Turning around, Katie strong-arm blocked a roundhouse kick from Ranma, then switched feet to lash out with a kick straight out of the barrel of a rifle. The blow missed, as did Ranma's return strike, then Katie's, then Ranma's. They were in such constant motion, with so much power behind their blows, that dust and dirt and loose blades of grass were being picked up, the air currents stirring around the circling fighters, like a tornado beginning to form.
As Ranma's punch grazed her cheek, Katie's lips split into a grin. Just a little closer, and that would've cut her cheek wide open.
With his nimble footwork and flexibility, Ranma avoided Katie's heel. The force of wind displaced by the strike felt strong enough to throw him back on its own! While he didn't share her smile, his blood boiled from the intensity, the excitement, just like hers!
"Katie-senpai is so strong," Akane said, suddenly feeling conflicted. On one hand, she did destroy Kuno, but on the other hand now she was wondering just how much Katie had been holding back on her in the dojo.
"Yeah, but that Ranma, though," Nabiki said before there was a near-deafening crack, that scattered the gathering tornado with such force that the hair of everyone closest to it was blown back.
Katie and Ranma had crossed legs in attempting to roundhouse kick one another, the very blow made for their target blocking the one meant for them.
Katie had struck Ranma with the same force she destroyed Kuno's arm with, and not only was she pleased to find that his leg was still intact, he had returned in kind the same amount of force.
"Man, he was right," she realized with a growing smile.
Ranma was of the same opinion, as a smirk appeared on his lips. "We really are gonna be here all day!"
But before they could invite one another to fight until the heat death of the universe, there was a bang and a brilliant light suddenly illuminated the courtyard, momentarily blinding everyone standing there. The light was coming from the very front of the school, shining through the front doors thrown open by a tremendous force.
|In-A-Gadda-Da-Dachi|
"What the hell…?!" Katie growled as she shielded her eyes.
Ranma was likewise protecting his eyes as the light bathed them, the rays intense enough that the onlookers could actually feel heat from them.
Nabiki had managed to put on a pair of sunglasses, and was still unable to look directly into the center of the light. "I'm having the weirdest sense of deja vu right now."
Akane was wearing arc welders goggles. "You too?"
Despite the intensity of the light, the other students were gathered at its edges, mostly the downtrodden males, cloistered together to keep the girls away from them, and the girls stayed back, edging around the mob of sad sacks to slip into the gates of the school. Straight out from the center of the light, a long carpet rolled out, unfurling to a stop just a few feet from Katie and Ranma, who abandoned their spar and retreated to Nabiki and Akane to see what was going on.
From the center of the cone of light, which began to diminish in intensity to something people could stare into without risking permanent damage, a figure in a brilliant black ball gown emerged as a silhouette, before coming fully into view. It was Kodachi Kuno, wearing a halter top ball gown with a matching stole. The black dress was patterned with roses so much darker than the fabric that they hurt to look at for long, and her stole was adorned with black roses in full bloom. In her hands, however, she held a shinai, a bamboo sword for use in kendo, a long black ribbon wrapped around its length.
"Kodachi-san?" Akane asked when she recognized her.
"I was wondering where my new best friend has been," Nabiki said.
Ranma, now completely out of fight mode stared in surprise. "Geez, I've seen more nice-looking girls in this town in two days than I've seen anywhere else in the last five years."
"I know, right?" Katie asked.
Akane glanced in Ranma's direction after hearing that, while Nabiki basked somewhat in the roundabout praise.
At either side of Kodachi, fourteen boys dressed smartly in tuxedos placed their right arms across their chest and bowed reverently to her. They were almost immediately recognized as the entirety of the Kendo Club's membership, Tatewaki Kuno's core elite supporters inside of the school.
The crowd of Furinkan High School's destitute male population immediately became filled with equal parts awe and sorrow. Such a beautiful and elegant woman had come to appear before them, reminding them of their lower than dirt status even more. Why would someone so breathtaking have to show up at their school now?
As she reached the end of her carpet, Kodachi stopped and scanned this hopeless crowd with a piercing gaze, as if she could see the very despair they felt. She sneered in disgust of it. "Boys of Furinkan High, my name is Kodachi Kuno, The Black Rose. I am the sister of the one you know as Tatewaki."
The mere speaking of her name caused a wave of murmurs from all of the students. To this point, no one else had known that Tatewaki Kuno had a younger sister, not even rumors of such a person existed. Before such murmurs could become too distracting, Kodachi lifted the shinai and rammed the tip into the floor, the resulting bang silencing the peanut gallery.
Katie and Ranma both gave a start. Such a sound, through the carpet?
"I have come here because you are truly the lowest of the wretched. You filth took the gift of your youth and turned it into a tool of terror and abuse. To selfishly slake your desires, you assaulted the very idol you worshipped, and to add injury to your insult you were all handily beaten by her! By the dozens! Within seconds!"
Katie's head tilted in a nod of agreement. Ranma looked over at Akane. "These guys did what?"
"They tried to beat me up so they'd have permission to date me from the strongest guy in the school," Akane explained.
Ranma was part ways impressed, all of those guys she beat up? That quickly? "What happened to that douchenozzle?"
"I broke his arms and kicked him through the clock up there," Katie said, gesturing to the since repaired clock.
Ranma probably would've done the same thing.
She sneered at them all. "Indeed, you lot are no more than pigs in human clothing! You slop about, squealing and whining to get what you want because you are too weak to take it for yourselves. When it was time for you to stand up for yourselves and what you wanted, you retreated back into the safety of your pathetic boyhoods and took the coward's path."
Kodachi chuckled. "I can see it in all of you, the despair, the self-loathing. You have rightfully lost any claim to youth with your barbarism, and earned the sickening title of enemy to all women. You know it, and you own it. Your sin and shame is inerasable…"
By the time she finished, the dark miasma of regret that manifested when Akane verbally tore into them had returned, a crushing weight that brought most of them down to their hands and knees, with their heads bowed near to the ground. They would be weeping, were it not for the fact their tears had dried up long ago.
"But you are not without hope! For where all in the world, including yourselves, see only useless wastes… I see potential unrealized! I see greatness that can still be reached!" She declared.
Even the background ambience vanished with Kodachi's last statement. For the first time in weeks, someone had offered an encouraging word to the wretched boys of Furinkan that wasn't tinged awkwardly with pity.
Nabiki's mouth fell open. "Kodachi Kuno, you magnificent bitch!"
Ranma tilted his head the other way. "So, what's she doing?"
Katie tilted her head. "I don't know, pretending to be Satsuki Kiryuin?"
"Who?" Ranma asked.
"Do not choose the coward's way as penance! Do not believe that you must languish and live a truly wretched life to make up for your sins." She took a deep breath and let it out of her nostrils, before jamming the shinai into the ground again to ensure she had their utmost attention. "Instead, heat your blood up with the waning fires of your wretched youth and be reborn! Burn away the pathetic Boy who cries and begs his betters for what he should want and need, and instead become a Man who decides for himself!"
There were other murmurs again, for a few seconds, before one of the boys closest to her, an ex-member of the Kendo club, spoke up. "Is it even possible? W-what makes you think that we-?"
Kodachi suddenly pointed the shinai at the kendoist, causing him to flinch instinctively. "A sparrow knows not the eagle's splendor! Do not doubt my ambition! Unfetter yourselves of the shackles of the impossible and believe!"
She slammed the shinai back down. "Ask yourselves this: Do you want to be another one of those disgusting parasites who cling to body pillows and watch that awful dreck they dare pass off as anime for the rest of your lives? Or would you rather take the chance and be reborn into that which invokes desire in the women of this world?!"
Fire was blazing in her dark eyes as she lifted her chin slightly to ensure her voice carried. "Follow me, and I will lead you to your salvation, and to true manhood!"
It started with a single domino, as the first boy sank to his knees in realization. What did they have to lose? He was already at the absolute bottom of where a human being could go… what else could he lose if he didn't try to redeem himself–no, rebuild himself?! As if reading that same thought another fell, then another, and in seconds all of the boys who bore the stigma of being one of Akane's "suitors" were on their knees, gazing up at her as if she were a God.
The hope and adoration in their eyes mixed with admiration and loyalty, all for her, nearly made Kodachi orgasm on the spot.
"What say you? Shall you be Men or Boys?" Kodachi asked, looking around the crowd.
"Men!" was the universal call from the boys.
"How far would you follow me then? What lengths would you go?" She demanded.
"Beyond hell, wherever you would have us go." The first boy responded, seemingly the spokesman. "Any and all lengths, as long as they are what you deem necessary."
The mad grin that split Kodachi's face was instantly mistaken for the graceful smile of an Angel. "Then you will heed my orders as I melt you down back into your basest form, to that lump of untapped potential you all possess. I will then forge you into Men, and you will show this world your True Beauty!"
"Yes!" The boys all answered.
"Yes Black Rose-sama!" Kodachi corrected.
"Yes Black Rose-sama!" They didn't even hesitate to respond.
"Louder! Shout your praise to me!" Kodachi roared.
As the boys broke into fervent chants, Nabiki was kicking herself harder than she'd ever imagined she would. Akane was somewhat apprehensive at this turn. Sure, Kodachi declared herself a friend, but this was now a disturbingly familiar scene: the male student body falling under the uncontestable sway of a delusional nutjob named Kuno.
"Man, I still have no idea what's going on," Ranma said.
Katie agreed. "Seems to have worked, though."
Nabiki didn't smirk, despite the desire to. It was that grave to her, or so it seemed. "It's like this: Kodachi just swooped in and picked up a willing harem of guys. Sure, they're all a bunch of losers but she has the income to erase all the negatives about them. What's the top thing you hate about boys, Akane?"
Akane gave her sister a look, trying to determine if she was being led into a trap. After a couple seconds, she finally answered. "Their immaturity."
"And that's exactly what she's going to beat out of them." Nabiki said, sighing at the lost opportunity. "There's two kinds of guys most girls like: Bad boys and the cool, mature man. Kodachi now has the chance to run around town followed by an army of the latter. She's going to be the envy almost every schoolgirl in the country if she pulls this off."
Ranma was still lost but he figured there was a lot of backstory he needed. "And this is bad?"
Nabiki would have laughed at him, but she was trying to make a decent first impression so she let it slide. "Bad? It's absolutely awful."
"How?" Akane and Katie asked at the same time.
For the first time in Akane's life, she saw Nabiki's composure slip, as she reached up and grabbed at her hair in frustration. "Because I didn't think of it first!"
She then threw her hands up. "It's fucking brilliant! Take a bunch of losers with nothing else to live for then build them back up into a cult that worships the ground you walk on? I could've done that, I should've done that!"
Akane then leaned over. "But how much would it have cost you?"
Nabiki stopped, and in that instant her composure returned. "Yeah, fuck that noise."
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "Well, on the bright side, a little bit of culture and rehabilitation might really turn them into respectable guys."
Akane brightened. "There's that."
"Well, long as I don't get dragged into it, live and let die," Ranma said. "I got plenty of culture."
Nabiki couldn't resist trying to butter him up. "Don't worry, from where I'm standing. You're already a man."
Akane rolled her eyes to look from Nabiki to Kodachi, and jumped back when she found that her most recent acquisition of friendship was standing directly before her, the shinai she carried low at her side. Behind her, her mass of newly minted sycophants were being organized by the fourteen sharp-dressed young men who first appeared with her.
"Good morning to you Tendo Akane-san, and you Izurando Katie-san," she said cheerfully. "It has been a while."
"It has," Akane said. "Have you been spending all this time setting this up?"
"Oh yes!" Kodachi replied. "That and making the appropriate arrangements to transfer to this school as well."
Nabiki was quite pleased to hear that her rich friend was to be a classmate as well. "That's nice to know. If our first meeting was any indication, we're going to get along great."
"So what, you're going for the whole Host Club aesthetic with these guys?" Katie asked.
"Ohohoho!" Kodachi laughed, and Katie almost swooned a bit. "My darling friends, it is no mere aesthetic, and certainly not a Host Club. I am embarking on a great crusade, and when I am finished with those slobs, they will be my great army."
That caught Ranma's ear and he stepped up. "What are you crusading against?"
Kodachi looked to the young man that she had observed sparring with Katie, and regarded him coolly. "You needn't concern yourself, it is strictly a matter to be settled among women."
Not that much of anything around here was Ranma's business to begin with, but seeing as this was his school, and these guys were clearly being used by Kodachi for some bad-sounding purpose. "Even if it's none of my business, I don't think I'm down with anyone just signing up these guys for something like a fight."
He looked towards Akane and Katie. "Especially if what you've said about them being not that good is true."
Kodachi scowled at Ranma a bit, and about to question his continued interest in business that was not his, when Nabiki's ambition illuminated in her eyes, and she moved decisively. "Well hang on, if you're concerned about them, Ran-chan, why not train them yourself? Show them some moves and make sure no one's taking advantage of them?"
Ranma hummed, not minding that arrangement too much, but still finding this a little sketchy. "I suppose…"
She looked over to Kodachi and gestured to Ranma. "This is Saotome Ranma, bound by an honor agreement to be my fiancée."
"Your fiancée?" Akane asked.
"Not like you're going to marry him," Nabiki shot out the corner of her mouth at her.
Kodachi's eyes widened as she understood it. "Oh is that a fact! Well then…"
She tilted her chin up slightly as she regarded Ranma with a more respectable tone. "Saotome-san, I did witness your strength in your spar with Izurando-san and I was impressed with your strength. I would consider it an honor for your strength to be held as an example for these young men to follow."
Ranma as an example, huh? He didn't see too much harm in that. "Long as it doesn't interfere with my job."
"If it does, I will compensate you handsomely," Kodachi said. "Whatever income you desire to make up for what you can't make at your other job I will generously compensate."
"She will," Nabiki quickly testified.
Ranma liked the sound of that. Two jobs from two attractive girls in as many days? He was sold. "Sounds good to me.
"Oi, Kodachi," Katie then brusquely butted-in. "If you're offering trainer slots, then I want in on this, too."
It was then that Akane too saw a moment of decision that could not be allowed to slip. In fact, it was quite possibly the boldest and most ambitious of them all. "We could train them at the Tendo Dojo, if you like. It's large enough for them, and that way you can have Ranma, Katie-senpai, and I all training them."
"For a fee, of course," Katie added.
A stingier person would quickly noticed they were being milked. However, the Kuno family's wealth made even their nearest financial rivals the Mendou family look like a bunch of lower-middle class chumps who went to Denny's once a month to convince themselves that they weren't toeing the poverty line.
"That's acceptable! I demand nothing but the best caretakers for my newly sown garden!" She declared boldly. "It would do me little to surround myself with anything less than the absolute best, so I shall make a new decree here and now!"
She then pointed the shinai at the four. "Attention! Furinkan High School! I, The Black Rose Kuno Kodachi hereby declare the formation of Furinkan High School's Student Council! I am your Student Council President, and the following are my council, second only to me!"
As if illuminated from the heavens, four lights shone down, illuminating Ranma, Akane, Nabiki, and Katie.
"They are Tendo Akane, Tendo Nabiki, Izurando Katie, and Saotome Ranma!" She introduced. "You will regard their authority as you would my own, and I am certain that you have seen enough of their prowess to respect their authority as well!"
For anyone who doubted Katie's skillful dispatch of Tatewaki as a fluke, the violence of the spar with this mysterious new student sealed the deal. And there were quick nods of acknowledgement to the rule of the new Student Council.
Kodachi narrowed her eyes in disgust at the meager response, and then slammed the shinai back into the ground, creating a spiderweb of cracks that spread out a good thirty meters.
"YOU WILL RESPOND WITH YES BLACK ROSE-SAMA!" She roared.
And the students did, immediately crossing their right arm over their chests as her butlers did, and standing erect. "YES, BLACK ROSE-SAMA!"
Hearing the chorus of replies, Kodachi bit her lower lip from the thrill, and threw her head back to laugh maniacally. "YES! VERY GOOD! OHHHHHHHHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
Ranma folded his hands behind the back of his head; as far as first days of school were concerned, becoming one of the big dogs and ending up in a clique full of pretty and dangerous girls certainly wasn't the worst.
Katie folded her arms, trying to ignore how sexy Kodachi was, and looked to Akane, who smiled up to her. "Is this okay to you, senpai?"
Smirking a bit, Katie replied, "I always wanted to know what it was like to look down from the top of the mountain."
Nabiki was overflowing with excitement for different reasons. Everything was going so smoothly now, all she needed for things to be perfect were for her to win the rather studly Ranma's attention… and maybe remember that bounty she put on Katie's head out of spite.
|If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man…|
Of all the sounds of children crying ranked easily among the worst of them. The idea of a hurt child never failed to invoke sympathy, unless you were a particularly evil bastard who delighted in making children cry. Enter a man so evil, so sadistic, and so underhanded that making children cry wasn't just what he liked to do, it was how he made money.
A fat, blonde-haired middle-aged man with the face right off a King playing card sat at a small table on what was normally a quiet side street in a far away Japanese town, shuffling a deck of cards as he stared across it at an elementary school-aged boy who looked straight out of a shounen anime with his dark spiky hair and determined eyes. He also looked quite angry at the middle-ager, and behind him explained why: there stood a group of smaller children, some watching weepy-eyed, and others crying their eyes outright, while pleading for him to win.
The middle-ager quickly doled out a hand of cards between himself and the boy, before picking up his own and looking at it.
"You old bastard…" The older boy said. "This is it, all or nothing! I'm going to get back my friends' money, and my little sister's bike!"
Behind the older man, a bright pink bicycle with training wheels sat. From behind his hand, his blue eyes shaded slightly by his straw hat, the middle-ager looked quite confident in his cards. "We'll see about that, kiddo. So… shall we begin?"
"Yes!" The boy said as he shot a hand forth, bringing it to a stop just before edges of his cards. They hovered there, his fingertips trembling as small beads of sweat manifested on his brow. Then they began to move, his fingers hovering back and forth over each card, careful to make his choice.
From behind his cards, the man watched his far younger opponent's hand, his expression unchanged from smug confidence, as if every choice was certain failure.
Growing tense, the boy glared at the hand of cards. He had one chance, it was all or nothing! His sister, his friends, their happiness! It all depended on him! He had to believe! He had to win!
He immediately drew a Joker.
"You lose," The Gambling King said as he took the last of the boy's money.
The boy dropped onto the ground on his hands and knees, overcome with despair as The Gambling King collected his winnings. The other children began bawling loudly, all hope lost.
The Gambling King was quite proud of himself, as he leaned over the counter. "You dumb brat, I suppose that'll teach you to come around and act like real life is an anime."
Childishly, he made a rude face to the boy when he looked up, earning the child's fury. Sitting back, he began to shuffle his cards again. "If you have anything else to wager, though, we can continue playing. You might just win something back."
The boy tensed up. He didn't have anything left. Nothing of his at least, that was his allowance for the entire week! If he couldn't get his sister's bike back, not only would his parents kill him, but he could never call himself a big brother again! He needed… he had to do something… but what?
A hand came down on the table, placing a large stack of yen on it, and both the boy and the cruel King looked up at the man who stepped up. He was a foreigner, wearing steel toe boots, khaki pants, and a matching vest over a gray shirt. He also wore a well-worn dark brown fedora, the right side of the wide brim pinned up against the side of the hat with what appeared to be a senbon needle. He had the face of a middle-aged man, complete with a moderate beard and mustache, and had limp, scraggly black hair that reached down to his shoulders.
"Hey there, man, there's no need to be a sore winner," the newcomer said. "If you're going to swindle kids out of their money, at least be nice about it. Make 'em feel like they tried, not like you outsmarted them."
He leaned forward. "There's an etiquette to these sorta things, and your attitude? Definitely uncool."
The Gambling King looked down at the money, and then up at this man as he set his deck in front of him. "Do you want to play a hand?"
"Sure, but none of that Old Maid shit," the newcomer replied, before sitting down across from him. "I'm gonna tell you what the name of this game is."
With a swiftness that none could see, the newcomer slammed a deck of cards onto the table, launching the deck the Gambling King had assembled into the air. Seven face cards, and all the rest Jokers came raining down around them, one such card being snatched from the air betwixt the newcomer's fingers.
"H-he's a cheater!" The young boy said in shocked realization.
The Gambling King flushed, as the man held the Joker to him.
"We're going to play a game of Poker, if you win, you get to keep all this stuff and carry on your way–I'm a man of my word, and if you lose…" the newcomer said before he flipped the Joker around, revealing it changed to the Ace of Spades. "This will be your card."
The Gambling King recoiled at his table, before looking down at the stranger's deck, he then looked up at him again.
"And if you try to cut and run? Don't. I'm faster than you," he added.
With that, The Gambling King pale, before he reached out and placed a hand on the deck. "D-Deal…"
The man raised the brim of his hat, revealing piercing green eyes as the beginnings of a bloodthirsty smile spread across his bearded face.
"Cool."
Chapter 5/?
Five!
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 5/?
For all the theatrics of the morning, the rest of the school day went by almost entirely uneventfully. Almost entirely, because by lunch, the newly assigned Furinkan Student Council had to be fitted for their new uniforms, the first of what would be sweeping aesthetical changes to the student body of Furinkan High School. After having a look at the new digs, Ranma decided that a school uniform wouldn't be too bad to wear. Kodachi had a sense of style, or at the very least enough fashion designers on her payroll to simulate a sense of style.
Speaking of Kodachi, Ranma was fairly convinced that he was developing a type in violent/evil/crazy chicks because of her… or perhaps because for the rest of the day she walked around in a leotard that looked more painted on than worn. That wasn't to say that the other girls he knew so far weren't lacking. Akane was built like an MMA brawler but in all the right ways, Katie was tall and slender but had flexibility rivalling Kodachi, and Nabiki easily had the most-banging body he'd seen since Misao and himself in the mirror as a girl.
Nice as the scenery was, though, he was still pretty annoyed about being engaged to someone he didn't know because his old man wanted to mooch off the Tendo family for a bit. There was also the issue of his curse, which he at least wanted a way to reverse if his job as an internet personality didn't pan.
It was going to, he had no idea how much.
Speaking of his job, there was the matter of making sure his old man got cut out of it as much as possible. Last thing he wanted was his Pop going around acting like he had something to be proud of with these shenanigans–in addition to making sure that he didn't start living comfortably off his hard work.
"Hey, Katie," he said to her as the foursome walked from the school and in the direction of the Tendo Dojo. Ranma wasn't a rude douchebag, he was going to meet the rest of the Tendos before he went right back over to Misao's to avoid being roped any further into the engagement.
"Yeah?" She replied.
"Think you can help me set up like a bank account or something? I don't want my old man getting his hands on my income."
Katie would find that weird, if meeting Ranma didn't involve driving her heel into the top of Genma's head at high speed after he beat his child over the head with a road sign. While one of them was a panda and the other a girl, because the panda was a dumbass.
"Shouldn't be too hard, Misao hooked me up, she'll do the same for you," Katie said. "You really want him cut out of your cash, huh?"
"I don't want him to get a single yen," Ranma said.
As if he'd heard that, Genma was suddenly tearing across the backyard of the Tendo home, making a straight line for Ranma's location.
"Club treasurer, huh?" Akane asked Nabiki. "That'll be a comfortable gig for you."
Nabiki agreed, especially once she got a look at the budget. The last time she saw that many zeroes line up, they were fighting to ask her sister out. "IT, engineering, and computer clubs, too. Soon as I'm done knocking this out of the park, I've got my foot in the door of every economics school in Tokyo."
She eyed Akane, seeing that she was now carrying a shinai of her own on her back, and a bokken on her hip. "What about you, Kendo Club President? What else did she give you?"
"Girl's athletics and the other non-athletic clubs, though Kodachi's responsible for the Gymnastics Clubs." Akane then hooked a thumb at Ranma. "Ranma's pretty much in charge of all the Boy's Athletics. And he's head of the school's karate club."
Ranma folded his arms and nodded.
Nabiki then looked over at Katie. "What about you? Auto club? Shooting club?"
"Discipline committee," Katie said, pounding her fists together. "I'm the one who busts heads if people act out."
"When Kuno gets back, he's going to be in for such a heartbreak," Nabiki said, "And you know what? I'm fine with that."
"Sheesh! I gotta meet this Kuno guy, just to see how bad he is for myself," Ranma then spoke up.
"No you don't," Akane, Nabiki, and Katie said as one. This would prove prophetic.
At that moment, a large white blur fell from above, aiming not for Akane, Katie, or Nabiki, but for Ranma. Looking up, Ranma was quick to cross his arms and block the massive overhead chop Genma brought down upon his head. A shockwave spread out from Ranma's braced feet, followed by the audible, rocky crunch of the sidewalk fracturing underneath him.
"You got a lot of nerve, trying to make a fool of me!" He bellowed.
"I don't have to try to make a fool out of you, pops," Ranma replied, quickly lashing out with a crescent kick that made his old man back off so they could throw down properly. "You do all the hard work for me!"
Genma adopted a fighting stance of his own after landing. "Don't think you can just run off and do what you want!"
"I know I can, because I already am!" Ranma said.
"Well I'm your father and you're going to listen to me good when I say that you're not picking up this internet gig!" Genma declared as he attacked again, unleashing a barrage of punches, chops and other strikes that Ranma quickly began to counter while returning his own blows.
"Why? Cuz I gotta be a girl while I do it?!" Ranma fired back as he broke the barrage and attempted a spin-kick that Genma smartly dodged.
"Because you know what's going to happen if word gets out about your damn curse!" Genma yelled back as he swung a punch down for his son's jaw as he came back around. "No one's going to take you seriously as a man, ever!"
He missed, because Ranma dove, tumbled between his legs, and hopped right back up on the other side of him, turning around quick and bouncing from one foot to the other.
"You mean the curse-" Ranma dodged another punch when Genma attacked "-that I got-" He avoided another one "-because you ignored the guide?!"
Katie clenched her hand into a fist, and her green eyes narrowed. She just remembered that was a thing.
He stopped Genma's punch for his face with a kick and then moved it aside to go on the offensive, his blows being smartly defeated by Genma despite their incredible force.
"You don't want me to make money off this stupid curse! You don't want me to go back to China to get it cured!" Ranma shouted as he blocked another kick from Genma, his hair blown back by the displaced air. "What do you want from me?!"
"To join the schools!" Genma shouted as he put more force behind his leg, and pushed Ranma back. "That's all you need to do! Not running around showing off your goods online so people might question if you're even a man or not!"
Ranma recoiled, before he bristled. "I'm a man! It doesn't matter what I've got in my pants!" He reassumed his fighting stance. "Or on my chest!"
That just made Genma downright surly. "Ungrateful child! You have yet to see the true horror of-"
Katie's kick connected to the side of Genma's soft head, and he went rocketing into the nearest most adjacent wall–which happened to be the front of the clinic of one Doctor Ono Tofu. The idiot even managed to stand up, dust himself off, take a deep breath and step out of the mess he'd made - but then a flowerpot landed on his head, causing him to land face down on a dropped ice cream cone.
Ranma lowered his hands, seeing the rather embarrassing, but hilarious display. "… 8.5 out of 10."
"Gimme a second," Katie said as she got ready.
Genma immediately got back up, pointing at her. "What the hell was that for?! And who are-?!"
Katie jumped and dove for him, prompting Genma to look up at her to see the angle of her attack. Except that this was what Katie was expecting in the first place, because she had deliberately jumped with her back to the sun. Genma was only momentarily blinded by the sun, because Katie's knee provided all the shade he would need.
Akane and Nabiki both winced from the sheer force that Genma hit the ground after Katie had hit him. Landing next to the second Genma-shaped imprint in the ground, she dusted off her hands, and then her right knee.
"10 out of 10," Ranma said flatly.
Genma, groaning, looked up as Katie stepped closer to him while speaking, "I don't know where you think you are, but here in the civilized world we don't start shit unless we want to get hit."
"Hey Pop, you've met Katie, remember?" Ranma asked. "Her foot disagreed with the back of your head over the whole you taking me by force to the Tendos."
Getting back up, Genma rubbed the back of his head and glared at Katie. "Do you have a problem with how I raise my son, young lady?"
Katie glared at the man, feeling as if something stupid was bound to happen if she let him go unchecked. "If you have to ask, you clearly aren't as smart as you think you are."
Genma's glare intensified, as he prepared to strike the impudent girl down. "Well to that, young lady, I've got something to say-"
He should have just attacked, as Katie's jumping knee sent him flying over the clinic and out of sight, even parting a cloud over head and causing a twinkle in the sky.
"Dead." Katie declared, making a throat slashing gesture. "Get the fuck out of here."
"That's a definite ten." Akane said, looking at Nabiki with an arched brow.
"9.9, a point off for not breaking the sound barrier." Nabiki commented, looking over at Ranma. "You keeping your score?"
"I'm biased but anyone who wallops my pop into the atmosphere deserves a ten." Ranma said, nodding a little. They definitely had to finish that spar soon.
"Oh my, what is going on out here?" the owner of the clinic, the aforementioned Ono Tofu said, emerging from his office to conveniently miss the assault that broke one of his walls.
"Doctor Tofu!" Akane yelped, though she managed to control her usual blushing reaction to him.
He looked down at the Genma-shaped hole in the ground.. "It looks like a grown man fell quite a far ways and hit the sidewalk." He then looked at the similar imprint on the front of his clinic. "And then in the wall."
Turning, he scrutinized the group, looking immediately past Katie and Ranma, his calm gaze falling upon Akane.
"Did you do this, Akane-chan?" Tofu asked, his tone neutral and not as accusatory as the question. Akane recoiled, looking a bit hurt regardless of lack of intent behind it.
Katie didn't like the implications of that question and decided to relieve Akane from the spotlight. "Hey Doc, you don't have to look at the first person to speak and act like they did it. I did it."
Akane breathed a sigh of relief and shot Katie a look of thanks. Nabiki, having hoped Akane would make a fool of herself and push herself out of Ranma's favor, frowned slightly to herself.
"Yeah man," Ranma said, deciding to back up Akane. "If you can't look around and take a guess better than just shoving your finger everywhere, then you should keep it to yourself before someone takes exception to it."
Tofu, taken aback by the double remonstration, studied Katie first and recognized her. That wild animal girl that became Akane's friend a few weeks ago. He then looked at Ranma and found he didn't know the boy. "I don't know you, do I?"
"I just arrived in town the other day, so odds are good you don't." Ranma said, crossing his arms all boss like. "The name's Ranma, Saotome Ranma. Remember it, you'll be hearing it often."
The doctor schooled his features well, but a little... something creeped into his voice. "Hmm… is that a fact?"
"Bank on it." Ranma didn't back down, staring the man down for a second before he snorted and looked away.
"Now, now," Katie said, trying to defuse the strangely hostile atmosphere. "Sorry about your wall, an idiot decided he wanted to take a header into it."
"Oh it's no bother, damage to the clinic happens all the time." Tofu said, doing his best to appear cheerful.
"Doctor...?" Akane whispered to herself, feeling out of sorts seeing the nice and cheerful man so... out of character from what she knew of him. Something about Ranma had set something off in the good doctor.
Nabiki saw her chance to look good and took it. "Yeah, it's a shame but we gotta go. Ranma wanted to see the dojo and you two still got to go back to your place for business right?"
Four sets of eyes trained themselves on her and the differing reactions in each filled Nabiki with a nice sort of feeling. Akane was disbelieving that Nabiki wasn't accelerating the issue, Ranma was all like hey I forgot about that, Katie was neutral with some kind of hidden emotion and the good doctor was… annoyed? Weird.
Anyway, that seemed to break the tension as Tofu reluctantly nodded. "Well as long as you don't want to destroy my office, it's fine. Have a nice day."
The foursome heading to the dojo all said their goodbyes and headed on their way.
Akane pulled Nabiki back for a second. "What are you doing?"
"What do you think I'm doing?" Nabiki asked, smirk evident as she didn't try to hide her ulterior motives.
"Just watch it will you?" Akane said, glowering at her sister.
"Watch what? You eat my dust?" Nabiki returned, smirk deepening into a grin.
"Oi, come on you two!" Katie called, preventing things from going further.
"Coming!" Nabiki answered, moving to catch up with Katie and Ranma.
Akane just glared at her sister's back for a long second, before moving along to catch up.
"I don't like that guy," Katie muttered of Dr, Tofu the moment they were out of earshot of the clinic.
She wasn't out of earshot of Akane, who seemed as offended by the stance as Dr. Tofu would. "Why, Senpai? He's always been nice…"
Until today, at least, she couldn't understand why he seemed so irritated by Ranma. It was just a miscommunication, that was all.
Ranma had an idea. "The first thing he did when he saw the damage done, he blamed it on you."
"Well that's because Akane has a reputation of getting into fights," Nabiki informed.
"So do I," Katie and Ranma said together.
"Heck, that jerk should've been blaming me from the start," Ranma added.
"On top of that, he sounded like he was making a joke," Katie said.
Nabiki did concede to that. "That is his sense of humor when it comes to property damage. Until you guys came along, Akane pretty much was the only one who could do that kind of stuff."
Ranma looked at Akane, impressed. "Really?"
"Once, when she was twelve, she flipped a food truck because the guy stiffed her."
Akane seemed to brood darkly with that. "That takoyaki was awful and he didn't give me my change."
Nabiki nodded. "On the bright side, he'd been scamming people all day with that, so everything worked out."
"That's fair, then," Katie judged. "I've done more than my share of dispensing justice."
Ranma agreed as he immediately recalled his own brush with vigilantism. "Yeah, me too. There was this one jackass, a grown man, who conned my friend and a bunch of other kids out of their money by beating them in card games. I rolled him up in straw and threw him in a river."
He failed to mention that he lost all of his own money, his Dad's money, his Dad's belongings, his house, and his Dad's marriage to his Mom in the process. But since Ranma beat him up and threw him in a river, it was nothing to be concerned about, he won, that was that. Forever.
"Serves him right," Akane said.
"Did he die?" Nabiki inquired.
Ranma just raised and dropped his shoulders. "Hell if I know, he never came back after me an' Ucchan were done with him.."
It must have been humiliating to be beaten up by a pair of children. Katie didn't feel even the tiniest bit of sympathy for him. "Well if he did, he earned it."
Akane looked ahead and could see the front of the dojo coming up into view. "Well, at least we're almost home."
Nabiki smiled a little in that sardonic fashion that made you feel like she was having a joke at your expense but you couldn't ever prove it. "Such as it is. I'm sure our visitors will love to see the dojo."
Ranma's eyes lit up at the mention of the dojo. "Wow, it's been… years since I last stepped foot in a dojo."
Akane smiled before she sighed. "I'd like to say it's a proper dojo but..." She trailed off, looking rather chagrined by that.
"Daddy hasn't taught in years." Nabiki finished, looking just as chagrined.
Katie interrupted before Ranma could speak. "You call your dad… daddy?" She expected it out of Akane but Nabiki? It just didn't fit.
Ranma didn't say anything because he didn't really know anything about Nabiki or Akane or their father for that matter. But it did sound weird that such a cold girl would use such a sweet word. And funny, but he controlled his laughter.
Nabiki glowered but refused to rise to the barb, instead choosing to turn her nose up with a rather indignant "HMPH!"
Akane giggled a little. "Anyways, it'll be good to have you over when you need to practice."
"And someone to practice with huh?" Nabiki asked, tone arching like her eyebrow.
Akane didn't rise to the bait, mainly because they were there. And also because that's what Nabiki wanted. "Well, we're here. Is Kasumi cooking right now?"
Ranma found his spot to get back into the discussion. "Kasumi?"
"Oh right, you haven't met her yet. She's our older sister." Nabiki said, suddenly not seeming as hot to trot about everything.
"She's very nice." Katie said, as diplomatically as she could. "You'll like her cooking, if nothing else."
"A real homebody huh?" Ranma asked, not sure how he felt about that.
Akane laughed nervously, deciding it was time to change the topic before things made the two of them look really bad. "Well you'll meet her eventually, but let's get to the dojo. I'm sure you'll want a tour!"
"Sounds like a great idea, Kasumi's probably too busy right now." Nabiki said, trying her best to keep her composure.
Katie arched an eyebrow, but after a few seconds of thought, she could understand how they were both feeling less than adequate with their smoking hot older sister looming in the wings. "We didn't get to finish our spar and this might be our best chance to finish it." She threw the sisters a lifeline, one that was sure to add any brownie points she might have already earned with them.
Ranma, sensing that there was no point in pursuing the Kasumi topic, went with the change. "Yeah, I really do want to see which of us is better."
"Try not to obliterate the building please." Nabiki said, her tone almost pleading. "You can break a few boards, crack a hole in one of the walls but at least try to leave it standing. Minor repairs don't rock the boat but something major could sink us."
Akane, remembering the mini-tornado from earlier, could only nod in agreement. "Yeah, that'd be real bad." She may not have been greedy like her sister but she didn't want to funnel any new found income into rebuilding the dojo.
Katie and Ranma just exchanged a short look and shrug. "We'll try to be careful, but don't be afraid to bill my roommate for any damages, for real."
"Does she cover all of your shenanigans?" Nabiki asked.
Katie nodded. "She even paid for that clock I broke. That was like a drop in the bucket for her."
"I see," Nabiki said in a cooler tone than her usual.
"Still, try to keep it down, okay?" Akane said as they came in through the front door.
"RANMA!" An exuberant Soun Tendo greeted them, but specifically him, as soon as they were through the threshold. "Welcome to the Tendo Dojo, son!"
The patriarch of the Tendo family came right up to the foursome, beaming brightly when he finally got a look at the young man one of his daughters would certainly marry. "I see that you at the very least don't take after your father in the looks department. Which is good, very good, right girls?"
"Uh, thanks?" Ranma replied.
Nabiki keenly nodded. "Not that I'm a shallow girl…"
"You absolutely are," Katie muttered in English.
"… But at least be thankful that you might not grow up to look like your old man," She went on to suggest.
Soun strolled up and hooked an arm around Ranma's shoulder. "So, how about my daughters, eh? Lookers aren't they?"
"They're pretty nice people, yeah," Ranma quickly corrected him.
"Just you wait until Kasumi gets home," Soun went on, as if not hearing him. "She's a darling girl, loves to cook, and is sharp as a blade. She likes to play humble, but I've caught her reading those medical books she picks up from Tofu time to time."
Akane hummed. "Where is Kasumi?"
"She went out this morning as soon as you left to get some errands done," Soun replied. "She said she'd be gone most of the day."
Nabiki immediately narrowed her eyes. Kasumi was pretty sharp, and if she was willing to vanish for the whole day that meant she had a plan of her own. A quick glance in Ranma's direction made her pretty certain what she was up to.
"Well, that's all right. I was here to check out the dojo, anyway," Ranma said.
Soun nodded. "Of course, of course. Feel free to stay for dinner, as well! This is your home now, after all."
"Actually… I'm just visiting, I have to go to work after this…" Plus he wasn't keen on staying the night at the Tendos given that he might wake up at the altar the next morning tied down. Nothing against the girls, it was the whole Dad factor. "Plus I don't want to be a strain on your food supply…"
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "Misao let you in the house at all, so our couch is your couch."
Soun didn't care for Ranma being in such close proximity to girls that weren't his daughters about as much as Genma didn't care for him working as a girl. "Nonsense, nonsense, you should stay here from now on. This is eventually going to be yours, after all."
"Uh, thanks but…" Ranma stopped when he noticed that Soun was beginning to manifest a rather large menacing aura. It was downright demonic, dark and filled with an anger barely contained by Soun's mockery of civility.
"Okay… that's actually a little intimidating," Ranma thought
"Is there something wrong with my daughters that makes you uncomfortable, Saotome? Is all that I am giving you not good enough? Is my generosity and hospitality lacking in some way?" Soun asked as he advanced upon Ranma a bit more, looming over him with an almost fully demonic air about him.
Ranma actually took a step back, hesitant to go onto his guard, but at the same time quick to seek out a way from being in this situation.
"Daddy, stop!" Akane said quickly. "If Ranma doesn't want to stay, then that's fine!"
Soun paid it no heed. "Well, Ranma?! What exactly is your problem with this arrangement-!"
He then stopped, and drew back from Ranma a full five paces. Directly behind Ranma, Akane, and Nabiki, Katie was staring directly at Soun, her eyes dull despite the murderous intent they drilled into him. He skin crawled, as if he could feel her hands clamping around his neck.
Reaching up, she then brushed some hair from her face. "Oi, isn't that a bit rude? Bad enough he got dragged here by force, but you have to treat him like it's his fault for not wanting to stay, too?"
Akane agreed wholeheartedly. "That's what I mean, Ranma's not going to want to marry anyone if you treat him like this, Daddy!"
Soun, a lot meeker (and suddenly extremely wary of the wild girl glaring at him), tried to put up a token defense. "It's his responsibility to…"
"He didn't even know it was his responsibility until yesterday! None of us knew!" Akane shot back.
"Akane has a point," Nabiki pointed out. "We didn't get any warning about this at all, nice as Ranma is."
She looked to the side, feigning sorrow. "I mean, how awful is it? To be treated like a commodity to be traded and sold at our own father's whim?"
She turned completely around, microphone in hand, and a spotlight shining down upon her. "With no say in our own destinies, we exist not as people but as mere trading stock! A resource to tap for wealth and prosperity and escaping a bill!"
Akane, who had a rather excellent history of stage performance, swooned and fell to her knees dramatically into the spotlight, just behind her sister. One hand rested on her knee, the other at her mouth as she wept. "How awful, to be betrayed by father…"
Soun was soundly defeated by this impromptu improv performance, the arrows of guilt having rammed deep through his body and into his soul. They were bigger, heftier arrows than they ought to be, though, as if there was some kind of unspoken and weighty validation behind them that was yet to be revealed… until right now: Picolet Chardin.
Bawling in contrition, Soun threw himself down to their feet. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please take your time to get acclimated to us! Don't think us Tendo family as awful people!"
"Eh, all right," Ranma said. "I'll accept your apology if you show us to the dojo."
Soun was his jovial self in a second. "Of course, right this way my boy!"
As he turned away to lead them down the hall to the dojo, however, Soun developed a more serious look and darted it out the corner of his eye towards Katie. His demonic aura of intimidation was one that only his master could really resist, but it was ultimately a bluff for scaring off opponents to buy time for an escape, a counterattack or both. That girl's look… those eyes… there was no bluffing there.
"I should discuss this with Saotome, that girl has a killer's eyes…" He thought to himself.
Katie stepped up to Ranma and gently nudged his shoulder. "Hey, Ranma."
"Yeah?" He asked when he looked at her.
"Get ready," she said with a noticeably smile now. "When we get in there, I'm going to give you a real treat."
Well now Ranma was plain ol' curious. "A treat, huh?"
Katie nodded and looked forward to the dojo. Her blood was heated up again already, and once they were out on the floor, it would be boiling.
In the dojo, Katie's school uniform came off, revealing underneath a pair of red bicycle shorts and a black and red sports top. Cracking her neck, and stretching to pop her back and shoulders, she turned and looked across the floor of the dojo, where Ranma stood with Soun. The two were standing side by side, with Ranma doing his own stretches and limbering up for the fight. Between them, Nabiki and Akane sat on the sidelines, wearing face visors to protect from splinters.
"Well, hopefully it won't be interrupted this time," Akane said, quite eager to see how long Ranma could last against her senpai.
"We can only hope." Nabiki was more interested in seeing Akane's senpai being used as a mop to wax the floor with her blood.
Over by Ranma, Soun was still quite contrite as he spoke in a low voice. "I'm sorry for the manner with which I behaved before, but I think you should hear me out, son."
"Don't call me son, but what is it?" Ranma asked as he stretched to touch his foot to the back of his head, prompting Nabiki to bite her lower lip.
"Be careful against that girl, there's something… unseemly about her," Soun said gently, "She's got a menacing air about her."
"She just doesn't tolerate nonsense," Ranma deflected. "She punted Pops into the next town over for his."
Soun recoiled. "She did what?!"
"But that's okay. Besides, I've fought her before, I know what I'm in for."
He actually didn't, as he would find out in but a moment as Katie called over to him. "So! Since we were interrupted this morning right when it was getting good, I think we should change it up a bit to get right back into the swing of it."
Ranma paused. "Oh yeah, what did you have in mind?"
Katie smiled and stepped up to the edge of the floor reserved for fighting. "I'm going to show you a little bit of my Uncle's fighting style. The one I've been trained most in since I was four."
That was unexpected. "… You mean you haven't?"
This was news to Akane too. "Your Uncle has a fighting style?"
Katie nodded. "Yep, I've used it off and on, but I roll so much other stuff on top of it, that I never have a chance to go back to basics. And Ranma here is so good, that I wanna give him my best. 'Course, that means we'll have to change the rules from first to hit wina to first to yield loses."
Ranma was fine with that. "Depends on if you can hit me."
"Oh, I will." She looked to Akane and winked. "Pay close attention, you might learn a thing or two."
Akane felt a little chagrined by the teasing but she let it slide. She would be lying hardcore if she said she wasn't excited to see her senpai's absolute best. "I will."
Katie turned her attention to Ranma, and the smile on her face turn feral. There was no flirtation to the expression, just pure battle mania. As though the prospect of the fight alone was bringing her-
"Pleasure, that's what this spar is to her. Is she out for blood or what?" There was no worries in Ranma's mind as he sauntered out to the floor. He had grown up in the wild and knew what to do when it came to beasts who lived to bite. "If she thinks she can just sink her fangs into me, she has another thing coming."
He stopped across from her, sliding down into a stance that was reminiscent of Jeet Kune Do. "Ready when you are."
Katie threw a few more punches to the side, away from Ranma, before pulling herself up into the basic stance of what appeared to be Muay Thai. Her right leg was leading just a little, her right clearly intended to be her jabbing hand.
Akane raised an eyebrow. "Thai boxing...?"
Nabiki frowned, feeling like the tease wasn't being delivered on. "That's not it, is it?"
Ranma narrowed his eyes and studied his opponent for a long second. "The more I look at it, the more it looks ever so slightly off. It's not just Thai boxing... probably." He kept his cool and smirked. "So? We doing this or what?" Deep down, he had already catalogued nearly all the ways she could attack him and how he could counter. If it was just Thai boxing, this would be over quickly.
Katie just chuckled. "I'm ready now. Do you want first move?"
"Ladies first." His face was filled with egotistical condescension, clearly spoiling his motive to irritate her.
"Don't regret it now~❤" She replied, before firing off a right jab at high speed that sliced the air apart.
From Ranma's perspective, it wasn't so much a punch as it was a harpoon fired at him. From what he knew of Muay Thai, that was too fast and placed wrong. Still, he dodged it, looking like it required no effort. He fired back a left cross that was slapped aside, followed by a right front kick that was slipped. "She's already faster than earlier. Already revved up and going full throttle despite the long cooldown. What a monster." That was okay, he was a monster too.
She dipped into a right elbow that seemed like it was trying to blow through Ranma and kill the guy that was figuratively behind him.
Ranma slid away from the elbow and noted again that the placement was wrong. In normal Thai boxing, that would be more towards the head, not towards the sternum. Such placement significantly increased the chance for an agonizing injury, if not death. "The force and speed behind it are even more than usual. This isn't the Thai boxing used for sport, this is the real deal."
Soun's eyes narrowed as the two teens circled each other. "A killer's eyes and a killer's style. It is as I feared." He thought, recognizing the style immediately. "You've noticed, haven't you son? She isn't using Muay Thai, but its progenitor Muay Boran. A true art of violence, designed to reign supreme on the most savage battlefield known as war."
Ranma nodded his head and went in, throwing a series of punches that left minute openings. They were all blocked or slipped, not a single baited hook reeled in a fished for counter. "She'll bite when she wants to, no amount of trying to get her to counter will work eh? Fine by me."
Katie furrowed her brow in concentration. "I get the feeling he still isn't taking me seriously. Let's change that." She reared back and threw forth a bomb of a left that almost hummed in the air for his face.
Ranma jerked his head back just in the nick of time, feeling the puff of displaced air as her arm reached the end of its reach. Intriguing, she was throwing fast and hard without sacrificing either. "Game on huh? Message received loud and clear."
He shot forward, charging inside her reach and firing his own blow for her liver. It whiffed, and Ranma narrowly blocked a quick series of strikes, the offensive beating him back before an opening appeared in Katie's guard that he decisively exploited, ducking down onto one hand while thrusting a kick up at her chin.
Katie weaved back from the kick, but her attempted roundhouse kick to punish her inverted opponent missed as Ranma sprung himself off his hands and directly above her, planting his feet on the ceiling.
"Oh!" Akane and Nabiki exclaimed, before Ranma came down on Katie, first seemingly tumbling to swing his own heel down onto her head. When she smartly raised her arms to block, he twisted his entire body like a cat avoiding falling onto her and getting the opening he needed to kick her in the chest as he caught himself on one hand.
"How did he do that?!" Katie thought as pain echoed through her chest. Those reflexes were incredible!
As she caught herself, Ranma hopped off his hand and landed on his feet. He could see Katie was smiling despite her taking a hit. That just compelled him to hit her hard enough to knock that grin off her face. "The Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling specializes in aerial combat. It doesn't matter what position I'm in, I can always attack!"
He demonstrated thusly rushing straight for Katie and lashing out with a kick that she blocked with her right arm. Rather than go back, Ranma went up, jumping off her raised arm and then rebounding off the ceiling to kick downward. Katie sidestepped the blow, and fired off a swift right hook that went through the speed lines Ranma left behind as he leaped past her, only to abruptly twist himself around and spin kick her in the back.
She was just fast enough to turn and bring her right shoulder and sloppily raised forearm to block the hit, but lost her footing as Ranma rebounded right back to the ceiling and this time dashed right over her head and towards the nearest wall.
"He's all over the place!" Katie thought as Ranma kicked off it and fell upon her, the momentum helping his punch as she brought up both hands to block it. With even quicker leg work, he deluged her with a total of three kicks, the last one he used to spring off her. "So fast, too!"
Ranma's feet finally touched the floor, a smile of his own as he sized up Katie's style. Defensively she was a fortress, nearly impossible to get off her footing, and fast in a straight line. However, she didn't have much counter for his agility that he could see. It was time to hammer that weak point until it broke.
In the space of that assessment, Ranma's full weight had yet to hit the floor, and when it did he was off again, every microsecond dedicated to plotting out potential routes for his next series of strikes and possible counters. Katie had a million ways to stop him, but he had a million and one.
Though in actuality, Katie had a million and two.
As he took off the ground again, this time to kick, he saw it: the Muay Boran stance shifted again, both feet planting as she adopted a stance more suited for grappling than striking. But what was most important, was that she opened her guard completely for the attack.
And it was at this moment that Ranma knew… he fucked up.
Ranma's flying spin kick didn't even connect, as Katie lunged into it and, as his leg grazed her side, snatched him out of the air by the front of his shirt at the shoulder with one hand. The rest of her arm went right across his chest, his own momentum turning the strike into a devastating lariat as his course reversed and then went straight down into the floor.
Akane gasped at the sight of Ranma being plucked clean out of the air and driven into the floor like an American Football in the endzone. Bouncing off the floor, Ranma caught himself on his hands and feet and sprang away from Katie, but as he attempted to set down she was closing in, her eyes locked squarely on him as she lashed out and caught his right arm in her right hand.
"Whoa…!" Nabiki gasped.
Akane leaned forward, amazed. "That grappling…"
Counter the grab, use it against her. That's what he tried to do before he could even think it, but his footing was completely absent to do any of that as she pulled him into her, and they met at her knee and his solar plexus, the force of the blow knocking the wind out of him as he was raised higher off the floor.
Through the pain, Ranma realized something shocking. "She's… faster…!"
Soun narrowed his eyes. "You need to escape her hold, Ranma!"
He attempted to regain his footing, but his arm was arrested, still clamped tightly in her right hand. It was time to go unorthodox! He immediately brought his whole body up, wrapping his arms around hers and hooking his legs over her shoulder, taking her arm and extending it into an armbar.
"He's got her!" Soun said.
Nabiki threw forth a fist. "Yeah! Go get her, Ranma! Break her arm off!"
Surprised by Ranma's counter, Katie staggered a bit, before she planted her feet, keeping her arm held out and Ranma held up above the floor. She could feel the strain and pressure Ranma placed on her joints and muscles.
Soun nodded as he observed the move. It was textbook, yet unorthodox, the very form of Indiscriminate Grappling. "You've taught him well, Saotome. This boy is worthy to succeed us!"
Katie looked over at Ranma, who grinned defiantly, before she returned the smile. If he was good enough to get her in an armbar, then escaping it wasn't going to be easy. However… if things were easy, she wouldn't have him deemed him worthy of Heaven.
She crouched, bending at the knees while still holding his arm straight out, leaped upward, striking Ranma directly against one of the beams supporting the roof of the dojo. The blow shoved him into the ceiling, crumpling him against the ceiling and effectively freeing her from the lock. To his complete disbelief.
"She…!" Ranma thought as both began to fall.
"… Broke…!" Soun gasped, as Katie shoved Ranma below her and began to turn in the air.
"… Out!" Akane said right before Katie connected not her tibia, not her knee, but her elbow–driving it into his sternum.
The floor shattered in a wide circle from the force of the blow.
Ranma then rammed into the center of the circle, bouncing off it as it shattered and splintered from the second impact.
The last thing Ranma saw before everything went black was Katie hanging in the air above him, a murderous smile on her black-hair framed face.
The last thought he had… was that he needed to know how to beat that.
"Ranma!" All three Tendos present cried, coming over to stand at the edge of the broken floor.
Katie landed just outside the edge of the hole, peering down at the fallen Saotome.
Akane knelt down, checking on the condition of the pigtailed boy. That blow had been tremendous, maybe even harder than Kuno had been struck when he was sent through the clock tower. Her body trembled at the sight of her senpai's power but it wasn't out of fear. She was excited to see someone so powerful, so skilled present in her dojo. It made her want to get good enough to fight Katie on the level Ranma had.
For the first time in years, she had a goal to pursue in the art and it felt amazing.
Nabiki stared at the black haired girl, disbelief evident on her face. She didn't think Ranma was invincible but seeing him in action only to be swatted aside like that just shocked her all the more. It reminded her that this girl was her age, her own classmate no less, and yet they were so far apart it was like they were polar opposites.
Was she invincible? Was that it? Could no one beat her? The spike of disbelief deepened itself into a burning flame of envy. Why was it that she was denied these gifts and talents? Why was yet another example of how feeble and weak she was staring her in the face, only it was someone who wasn't entirely a goody little two-shoes about it?
She almost clenched her hands into fists but thought better of it.
"He's alive, but out cold." Soun announced, having been the one to go down in amongst the broken floorboards and tatami to check on the son of his dear friend. The boy was magnificent, but that girl... she was something else.
"I wasn't trying to kill him and he's too hearty for that to hurt him for long." Katie said, schooling her features into a confident smirk at the Tendo Patriarch. "I could tell from hitting him that if I didn't do something big, he'd just absorb my hits and keep coming. Can't stop a charging elephant with love taps y'know."
Soun narrowed his eyes in contemplation, before he let her words go. "I guess I can't fault you too much for that. He was going to break your arm if you tried a more conventional attempt at escaping."
Both of his daughters looked to their father, slightly shocked at that. They were both escalating the spar that much.
"We can't fault her for fighting to the best of her abilities." Akane said, looking down at Ranma, noticing that he was breathing if a little shallowly.
"Ranma-kun did seem to be going full bore too." Nabiki allowed, doing her best to not look at Katie.
"Should probably leave him there for a little bit, just to let him recover." Katie said, crouching down at the edge of the hole. "Moving him too soon is bad."
"Let's not dump cold water on him either. The shock might cause problems." Soun added, still silently measuring this dangerous animal girl. Yes, animal, a good descriptor. She hungered to bite and tear at flesh, that elbow had surely shown that. That uncle of hers must have been a real monster to do this to her.
It would turn out that he had forgotten that lies exist because the truth hurts so much more.
Time had passed, but how much was not known to the waking mind of Ranma Saotome. What he did know was that he smelled food and now was the time to figure out the rest. He was sprawled out on a futon, a damp towel on his forehead to control his body temperature. His eyes cracked open, pain from the light stinging his eyes. He looked around and realized this must be the family room of the Tendo House, they must have moved him here after he had been knocked out.
Knocked out, which meant he had lost the spar. He hadn't underestimated her at all, he just didn't have enough data to ensure a proper measurement. He hadn't ever really met someone who could match, if not surpass, him in speed. It was an eye opening experience, one he'd have to revisit as he started training again.
He did something ill-advised and sat up, the room swirling for a second as he gasped for air
"Oh you shouldn't do that!" A soft voice called from just out of his view, from behind him. It sounded warm and comforting, like a sweater on a chilly day. He didn't recognize this one, their mom?
"I'm okay, I'm used to this." He bluffed, trying his best to be reassuring. He closed his eyes, as a pair of hands with well manicured nails gently took his shoulders and lowered his head back down not onto a pillow but to on a warm, soft lap.
"I grew up in a dojo and in this town and I know injuries when I see them." The voice took on a sharper quality, she sounded peeved at his bravado. "But you're already up so just stay still." There was an edge of warning in her voice, one he decided to obey.
"Yeah, sorry. I'm not good at following the rules, y'know?" He replied, a rhetorical shrug and a verbal grin dancing merrily along the words.
The woman huffs in amusement, before she spoke again. Her voice was directly above him. "I can see that."
Ranma opened his eyes and froze as if he had been ran through with a lightning bolt. If all the girls he had seen so far were all sorts of crazy hot, he had just tripped over a downright goddess of pure hotness. Her long brown hair started straight down to her chin, before it became a beautiful display of curls down to her mid back. She was wearing a pink sweater over a cream-colored button-down shirt and a pair of tight blue capris. She had such grace and style that stole the sarcastic quip right out of his mouth, crumples it up and feeds it back to him in the form of a fat tongue knotted up in amazement.
"Uh... hi." It wasn't shy in the least, he was just too stunned to form any kind of added emotion.
"Yes, hello." She said, giving a little bow. "I'm Kasumi, Nabiki-chan and Akane-chan's older sister."
"Sister!?" The word echoed in sheer disbelief through his mind, before he decided to speak. "I'm Ranma... Ranma Saotome."
"It's a pleasure, though I had hoped our first meeting would have been better." Kasumi said, a brief pout crossing her face.
Ranma almost forgot himself for a second, but he caught himself. "Well, it's better than me being drug her against my will." He tried humor to recover, but this proved to be an unwise move.
Kasumi laughed and Ranma felt like getting put through the floor of the dojo was a small price to pay to witness such a thing.
Her laughter attracted company, as Katie popped up from somewhere else in the house. "Hey I, uh… wanted to check on him, see if he was okay and all..."
Ranma's eyes narrowed at the bashful way Katie was acting, but being around Kasumi really did seem to excuse it a tiny bit.
"He's apparently fine, Katie-chan." Kasumi said, smiling at the girl. There's a tickling warmth in the tone, which proceeded to melt Katie's insides.
Ranma forgot all about excusing the bashfulness and focused on the swell of jealousy deep within himself at that moment.
"That's... that's uh, really great!" Katie managed, her face has turned a bright red at this point. She turned around and called back into the house. "Oi! You two, he's awake!"
More footsteps followed and soon Akane and Nabiki joined them. Without prompting, he began to compare the sisters to Kasumi and found that it wasn't quite as much as a wash-out for the eldest he had subconsciously been thinking. All three had their best sides that appealed to him in a fashion that outdid the others and oh lord he was about to become some kind of sick pervert.
"How you feeling champ?" Nabiki asked, trying to be neutral and hide her concern in addition to her contempt for Kasumi's fantastic makeover. He couldn't see it but the way she said it seems like she had been chewing on her lips right before she spoke.
"Like I got knocked through a floor." He returned with a light bit of levity. He smiled to defuse any offense taken from the comment. "Nah, outside of my pride, I'm fine. I'm used to aches and pains by this point." They usually took the form of his father after all.
"That's good!" Akane said, all cute and bubbly. Her voice wafts through the room like a warm breeze, where upon it does a dance across Ranma's brain. It reminded him of ingesting a sugarcube after having a lemon wedge. All fizzy and electric, leaving behind a dizzying rush that reminded you what it was like to be alive.
"Because it'd be bad otherwise right?" Katie teased, and Ranma found that he wasn't as on guard around her anymore. He had finally quantified the discomfort and thus he could be passively aware of the danger she posed instead of actively alert.
"C'mon Senpai, you know what I meant!" Akane wailed in mock distress, drawing a laugh from both girls.
"Anyways," Nabiki's cool voice butted in now, serving as a soothing balm to the rising irritation at the by-play happening before him. "Katie called her roommate and explained things about the spar, so you have a little bit of a grace period to eat dinner before heading over." From the angry squeak Akane gave, it was apparent she had been scooped on delivering the good news.
"Wouldn't want to show up late to work without an explanation." Ranma muttered, before looking down at the futon. "Is it okay for me to get up now?"
Kasumi nodded. "As long as you're not dizzy anymore."
He slowly lifted his head from her lap, and he was reintroduced to the lingering burn of pain where Katie's elbow had met his sternum. Nothing else would have put him down for the count like that, something she had somehow determined over the course of their two spars. Interesting, something else to consider later. "So when's dinner?"
"In just a few, there was a sale on beef today." Kasumi answered and Ranma could feel a chill in the air at that.
"Well lucky me I guess." He ignored the frostiness and sniffed the air. "Smells great!"
"It's more western fare," Kasumi said as she rose back to her feet. "Since Katie-chan's come to visit, I've been curious to try it."
On that note she looked to Katie. "I'm just about finished with it, but would you mind helping me out a bit with some finishing touches?"
"Uh? Sure," Katie said, before looking over to Ranma and flashing him a smile. "Hey man, sorry for putting you into the floor like that."
Ranma, though feeling the sting of defeat, brushed it off. "One of us was going through it, I just wished it wasn't me."
Reassuringly, Katie decided to pay him a compliment. "That armbar was brilliant, and I didn't want to take any chances with the usual outs. I probably would've had my arm ripped out my socket ten different ways."
"Twenty," Ranma corrected, though it was actually one hundred and three at last count. One hundred four now, though–he would remember Katie's creative counter.
Katie smiled, just before Kasumi called to her. "Katie-chan, I could really use a hand on this."
Huffing in amusement, she turned for the kitchen. "All right, all right…" She looked back over to Ranma and smiled. "We'll do this again soon though, that whole fight was too good."
And with that she was gone, and Ranma turned to find Nabiki and Akane waiting for them to join him at the sitting table. Soun was just outside the room on the home's patio, leaning against a post and smoking a cigarette. He appeared to be in deep contemplation.
"Geez," he said as he rubbed his chest, "I expected great things… but that was something else entirely."
"I don't think any less of you for losing," Nabiki revealed to Ranma. "You'll get her next time."
Ranma smirked. "You're damn right I will."
Akane then not so discreetly slid a glass of water that had been on her side of the table, right up to Nabiki. A quick look at it and the realization that followed granted the much more discreetly smirking Akane a brief glare of grudging respect from her older sister.
"I would temper your eagerness to fight her again, Ranma-kun," Soun said.
Ranma looked over at Soun. "What?"
Soun took a drag from his cigarette, and exhaled a long cloud of smoke visible in the orange glow of the descending sun. "That girl… she's not a normal martial artist. There's so much anger and aggression there." He turned and gave Ranma a dramatic look. "If you fight her again, and push her too far, she will kill you."
"Daddy! Don't say that kind of thing about Katie-senpai, especially behind her back!"
Soun shook his head sadly. "I'm not saying anything terrible about her, but rather the one who trained her in the first place. Whoever it was, they have instilled within her a lust for battle and blood that is unhealthy outside only the most vicious battlefield. Lurking beneath your friend's exterior is a rabid wolf on a rusty chain. Ranma. If you fight her again, she will go for far more lethal blows without even meaning to."
Nabiki, while not a fighter, was certainly not ignorant of the world of fighting thanks to growing up in it. "Daddy has a point."
Ranma folded his arms. "She won't kill anyone, not on purpose or on accident."
Soun couldn't see that, not with the menace and brutality in her moves against Ranma, or what he heard of from her fight with Kuno.
"If she wanted blood, she could've gotten it," he said, "All she had to do was drag out the fight until we beat on each other enough for there to be blood."
He gave Akane a reassuring look. "She ain't no killer or a psycho or anything… she just gets off on fighting."
Akane recoiled a bit, a blush appearing on her face at the very context of Ranma's statement. "G-gets off…?"
Soun disagreed. "That wasn't mere excitement for a fight, don't mistake it as such."
"She's a hardcore adrenaline junkie," Ranma assessed. "She acts really cool and detached, but I saw it both times we fought–the better her opponent, the more excited she gets, and I impressed her so much that she showed me something that I want to beat, and I'm going to beat it." He smiled. "I couldn't call myself a martial artist or a man if I didn't accept that challenge."
Nabiki picked up the glass of water and took a sip from it, mostly to cool her face from Ranma's boast.
Akane herself then remembered their very first spar, and the smile that was on Katie's face after she had put her into the wall. Suddenly she found herself wondering what would've happened had Sasuke not interrupted the spar. Their spars after had been somewhat lower intensity after that, more exercise to keep in shape than pushing limits… but that was going to change.
Soun still wasn't swayed, but unlike Genma he wasn't going to fight the boy over his opinion. "Be careful then, Ranma. Whichever of us is right, I dread what sort of terrible thing she might do if she becomes too excited."0
If there was anyone who had a good idea of what a motivated Katie could get up to, it was Kasumi of all people, who let out a giggle as she overheard Soun's dread-filled statement over the eager kiss she shared with Katie, who was embracing her from behind at the counter next to the stove, where dinner simmered for its final minutes of preparation.
"Mm… what's so funny?" Katie whispered as she broke the kiss.
Kasumi smiled vibrantly as her right cheek was nuzzled tenderly by the foreigner's left. "That I'm doing such a terrible thing."
Katie, who had also heard it, grinned back and nuzzled lower, towards Kasumi's neck. "You could do so much worse."
She emphasized that by sliding her hands, which had been at her trim waist, down to her hips and giving them an appreciative squeeze. Kasumi responded with an excited sigh, and slipped her own right hand up to caress the right side of Katie's face. "Sounds like fun."
Katie giggled herself, and went right back to helping Kasumi with some finishing touches.
"BansheeDeadSix here, and welcome to the Debrief, where I spend ten seconds of a two minute news report introducing the two minute news report." In her now studio-style lit living room, Misao stood, rather than sat, in front of a camera tripod, her back to a mural featuring a P-47D Thunderbolt with a rainbow haired blue pegasus painted on its fuselage slashing through the air past an exploding Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter, the former plane's wing-mounted eight machine guns blazing fire.
She, dressed more professionally in a black top and blue jean skirt, looked at her watch. "And that's it."
Looking back up at the camera, Misao spoke. "First off, Pokémon. The Pokémon Company released images of the starters for Pokémon Sun and Moon, and already I don't care for the grass and water starters because CUTE FIRE CAT OH. MY GOD. Game of the Year, and I say this with confidence after playing SuperHot, Souls 3, and Overwatch."
She then brightened. "Speaking of, the Overwatch Beta was a smashing success! With thousands queueing for hours to enjoy thirty seconds of getting fucked by Bastion players before the connection drops. Your very own Banshee spent the entire first day of the Beta making Zenyatta her handsome robo husbando, and Widowmaker her ice cold waifu–and every Tracer salty. You can see clips of that in the link to my right!"
A smirk appeared on her face. "But I already know who you all want me to cosplay as, and a certain generous fellow has already shipped the parka my way. Once it arrives, patrons are in for a special, frosty treat!"
She then put her hands together. "In more somber news, Disney has shuttered its Infinity line, and withdrawn completely from publishing video games in house. With Activision's Skylanders seeing a downward trend in sales in the toys-to-life niche over the last two years, Disney's lack of confidence in its knockoff Infinity line drove them to make the decision to close things down. Disney is still committed to the video game industry, with Kingdom Hearts 3 set to release after Square Enix finally runs out of ways they can milk Kingdom Hearts 2."
Misao then produced a cup of tea with a Lipton label hanging from the teabag string and took a sip as she looked to the side. Lowering it, she carries on. "China's new console, Fuze's Tomahawk P1, is a blatant ripoff of the PS4 and Xbox One. You'll probably see it soon in the west, when a smarmy British commentator reviews it on a comfortable looking couch. And you'll see it even sooner here in Japan, collecting dust just behind all the Xbox One on store shelves."
Misao made finger motions, as if firing guns. "Hashtag Shots Fired! The staff here at BansheeDeadSix is probably not going to do a first look at the console, not because I insulted the company, China's pride in ripping things off, or the fact that it's literally a knockoff of two consoles I already reviewed–but because China has banned streams of girls eating bananas from their glorified intranet–and I need my potassium intake while gaming guys, you know this."
From behind her back she produced a peeled banana and erotically plunged it into her mouth, taking it further than was safe, withdrew it slowly, pushed it in again, and–after giving a pouty look to the camera–bit through it.
"Don't worry," she said coyly, "I swallowed."
She opens her mouth and sticks out her tongue as proof. "Finally, in a bit of good news, that a call to boycott against yours truly in defense of a certain vidya gaems writer, regarding the viral spread of certain comments on a stream about a certain party of women whom may or may not be related to said writer, evaporated as said party of women confirmed the veracity of statements made by yours truly."
She grinned. "Filming for projects related to those statements is due to begin once schedules align… and divorce proceedings pan out. And that's it for the Debrief. Like, comment, subscribe, always check your six and remember that the number one rule to combat is survive. BansheeDeadSix, over and out!"
Producing a remote, she shut off the camera and pumped her fist. "One take, flawless. Yes!"
She performed a pirouette where she stood, stopping when she saw on the kitchen wall-mounted digital face clock. It was 19:40, which meant that her roommate and houseguest were going to be here. "In three, two, one…"
The door opened, just as she predicted. In walked Katie first, a light spring in her step as Ranma brought up the rear. He was still not used to having a regular place to return to that wasn't a tent in the park or hiding in a bush, it showed in his footsteps. Ready to bolt if he needed to, the mark of a wild animal feeling like it's wandered into a cage.
Misao nodded, she was used to the skittish behavior. After all, Katie had been like that at first, aggressively stamping around while looking out for the moment someone was going to fall from the sky and try to kill her. She knew she had to work with what she was given, the coal to be pressed into a diamond.
Time to move.
"Hey you two!" She called, her voice bubbling along the walls. Katie's pace immediately slowed down into something of a more measured gait, while Ranma's relaxes into something more flat footed. Her voice has done its job in making sure that they won't be assaulted. "Martial artists..." She rolled her eyes but it wasn't in scorn or mockery.
"Hey, already done with the Debrief?" Katie took point, letting Ranma continue to bring himself down.
"Just finished!" Misao replied, slipping out to see the two of them still walking towards the studio. It was a slight bit later than she wanted, but they were going to put Ranma's girl form on the internet and watch it explode in a wave of otaku tears and money. "One take is all I needed, bae!" She looked past Katie and shot Ranma a wink, just to see what would happen.
"Good job boss." Ranma said, his tone even and respectful. It's slight, but his face had faintly turned a shade of red. He was still adjusting to the sudden shift in his life where he traded in his Panda Dad for a bunch of hot girls. Not that he was about to complain, mind you, whoever made that deal got hosed something fierce.
Pleased with the reaction, Misao got down to brass tacks. "All right, go grab some cold water and a towel. We got enough time for me to give you a crash course on how to do this thing without too much issue. Once you got it, we'll be doing a quickie first time stream to get your face out there to the general public." She watched as his face soured and waited.
He didn't defy her expectation. "I still don't get why I gotta be a girl." That was mostly a lie, he knew enough that a pretty girl could survive for days without cash and eat like a Queen. He was a guy, damn it.
Misao smirked, sidestepping the usual arguing in favor of shutting everything down. "Don't worry, that's part of the lecture." Her smirk ditched the edge and softened down into a smile. "You're going to places few boys ever will. That makes you pretty special in my eyes."
The buttering worked, as Ranma's neck suddenly felt hot at his employer's words. "All right, I'll go get the water." He slumped away, shoulders hunched with embarrassment. It'll be a while before he got used to a pretty girl telling him all the sweet things in the world.
Misao turned to Katie, eyes narrowed a little as she observed her roommate with a cool gaze. "All right," she said in English, just in case. "What has you about to start breaking out into song today?"
Katie took a moment to consider her answer, before her face twisted into one of those infuriating smiles that make you wanna try and punch it off their face. She had a great day and is flaunting it at anyone dumb enough to ask. "Oh not much, me and Ranma had it out in a fight. I won just so you know."
Misao snorted, as she could read between the lines enough to see the truth of the matter. Fighting alone would never ever have made her this chipper, the only other thing that had Katie walking on air like this was a successful hookup. "Must be her..."
That girl in the photo Katie had texted her a week or so ago. Not her Kouhai, but that girl's oldest sister. Damn, she still couldn't think about that girl without being consumed by lust. Couldn't even be jealous, she'd be all up on Kasumi too if the opportunity knocked.
"So yeah, I'm golden tonight so you two have your NEET initiation or whatever." Katie replied, all innocent like.
"You bitch." Misao only thought it because Ranma returned before she could verbalize it.
"Got the water and the towel, now what?" He already knew what, he wanted to know where it was supposed to happen.
"Follow me to the couch," Misao said, pushing whatever thoughts she had about Katie and what was going on with the girl from her mind. Time was now to get ready to put up another huge revenue stream, one that didn't even realize the potential at its fingertips.
She turned back to the couch in front of her huge entertainment setup and led him to where he was going to make his stream debut. As a she but there wouldn't be any smoke and mirrors. With real, legit actual magic on their side, she was going to turn this slab of beef into the tenderest lamb. All before dangling her before the wolves of the internet.
It was almost sick but you didn't get anywhere in this world with a weak stomach and no convictions. They were right outside the chair he was going to sit in when they stopped. She turned to him, eyes full of authority. "Transform and dry off. Once you're reasonably dry, you can sit down and I'll begin our lesson for today."
Transform, like he was some kind of Henshin hero, only with water and sex-changing instead of wind and bugs. So simple, yet so complex.
Ranma lifted the glass of cold water over his head before it's turned upside down, upending its contents onto his head.
Misao's eyes are glued to him, taking in every detail, to study and dissect later.
The change is never the same two times in a row, never has, never would as far as Ranma knew. This time, he felt the chill of the water shoot through his entire body before it hit. Ah, that tingle which signified his transition from him to her. Inches from his body are melted off in seconds, as he visibly shrinks before his audience. The shirt that was just the right size has swallowed the girl he has transformed into. At the same time, her breasts push and strain against the fabric, all at once too big and too small.
It's fascinating to watch, really watch as it only last 1.243 seconds, as Misao's brain estimated. Bones have shrunk, legs compacted, muscles of a man are replaced by the breasts of a woman. He turns from rock to unheated clay, the masculine hardness is washed away into a feminine softness that can't possibly be real. Misao wanted to touch the redhead but knew well enough not to.
"I have her trust for now, don't blow it."
Soon after the change has finished, the towel is employed to dry the neo-girl off. His jet black hair has become her bright red hair. The angular muscled jaw of a boy rocketing into manhood has been bent and skewed into the soft features of a girl having it out with puberty in the wrong places. Everything visibly significant has changed, down to having hips that most women would die for.
If she hadn't seen it herself, Misao would swear she had been attacked by a magician. It's so impossible it still doesn't seem real, but all other explanations for it don't land. She stared for a few more seconds before she spoke at last. "Dry enough?"
Ranma nodded, not feeling like talking unless she had to.
"Then have a seat so we can begin." When Ranma sat down as commanded, Misao then asked. "What do you know exactly about women and how they work?"
As a disclaimer she added. "There's no wrong answer, just fill me in on what you've been taught by your dad or experiences."
Ranma's brow furrowed as she contemplated all that she knew about girls and what they were. "Well, from my Dad I learned that most of the time women aren't really into the martial arts, but did tell me to not underestimate a woman who was."
"Huh!" Katie smirked, leaning in just inside the doorframe. "I guess he's not a total idiot. What else did he say?"
"Oi, I thought you were done for the night," Misao snapped at her in English. "Go frig yourself or something, leave us be, shoo, shoo."
"Mm, that's actually a good idea," Katie said before turning and strolling off to the bedroom.
Misao tutted and sighed in frustration. "I swear, sometimes that girl has less modesty than I do. So? What else did he tell you about women?"
"They can be emotional, I guess?" Ranma said next, having paid no mind to the shift in English, but waving goodnight to Katie when she departed. "And that once a month, their attunement to the moon or something makes them kind of crazy, turns them into man-hating monsters."
Misao chuckled a bit, that ol' stereotype. "Yeah, kind of saw that one coming."
"Oh, and he did once tell me, when I asked him about how he met my mother, that the best way to get a girl interested was to make it seem like you didn't care for her at all. Like, act like you weren't interested and point out her flaws so she works harder to seek your approval. Stuff like that…"
"Wait, huh?" That made Misao stop for a second. "Your Dad actually believes that?"
"Well, it worked for him," Ranma said, not really sounding all that convinced. "Though now that I say it out loud… Why would a girl ever be into a guy that insulted her all the time?"
Misao nodded slowly, as she made a mental note to visit her Mother and Aunt for some stuff before she actually attempted to meet this Genma guy herself. And to also get this kid into a healthy relationship ASAP.
"Well if they are, then they've got really bad taste in men. No offense to your mother," she said.
"It's all right, I never actually met her. My Dad took me off on my training trip when I was like a year old." Ranma hummed. "Though I'd like to."
Oh, this kid was a great big ball of psychiatrist's paycheques in the making. This web series might actually save him more money than it wound up making him. If she played it right… Ooh, listen to her all of a sudden! Miss Responsible Adult, haha!
She needed to put a stop to that before her reputation fell in danger.
Misao brought her palms together, her fingers pointed at her chin, before she leveled them at Ranma. "Right, it seems that this curse might really be a blessing. Since it's inadvertently brought you to me before your Dad could fill your head with anymore of the mush that's in his."
"I… Guess?" Ranma squirmed. So cute! It was like staring at a mound of double chocolate ice cream. You knew you shouldn't, but it was so so tempting to take a nibble. A naughty little nibble that would turn into a bite if you weren't careful.
Misao beamed. "Well, first off. I'm not going to tell you what girls like because girls like all sorts of things. You really have to play it on a case by case basis. Some girls, like Katie, are a bit rough around the edges. They like martial arts and that sort of bulls–I mean, that sort of thing. Then there are 'girly' types who actually like that 'girly' stuff. Shopping, gossip, dramas, and stuff like that."
That was kind of the vibe Ranma got from Nabiki and Kasumi, actually, and Akane was very much like Katie in her interest in fighting.
"Then there are girls like me, who play videogames, watch violent movies, and like to have lots and lots of sex with men and/or women," she added, putting a hand on Ranma's knee. "Believe it or not? More common than you think."
"Oh." Ranma sat quiet for a moment, before her eyes widened. "Oh!" She repeated, louder, as if amazed by the very concept.
"There's nothing different between us men and women really, outside of some physiological differences that can't be helped. Girls usually get away with having more hobbies, though." Misao then smiled. "But that's why you're so amazing, dude. You can have it both ways, do whatever you want, and have fun doing it."
Ranma squirmed a bit more, finding some uncertainty in that. "I didn't think about it like that… it's just… I'm a guy."
And Misao understood that emphasis. "Well yeah, of course you're a guy. Regardless of what your plumbing is, if you believe you're a guy, then you're a guy. No one else can say otherwise."
Ranma processed that, and looked down at herself. Even in this body, she was a guy.
"And as long as you have this body of yours." She patted Ranma's knee. "Then it's as much part of you as being a guy. So think of it as a challenge, a fight to win, something to become good at. Master the art of being a woman, to be an even better man!"
Master the art… now she was talking her language. If he could understand what it was like to be a woman, then he would know more about women than any man who ever lived. That was what she meant by the goldmine she was sitting on! Not just the income she could make, but the wisdom she could gain!
"Well, I guess now's good as time as any to get in touch with my feminine side," she joked.
Misao smirked. "You're off to a great start, you're surrounded by some great teachers already."
Ranma nodded, then raised her arm into the air. "Okay, first lesson then teach… what's a period?"
Misao shrugged her shoulder. "Oh, menstruation, that's when you bleed for a couple of days out of the vagina. It comes with cramps and those kind of suck. Well, I barely feel them, Katie hates hers."
Ranma recoiled a bit. "And that's normal?!"
"Yeah," Misao replied. "Pretty much every woman who has a functioning uterus goes through it. It's a basic function of the human reproductive system."
Ranma made a face. "The human reproductive system is dumb."
"Yeah it is," Misao agreed. "So, since that's out of the way… ready to become an internet sensation?"
Ranma looked at her filming setup, and then back to her. "Sure, what are we going to start with?"
"Well, I always wanted to sit with someone doing a blind playthrough of Undertale, but I could never get Katie to sit down for more than thirty seconds to play something other than a fighting game or a robot game."
Ranma hummed. "What's Undertale?"
Misao grinned and pointed her remote at the camera to click it on. "An experience."
Laying on her side of the large bed that she shared with Misao, Katie sighed in contentment as she stared up at the ceiling. She couldn't remember a time where she was happier, surrounded by good friends, strong martial artists, and even a pretty girl she was crazy about. Not even the satisfaction of beating up half a high school compared to this peaceful tranquility.
Of course, a savvier girl would realize that this was all immediately in danger of coming to an end, and for Katie this was heralded by the buzzing from her phone, which she reached over and picked up from her night stand. It was an unknown caller, probably from home. Her Mom, maybe? She answered it to find out.
"Hello?"
"Hey there, Kate," she heard a man's voice call. "It's your Uncle Nick."
Katie's heart skipped a beat, but not in any good way. "… Oh, hey Nick… what's up?"
"I'm coming to visit tomorrow. I have um… some bad news."
Katie was filled with dread. Was her job over? Did she have to leave? No, not now, not when everything was finally awesome. "What is it…?"
"I uh…" There was a bit of hesitation on the end of the line, before Uncle Nick finally spoke.
"… I lost a game of Poker."
Katie stopped and stared at the phone, blankly. "… What."
Not a moment after that, Ranma shouted in the living room. "Love Pellets? No! I don't want them!"
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 5/?
|Beating a Dark Horse|
For all the theatrics of the morning, the rest of the school day went by almost entirely uneventfully. Almost entirely, because by lunch, the newly assigned Furinkan Student Council had to be fitted for their new uniforms, the first of what would be sweeping aesthetical changes to the student body of Furinkan High School. After having a look at the new digs, Ranma decided that a school uniform wouldn't be too bad to wear. Kodachi had a sense of style, or at the very least enough fashion designers on her payroll to simulate a sense of style.
Speaking of Kodachi, Ranma was fairly convinced that he was developing a type in violent/evil/crazy chicks because of her… or perhaps because for the rest of the day she walked around in a leotard that looked more painted on than worn. That wasn't to say that the other girls he knew so far weren't lacking. Akane was built like an MMA brawler but in all the right ways, Katie was tall and slender but had flexibility rivalling Kodachi, and Nabiki easily had the most-banging body he'd seen since Misao and himself in the mirror as a girl.
Nice as the scenery was, though, he was still pretty annoyed about being engaged to someone he didn't know because his old man wanted to mooch off the Tendo family for a bit. There was also the issue of his curse, which he at least wanted a way to reverse if his job as an internet personality didn't pan.
It was going to, he had no idea how much.
Speaking of his job, there was the matter of making sure his old man got cut out of it as much as possible. Last thing he wanted was his Pop going around acting like he had something to be proud of with these shenanigans–in addition to making sure that he didn't start living comfortably off his hard work.
"Hey, Katie," he said to her as the foursome walked from the school and in the direction of the Tendo Dojo. Ranma wasn't a rude douchebag, he was going to meet the rest of the Tendos before he went right back over to Misao's to avoid being roped any further into the engagement.
"Yeah?" She replied.
"Think you can help me set up like a bank account or something? I don't want my old man getting his hands on my income."
Katie would find that weird, if meeting Ranma didn't involve driving her heel into the top of Genma's head at high speed after he beat his child over the head with a road sign. While one of them was a panda and the other a girl, because the panda was a dumbass.
"Shouldn't be too hard, Misao hooked me up, she'll do the same for you," Katie said. "You really want him cut out of your cash, huh?"
"I don't want him to get a single yen," Ranma said.
As if he'd heard that, Genma was suddenly tearing across the backyard of the Tendo home, making a straight line for Ranma's location.
"Club treasurer, huh?" Akane asked Nabiki. "That'll be a comfortable gig for you."
Nabiki agreed, especially once she got a look at the budget. The last time she saw that many zeroes line up, they were fighting to ask her sister out. "IT, engineering, and computer clubs, too. Soon as I'm done knocking this out of the park, I've got my foot in the door of every economics school in Tokyo."
She eyed Akane, seeing that she was now carrying a shinai of her own on her back, and a bokken on her hip. "What about you, Kendo Club President? What else did she give you?"
"Girl's athletics and the other non-athletic clubs, though Kodachi's responsible for the Gymnastics Clubs." Akane then hooked a thumb at Ranma. "Ranma's pretty much in charge of all the Boy's Athletics. And he's head of the school's karate club."
Ranma folded his arms and nodded.
Nabiki then looked over at Katie. "What about you? Auto club? Shooting club?"
"Discipline committee," Katie said, pounding her fists together. "I'm the one who busts heads if people act out."
"When Kuno gets back, he's going to be in for such a heartbreak," Nabiki said, "And you know what? I'm fine with that."
"Sheesh! I gotta meet this Kuno guy, just to see how bad he is for myself," Ranma then spoke up.
"No you don't," Akane, Nabiki, and Katie said as one. This would prove prophetic.
At that moment, a large white blur fell from above, aiming not for Akane, Katie, or Nabiki, but for Ranma. Looking up, Ranma was quick to cross his arms and block the massive overhead chop Genma brought down upon his head. A shockwave spread out from Ranma's braced feet, followed by the audible, rocky crunch of the sidewalk fracturing underneath him.
"You got a lot of nerve, trying to make a fool of me!" He bellowed.
"I don't have to try to make a fool out of you, pops," Ranma replied, quickly lashing out with a crescent kick that made his old man back off so they could throw down properly. "You do all the hard work for me!"
Genma adopted a fighting stance of his own after landing. "Don't think you can just run off and do what you want!"
"I know I can, because I already am!" Ranma said.
"Well I'm your father and you're going to listen to me good when I say that you're not picking up this internet gig!" Genma declared as he attacked again, unleashing a barrage of punches, chops and other strikes that Ranma quickly began to counter while returning his own blows.
"Why? Cuz I gotta be a girl while I do it?!" Ranma fired back as he broke the barrage and attempted a spin-kick that Genma smartly dodged.
"Because you know what's going to happen if word gets out about your damn curse!" Genma yelled back as he swung a punch down for his son's jaw as he came back around. "No one's going to take you seriously as a man, ever!"
He missed, because Ranma dove, tumbled between his legs, and hopped right back up on the other side of him, turning around quick and bouncing from one foot to the other.
"You mean the curse-" Ranma dodged another punch when Genma attacked "-that I got-" He avoided another one "-because you ignored the guide?!"
Katie clenched her hand into a fist, and her green eyes narrowed. She just remembered that was a thing.
He stopped Genma's punch for his face with a kick and then moved it aside to go on the offensive, his blows being smartly defeated by Genma despite their incredible force.
"You don't want me to make money off this stupid curse! You don't want me to go back to China to get it cured!" Ranma shouted as he blocked another kick from Genma, his hair blown back by the displaced air. "What do you want from me?!"
"To join the schools!" Genma shouted as he put more force behind his leg, and pushed Ranma back. "That's all you need to do! Not running around showing off your goods online so people might question if you're even a man or not!"
Ranma recoiled, before he bristled. "I'm a man! It doesn't matter what I've got in my pants!" He reassumed his fighting stance. "Or on my chest!"
That just made Genma downright surly. "Ungrateful child! You have yet to see the true horror of-"
Katie's kick connected to the side of Genma's soft head, and he went rocketing into the nearest most adjacent wall–which happened to be the front of the clinic of one Doctor Ono Tofu. The idiot even managed to stand up, dust himself off, take a deep breath and step out of the mess he'd made - but then a flowerpot landed on his head, causing him to land face down on a dropped ice cream cone.
Ranma lowered his hands, seeing the rather embarrassing, but hilarious display. "… 8.5 out of 10."
"Gimme a second," Katie said as she got ready.
Genma immediately got back up, pointing at her. "What the hell was that for?! And who are-?!"
Katie jumped and dove for him, prompting Genma to look up at her to see the angle of her attack. Except that this was what Katie was expecting in the first place, because she had deliberately jumped with her back to the sun. Genma was only momentarily blinded by the sun, because Katie's knee provided all the shade he would need.
Akane and Nabiki both winced from the sheer force that Genma hit the ground after Katie had hit him. Landing next to the second Genma-shaped imprint in the ground, she dusted off her hands, and then her right knee.
"10 out of 10," Ranma said flatly.
Genma, groaning, looked up as Katie stepped closer to him while speaking, "I don't know where you think you are, but here in the civilized world we don't start shit unless we want to get hit."
"Hey Pop, you've met Katie, remember?" Ranma asked. "Her foot disagreed with the back of your head over the whole you taking me by force to the Tendos."
Getting back up, Genma rubbed the back of his head and glared at Katie. "Do you have a problem with how I raise my son, young lady?"
Katie glared at the man, feeling as if something stupid was bound to happen if she let him go unchecked. "If you have to ask, you clearly aren't as smart as you think you are."
Genma's glare intensified, as he prepared to strike the impudent girl down. "Well to that, young lady, I've got something to say-"
He should have just attacked, as Katie's jumping knee sent him flying over the clinic and out of sight, even parting a cloud over head and causing a twinkle in the sky.
"Dead." Katie declared, making a throat slashing gesture. "Get the fuck out of here."
"That's a definite ten." Akane said, looking at Nabiki with an arched brow.
"9.9, a point off for not breaking the sound barrier." Nabiki commented, looking over at Ranma. "You keeping your score?"
"I'm biased but anyone who wallops my pop into the atmosphere deserves a ten." Ranma said, nodding a little. They definitely had to finish that spar soon.
"Oh my, what is going on out here?" the owner of the clinic, the aforementioned Ono Tofu said, emerging from his office to conveniently miss the assault that broke one of his walls.
"Doctor Tofu!" Akane yelped, though she managed to control her usual blushing reaction to him.
He looked down at the Genma-shaped hole in the ground.. "It looks like a grown man fell quite a far ways and hit the sidewalk." He then looked at the similar imprint on the front of his clinic. "And then in the wall."
Turning, he scrutinized the group, looking immediately past Katie and Ranma, his calm gaze falling upon Akane.
"Did you do this, Akane-chan?" Tofu asked, his tone neutral and not as accusatory as the question. Akane recoiled, looking a bit hurt regardless of lack of intent behind it.
Katie didn't like the implications of that question and decided to relieve Akane from the spotlight. "Hey Doc, you don't have to look at the first person to speak and act like they did it. I did it."
Akane breathed a sigh of relief and shot Katie a look of thanks. Nabiki, having hoped Akane would make a fool of herself and push herself out of Ranma's favor, frowned slightly to herself.
"Yeah man," Ranma said, deciding to back up Akane. "If you can't look around and take a guess better than just shoving your finger everywhere, then you should keep it to yourself before someone takes exception to it."
Tofu, taken aback by the double remonstration, studied Katie first and recognized her. That wild animal girl that became Akane's friend a few weeks ago. He then looked at Ranma and found he didn't know the boy. "I don't know you, do I?"
"I just arrived in town the other day, so odds are good you don't." Ranma said, crossing his arms all boss like. "The name's Ranma, Saotome Ranma. Remember it, you'll be hearing it often."
The doctor schooled his features well, but a little... something creeped into his voice. "Hmm… is that a fact?"
"Bank on it." Ranma didn't back down, staring the man down for a second before he snorted and looked away.
"Now, now," Katie said, trying to defuse the strangely hostile atmosphere. "Sorry about your wall, an idiot decided he wanted to take a header into it."
"Oh it's no bother, damage to the clinic happens all the time." Tofu said, doing his best to appear cheerful.
"Doctor...?" Akane whispered to herself, feeling out of sorts seeing the nice and cheerful man so... out of character from what she knew of him. Something about Ranma had set something off in the good doctor.
Nabiki saw her chance to look good and took it. "Yeah, it's a shame but we gotta go. Ranma wanted to see the dojo and you two still got to go back to your place for business right?"
Four sets of eyes trained themselves on her and the differing reactions in each filled Nabiki with a nice sort of feeling. Akane was disbelieving that Nabiki wasn't accelerating the issue, Ranma was all like hey I forgot about that, Katie was neutral with some kind of hidden emotion and the good doctor was… annoyed? Weird.
Anyway, that seemed to break the tension as Tofu reluctantly nodded. "Well as long as you don't want to destroy my office, it's fine. Have a nice day."
The foursome heading to the dojo all said their goodbyes and headed on their way.
Akane pulled Nabiki back for a second. "What are you doing?"
"What do you think I'm doing?" Nabiki asked, smirk evident as she didn't try to hide her ulterior motives.
"Just watch it will you?" Akane said, glowering at her sister.
"Watch what? You eat my dust?" Nabiki returned, smirk deepening into a grin.
"Oi, come on you two!" Katie called, preventing things from going further.
"Coming!" Nabiki answered, moving to catch up with Katie and Ranma.
Akane just glared at her sister's back for a long second, before moving along to catch up.
|Demons and Killers|
"I don't like that guy," Katie muttered of Dr, Tofu the moment they were out of earshot of the clinic.
She wasn't out of earshot of Akane, who seemed as offended by the stance as Dr. Tofu would. "Why, Senpai? He's always been nice…"
Until today, at least, she couldn't understand why he seemed so irritated by Ranma. It was just a miscommunication, that was all.
Ranma had an idea. "The first thing he did when he saw the damage done, he blamed it on you."
"Well that's because Akane has a reputation of getting into fights," Nabiki informed.
"So do I," Katie and Ranma said together.
"Heck, that jerk should've been blaming me from the start," Ranma added.
"On top of that, he sounded like he was making a joke," Katie said.
Nabiki did concede to that. "That is his sense of humor when it comes to property damage. Until you guys came along, Akane pretty much was the only one who could do that kind of stuff."
Ranma looked at Akane, impressed. "Really?"
"Once, when she was twelve, she flipped a food truck because the guy stiffed her."
Akane seemed to brood darkly with that. "That takoyaki was awful and he didn't give me my change."
Nabiki nodded. "On the bright side, he'd been scamming people all day with that, so everything worked out."
"That's fair, then," Katie judged. "I've done more than my share of dispensing justice."
Ranma agreed as he immediately recalled his own brush with vigilantism. "Yeah, me too. There was this one jackass, a grown man, who conned my friend and a bunch of other kids out of their money by beating them in card games. I rolled him up in straw and threw him in a river."
He failed to mention that he lost all of his own money, his Dad's money, his Dad's belongings, his house, and his Dad's marriage to his Mom in the process. But since Ranma beat him up and threw him in a river, it was nothing to be concerned about, he won, that was that. Forever.
"Serves him right," Akane said.
"Did he die?" Nabiki inquired.
Ranma just raised and dropped his shoulders. "Hell if I know, he never came back after me an' Ucchan were done with him.."
It must have been humiliating to be beaten up by a pair of children. Katie didn't feel even the tiniest bit of sympathy for him. "Well if he did, he earned it."
Akane looked ahead and could see the front of the dojo coming up into view. "Well, at least we're almost home."
Nabiki smiled a little in that sardonic fashion that made you feel like she was having a joke at your expense but you couldn't ever prove it. "Such as it is. I'm sure our visitors will love to see the dojo."
Ranma's eyes lit up at the mention of the dojo. "Wow, it's been… years since I last stepped foot in a dojo."
Akane smiled before she sighed. "I'd like to say it's a proper dojo but..." She trailed off, looking rather chagrined by that.
"Daddy hasn't taught in years." Nabiki finished, looking just as chagrined.
Katie interrupted before Ranma could speak. "You call your dad… daddy?" She expected it out of Akane but Nabiki? It just didn't fit.
Ranma didn't say anything because he didn't really know anything about Nabiki or Akane or their father for that matter. But it did sound weird that such a cold girl would use such a sweet word. And funny, but he controlled his laughter.
Nabiki glowered but refused to rise to the barb, instead choosing to turn her nose up with a rather indignant "HMPH!"
Akane giggled a little. "Anyways, it'll be good to have you over when you need to practice."
"And someone to practice with huh?" Nabiki asked, tone arching like her eyebrow.
Akane didn't rise to the bait, mainly because they were there. And also because that's what Nabiki wanted. "Well, we're here. Is Kasumi cooking right now?"
Ranma found his spot to get back into the discussion. "Kasumi?"
"Oh right, you haven't met her yet. She's our older sister." Nabiki said, suddenly not seeming as hot to trot about everything.
"She's very nice." Katie said, as diplomatically as she could. "You'll like her cooking, if nothing else."
"A real homebody huh?" Ranma asked, not sure how he felt about that.
Akane laughed nervously, deciding it was time to change the topic before things made the two of them look really bad. "Well you'll meet her eventually, but let's get to the dojo. I'm sure you'll want a tour!"
"Sounds like a great idea, Kasumi's probably too busy right now." Nabiki said, trying her best to keep her composure.
Katie arched an eyebrow, but after a few seconds of thought, she could understand how they were both feeling less than adequate with their smoking hot older sister looming in the wings. "We didn't get to finish our spar and this might be our best chance to finish it." She threw the sisters a lifeline, one that was sure to add any brownie points she might have already earned with them.
Ranma, sensing that there was no point in pursuing the Kasumi topic, went with the change. "Yeah, I really do want to see which of us is better."
"Try not to obliterate the building please." Nabiki said, her tone almost pleading. "You can break a few boards, crack a hole in one of the walls but at least try to leave it standing. Minor repairs don't rock the boat but something major could sink us."
Akane, remembering the mini-tornado from earlier, could only nod in agreement. "Yeah, that'd be real bad." She may not have been greedy like her sister but she didn't want to funnel any new found income into rebuilding the dojo.
Katie and Ranma just exchanged a short look and shrug. "We'll try to be careful, but don't be afraid to bill my roommate for any damages, for real."
"Does she cover all of your shenanigans?" Nabiki asked.
Katie nodded. "She even paid for that clock I broke. That was like a drop in the bucket for her."
"I see," Nabiki said in a cooler tone than her usual.
"Still, try to keep it down, okay?" Akane said as they came in through the front door.
"RANMA!" An exuberant Soun Tendo greeted them, but specifically him, as soon as they were through the threshold. "Welcome to the Tendo Dojo, son!"
The patriarch of the Tendo family came right up to the foursome, beaming brightly when he finally got a look at the young man one of his daughters would certainly marry. "I see that you at the very least don't take after your father in the looks department. Which is good, very good, right girls?"
"Uh, thanks?" Ranma replied.
Nabiki keenly nodded. "Not that I'm a shallow girl…"
"You absolutely are," Katie muttered in English.
"… But at least be thankful that you might not grow up to look like your old man," She went on to suggest.
Soun strolled up and hooked an arm around Ranma's shoulder. "So, how about my daughters, eh? Lookers aren't they?"
"They're pretty nice people, yeah," Ranma quickly corrected him.
"Just you wait until Kasumi gets home," Soun went on, as if not hearing him. "She's a darling girl, loves to cook, and is sharp as a blade. She likes to play humble, but I've caught her reading those medical books she picks up from Tofu time to time."
Akane hummed. "Where is Kasumi?"
"She went out this morning as soon as you left to get some errands done," Soun replied. "She said she'd be gone most of the day."
Nabiki immediately narrowed her eyes. Kasumi was pretty sharp, and if she was willing to vanish for the whole day that meant she had a plan of her own. A quick glance in Ranma's direction made her pretty certain what she was up to.
"Well, that's all right. I was here to check out the dojo, anyway," Ranma said.
Soun nodded. "Of course, of course. Feel free to stay for dinner, as well! This is your home now, after all."
"Actually… I'm just visiting, I have to go to work after this…" Plus he wasn't keen on staying the night at the Tendos given that he might wake up at the altar the next morning tied down. Nothing against the girls, it was the whole Dad factor. "Plus I don't want to be a strain on your food supply…"
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "Misao let you in the house at all, so our couch is your couch."
Soun didn't care for Ranma being in such close proximity to girls that weren't his daughters about as much as Genma didn't care for him working as a girl. "Nonsense, nonsense, you should stay here from now on. This is eventually going to be yours, after all."
"Uh, thanks but…" Ranma stopped when he noticed that Soun was beginning to manifest a rather large menacing aura. It was downright demonic, dark and filled with an anger barely contained by Soun's mockery of civility.
"Okay… that's actually a little intimidating," Ranma thought
"Is there something wrong with my daughters that makes you uncomfortable, Saotome? Is all that I am giving you not good enough? Is my generosity and hospitality lacking in some way?" Soun asked as he advanced upon Ranma a bit more, looming over him with an almost fully demonic air about him.
Ranma actually took a step back, hesitant to go onto his guard, but at the same time quick to seek out a way from being in this situation.
"Daddy, stop!" Akane said quickly. "If Ranma doesn't want to stay, then that's fine!"
Soun paid it no heed. "Well, Ranma?! What exactly is your problem with this arrangement-!"
He then stopped, and drew back from Ranma a full five paces. Directly behind Ranma, Akane, and Nabiki, Katie was staring directly at Soun, her eyes dull despite the murderous intent they drilled into him. He skin crawled, as if he could feel her hands clamping around his neck.
Reaching up, she then brushed some hair from her face. "Oi, isn't that a bit rude? Bad enough he got dragged here by force, but you have to treat him like it's his fault for not wanting to stay, too?"
Akane agreed wholeheartedly. "That's what I mean, Ranma's not going to want to marry anyone if you treat him like this, Daddy!"
Soun, a lot meeker (and suddenly extremely wary of the wild girl glaring at him), tried to put up a token defense. "It's his responsibility to…"
"He didn't even know it was his responsibility until yesterday! None of us knew!" Akane shot back.
"Akane has a point," Nabiki pointed out. "We didn't get any warning about this at all, nice as Ranma is."
She looked to the side, feigning sorrow. "I mean, how awful is it? To be treated like a commodity to be traded and sold at our own father's whim?"
She turned completely around, microphone in hand, and a spotlight shining down upon her. "With no say in our own destinies, we exist not as people but as mere trading stock! A resource to tap for wealth and prosperity and escaping a bill!"
Akane, who had a rather excellent history of stage performance, swooned and fell to her knees dramatically into the spotlight, just behind her sister. One hand rested on her knee, the other at her mouth as she wept. "How awful, to be betrayed by father…"
Soun was soundly defeated by this impromptu improv performance, the arrows of guilt having rammed deep through his body and into his soul. They were bigger, heftier arrows than they ought to be, though, as if there was some kind of unspoken and weighty validation behind them that was yet to be revealed… until right now: Picolet Chardin.
Bawling in contrition, Soun threw himself down to their feet. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please take your time to get acclimated to us! Don't think us Tendo family as awful people!"
"Eh, all right," Ranma said. "I'll accept your apology if you show us to the dojo."
Soun was his jovial self in a second. "Of course, right this way my boy!"
As he turned away to lead them down the hall to the dojo, however, Soun developed a more serious look and darted it out the corner of his eye towards Katie. His demonic aura of intimidation was one that only his master could really resist, but it was ultimately a bluff for scaring off opponents to buy time for an escape, a counterattack or both. That girl's look… those eyes… there was no bluffing there.
"I should discuss this with Saotome, that girl has a killer's eyes…" He thought to himself.
Katie stepped up to Ranma and gently nudged his shoulder. "Hey, Ranma."
"Yeah?" He asked when he looked at her.
"Get ready," she said with a noticeably smile now. "When we get in there, I'm going to give you a real treat."
Well now Ranma was plain ol' curious. "A treat, huh?"
Katie nodded and looked forward to the dojo. Her blood was heated up again already, and once they were out on the floor, it would be boiling.
|A Glimpse of Heaven|
In the dojo, Katie's school uniform came off, revealing underneath a pair of red bicycle shorts and a black and red sports top. Cracking her neck, and stretching to pop her back and shoulders, she turned and looked across the floor of the dojo, where Ranma stood with Soun. The two were standing side by side, with Ranma doing his own stretches and limbering up for the fight. Between them, Nabiki and Akane sat on the sidelines, wearing face visors to protect from splinters.
"Well, hopefully it won't be interrupted this time," Akane said, quite eager to see how long Ranma could last against her senpai.
"We can only hope." Nabiki was more interested in seeing Akane's senpai being used as a mop to wax the floor with her blood.
Over by Ranma, Soun was still quite contrite as he spoke in a low voice. "I'm sorry for the manner with which I behaved before, but I think you should hear me out, son."
"Don't call me son, but what is it?" Ranma asked as he stretched to touch his foot to the back of his head, prompting Nabiki to bite her lower lip.
"Be careful against that girl, there's something… unseemly about her," Soun said gently, "She's got a menacing air about her."
"She just doesn't tolerate nonsense," Ranma deflected. "She punted Pops into the next town over for his."
Soun recoiled. "She did what?!"
"But that's okay. Besides, I've fought her before, I know what I'm in for."
He actually didn't, as he would find out in but a moment as Katie called over to him. "So! Since we were interrupted this morning right when it was getting good, I think we should change it up a bit to get right back into the swing of it."
Ranma paused. "Oh yeah, what did you have in mind?"
Katie smiled and stepped up to the edge of the floor reserved for fighting. "I'm going to show you a little bit of my Uncle's fighting style. The one I've been trained most in since I was four."
That was unexpected. "… You mean you haven't?"
This was news to Akane too. "Your Uncle has a fighting style?"
Katie nodded. "Yep, I've used it off and on, but I roll so much other stuff on top of it, that I never have a chance to go back to basics. And Ranma here is so good, that I wanna give him my best. 'Course, that means we'll have to change the rules from first to hit wina to first to yield loses."
Ranma was fine with that. "Depends on if you can hit me."
"Oh, I will." She looked to Akane and winked. "Pay close attention, you might learn a thing or two."
Akane felt a little chagrined by the teasing but she let it slide. She would be lying hardcore if she said she wasn't excited to see her senpai's absolute best. "I will."
Katie turned her attention to Ranma, and the smile on her face turn feral. There was no flirtation to the expression, just pure battle mania. As though the prospect of the fight alone was bringing her-
"Pleasure, that's what this spar is to her. Is she out for blood or what?" There was no worries in Ranma's mind as he sauntered out to the floor. He had grown up in the wild and knew what to do when it came to beasts who lived to bite. "If she thinks she can just sink her fangs into me, she has another thing coming."
He stopped across from her, sliding down into a stance that was reminiscent of Jeet Kune Do. "Ready when you are."
Katie threw a few more punches to the side, away from Ranma, before pulling herself up into the basic stance of what appeared to be Muay Thai. Her right leg was leading just a little, her right clearly intended to be her jabbing hand.
Akane raised an eyebrow. "Thai boxing...?"
Nabiki frowned, feeling like the tease wasn't being delivered on. "That's not it, is it?"
Ranma narrowed his eyes and studied his opponent for a long second. "The more I look at it, the more it looks ever so slightly off. It's not just Thai boxing... probably." He kept his cool and smirked. "So? We doing this or what?" Deep down, he had already catalogued nearly all the ways she could attack him and how he could counter. If it was just Thai boxing, this would be over quickly.
Katie just chuckled. "I'm ready now. Do you want first move?"
"Ladies first." His face was filled with egotistical condescension, clearly spoiling his motive to irritate her.
"Don't regret it now~❤" She replied, before firing off a right jab at high speed that sliced the air apart.
From Ranma's perspective, it wasn't so much a punch as it was a harpoon fired at him. From what he knew of Muay Thai, that was too fast and placed wrong. Still, he dodged it, looking like it required no effort. He fired back a left cross that was slapped aside, followed by a right front kick that was slipped. "She's already faster than earlier. Already revved up and going full throttle despite the long cooldown. What a monster." That was okay, he was a monster too.
She dipped into a right elbow that seemed like it was trying to blow through Ranma and kill the guy that was figuratively behind him.
Ranma slid away from the elbow and noted again that the placement was wrong. In normal Thai boxing, that would be more towards the head, not towards the sternum. Such placement significantly increased the chance for an agonizing injury, if not death. "The force and speed behind it are even more than usual. This isn't the Thai boxing used for sport, this is the real deal."
Soun's eyes narrowed as the two teens circled each other. "A killer's eyes and a killer's style. It is as I feared." He thought, recognizing the style immediately. "You've noticed, haven't you son? She isn't using Muay Thai, but its progenitor Muay Boran. A true art of violence, designed to reign supreme on the most savage battlefield known as war."
Ranma nodded his head and went in, throwing a series of punches that left minute openings. They were all blocked or slipped, not a single baited hook reeled in a fished for counter. "She'll bite when she wants to, no amount of trying to get her to counter will work eh? Fine by me."
Katie furrowed her brow in concentration. "I get the feeling he still isn't taking me seriously. Let's change that." She reared back and threw forth a bomb of a left that almost hummed in the air for his face.
Ranma jerked his head back just in the nick of time, feeling the puff of displaced air as her arm reached the end of its reach. Intriguing, she was throwing fast and hard without sacrificing either. "Game on huh? Message received loud and clear."
He shot forward, charging inside her reach and firing his own blow for her liver. It whiffed, and Ranma narrowly blocked a quick series of strikes, the offensive beating him back before an opening appeared in Katie's guard that he decisively exploited, ducking down onto one hand while thrusting a kick up at her chin.
Katie weaved back from the kick, but her attempted roundhouse kick to punish her inverted opponent missed as Ranma sprung himself off his hands and directly above her, planting his feet on the ceiling.
"Oh!" Akane and Nabiki exclaimed, before Ranma came down on Katie, first seemingly tumbling to swing his own heel down onto her head. When she smartly raised her arms to block, he twisted his entire body like a cat avoiding falling onto her and getting the opening he needed to kick her in the chest as he caught himself on one hand.
"How did he do that?!" Katie thought as pain echoed through her chest. Those reflexes were incredible!
As she caught herself, Ranma hopped off his hand and landed on his feet. He could see Katie was smiling despite her taking a hit. That just compelled him to hit her hard enough to knock that grin off her face. "The Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling specializes in aerial combat. It doesn't matter what position I'm in, I can always attack!"
He demonstrated thusly rushing straight for Katie and lashing out with a kick that she blocked with her right arm. Rather than go back, Ranma went up, jumping off her raised arm and then rebounding off the ceiling to kick downward. Katie sidestepped the blow, and fired off a swift right hook that went through the speed lines Ranma left behind as he leaped past her, only to abruptly twist himself around and spin kick her in the back.
She was just fast enough to turn and bring her right shoulder and sloppily raised forearm to block the hit, but lost her footing as Ranma rebounded right back to the ceiling and this time dashed right over her head and towards the nearest wall.
"He's all over the place!" Katie thought as Ranma kicked off it and fell upon her, the momentum helping his punch as she brought up both hands to block it. With even quicker leg work, he deluged her with a total of three kicks, the last one he used to spring off her. "So fast, too!"
Ranma's feet finally touched the floor, a smile of his own as he sized up Katie's style. Defensively she was a fortress, nearly impossible to get off her footing, and fast in a straight line. However, she didn't have much counter for his agility that he could see. It was time to hammer that weak point until it broke.
In the space of that assessment, Ranma's full weight had yet to hit the floor, and when it did he was off again, every microsecond dedicated to plotting out potential routes for his next series of strikes and possible counters. Katie had a million ways to stop him, but he had a million and one.
Though in actuality, Katie had a million and two.
As he took off the ground again, this time to kick, he saw it: the Muay Boran stance shifted again, both feet planting as she adopted a stance more suited for grappling than striking. But what was most important, was that she opened her guard completely for the attack.
And it was at this moment that Ranma knew… he fucked up.
Ranma's flying spin kick didn't even connect, as Katie lunged into it and, as his leg grazed her side, snatched him out of the air by the front of his shirt at the shoulder with one hand. The rest of her arm went right across his chest, his own momentum turning the strike into a devastating lariat as his course reversed and then went straight down into the floor.
Akane gasped at the sight of Ranma being plucked clean out of the air and driven into the floor like an American Football in the endzone. Bouncing off the floor, Ranma caught himself on his hands and feet and sprang away from Katie, but as he attempted to set down she was closing in, her eyes locked squarely on him as she lashed out and caught his right arm in her right hand.
"Whoa…!" Nabiki gasped.
Akane leaned forward, amazed. "That grappling…"
Counter the grab, use it against her. That's what he tried to do before he could even think it, but his footing was completely absent to do any of that as she pulled him into her, and they met at her knee and his solar plexus, the force of the blow knocking the wind out of him as he was raised higher off the floor.
Through the pain, Ranma realized something shocking. "She's… faster…!"
Soun narrowed his eyes. "You need to escape her hold, Ranma!"
He attempted to regain his footing, but his arm was arrested, still clamped tightly in her right hand. It was time to go unorthodox! He immediately brought his whole body up, wrapping his arms around hers and hooking his legs over her shoulder, taking her arm and extending it into an armbar.
"He's got her!" Soun said.
Nabiki threw forth a fist. "Yeah! Go get her, Ranma! Break her arm off!"
Surprised by Ranma's counter, Katie staggered a bit, before she planted her feet, keeping her arm held out and Ranma held up above the floor. She could feel the strain and pressure Ranma placed on her joints and muscles.
Soun nodded as he observed the move. It was textbook, yet unorthodox, the very form of Indiscriminate Grappling. "You've taught him well, Saotome. This boy is worthy to succeed us!"
Katie looked over at Ranma, who grinned defiantly, before she returned the smile. If he was good enough to get her in an armbar, then escaping it wasn't going to be easy. However… if things were easy, she wouldn't have him deemed him worthy of Heaven.
She crouched, bending at the knees while still holding his arm straight out, leaped upward, striking Ranma directly against one of the beams supporting the roof of the dojo. The blow shoved him into the ceiling, crumpling him against the ceiling and effectively freeing her from the lock. To his complete disbelief.
"She…!" Ranma thought as both began to fall.
"… Broke…!" Soun gasped, as Katie shoved Ranma below her and began to turn in the air.
"… Out!" Akane said right before Katie connected not her tibia, not her knee, but her elbow–driving it into his sternum.
The floor shattered in a wide circle from the force of the blow.
Ranma then rammed into the center of the circle, bouncing off it as it shattered and splintered from the second impact.
The last thing Ranma saw before everything went black was Katie hanging in the air above him, a murderous smile on her black-hair framed face.
The last thought he had… was that he needed to know how to beat that.
"Ranma!" All three Tendos present cried, coming over to stand at the edge of the broken floor.
Katie landed just outside the edge of the hole, peering down at the fallen Saotome.
Akane knelt down, checking on the condition of the pigtailed boy. That blow had been tremendous, maybe even harder than Kuno had been struck when he was sent through the clock tower. Her body trembled at the sight of her senpai's power but it wasn't out of fear. She was excited to see someone so powerful, so skilled present in her dojo. It made her want to get good enough to fight Katie on the level Ranma had.
For the first time in years, she had a goal to pursue in the art and it felt amazing.
Nabiki stared at the black haired girl, disbelief evident on her face. She didn't think Ranma was invincible but seeing him in action only to be swatted aside like that just shocked her all the more. It reminded her that this girl was her age, her own classmate no less, and yet they were so far apart it was like they were polar opposites.
Was she invincible? Was that it? Could no one beat her? The spike of disbelief deepened itself into a burning flame of envy. Why was it that she was denied these gifts and talents? Why was yet another example of how feeble and weak she was staring her in the face, only it was someone who wasn't entirely a goody little two-shoes about it?
She almost clenched her hands into fists but thought better of it.
"He's alive, but out cold." Soun announced, having been the one to go down in amongst the broken floorboards and tatami to check on the son of his dear friend. The boy was magnificent, but that girl... she was something else.
"I wasn't trying to kill him and he's too hearty for that to hurt him for long." Katie said, schooling her features into a confident smirk at the Tendo Patriarch. "I could tell from hitting him that if I didn't do something big, he'd just absorb my hits and keep coming. Can't stop a charging elephant with love taps y'know."
Soun narrowed his eyes in contemplation, before he let her words go. "I guess I can't fault you too much for that. He was going to break your arm if you tried a more conventional attempt at escaping."
Both of his daughters looked to their father, slightly shocked at that. They were both escalating the spar that much.
"We can't fault her for fighting to the best of her abilities." Akane said, looking down at Ranma, noticing that he was breathing if a little shallowly.
"Ranma-kun did seem to be going full bore too." Nabiki allowed, doing her best to not look at Katie.
"Should probably leave him there for a little bit, just to let him recover." Katie said, crouching down at the edge of the hole. "Moving him too soon is bad."
"Let's not dump cold water on him either. The shock might cause problems." Soun added, still silently measuring this dangerous animal girl. Yes, animal, a good descriptor. She hungered to bite and tear at flesh, that elbow had surely shown that. That uncle of hers must have been a real monster to do this to her.
It would turn out that he had forgotten that lies exist because the truth hurts so much more.
|Some Kind of Woman|
Time had passed, but how much was not known to the waking mind of Ranma Saotome. What he did know was that he smelled food and now was the time to figure out the rest. He was sprawled out on a futon, a damp towel on his forehead to control his body temperature. His eyes cracked open, pain from the light stinging his eyes. He looked around and realized this must be the family room of the Tendo House, they must have moved him here after he had been knocked out.
Knocked out, which meant he had lost the spar. He hadn't underestimated her at all, he just didn't have enough data to ensure a proper measurement. He hadn't ever really met someone who could match, if not surpass, him in speed. It was an eye opening experience, one he'd have to revisit as he started training again.
He did something ill-advised and sat up, the room swirling for a second as he gasped for air
"Oh you shouldn't do that!" A soft voice called from just out of his view, from behind him. It sounded warm and comforting, like a sweater on a chilly day. He didn't recognize this one, their mom?
"I'm okay, I'm used to this." He bluffed, trying his best to be reassuring. He closed his eyes, as a pair of hands with well manicured nails gently took his shoulders and lowered his head back down not onto a pillow but to on a warm, soft lap.
"I grew up in a dojo and in this town and I know injuries when I see them." The voice took on a sharper quality, she sounded peeved at his bravado. "But you're already up so just stay still." There was an edge of warning in her voice, one he decided to obey.
"Yeah, sorry. I'm not good at following the rules, y'know?" He replied, a rhetorical shrug and a verbal grin dancing merrily along the words.
The woman huffs in amusement, before she spoke again. Her voice was directly above him. "I can see that."
Ranma opened his eyes and froze as if he had been ran through with a lightning bolt. If all the girls he had seen so far were all sorts of crazy hot, he had just tripped over a downright goddess of pure hotness. Her long brown hair started straight down to her chin, before it became a beautiful display of curls down to her mid back. She was wearing a pink sweater over a cream-colored button-down shirt and a pair of tight blue capris. She had such grace and style that stole the sarcastic quip right out of his mouth, crumples it up and feeds it back to him in the form of a fat tongue knotted up in amazement.
"Uh... hi." It wasn't shy in the least, he was just too stunned to form any kind of added emotion.
"Yes, hello." She said, giving a little bow. "I'm Kasumi, Nabiki-chan and Akane-chan's older sister."
"Sister!?" The word echoed in sheer disbelief through his mind, before he decided to speak. "I'm Ranma... Ranma Saotome."
"It's a pleasure, though I had hoped our first meeting would have been better." Kasumi said, a brief pout crossing her face.
Ranma almost forgot himself for a second, but he caught himself. "Well, it's better than me being drug her against my will." He tried humor to recover, but this proved to be an unwise move.
Kasumi laughed and Ranma felt like getting put through the floor of the dojo was a small price to pay to witness such a thing.
Her laughter attracted company, as Katie popped up from somewhere else in the house. "Hey I, uh… wanted to check on him, see if he was okay and all..."
Ranma's eyes narrowed at the bashful way Katie was acting, but being around Kasumi really did seem to excuse it a tiny bit.
"He's apparently fine, Katie-chan." Kasumi said, smiling at the girl. There's a tickling warmth in the tone, which proceeded to melt Katie's insides.
Ranma forgot all about excusing the bashfulness and focused on the swell of jealousy deep within himself at that moment.
"That's... that's uh, really great!" Katie managed, her face has turned a bright red at this point. She turned around and called back into the house. "Oi! You two, he's awake!"
More footsteps followed and soon Akane and Nabiki joined them. Without prompting, he began to compare the sisters to Kasumi and found that it wasn't quite as much as a wash-out for the eldest he had subconsciously been thinking. All three had their best sides that appealed to him in a fashion that outdid the others and oh lord he was about to become some kind of sick pervert.
"How you feeling champ?" Nabiki asked, trying to be neutral and hide her concern in addition to her contempt for Kasumi's fantastic makeover. He couldn't see it but the way she said it seems like she had been chewing on her lips right before she spoke.
"Like I got knocked through a floor." He returned with a light bit of levity. He smiled to defuse any offense taken from the comment. "Nah, outside of my pride, I'm fine. I'm used to aches and pains by this point." They usually took the form of his father after all.
"That's good!" Akane said, all cute and bubbly. Her voice wafts through the room like a warm breeze, where upon it does a dance across Ranma's brain. It reminded him of ingesting a sugarcube after having a lemon wedge. All fizzy and electric, leaving behind a dizzying rush that reminded you what it was like to be alive.
"Because it'd be bad otherwise right?" Katie teased, and Ranma found that he wasn't as on guard around her anymore. He had finally quantified the discomfort and thus he could be passively aware of the danger she posed instead of actively alert.
"C'mon Senpai, you know what I meant!" Akane wailed in mock distress, drawing a laugh from both girls.
"Anyways," Nabiki's cool voice butted in now, serving as a soothing balm to the rising irritation at the by-play happening before him. "Katie called her roommate and explained things about the spar, so you have a little bit of a grace period to eat dinner before heading over." From the angry squeak Akane gave, it was apparent she had been scooped on delivering the good news.
"Wouldn't want to show up late to work without an explanation." Ranma muttered, before looking down at the futon. "Is it okay for me to get up now?"
Kasumi nodded. "As long as you're not dizzy anymore."
He slowly lifted his head from her lap, and he was reintroduced to the lingering burn of pain where Katie's elbow had met his sternum. Nothing else would have put him down for the count like that, something she had somehow determined over the course of their two spars. Interesting, something else to consider later. "So when's dinner?"
"In just a few, there was a sale on beef today." Kasumi answered and Ranma could feel a chill in the air at that.
"Well lucky me I guess." He ignored the frostiness and sniffed the air. "Smells great!"
"It's more western fare," Kasumi said as she rose back to her feet. "Since Katie-chan's come to visit, I've been curious to try it."
On that note she looked to Katie. "I'm just about finished with it, but would you mind helping me out a bit with some finishing touches?"
"Uh? Sure," Katie said, before looking over to Ranma and flashing him a smile. "Hey man, sorry for putting you into the floor like that."
Ranma, though feeling the sting of defeat, brushed it off. "One of us was going through it, I just wished it wasn't me."
Reassuringly, Katie decided to pay him a compliment. "That armbar was brilliant, and I didn't want to take any chances with the usual outs. I probably would've had my arm ripped out my socket ten different ways."
"Twenty," Ranma corrected, though it was actually one hundred and three at last count. One hundred four now, though–he would remember Katie's creative counter.
Katie smiled, just before Kasumi called to her. "Katie-chan, I could really use a hand on this."
Huffing in amusement, she turned for the kitchen. "All right, all right…" She looked back over to Ranma and smiled. "We'll do this again soon though, that whole fight was too good."
And with that she was gone, and Ranma turned to find Nabiki and Akane waiting for them to join him at the sitting table. Soun was just outside the room on the home's patio, leaning against a post and smoking a cigarette. He appeared to be in deep contemplation.
"Geez," he said as he rubbed his chest, "I expected great things… but that was something else entirely."
"I don't think any less of you for losing," Nabiki revealed to Ranma. "You'll get her next time."
Ranma smirked. "You're damn right I will."
Akane then not so discreetly slid a glass of water that had been on her side of the table, right up to Nabiki. A quick look at it and the realization that followed granted the much more discreetly smirking Akane a brief glare of grudging respect from her older sister.
"I would temper your eagerness to fight her again, Ranma-kun," Soun said.
Ranma looked over at Soun. "What?"
Soun took a drag from his cigarette, and exhaled a long cloud of smoke visible in the orange glow of the descending sun. "That girl… she's not a normal martial artist. There's so much anger and aggression there." He turned and gave Ranma a dramatic look. "If you fight her again, and push her too far, she will kill you."
"Daddy! Don't say that kind of thing about Katie-senpai, especially behind her back!"
Soun shook his head sadly. "I'm not saying anything terrible about her, but rather the one who trained her in the first place. Whoever it was, they have instilled within her a lust for battle and blood that is unhealthy outside only the most vicious battlefield. Lurking beneath your friend's exterior is a rabid wolf on a rusty chain. Ranma. If you fight her again, she will go for far more lethal blows without even meaning to."
Nabiki, while not a fighter, was certainly not ignorant of the world of fighting thanks to growing up in it. "Daddy has a point."
Ranma folded his arms. "She won't kill anyone, not on purpose or on accident."
Soun couldn't see that, not with the menace and brutality in her moves against Ranma, or what he heard of from her fight with Kuno.
"If she wanted blood, she could've gotten it," he said, "All she had to do was drag out the fight until we beat on each other enough for there to be blood."
He gave Akane a reassuring look. "She ain't no killer or a psycho or anything… she just gets off on fighting."
Akane recoiled a bit, a blush appearing on her face at the very context of Ranma's statement. "G-gets off…?"
Soun disagreed. "That wasn't mere excitement for a fight, don't mistake it as such."
"She's a hardcore adrenaline junkie," Ranma assessed. "She acts really cool and detached, but I saw it both times we fought–the better her opponent, the more excited she gets, and I impressed her so much that she showed me something that I want to beat, and I'm going to beat it." He smiled. "I couldn't call myself a martial artist or a man if I didn't accept that challenge."
Nabiki picked up the glass of water and took a sip from it, mostly to cool her face from Ranma's boast.
Akane herself then remembered their very first spar, and the smile that was on Katie's face after she had put her into the wall. Suddenly she found herself wondering what would've happened had Sasuke not interrupted the spar. Their spars after had been somewhat lower intensity after that, more exercise to keep in shape than pushing limits… but that was going to change.
Soun still wasn't swayed, but unlike Genma he wasn't going to fight the boy over his opinion. "Be careful then, Ranma. Whichever of us is right, I dread what sort of terrible thing she might do if she becomes too excited."0
If there was anyone who had a good idea of what a motivated Katie could get up to, it was Kasumi of all people, who let out a giggle as she overheard Soun's dread-filled statement over the eager kiss she shared with Katie, who was embracing her from behind at the counter next to the stove, where dinner simmered for its final minutes of preparation.
"Mm… what's so funny?" Katie whispered as she broke the kiss.
Kasumi smiled vibrantly as her right cheek was nuzzled tenderly by the foreigner's left. "That I'm doing such a terrible thing."
Katie, who had also heard it, grinned back and nuzzled lower, towards Kasumi's neck. "You could do so much worse."
She emphasized that by sliding her hands, which had been at her trim waist, down to her hips and giving them an appreciative squeeze. Kasumi responded with an excited sigh, and slipped her own right hand up to caress the right side of Katie's face. "Sounds like fun."
Katie giggled herself, and went right back to helping Kasumi with some finishing touches.
|How to Girl… Period|
"BansheeDeadSix here, and welcome to the Debrief, where I spend ten seconds of a two minute news report introducing the two minute news report." In her now studio-style lit living room, Misao stood, rather than sat, in front of a camera tripod, her back to a mural featuring a P-47D Thunderbolt with a rainbow haired blue pegasus painted on its fuselage slashing through the air past an exploding Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter, the former plane's wing-mounted eight machine guns blazing fire.
She, dressed more professionally in a black top and blue jean skirt, looked at her watch. "And that's it."
Looking back up at the camera, Misao spoke. "First off, Pokémon. The Pokémon Company released images of the starters for Pokémon Sun and Moon, and already I don't care for the grass and water starters because CUTE FIRE CAT OH. MY GOD. Game of the Year, and I say this with confidence after playing SuperHot, Souls 3, and Overwatch."
She then brightened. "Speaking of, the Overwatch Beta was a smashing success! With thousands queueing for hours to enjoy thirty seconds of getting fucked by Bastion players before the connection drops. Your very own Banshee spent the entire first day of the Beta making Zenyatta her handsome robo husbando, and Widowmaker her ice cold waifu–and every Tracer salty. You can see clips of that in the link to my right!"
A smirk appeared on her face. "But I already know who you all want me to cosplay as, and a certain generous fellow has already shipped the parka my way. Once it arrives, patrons are in for a special, frosty treat!"
She then put her hands together. "In more somber news, Disney has shuttered its Infinity line, and withdrawn completely from publishing video games in house. With Activision's Skylanders seeing a downward trend in sales in the toys-to-life niche over the last two years, Disney's lack of confidence in its knockoff Infinity line drove them to make the decision to close things down. Disney is still committed to the video game industry, with Kingdom Hearts 3 set to release after Square Enix finally runs out of ways they can milk Kingdom Hearts 2."
Misao then produced a cup of tea with a Lipton label hanging from the teabag string and took a sip as she looked to the side. Lowering it, she carries on. "China's new console, Fuze's Tomahawk P1, is a blatant ripoff of the PS4 and Xbox One. You'll probably see it soon in the west, when a smarmy British commentator reviews it on a comfortable looking couch. And you'll see it even sooner here in Japan, collecting dust just behind all the Xbox One on store shelves."
Misao made finger motions, as if firing guns. "Hashtag Shots Fired! The staff here at BansheeDeadSix is probably not going to do a first look at the console, not because I insulted the company, China's pride in ripping things off, or the fact that it's literally a knockoff of two consoles I already reviewed–but because China has banned streams of girls eating bananas from their glorified intranet–and I need my potassium intake while gaming guys, you know this."
From behind her back she produced a peeled banana and erotically plunged it into her mouth, taking it further than was safe, withdrew it slowly, pushed it in again, and–after giving a pouty look to the camera–bit through it.
"Don't worry," she said coyly, "I swallowed."
She opens her mouth and sticks out her tongue as proof. "Finally, in a bit of good news, that a call to boycott against yours truly in defense of a certain vidya gaems writer, regarding the viral spread of certain comments on a stream about a certain party of women whom may or may not be related to said writer, evaporated as said party of women confirmed the veracity of statements made by yours truly."
She grinned. "Filming for projects related to those statements is due to begin once schedules align… and divorce proceedings pan out. And that's it for the Debrief. Like, comment, subscribe, always check your six and remember that the number one rule to combat is survive. BansheeDeadSix, over and out!"
Producing a remote, she shut off the camera and pumped her fist. "One take, flawless. Yes!"
She performed a pirouette where she stood, stopping when she saw on the kitchen wall-mounted digital face clock. It was 19:40, which meant that her roommate and houseguest were going to be here. "In three, two, one…"
The door opened, just as she predicted. In walked Katie first, a light spring in her step as Ranma brought up the rear. He was still not used to having a regular place to return to that wasn't a tent in the park or hiding in a bush, it showed in his footsteps. Ready to bolt if he needed to, the mark of a wild animal feeling like it's wandered into a cage.
Misao nodded, she was used to the skittish behavior. After all, Katie had been like that at first, aggressively stamping around while looking out for the moment someone was going to fall from the sky and try to kill her. She knew she had to work with what she was given, the coal to be pressed into a diamond.
Time to move.
"Hey you two!" She called, her voice bubbling along the walls. Katie's pace immediately slowed down into something of a more measured gait, while Ranma's relaxes into something more flat footed. Her voice has done its job in making sure that they won't be assaulted. "Martial artists..." She rolled her eyes but it wasn't in scorn or mockery.
"Hey, already done with the Debrief?" Katie took point, letting Ranma continue to bring himself down.
"Just finished!" Misao replied, slipping out to see the two of them still walking towards the studio. It was a slight bit later than she wanted, but they were going to put Ranma's girl form on the internet and watch it explode in a wave of otaku tears and money. "One take is all I needed, bae!" She looked past Katie and shot Ranma a wink, just to see what would happen.
"Good job boss." Ranma said, his tone even and respectful. It's slight, but his face had faintly turned a shade of red. He was still adjusting to the sudden shift in his life where he traded in his Panda Dad for a bunch of hot girls. Not that he was about to complain, mind you, whoever made that deal got hosed something fierce.
Pleased with the reaction, Misao got down to brass tacks. "All right, go grab some cold water and a towel. We got enough time for me to give you a crash course on how to do this thing without too much issue. Once you got it, we'll be doing a quickie first time stream to get your face out there to the general public." She watched as his face soured and waited.
He didn't defy her expectation. "I still don't get why I gotta be a girl." That was mostly a lie, he knew enough that a pretty girl could survive for days without cash and eat like a Queen. He was a guy, damn it.
Misao smirked, sidestepping the usual arguing in favor of shutting everything down. "Don't worry, that's part of the lecture." Her smirk ditched the edge and softened down into a smile. "You're going to places few boys ever will. That makes you pretty special in my eyes."
The buttering worked, as Ranma's neck suddenly felt hot at his employer's words. "All right, I'll go get the water." He slumped away, shoulders hunched with embarrassment. It'll be a while before he got used to a pretty girl telling him all the sweet things in the world.
Misao turned to Katie, eyes narrowed a little as she observed her roommate with a cool gaze. "All right," she said in English, just in case. "What has you about to start breaking out into song today?"
Katie took a moment to consider her answer, before her face twisted into one of those infuriating smiles that make you wanna try and punch it off their face. She had a great day and is flaunting it at anyone dumb enough to ask. "Oh not much, me and Ranma had it out in a fight. I won just so you know."
Misao snorted, as she could read between the lines enough to see the truth of the matter. Fighting alone would never ever have made her this chipper, the only other thing that had Katie walking on air like this was a successful hookup. "Must be her..."
That girl in the photo Katie had texted her a week or so ago. Not her Kouhai, but that girl's oldest sister. Damn, she still couldn't think about that girl without being consumed by lust. Couldn't even be jealous, she'd be all up on Kasumi too if the opportunity knocked.
"So yeah, I'm golden tonight so you two have your NEET initiation or whatever." Katie replied, all innocent like.
"You bitch." Misao only thought it because Ranma returned before she could verbalize it.
"Got the water and the towel, now what?" He already knew what, he wanted to know where it was supposed to happen.
"Follow me to the couch," Misao said, pushing whatever thoughts she had about Katie and what was going on with the girl from her mind. Time was now to get ready to put up another huge revenue stream, one that didn't even realize the potential at its fingertips.
She turned back to the couch in front of her huge entertainment setup and led him to where he was going to make his stream debut. As a she but there wouldn't be any smoke and mirrors. With real, legit actual magic on their side, she was going to turn this slab of beef into the tenderest lamb. All before dangling her before the wolves of the internet.
It was almost sick but you didn't get anywhere in this world with a weak stomach and no convictions. They were right outside the chair he was going to sit in when they stopped. She turned to him, eyes full of authority. "Transform and dry off. Once you're reasonably dry, you can sit down and I'll begin our lesson for today."
Transform, like he was some kind of Henshin hero, only with water and sex-changing instead of wind and bugs. So simple, yet so complex.
Ranma lifted the glass of cold water over his head before it's turned upside down, upending its contents onto his head.
Misao's eyes are glued to him, taking in every detail, to study and dissect later.
The change is never the same two times in a row, never has, never would as far as Ranma knew. This time, he felt the chill of the water shoot through his entire body before it hit. Ah, that tingle which signified his transition from him to her. Inches from his body are melted off in seconds, as he visibly shrinks before his audience. The shirt that was just the right size has swallowed the girl he has transformed into. At the same time, her breasts push and strain against the fabric, all at once too big and too small.
It's fascinating to watch, really watch as it only last 1.243 seconds, as Misao's brain estimated. Bones have shrunk, legs compacted, muscles of a man are replaced by the breasts of a woman. He turns from rock to unheated clay, the masculine hardness is washed away into a feminine softness that can't possibly be real. Misao wanted to touch the redhead but knew well enough not to.
"I have her trust for now, don't blow it."
Soon after the change has finished, the towel is employed to dry the neo-girl off. His jet black hair has become her bright red hair. The angular muscled jaw of a boy rocketing into manhood has been bent and skewed into the soft features of a girl having it out with puberty in the wrong places. Everything visibly significant has changed, down to having hips that most women would die for.
If she hadn't seen it herself, Misao would swear she had been attacked by a magician. It's so impossible it still doesn't seem real, but all other explanations for it don't land. She stared for a few more seconds before she spoke at last. "Dry enough?"
Ranma nodded, not feeling like talking unless she had to.
"Then have a seat so we can begin." When Ranma sat down as commanded, Misao then asked. "What do you know exactly about women and how they work?"
As a disclaimer she added. "There's no wrong answer, just fill me in on what you've been taught by your dad or experiences."
Ranma's brow furrowed as she contemplated all that she knew about girls and what they were. "Well, from my Dad I learned that most of the time women aren't really into the martial arts, but did tell me to not underestimate a woman who was."
"Huh!" Katie smirked, leaning in just inside the doorframe. "I guess he's not a total idiot. What else did he say?"
"Oi, I thought you were done for the night," Misao snapped at her in English. "Go frig yourself or something, leave us be, shoo, shoo."
"Mm, that's actually a good idea," Katie said before turning and strolling off to the bedroom.
Misao tutted and sighed in frustration. "I swear, sometimes that girl has less modesty than I do. So? What else did he tell you about women?"
"They can be emotional, I guess?" Ranma said next, having paid no mind to the shift in English, but waving goodnight to Katie when she departed. "And that once a month, their attunement to the moon or something makes them kind of crazy, turns them into man-hating monsters."
Misao chuckled a bit, that ol' stereotype. "Yeah, kind of saw that one coming."
"Oh, and he did once tell me, when I asked him about how he met my mother, that the best way to get a girl interested was to make it seem like you didn't care for her at all. Like, act like you weren't interested and point out her flaws so she works harder to seek your approval. Stuff like that…"
"Wait, huh?" That made Misao stop for a second. "Your Dad actually believes that?"
"Well, it worked for him," Ranma said, not really sounding all that convinced. "Though now that I say it out loud… Why would a girl ever be into a guy that insulted her all the time?"
Misao nodded slowly, as she made a mental note to visit her Mother and Aunt for some stuff before she actually attempted to meet this Genma guy herself. And to also get this kid into a healthy relationship ASAP.
"Well if they are, then they've got really bad taste in men. No offense to your mother," she said.
"It's all right, I never actually met her. My Dad took me off on my training trip when I was like a year old." Ranma hummed. "Though I'd like to."
Oh, this kid was a great big ball of psychiatrist's paycheques in the making. This web series might actually save him more money than it wound up making him. If she played it right… Ooh, listen to her all of a sudden! Miss Responsible Adult, haha!
She needed to put a stop to that before her reputation fell in danger.
Misao brought her palms together, her fingers pointed at her chin, before she leveled them at Ranma. "Right, it seems that this curse might really be a blessing. Since it's inadvertently brought you to me before your Dad could fill your head with anymore of the mush that's in his."
"I… Guess?" Ranma squirmed. So cute! It was like staring at a mound of double chocolate ice cream. You knew you shouldn't, but it was so so tempting to take a nibble. A naughty little nibble that would turn into a bite if you weren't careful.
Misao beamed. "Well, first off. I'm not going to tell you what girls like because girls like all sorts of things. You really have to play it on a case by case basis. Some girls, like Katie, are a bit rough around the edges. They like martial arts and that sort of bulls–I mean, that sort of thing. Then there are 'girly' types who actually like that 'girly' stuff. Shopping, gossip, dramas, and stuff like that."
That was kind of the vibe Ranma got from Nabiki and Kasumi, actually, and Akane was very much like Katie in her interest in fighting.
"Then there are girls like me, who play videogames, watch violent movies, and like to have lots and lots of sex with men and/or women," she added, putting a hand on Ranma's knee. "Believe it or not? More common than you think."
"Oh." Ranma sat quiet for a moment, before her eyes widened. "Oh!" She repeated, louder, as if amazed by the very concept.
"There's nothing different between us men and women really, outside of some physiological differences that can't be helped. Girls usually get away with having more hobbies, though." Misao then smiled. "But that's why you're so amazing, dude. You can have it both ways, do whatever you want, and have fun doing it."
Ranma squirmed a bit more, finding some uncertainty in that. "I didn't think about it like that… it's just… I'm a guy."
And Misao understood that emphasis. "Well yeah, of course you're a guy. Regardless of what your plumbing is, if you believe you're a guy, then you're a guy. No one else can say otherwise."
Ranma processed that, and looked down at herself. Even in this body, she was a guy.
"And as long as you have this body of yours." She patted Ranma's knee. "Then it's as much part of you as being a guy. So think of it as a challenge, a fight to win, something to become good at. Master the art of being a woman, to be an even better man!"
Master the art… now she was talking her language. If he could understand what it was like to be a woman, then he would know more about women than any man who ever lived. That was what she meant by the goldmine she was sitting on! Not just the income she could make, but the wisdom she could gain!
"Well, I guess now's good as time as any to get in touch with my feminine side," she joked.
Misao smirked. "You're off to a great start, you're surrounded by some great teachers already."
Ranma nodded, then raised her arm into the air. "Okay, first lesson then teach… what's a period?"
Misao shrugged her shoulder. "Oh, menstruation, that's when you bleed for a couple of days out of the vagina. It comes with cramps and those kind of suck. Well, I barely feel them, Katie hates hers."
Ranma recoiled a bit. "And that's normal?!"
"Yeah," Misao replied. "Pretty much every woman who has a functioning uterus goes through it. It's a basic function of the human reproductive system."
Ranma made a face. "The human reproductive system is dumb."
"Yeah it is," Misao agreed. "So, since that's out of the way… ready to become an internet sensation?"
Ranma looked at her filming setup, and then back to her. "Sure, what are we going to start with?"
"Well, I always wanted to sit with someone doing a blind playthrough of Undertale, but I could never get Katie to sit down for more than thirty seconds to play something other than a fighting game or a robot game."
Ranma hummed. "What's Undertale?"
Misao grinned and pointed her remote at the camera to click it on. "An experience."
|She's gonna have a Bad Time|
Laying on her side of the large bed that she shared with Misao, Katie sighed in contentment as she stared up at the ceiling. She couldn't remember a time where she was happier, surrounded by good friends, strong martial artists, and even a pretty girl she was crazy about. Not even the satisfaction of beating up half a high school compared to this peaceful tranquility.
Of course, a savvier girl would realize that this was all immediately in danger of coming to an end, and for Katie this was heralded by the buzzing from her phone, which she reached over and picked up from her night stand. It was an unknown caller, probably from home. Her Mom, maybe? She answered it to find out.
"Hello?"
"Hey there, Kate," she heard a man's voice call. "It's your Uncle Nick."
Katie's heart skipped a beat, but not in any good way. "… Oh, hey Nick… what's up?"
"I'm coming to visit tomorrow. I have um… some bad news."
Katie was filled with dread. Was her job over? Did she have to leave? No, not now, not when everything was finally awesome. "What is it…?"
"I uh…" There was a bit of hesitation on the end of the line, before Uncle Nick finally spoke.
"… I lost a game of Poker."
Katie stopped and stared at the phone, blankly. "… What."
Not a moment after that, Ranma shouted in the living room. "Love Pellets? No! I don't want them!"
Chapter 6/?
Six!
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 6/?
As her bombastic entrance hinted at, when Kodachi Kuno's ambitions were naked, she was a force to be reckoned with. From the moment the last student left the building the day of her arrival, Furinkan High School was transformed. Over a thousand contractors descended upon the school, remodeling it under the strict orders that the building be completely renovated by the next morning.
The old typical Japanese High School aesthetic quickly vanished under hammers, saws, and drills. And when the dust settled Furinkan High School was a full story taller and had a European Private School aesthetic that radiated high class and sophistication. Glass hallways designed by a mad Austrian, Italian decor, French Cuisine in the cafeteria, and uniforms by Hugo Boss. Were a lesser accountant to have a look at the price tag for the work done on Furinkan, their eyes would explode from their sockets and their skin would melt from their faces.
For Nabiki, it was an amusement, given the budget she was carelessly handed by Kodachi and expected to work wonders with. And oh, the wonders she would work.
She was sitting in what was now the Student Council office, a large and open room that had once been two third floor classrooms before the walls were knocked down and the floor finished with the finest wood. Out the window behind her, Akane was on the gymnastics field with Kodachi and Ranma, overseeing what was the beginning of physical education for the hopeless boys of Furinkan, and directly in front of her was the paperwork regarding school clubs that Kodachi wanted financed and rolled out.
"To think this school was a laughing stock a couple of weeks back," Nabiki mused aloud. By the end of the year, this school was going to be the best on the planet, provided that Furinkan's legendary run of bad luck didn't shift back onto it.
Then again, things have been really quiet as of late, though to acknowledge it would mean that Nabiki would have to acknowledge-
"Oi, Nabiki," Katie suddenly said, and Nabiki's mood somewhat inverted, but didn't make the nosedive into the ground.
She turned and looked up at the tall transfer, now wearing Furinkan's new all black sailor fuku–albeit with an electric green tie at her insistence. "… Yes?" It wasn't an annoyed tone but it buzzed close. Enough to rattle the tower at least.
Katie less than cared. She already had what she needed to make this whole thing go her way, so she'd let Nabiki play her games. "I got a little business to talk with you."
Nabiki's eyes widened a little, as if she hadn't expected that Katie might ever need to do business with her. "You have my attention but only so much." There was the club overhaul that needed to be ran through before it met the rubber stamp after all.
"It's nothing that'll waste too much time." Katie replied to smooth things over. "How good are you at cards?"
"I get by. Which game are you beating around the bush about?" Nabiki replied with an annoyed tone. She had all this money she could be deciding how to dish out and bleh.
Katie feigned annoyance, letting the other girl feel in control. "Poker."
Nabiki smirked a little at that. "Did you know poker was banned at Furinkan starting this year?"
"No." Katie honestly had no clue about that.
"Some sore loser finally grew a set and squealed about the poker games we were having after school." Nabiki said with a vicious grin. "Sad, but it didn't pay quite as well as I had hoped anyways."
"Wait, you ran illegal poker games at school and didn't even get into trouble?" Katie seemed dubious about that.
"At the school that let the potential gang rape of my sister go unpunished until someone kicked the Principal's son through the clock tower." Nabiki reminded her.
"Oh." So much had happened Katie forgot for a moment how this had all began.
"Yeah oh." Nabiki snickered. "Anyways, there are few people you want to see with a deck of playing cards than me and they're both in America."
"I honestly can't tell who she might be making a reference to." Katie thought to herself. "That's good, because I need to learn how to play, fast."
"Need, now there's a word." Nabiki said, pursing her lips and considering it. "Let me guess, some wacky misadventure just so happened to dance into your life and now you need to play a high stakes poker game straight out of Kaiji."
"More or less." Katie figured mentioning her uncle wouldn't help. Nabiki wasn't sentimental like that. "So, you were the first person I thought of who could help me win."
"You're bad at poker?" Nabiki had figured Katie was one of those geniuses who just happened to be good at everything.
"I've never played." Katie confessed.
"Oh you need to learn how to "play"." Nabiki said, adding finger quotes around play for emphasis. "Well when you take out legitimacy, you'd probably like those other guys over me."
"How much?" Katie asked, finally getting things where she needed them.
"No impassioned speech of friendship to try and convince me?" Nabiki was hoping to at least get a laugh out of this. How disappointing.
"I'm not good at those. I'm more about other things." Katie admitted.
"Like what?" Nabiki asked.
"If we're going fully my way, I'd seduce you and you'd help me after all the nice things I did to you." Katie said with a straight face.
Nabiki narrowed her eyes at Katie and was trying to determine if her classmate was shitting her or not.
"… But my way isn't for everyone and I'd rather still have time to train for this match." Katie grinned a little, throwing Nabiki off that much more. "Your way is easy, pay money, get service."
"That is true, do you have any idea who it is you're facing off against?" Nabiki wanted to be sure it was worth it.
"One of the many assholes who fancies himself the King of Gambling. He apparently beat someone to whom I have personal ties to and I am being obliged to even the score." Katie explained. "Sounds like he might have been after me from the get go, considering how much he seemed to know about me."
Nabiki kept a straight face, using the poker face she had used to conquer her Freshman year at Furinkan. Inside though, she was remembering something really really bad. "I see."
"So how much?" Katie asked again.
"Make an offer." Nabiki replied, pushing down the feeling she wasn't familiar with.
"I have mentioned I'm Misao Darlian's bodyguard right?" Katie asked, waiting for Nabiki's confirmation. "Well, we're also good friends and long story short, I have permission to write a check on behalf of her family's company."
Nabiki's mouth ran dry for a second before she cleared her throat to compose herself. "I see."
"So again. How much?" Katie pressed, all without a single hint of physical intimidation.
"Nah, I'll be fair to you and let you guess how much you think it'd take to buy me for this little venture of yours." Nabiki didn't want to get too greedy here, messing with someone like the Darlian family was an immensely bad idea. Right up there with walking through the Tomobiki neighborhood while announcing she wasn't wearing panties.
Katie scribbled a number on a piece of paper and handed it over.
"I'm pretty sure this guy is after the bounty on her head. What a quandary, do I accept her money and sabotage her so I'm rid of her like I had planned, or do I accept the money and help her win?" Nabiki thought all of this in the time it took for Katie to scratch out the number. Opening the paper, she looked down at a sizable amount of zeroes. "Quandary averted!"
"So...?" Katie asked, sensing the shift in the other girl.
Nabiki appeared to be the perfect face of professionalism. "Tell me, do you know what a poker face is?"
"An expression that's hard to read, right? So people can't tell what if you're bluffing or not." Katie knew at least that much. "Kind of like yours right now."
Nabiki ignored the attempt at flirting, instead focusing on the task at hand. "Well, we have a starting point at least." She looked over at the stack of paperwork. "Let me get this done and we'll begin."
"So I take it you agree to the price?" Katie wanted to at least hear the affirmation.
"Yes, yes. Akane would mope for weeks if you got driven off, to say nothing of our glorious leader's tantrum if her Disciplinary Officer had to skip town." Nabiki said, rolling her eyes.
"To say nothing of the money." Katie said, giving Nabiki a certain look of quasi-innocence.
"Oh please, if not for the cash you'd never get anywhere with me on this venture." Nabiki organized the papers. "Now, sooner I get these ready, sooner you learn how to "play" poker."
Katie laughed and took the dismissal for what it was. "For the record though, I really did hope you'd try things my way." She bounced from the room before Nabiki could react.
Nabiki found it kinda hard to focus on the budget for a minute, having to fight off the odd blush that had taken root on her face. This was a little harder for her than she would like to admit, given that she was used to being to one to make other people uncomfortable. Regardless! This was a temporary setback. She'd have her revenge before long.
And if, in the process of waiting for that revenge, she got a few more cheques of comparable size? Well, Nabiki could certainly be motivated to be a little bit patient.
The sound of a student's body then crashing into one of the room's sturdy windows like a fly against a windshield made Nabiki jump, and she looked back to watch him, a kendoka slide slowly down the window and back towards the ground below with a soft squeaking sound.
Two weeks of self-loathing had not been kind to even the most athletic of the hentai horde. Not in a physical sense, thank heaven, but concepts such as self-worth and basic human dignity evaporated quickly in the hours after Akane collectively dumped all of them.
While Kodachi had lit a fire under their collective asses, it was barely a match in the wind. The road to reclaiming their masculinity lay in restoring that which men placed their pride in, first off, physical aptitude and prowess.
"As the new Captain of the Kendo club, there are going to be some changes," Akane announced to the amassed young men. "The first and most important thing is that you'll be expected to all pull your weight. Not a single member will carry their clubs, especially in any of the martial arts clubs. It is because of that laziness that none of you could stand up to Kuno."
Ranma folded his arms, unsure if such a demand could be honored by this menagerie. Kodachi, however, earnestly agreed.
"A bold first step, Tendo Akane!" She declared before addressing the boys directly. "Conquer your own weakness, and your self-loathing and despair shall follow with haste!"
Ranma looked over to Akane, who was dressed in full Kendo gear, and leaning upon the shinai she was about to beat most of these young men silly with. "So what exactly do you plan to do today?"
Akane glanced over. "Determining who's the strongest of these students so that they can become club presidents."
"How're you going to find that out?" Ranma was genuinely curious.
Akane returned her attention to the front. "The same way anything is decided here in this neighborhood."
She lifted up the Shinai and rested it on her shoulder. "We fight it out."
Murmurs rumbled through the crowd. The specter of fighting Akane immediately reminded all of them of the one-sided slaughter that she repeatedly and enthusiastically committed against them on a daily basis. In the weeks since, the reasoning sank in that they had indeed made the wrong call in facing off between her and Kuno–their odds would've been so much better against the latter.
Kodachi sensed their trepidation, and elected to drive her heel into it. "Victory is not the goal in this skirmish! Your goal is merely to show what skill, talent, and strength you have. Those who perform exemplary will not only be elevated to officer position within their respective club, but their club will receive funding in accordance to that performance!"
She pointed the baton of her ribbon at the group. "This is success of the fittest, and I expect a good showing from all of you!"
That caught their attention, a club officer position? Extra club money? Fear quickly drained away, as goals actually worth fighting for gave that weak flame the fuel of ambition. It burned hotter, and the yammering became one of speculation and determination.
Ranma's concern became curiosity, as Akane stepped towards the crowd of young men, the shinai still on her shoulder, while the crowd spread out in a wide half circle around her. He'd heard plenty of her prowess to this point, but now he wanted to see it for himself. Just how did a girl like her take on so many of these guys at once and win with such ease?
Akane looked back at Ranma, and flashed him a smile. "Watch carefully, Ranma!"
She looked ahead at her opponents, before calling out to them. "One at a time, or all at once, just don't hesitate or you won't give it your all."
Kodachi then held up her ribbon, and slashed it through the air like a start flag. "BEGIN!"
There was, naturally, some hesitation at first. However, an industrious young boxer soon overcame his fear entirely, let out a kiai and charged straight for Akane. This immediately opened the floodgates, as soon every student was in a full-bodied charge straight for the Kendo Girl.
Akane lifted the shinai off her shoulder, and took it in both hands. As she neglected to wear her helmet, the charging boys could see the determined smile spread across her lips and the fire of competition burn in her own eyes. Then she was moving forward, kicking off the ground and charging that same boxer who initiated the charge.
"Here I come, Akane-!" His powerful left hook came right for Akane's jaw, as she adjusted the aim of her shinai. At the last second, his punch whiffed her face, as the shinai connected sidelong into his left side, and he was swept away as if captured by the flow of a flash flood.
The boxer went on and a half dozen bodies were soon propelled up and out of the charging crowd like a bomb had gone off. Several more boys were launched as well, this time by Akane directly as her uppercut with the shinai cleared a wedge of them closing in on her from the front.
Ranma perked up at the sheer physicality of Akane's attacks, watching her as she turned around and crossed bamboo with another kendoka, the sheer strength of her strike causing him to hit himself with his own shinai and knock him back. Two karate club members leaped over the falling kendoka, and twisted themselves out of the way when she turned and swung up at them.
One landed behind her, and charged her back. Taking the shinai, she aimed it over her shoulder and pegged him square in the forehead in it, before slamming it down upon the second club member as he tried to attack her while she was distracted.
Stepping over the flattened boy, she ducked and weaved over more strikes from another kendoka, and parried a few more quick, strikes she couldn't dodge. This was effective in allowing other boys to surround and move in, weakening Akane's defensive options.
"Oh, he's good," Kodachi said of the kendoka.
Finally taking one hand off the Shinai, she reached up and caught her opponent's bamboo blade, stopping him long enough to drive the tip of hers into his stomach and fling him into another group of boys.
Flipping the shinai over, she caught it by the handle and assumed a two sword stance, causing Ranma's eyebrows to raise.
"Is she really going to…?" He asked before she went and did it.
Whirling around, she used both shinai with great effect, knocking down and aside those earnestly foolish enough to attempt to get at her back, while using both bamboo blades to keep a circle open where only the bodies of the defeated lay. Her gaze swept left and right, the smile on her face becoming familiar to Ranma as she waited for the next comer.
She didn't have to wait long, as three sumo wrestlers came right at her, faces aggressively painted arms outstretched to swamp her before she could do any harm.
It was for naught. With one shinai, she tagged one of the sumo in the ankle, causing him to stagger, before spinning and sweeping him off his feet with both. As he cartwheeled in place, she drove both bamboo swords into his stomach, and he went spinning backward through the other boys. Sweeping the shinai to her sides, she clocked the other two sumo upside their heads, knocking them both out and leaving them crashing to the ground behind her.
And now Ranma was impressed. Not just at the magical things Akane could do with a couple of tightly bound together bamboo sticks, but the sheer, overwhelming joy that Akane was wearing on her face as she did it. It wasn't like the bloodthirsty smile that he saw with Katie… though it resembled it on the surface. No, Akane was smiling like she this was the first fight she'd ever gotten to enjoy.
"Come on!" Akane called out as she deflected and blocked one fortuitous student's attempt at striking her with a field hockey stick. "Give me everything!"
She turned away from him as she knocked him off his footing, using the time he spent recovering to similarly duel two more kendoka, knocking one out while capturing the shinai of the other and directing him around her to thrust his shinai into the field hockey player's chest. She then conked the deflected kendoka atop his head, dropping him straight down.
"Don't hold back!" She shouted right before another boxer got inside the reach of her bamboo blades and began lightning fast flicker jabs for her head. Bobbing her head, she kept just out of the boxer's reach, as she hopped back with his footsteps forward. When she brought both shinai up to block his strikes, he simply bashed them both aside with a headbutt and then followed with an uppercut, that Akane avoided by flipping up and away, throwing the shinai in her off hand down at his face and laying him out flat.
Kodachi nodded in approval. "There goes our boxing club captain."
Taking the shinai in both hands, Akane fell towards a judo club member, who simply held tightly to the belt of his gi, fire burning in his eyes as he braced himself for her attack. When it came, he didn't move, he didn't block, he simply yelled his kiai and met the shinai with his forehead.
The shinai didn't break, but Akane's momentum went to zero, and the ground buckled beneath the judo student, who screamed again and then lashed out to grab her.
Ranma tensed in excitement when he saw that. Now that was what he wanted to see!
When the judoka's hand clamped onto her shoulder, Akane twisted out of it, and swung the shinai around, only to have it strong armed by his other hand as he thrust the first to palm her back. Akane swung herself around the other way, catching the judoka behind his knees and forcing them to them. And then back around again she came, striking the burly young man across the chest and dropping him on his back.
Even on a warm pleasant day like this, Akane was running so hot that puffs of condensation were clearly visible with her breath, as she turned and charged towards the remaining horde, who were only growing bolder and more decisive with every show of courage from the the likes of those who could last more than a few seconds against her. With the drive to meet her approval replacing their fear of Tatewaki Kuno, they were beginning to see the potential that Kodachi could see in them!
While Ranma could see that potential himself, that was none of his concern at the moment. All he could see was the beautifully grinning Akane as she lost herself in the thrill of combat. It was so distinct from Katie now. The held back impulse to destroy wasn't there, instead there was amazement at her own strength, the excitement of avoiding a strike, and the joy of connecting a blow and defeating an opponent who earned it.
He could've sworn that she'd never experienced something like this, the fun of a real slap down, drag out brawl. If this were a battlefield, like in the old days, she'd be right up there with himself and Katie, a force of nature that swept through everything in her path!
And… Ranma found that he liked that a lot.
"GAHHHHH!" One of the last remaining attackers, some weird kid on a pogo stick, screamed as he was brought down and left unconscious. This left only Akane and one other kendoka, who was armed with a bokken rather than a shinai.
Akane had been keeping an eye on him, he was one of the smarter ones, lurking around the back of the crowd, watching the fight with vested interest. Akane found him interesting, but there was a problem with his pose and intention–there was a complete lack of excitement in it. Both Kodachi and Ranma noticed it as well.
"This guy's not from our school," Ranma realized.
Kodachi nodded. "An excellent observation, he must've slipped into the crowd during the gathering of students." She narrowed her eyes. "A spy from Kolkhoz High School perhaps? Oh Saginomiya, how dare you be so petty…"
"Saginomiya?" Ranma asked.
"Ohohoho, never you mind… that is merely the name of gnat who will soon be crushed," Kodachi replied.
"If he ain't from around here, he might be trouble," Ranma said.
Kodachi disagreed. "I doubt he will be anything more than a footnote in her story of greatness."
The kendoka tightened his grip, and Akane immediately recognized it. It was nothing like the style of kendo that Tatewaki Kuno drilled into his former subordinates. There was also something ominous about it, clear and real intent to do harm to her.
She just smiled, it was nothing compared to what she felt from her senpai. "Whoever you are, you're about to make a mistake."
The masked kendoka just let out a short chuckle, and came right at her, bokken low and body moving fast. His thrust missed as Akane flowed around it, guiding his wooden blade away with her bamboo. What felt like slow-motion suddenly became fast-forward as he recovered from the deflect with all the skill of a professional champion and came at Akane with slashes so fast that the air cracked. Massive, over the head blows mixed with figure-eight patterned swings that were definitely not Kuno's barrage of forward thrusts.
They were fast, very fast. Strikes glanced off Akane's armor that she couldn't deflect with her sword. They came agonizingly close, almost trapping her if not for the slightest twitch, dip, or shift in Akane's stance. It was here, as this mysterious opponent came with every intent to strike her down rather than survive, that Akane's smile did take that characteristic of Katie's… bloodlust seeping in as she recognized this opponent as only an enemy.
Ranma saw it, and he tensed up again. This wasn't going to end well.
Kodachi, however, was on the verge of drooling as she anticipated the outcome of the duel.
She would not be disappointed, as the kendoka suddenly caught Akane's shinai as she attempted to parry a strike–then swung the shinai around and around in a circle before knocking the weapon up and out of her hands, straight up. As the shinai flipped upward, and Akane's gaze was drawn up after it, she realized that she was open right as the kendoka lunged forward, to bring the bokken down on the top of her head.
"Know your place, Furinkan dog!" The swordsman shouted as the blade came down on her head… and hit nothing. "Huh?!"
That's because the bokken had been snatched from his hands when Akane caught it flat between hers and gently wrenched it free. Twirling the bokken around in her hands, she caught it by its hilt, as her opponent slowly turned towards her, his eyes growing large.
It was at this moment that he knew: he fucked up.
Akane's newly claimed bokken slammed into his crotch, shattering the skirt armor of his kendo uniform and the cup he wore to protect his berries. The impact came with such force that the bokken shattered as well, as he was lifted off the ground a good meter and a half. Casting the destroyed wooden sword over her shoulder, she kept her hand above her head and caught her shinai by the handle, before taking it in both hands and rearing back to aim a thrust straight for the kendoka's sternum.
"My place is standing over you… with my heel grinding your head!" She yelled before she fired off the thrust, the tip of the shinai striking her target dead on and accelerating him, not unlike Kuno and Genma as done by Katie, into a terminal flight straight into one of the corner windows of the top floor of the school, where he struck with a loud bang.
Thanks to the building's renovation and reinforcement, however, all the foolish kendoka left was a smear of blood and drool as he slid down the side of the now mostly glass building to the ground three stories below.
Panting, Akane lowered her shinai and looked around the unconscious or stirring young men she pummeled into the dirt. She then looked over to Kodachi and Ranma, her smile regaining all of its beautiful properties while losing all of the darker aspects. "So, how was that?!"
Kodachi began to applaud, certainly impressed. "That was magnificent, Tendo Akane."
"Yeah, you were pretty good out there," Ranma admitted.
Kodachi then gave Ranma a teasing look. "Certainly fine marriage material, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Fiancé?"
Ranma began to blush somewhat, as he was put on the spot. "I'm not saying she's not."
Not at all, in fact… seeing this side of Akane just made the prospect and conflict of marrying one of the Tendo girls all the more difficult. One by one, they were all really starting to show how amazing they were. But admitting it outright brought on so much baggage that he was almost afraid to. Bad enough that he would have to acknowledge his father for bringing him here, but then he would actually have to choose one.
Kodachi whistled, and a number of her handsome gentlemen were at her side in a flash. She then gestured to the beaten young men. "Take them to the infirmary. Our new nursing staff shall administer onto them the finest of care. Do not look down upon them, for they have taken the first step to become fine young men like yourselves."
"Yes, Kodachi-sama!" The gentlemen chorused before getting to work.
Akane walked over, still a bit huffy. "I'll have the list of club presidents in a moment, Kodachi-san."
"Yes, keep that fresh in your head. For now, we must deal with the intruder upon our garden," Kodachi said as she and Ranma turned towards the unconscious kendoist.
Akane stepped up as well, and nodded. "Yeah, let's go get Katie-senpai, some discipline is in order."
"What did I tell you, Saotome?" Soun said to his former rival and now best friend as the two of them sat in a bar that was mostly empty due to the early hour of the day. "Tofu-dono does exceptional work."
Genma was still smarting from being launched by Katie the day before, but as Soun boasted the Tendo family's physician was surprisingly capable at treating the sort of injuries that came with being launched into the lower atmosphere. "I'm surprised but happy about the quality of work provided." He could have done without the excessive pain the treatment entailed. "Since I was gone for the time being, how did the boy's visit go?"
Soun chuckled to hide his nerves. "It went pretty well. I have a feeling the boy is smitten by all three of my daughters in some fashion."
That came as something of a relief to Genma, long as those three held his interest he didn't have to worry as much about the likes of those two young women he'd spent the last two nights with. "Finally, something starts going my way."
Soun, as if compelled by the universe to dash that hope, had to mention something to put the worry back in the elder Saotome. "Just the same, he apparently has taken up residence with those two girls."
Genma's eyes widened, as in the background someone entered the bar. "You couldn't get him to stay the night?!"
"I tried but he was too headstrong for me… and my daughters leapt to his defense." Soun said in defense of himself. He wasn't going to mention being scared shitless by Katie though.
Genma appeared mollified by this. "Oh, well at least they're interested in scoring brownie points with the boy." He had apparently tired of this point, and moved on the most pressing issue. "I can't believe I've been waylaid by the same girl twice."
Soun nodded in sympathy. "She is a budding master of Indiscriminate Grappling, even without training in our schools." That reminded him, there was the thing he didn't want Genma to know. "Saotome, your son and that girl had a spar last night."
Genma shrugged it off. "So the boy already avenged me eh?" He laughed for a couple seconds before he realized Soun wasn't laughing. "Didn't he?"
Soun shook his head sadly. "It was a close contest, but she won. He was magnificent though and had she been a little more traditional, he would have defeated her soundly."
The boy lost?! Well that was three times that this girl has humiliated him. "Tendo, we have to do something about that girl."
While Soun would readily agree that there was something wrong with the young lady Izland, and felt that her association with not only Ranma but the rest of his family didn't have a positive outlook going, he had his reservations about confronting the girl about it. "What do you reckon by 'do something about her'?"
"I mean as long as she's going to be around, she's going to be an extremely bad influence on my boy, and upon your girls too!" He shot back, inadvertently reminding Soun of why they were friends–they more often than not thought alike. "It's one thing to convince him to throw away his manhood by embracing his curse, but it's another thing entirely to beat him!"
He pounded his fist on the bar top. "I trained my son to never lose–except to me, but even that's happening less nowadays–do you have any idea what it means to have some girl, out of nowhere mind you, show up and defeat him?!"
"She's skilled, Saotome," Soun lamented. "Whoever trained her, trained her as well as you trained your son."
Though there was certainly a darker intent behind the training. Ranma was trained to master the art, certainly, but Katie was trained to use it.
Genma, however, could not let go of his lost pride. "That doesn't matter, my son is the best! He's not supposed to lose, especially not to some shifty-eyed, nosy, meddling girl too tall for her own damn good!"
The curtains draped halfway over the otherwise fully opened front doors of the bar shifted and then were pushed aside, as a figure stepped in. A foreigner wearing steel toe boots, khaki pants, and a matching vest over a gray shirt. He also wore a well-worn dark brown fedora, the right side of the wide brim pinned up against the side of the hat with what appeared to be a senbon needle.
He loped over to the counter, where the older, stern-looking bartender watched him with narrowed eyes. Without preamble, he reached the stool at Soun's left and dropped himself down on it, before calling to the bartender and slipping a few yen please. "Biggest mug you've got, Sapporo."
The bartender nodded his head, and soon enough a tall, frosted mug of beer was set in front of the foreigner, who lifted it up and took a long, slow sip. "Afternoon, gentlemen."
Genma immediately pretended that he wasn't spoken to by the foreigner, as Soun was closer to him. Left on the spot, Soun grew a bit tense, before he brought a closed fist to his lips and cleared his throat.
"Hello, can my companion or I help you?" He asked.
"No, but I think I can help you," the foreigner replied in a polite, gentlemanly fashion. "I was walking by outside this nice establishment, when I heard some fairly unkind words about a young woman. As a man whom many people seek to solve their problems for them, I thought I'd come on over and offer you a bit of assistance on this one of yours."
Soun gave Genma a look, his little outburst had been heard all the way outside? How embarrassing. "Pardon my friend, he is just frustrated over… well… a young woman that has been getting into scraps with him."
"A woman, huh?" The foreigner looked past Soun, at Genma. "An ex-lover? Baby-mama drama?"
"Don't be absurd, I'm a married man with a wife who loves me!" Genma snapped back. "This problematic woman is a high school girl who doesn't know to mind her own business!"
"People not staying in their own lane? I, ironically, can empathize with your plight." The foreigner replied. "Tell me more about it?"
Genma scowled, and took a sip from his small dish of sake. He could never turn down someone willing to pay him some sympathy. "The girl's a damn savage, beating up on both my son and I, completely unprovoked. Kicked me in the head twice, like she wanted to kill me!"
The foreign man whistled in sympathy. "That's pretty rough for ya man. Sounds like she was trained by a right cool son of a bitch, though."
Soun took exception to that. "Cool? There's nothing 'cool' in training a girl that young to kill!"
"Hey now, man, the world's a dangerous place. Rapists an' Monsters an' aliens an' shit running around. A girl ought to know how to kill so she can walk to school with some peace of mind."
Genma dismissed that outright. "What would a killer know about peace of mind?"
The foreigner snorted. "What kinda killer leaves someone they're trying to kill alive?"
Soun paused to consider that, having lost whatever sanctimonious thing he was going to say because of the sudden burst of logic.
Genma wasn't having any of that think before you speak shit though. "Just because I am so very durable doesn't mean anyone else should be so lucky!"
"A fair point," the other man conceded, before circumventing that point entirely like some kind of living snakeman. "But if this girl was just a mindless killer, wouldn't it make more sense that she'd incapacitate ya before killing ya? No matter how tough yer body is, your brain gets shook and ya go down."
Genma faltered, unable to come up with a suitable argument at the moment.
Soun wanted to pick up the fight but found himself trying to get around the logic and unable to do so.
"Now if you'll allow me one final point, knowledge of how to kill ain't the same as the will to kill." The foreigner seemed to rest his case at that.
Genma, unable to fight the argument, went to fight the guy. "You seem to know a lot about this girl despite your alleged impartiality."
The foreigner hummed. "Well, she certainly reminds me of a girl that I dropped off here some time back to do some work for a friend of a friend. I suppose that's why I feel so compelled to defend her honor from a salty bastard crying about how she beat him and his boy."
Genma resisted the urge to growl, but his voice did raise. "Just who are you anyways?"
"Nicholas Fontaine Sherman," the man introduced himself, "My niece is a shifty-eyed, nosy, too tall for her own good type o' gal named Katie Izland." His tone then dropped from easy-going and polite, to menacingly calm. "I hope that name doesn't ring a bell to you gentlemen."
Soun and Genma reacted exactly how two cowards who were used to bullying the weak around to get what they want ran into someone potentially stronger than them: complete and utter panic. Soun gibbered a little while Genma sucked on his teeth as if to stifle a scream. All in all, it wasn't quite as bad a display it could have been.
"Well now," Nick drawled, "looks like you two do know something. Good to know my 'awareness' hasn't led me wrong."
He turned on the stool, and took another sip of his beer. "So, tell me a little bit more details, guys. What exactly has my niece been up to since I left her here? I have expectations, y'see."
Self-preservation immediately kicked in for Genma, who immediately scanned the room for anything he might find to put in between him and this awkward situation and escape. So far, it was looking like he'd have to bail on Soun–which was for the best, since he was paying for this round of drinks to begin with.
That wasn't to say that Soun wasn't looking for an easy way out, though. "Well, ahem, your daughter is skilled as a martial artist. My friend here, his son enjoyed fighting her, in spite of the outcome. She also gets along well with my daughters."
Well, with Akane of course, Kasumi seemed taken enough with her, and she wasn't Nabiki's enemy at least.
"No shit?" Nick's tone ticked right back up to pleasant. "Well, if things are all hunky-dory then I'm glad. She's had trouble makin' friends, you see? Her last pals turned out to be pretty savage backstabbers, or straight up crazy–I've still got one out there who wants to break her spine like a dry twig."
He slapped his hand on the top of the bar again, revealing a bit more yen. "What do you say I buy your next few drinks there? Just you, though." He then indicated Genma. "Your buddy there can sit and spin."
Soun, ever the balanced individual (and sensing that Genma was seconds away from abandoning him to this wolf), quite eagerly accepted the offer. "Well, I can't possibly say no to that sort of generosity. I'm Tendo Soun."
Nick was all smiles. "Good to meet ya, Tendo-san. And who's your friend eyeing the door over there? You know, the dipshit?"
"Saotome Genma," Soun replied, and an arrow of betrayal went right into Genma's back.
Nick then, unexpectedly, underwent a dramatic transformation–going from maliciously amused to outright wide-eyed with surprise. "D-did you say Saotome Genma?"
Genma froze, right as he was about to leap off the stool and dash straight out of the door. Soun was taken off guard by Nick's sudden recognition as well.
Nick looked directly at him. "Saotome Genma, of the Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling? The Saotome Genma, husband of Saotome Nodoka, and father of Saotome Ranma?"
Well, if Genma's blood had been cold before in the face of a stronger opponent, it was now an icy slush that threatened to stop his heart. He turned back to face Nick, ready to go on the defensive in case this strange man had some sort of grudge against him for something else. How did he know so much about him? Even the name of his wife?!
"I am that Saotome Genma…" He said, gruffly despite his trepidation.
"Huh," Nick said, "Small world. Hey, forgive my previous rudeness… I didn't realize I was in the presence of a legend."
And now Genma was confused. "E-excuse me?"
"You've got a reputation that precedes you, especially in my community," Nick gestured to the bar. "Help yourself to the top shelf at my expense, my friend. You've earned it." To Soun he nodded. "You too, Tendo-san. I didn't think we'd all be so closely interconnected like this. Our kids all meetin' and becoming friends."
And now Genma was not confused. "Oh, well that is generous of you."
Soun would've found Nick's sudden flip-flopping odd, but the promise of top shelf alcohol and a lack of animosity from the foreigner dashed those concerns.
"Well, in my lifetime I've learned that it's good to clear the air of any misunderstandings, especially for the benefit of the kids, you know? And while Katie may be my niece, but I've raised her like a daughter for thirteen summers and at least two winters."
She certainly had some martial artists' chops if most of that raising involved the sort of training that made her into a beast that rivaled Ranma, Soun reasoned. "You've taken good care of her."
Nick nodded again. "You betcha. I still look out for her; hence my sticking my nose in here… and well… why I decided to come here from two neighborhoods over in the first place. On that note, I have a question:"
He looked between Soun and Genma, as he asked this question. "You wouldn't happen to know anyone petty enough to put an 700,000 yen bounty on my niece's head for her 'complete and utter humiliation', would you?"
And just like that, Soun knew.
At a round poker table in the school's stuffy gymnasium equipment shed, Nabiki rapidly shuffled a deck of cards overhand. Across from her, Katie sat in a folding chair, relaxed as she watched her classmate continuously shuffle the cards. After a few shuffles, Nabiki made the deck nice and neat before setting it down on the table.
"Draw the first five off the top," Nabiki instructed.
Katie looked at Nabiki, then down at the cards, before reaching over and drawing–one by one–an Ace, a King, a Queen, a Jack, and a Ten of Hearts. She looked down at the hand in surprise, then back up at Nabiki. This was the third time in as many shuffles that Nabiki had successfully put the Royal Flush on top for her to draw.
"How?" She asked as she set the cards back down for Nabiki to scoop up. The cards weren't altered in any way, no shaved edges, no thinner cardboard, nothing.
Nabiki smiled and stacked the five cards up before sweeping them back into the deck, her eyes not leaving it. "It's all about keeping your eye on the birdy."
She then began to shuffle again, working the five cards of the royal flush down to the bottom of the deck, then shuffling the brick of cards until they were back at the top. Cutting the cards, she riffled the decks back together, then shuffled them again, before setting the deck back down.
"Top five, please," Nabiki said.
Katie did as instructed. Getting this time three aces, a King of Diamonds, and a King of Clubs. She looked up at Nabiki, not as impressed.
Nabiki smirked, and then lifted the rest of the deck, leaving only the bottom five cards. Fanning those five out, she flipped the bottom one, so the others flipped in sequence, revealing the Royal Flush of Hearts.
Katie recoiled. "Yo…"
"You learn how the dealer stacks and controls the deck, and keep an eye on your cards, then you can make any hand you want as you deal," Nabiki said, "Or more importantly, you can play your hands while knowing who has what card in theirs. You don't need to do anything. You just need to know when to hold'em and know when to fold'em."
"That's pretty generous, teaching a trick like that," Katie said, somewhat subdued.
"Hey now, you're paying me a ridiculous sum of money for my loyalty, and I'd like to be able to tap that resource in the future," Nabiki replied.
Katie briefly narrowed her eyes, but then schooled her expression again to its normal cool indifference. "I could think of a few ways to keep that pipe open."
Nabiki was quick on the uptake, and headed off the innuendo at the pass. "Starting by laying it?"
She gathered up the cards and began shuffling. This time she just stared at Katie, waiting for her reaction.
"I was thinking more dinner and dancing, but hey…" Katie replied off-handedly.
Nabiki's lips turned up slightly. "I bet you think about it."
Katie's poker face didn't waver. "A girl with tastes like mine thinks about it often–the dinner and dancing part, that is."
Nabiki stopped shuffling and riffling, and dealt five cards between her and Katie. When Katie picked up her hand, she found it fairly solid. Four of a kind, all nines, and an Ace of Spades. Picking up her hand, Nabiki looked at it and began adjusting her cards.
"I bet you'd like a taste," she said.
"Well I am a girl with high standards." She had deliberately gone for that, and found Nabiki unfazed. Looking back down at her hand, she decided to test out Nabiki's poker face. "Want to put it on the table?"
Nabiki looked up. "On this hand? Sure, I bet one round of no-strings attached, purely hedonistic making out between you and I." A cheeky smile appeared on her face. "But you'd better offer me something of equal value, or you're never getting another chance."
Dealing with the house, especially when she was a card controlling master, was never a sure win. She may have had a four of a kind, but there was no telling what hand Nabiki had going. It could be a weaker hand, anticipating a fold, or a stronger hand tempting her to win. It was always safer to walk away if you could.
"I fold," she said, dropping the cards onto the table.
Nabiki threw her hand on the table, revealing a hand full of rags–all low rank cards. "You give up too easily."
Looking at the cards, Katie frowned. "Damn it."
Gathering up the cards, Nabiki riffled them, then shuffled. Cutting the deck into fours, she brought the outer two together, and then the inner two, before riffling the two reassembled decks back into one. She dealt out, in quick succession five cards to herself and Katie, before picking up her own hand, Four of a Kind right out the gate.
"What do I have?" She asked.
Katie stopped, and looked up. "Wait, what?"
She gestured to her hand. "Have you been paying attention at all, or were you too excited by the prospect of 'dinner and dancing' to notice? What cards do I have in my hand?"
Katie immediately blanched, when she realized that she hadn't been paying attention to the cards at all. "… Fuck!"
Nabiki nodded. "That's what I thought. Well? At least take a guess."
Katie looked back at her hands, a Straight of Spades. That gave her no indication of Nabiki's hand, worse still, she'd really been distracted by Nabiki's flirting, so she lost track of the Royal Flush. "I don't know, um…?"
Down came Nabiki's hand, revealing a Straight Flush of Clubs. Looking from it to Nabiki, Katie frowned in defeat. "… I see, yeah."
"Poker players are all about mind games, and I love them dearly, myself. You're not good enough now or in two days to play the long game, so just focus on counting the cards and throwing him off his. Make him tilt first and you'll just have a nice night of poker to talk about to your turkey baster babies one day."
"Ooh, dyke jokes, painful," Katie dryly replied. "But yeah, I'll do that."
Nabiki gestured to the shitty cards and Katie's own. "Now, pay attention to these cards." She swept back up the cards and began reshuffling them. "No matter how good looking I am, you need to win."
One complicated shuffle later, and Nabiki dealt herself and Katie the cards before picking up her hand. Katie found herself with a four of a kind 10s and a King. "What do I have?"
"… A losing hand," Katie said, her eyes glued to the cards and nothing else. Nabiki had dealt herself the majority of the same rags she had before.
Nabiki nodded as she turned over a pile of yuck with an 8 as her high card. "See? Even if you learn nothing else, with this you can always keep from losing the big hand."
Katie nodded, beginning to understand. 'Yeah, that'd help. Even if I can't win everything, I can save myself."
Again the cards were gathered. "Count the cards and keep cool. People lose focus on the goal and become easy prey for mind games." She held up this time the Ace of Spades. "Now then, follow the Ace."
Katie nodded as she focused on the cards. "It's how you end up having a proxy playing for you because you have nothing else to bet."
"Luck is for losers, you're never going to hit that miracle one-shot turn around except in a tournament." Nabiki said as she dealt the cards. "Let's mix it up: Do I have the ace in my hand?"
Katie, having been paying attention again, shook her head. "Nope."
She reached down and drew not from the top of the deck, but the bottom, pulling out the Ace of Spades.
"Progress, though maybe I should pop my top a little and see if your focus can hold." Nabiki said as she gathered the cards again.
"If you wanna get naked, by all means." Katie said, shrugging. "I won't complain."
"Ha, ha, you're a terrible flirt–literally, you're bad at it." Nabiki showed Katie the hand, four Kings and a Queen, and reshuffled the cards. "Follow the Kings."
Katie focused again and little by little, as Nabiki shuffled and reshuffled the cards and showed her hand after hand. One card at a time, five cards at a time, as Nabiki ordered her to follow this card or the other, she began to know the places of each, memorizing their positions as her eyes followed the deft movements of Nabiki's hands.
After a certain point, her focus tightened to the point, the world began to be swallowed by black. She could no longer see the stuffy room, just Nabiki shuffling the cards over and over.
One of the first things she learned from her Uncle was tapping into this supreme focus that let her read things beyond the norm. Because of the energy needed, she saved it for battle when she needed to process things faster and read even the most minute detail. And all because of the warm feeling it left her with, the name her Uncle gave it was fairly apt.
The melodic hum of Nabiki's heart, the suave rhythm of her breath, the sharpness of the cards cutting the air even as they appeared to be going in slow motion. All of this was present before her eyes. As if she was looking from on high, peering past the illusions of the world to see the truth she need.
Hence why her Uncle named it 'Heaven'.
Katie blinked and the world returned just in time for Nabiki to deal the cards again. Without even lifting them, Katie knew they were the four kings in the hand, alongside a Queen of Hearts.
"Who has the Kings?" Nabiki asked, making a show of picking up her cards.
Katie didn't even try to pick them up. "I do."
Nabiki stopped, and looked at the cards before back up at her. Just like that? Well, this was interesting…
"Very nice." Nabiki congratulated, showing a full house of Jacks and Tens, before flipping Katie's over to reveal the cards that she indicated. "Be cool, be focused, and follow the cards."
"Basically, be you." Katie summarized as Nabiki collected the cards.
"You're not cool enough to be me." Nabiki snapped back, the irritated twang in her heartbeat told Katie that she was not appreciative of the humor when she was trying to be serious. It was almost not even there and had Katie not been focusing on Nabiki, she'd have missed it completely.
Nabiki shuffled the cards again, making a bigger show of moving them. With the show, came the more complex game of shuffling and deck manipulation. The cards flowed like water in her hands, Nabiki getting even fancier with her tricks. It was time to really mix it up, and she did–dealing herself and Katie each two cards before quickly shuffling the deck again, and then dealing out the rest. "You may have to keep up with a number of different shuffles. Don't want him to pick up on it."
Katie didn't need the lecture but appreciated it anyways. "Right, if he catches on, he might run out before I've won."
"You may also need to lose a few hands, to keep yourself honest. What are my cards?"
"Full house, sevens full of sixes." Katie replied after a second to replay which cards were moving where in her head.
"Without looking, is your hand the winner?" Nabiki pressed on further.
Katie shook her head. "Nah, I'm an ace short of four of a kind, or a king or queen shy of a full boat."
Nabiki swept the cards back from Katie. "Remember, focus."
Katie nodded, choosing to focus on the subtle jiggle Nabiki's chest did while breathing. "Focus."
Nabiki did her most expressive shuffle yet, almost juggling the cards at one point. She dealt the cards, shuffling into between each card really trying to throw Katie off.
The deck had barely been set down and Nabiki hadn't even moved to her cards when Katie quickly flipped her own. "Royal flush." Her gaze was locked on Nabiki, she hadn't even looked at the cards while they were being dealt.
Under other circumstances, Nabiki might have frowned. But she was being paid to turn a total amateur into someone capable of beating a guy who called himself the Gambling King at his own game. Maybe it wouldn't all be cheating.
She swept the cards up and began to shuffle, jerking back ever so slightly faster than usual.
Katie managed to keep her head straight as her eyes stayed level with Nabiki's chest. "Heaven" indeed.
Nabiki dealt five cards each at high speed, not really trying to give Katie a chance to see them.
It didn't matter. Katie nodded again. "You won."
Nabiki swept up the cards and shuffled again, there wasn't any need to declare it. She said nothing, only doing her best to vary her shuffles and cuts. It'd almost be too much if not for that advice to focus.
Focus is exactly what Katie did, on the cards and the dealer. She had been annoyed at having to pay Nabiki just a little bit, but the money was to keep her honest. Going through Kasumi would only have so much effect, and if Katie just didn't learn enough to win it wasn't Nabiki's fault. There'd be no room for error, she was going to smash this asshole that was encroaching on her paradise.
The cards were dealt in rapid succession. Nabiki set the deck down for a second and waited.
"Four of a kind Aces, to a Kings full of 10s. I won." Katie said, looking at the cards just so Nabiki didn't catch on to what she was actually focused on.
"Okay, she's doing something different now," Nabiki finally caught on. She couldn't even tell if Katie was looking at the cards as she shuffled them again, this time dipping further into her repertoire of card tricks than she had before..
Katie looked down at the board to see two pair of kings and queens getting punched in the taint by a straight. She tapped the table. "You won, ten high straight mix of diamonds and clubs."
"You're really getting good at this." Nabiki said, Katie allowing the girl's face to fade back into her view. There's nothing there to lead the Izland lass into whether Nabiki is happy about that.
"I have a great teacher." Katie said without sounding like she was trying to butter the other girl up. "And I can focus real good."
"Is this how you beat Ranma?" Nabiki asked, her voice betrayed no emotions. It's only the slight twang of the breath she exhaled with it that gave away that she was unhappy to see him lose.
"We were both thinking at top speed." Katie replied, scanning the contours of the girl's face and finding she liked them after a fashion. "He just didn't consider everything a 3D environment and I did. The armbar was inspired but he couldn't take my legs from under me. Flying armbars are cool but we're not in some safe and sanitized place, fighting by strict rules to avoid getting hurt."
"We don't run a McDojo you know?" Nabiki said with a sardonic smirk. "It's too bad most of our students were such cowardly pussies, because we'd be doing a lot better for the future of the dojo than a hail mary pass to a prodigal son-in-law."
Without focusing, Katie wouldn't have known that Nabiki's breathing changed when she was annoyed. That subtle shift despite completely dispassionate look and tone was the one hole no one could have ever possibly known.
Without that focus, Katie wouldn't have finally figured out what was really eating Nabiki's ass about one Kaitlin Izland. She'd still be groping around in the dark, chasing red herrings like the business and the money. She'd remain clueless of the real thing she needed to address between them to turn them from casual antagonists who could join forces if circumstances called for it into something more along the lines of what Katie wanted.
But she did and so she decided to call it out. "Are you jealous of Akane's martial arts talent?" That wasn't it, but it was an attempt at feigning ignorance.
Nabiki's reaction, as viewed under "Heaven", was almost comical to watch. The subtle hiss of the sucked in breath that happened too fast for the middle Tendo's icy facade to halt it. The flare of her nostrils, the snarl that almost breaks out on her face before everything becomes placid. Her features are perfectly schooled before she gave a response.
"Why would I be jealous of Akane?" It's a fair question, one to imply an inferred superiority that made such a claim preposterous.
Nabiki isn't focused like Katie is and missed that the question had been a bait. Katie hooked her right in the mouth and was reeling her in for the next blow. "Oh, sorry, I misspoke. I meant, are you jealous of my martial arts ability?"
The girl in question refused to answer, switching to shuffling the cards. The cadence of the shuffling was almost ingrained in Katie's mind though, it didn't serve as the distraction it was intended to be. The folding, the cutting, nothing. Even the crisp snap of the cards when Nabiki finished didn't waver her attention.
The deal was uncharacteristically forceful, like there was the denial the dealer refused to verbalize.
It still didn't help. "You have a spade suited royal flush." Katie answered the unspoken question and now the spotlight was back on Nabiki.
Nabiki swept the cards up and thought about the question. It seemed to stupid that Katie would even dare ask, of course Nabiki was jealous! Why wouldn't she be? Someone just so happened to saunter on in, pleased as fucking punch, and had the audacity to be everything she had wanted to be but had been denied by reality. It was infuriating, even more so that Katie had the same cool, detached demeanor and everything!
"I…" Nabiki started, before she swallowed the emotion and froze it out. She was going to push this aside. "If I said I was, what would be your response?" It was meant to be a probing question, to push back Katie by making the answer focus on herself.
But it still didn't help, because the answer was obvious. "Flattered, you're actually pretty awesome."
The stark honesty rattled the cage that was Nabiki Tendo. The ice cracked and her heart beat kicked up for a few seconds at the surprising answer. She gasped a little, unnoticeable except to anyone looking for it.
For the fleeting half-second it lasted, she saw a faint twinkle of emotion. She caught how Nabiki's ears seemed to flush instead of her face and even the awkward shuffle to hide them under her hair. Nabiki was completely off guard and vulnerable right now.
Her tongue moistened suddenly dry lips and for the first time in years Nabiki Tendo has no quip back. There was no biting witticism to win back the ground lost. Katie now knew something she was not supposed to, and Nabiki had no words to bring it back. Her keen mind fumbled and groped at the words, trying to puzzle out the order to say them to try and keep the other girl at bay.
"Oh really?" Nabiki's voice is barely a whisper. She didn't trust herself to keep from snapping and snarling and ruining her reputation any further.
"Yeah, I wish I could have your nerve. It kind of drives me crazy" Katie admitted.
"You're envious… of me?" Nabiki asked, voice hissing disbelief and an anger hidden deep within. If Katie is yanking her chain, things are promised to get messy.
"You're all calm and collected no matter what." Katie said, shrugging slightly. "Around here, where there are monsters like Ranma or your sister or me walking around happy to do whatever we want through brute force, you act like we're nothing to you–even when you know that with a careless swing any one of us could break you in half. How can I not like that confidence?"
Nabiki hit the table with the deck of cards, to control her reaction. "You don't need it."
"It wouldn't hurt," Katie argued, "Because there are things out there that I'm terrified of."
It went without saying, that Nabiki would treat it with her usual cool indifference, because Nabiki caught the inference. That actually caused the heat at the tips of her ears to spread towards the edges of her cheeks, but she fought it off well, burying it in silence. She looked at the time and the session was drawing to a close. Of course, there were going to be more on the horizon until the match actually happened.
She spoke, without looking at her. "Our time is almost up. To recap, what do you need to do to win?"
"Keep calm and focus." Katie replied like a dutiful student. She'd let Nabiki get away for now. Under the ice, Nabiki was a mess of tinder. Give it a spark and she'd ignite, something Katie wanted to be able to see.
"That's right. We'll practice more of my shuffles another time" Nabiki avoided eye contact and simply focused on putting the deck away. "This is your best shot so let's not blow it."
"Wouldn't dream of it." Katie reassured her classmate.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Nabiki left once the time had been up. Katie sat there a minute longer, thinking about things that she had learned today. She then smiled and laughed as she got up and strolled out.
One toast had become many, and a mid-afternoon visit became an all-day bender before an annoyed bartender finally shoved Soun, Genma, and their new best friend out of the door, the three men singing rather loudly about the importance of being drunk in Japanese society, to deaden the pain of existing in such a fucked up country.
"Hahahaha!" Genma laughed. "When you think about it, life is pretty awful!"
Soun agreed. "It's a miracle we have alcohol! Who knows what we'd do if we didn't drink!"
"Or fight!" Nick tossed in.
"Or fuck!" Genma bellowed, and all three nearly fell over in hysterics.
Soun, who was held up between the two, became the pillar that supported all three, standing tall until the other two men managed to regain their balance. Genma was first, throwing back his head and laughing until he let out a belch, while Nick was a bit slower, the hand of the arm not draped over Soun's shoulders clamped over his face as he chuckled continuously.
"We should… we should get back home…" Soun said. "It's almost time for dinner and it's important to eat after you drink… so you don't get sick…"
"That's the other way around, Tendo! Eat before, and then you don't… pffhahaha…" Genma tried to explain, and Soun just laughed at how silly he was for getting it wrong.
Nick then shouted to the sky. "I AM REALLY DRUNK!"
All three almost fell, but this time Nick and Genma stopped to support Soun. Over alcohol and stories both heroic and horrifying, the three martial artists bonded as men, comparing scars and boasting of great accomplishments. It wasn't long before this man, Nicholas Fontaine Sherman, was their best friend, comrade in arms, and fellow traveler down the path of the fist. And he probably would be even after the alcohol wore off!
"You should c'mon over to the house, my friend!" Soun insisted. "My daughter, Kasumi… Kasumi's a wonderful cook, you'd love her…"
Nick laughed. "I would… God I would… heh heh heh…" He patted Soun on the back. "But I have my own home to get to, and a missus waitin' in bed for me."
"Lucky man!" Genma declared. "A wife who knows where to await her husband!"
Soun was surprised. "Your wife's here, in Japan?"
Nick nodded. "Yeah, yeah, we just got married the other day. Did I not mention that?"
"Well congratulations! Let's go back and toast again!" Soun suggested.
Genma looked back and saw the bartender cracking his knuckles and giving them a killing stare. "Let's not!"
"Okay!" Soun and Nick shouted together.
The three men leaned against each other, laughing uproariously. In all honesty, they could all easily take the bartender apart, but they were too drunk to really notice or care. Who needed some random jerk who hated money to kill their vibe? All three men were well and capable of doing that by themselves.
On that note, Nick let out another small laugh, and nudged Soun in the side. "Hey, hey, Tendo… hey…"
As Genma continued chuckling, Soun turned to Nick. "Yes, my friend?"
"I have… I have a secret to tell you… it's… it's pretty good… check this out…" He looked at Genma, and then leaned over and began whispering something very quietly into his ear.
Soun stopped laughing, and his eyes widened before he looked Nick dead in the eyes, as if hit by a sudden moment of clarity. "Really?!"
"That's how I know so much about him, man," Nick insisted. "It's crazy."
Soun nodded slowly, before he laughed. "Wow, well… someone has to do it, I guess."
Nick then wore a rather twisted smile. "I know, right?"
Saotome's laughter finally eased, as he looked towards the two whispering, chuckling men. "Hey, what's so funny?"
Nick chuckled. "It's a secret, well… a surprise. You'll find out. Anyway, I've had my fun y'all, so I gotta go give the missus what she's been needin', you know?"
Genma knew. "Ha, ha! Give her one for me, Sherman!"
Nick broke away from Soun and began to saunter back, laughing. "Oh I'll make her scream like a banshee buddy, don't you worry!"
He walked on, laughing hysterically, his hand clasped over his face to cover it as he staggered away, looking more like a maniac who just got away with murder than a harmless drunkard walking home from a night with friends.
Genma laughed and waved off after him, before leaning back against Soun, still chuckling. "You know, I'm willing to give that girl a second chance. Who knows, I might even be able to crib something off that style of 'is."
Soun laughed a bit more, and then nodded. "Sounds great, Saotome… now… now let's get on home… Kasumi doesn't like to be kept waiting."
Step by step, the two began walking towards the house, still laughing rather uproariously. Genma because he knew that everything was going to be perfectly fine, like he always knew it would be. Soun because he was too drunk to realize it wouldn't.
With the two out of his hair, Nick strolled from the neighborhood of Furinkan towards another part of the Nerima Ward he called home for several obvious reasons. A neighborhood that, when compared to it, made Furinkan seem like a balanced and stable community. The 2000s San Francisco alongside 1980s Oakland.
This was the neighborhood known as Tomobiki.
"What an interesting day," he said as he walked towards a nice, if small house not down the street from the high school that gave the neighborhood its dubious name. Walking in through the front door, he strolled past the sitting room, where an attractive woman in her 30s sat watching television, and towards the bedroom.
"I had hoped to see Katie, but instead I learned so much, so that was cool," he said when he reached the bedroom and turned on the light. Spread across the wall opposite of him, directly above the bed was a large blue kimono, decorated with red and black hanafuda cards, and hanging above it was a plain black hat.
"But still…" He turned and went to the wall to his left, pulling out a small photograph of Nabiki, graciously offered to him by Soun during their drinking. "Nabiki Tendo…"
Licking the back of the picture, he slapped it against the wall, where it stuck. "Putting money on my niece's head."
He turned and walked over to the opposite side of the room and a vanity, where a matte black box sat. Opening it, he pulled out a long, black knife, that he weighed and examined in his hand with care. He nodded slowly, and ran the flat of the blade against his face, teasing shaving the well-kept black beard on his face.
Then he turned and whipped it at the wall, just as the temporary adhesive of his saliva fell. It was no longer needed, as the knife pinned the picture of Nabiki into the wall.
"Definitely… un… cool…" He breathed as he let his eyes linger on the picture, and his thoughts on what he would do to the genuine article.
In the late mists of the night, on the outskirts of Nerima, if you listened closely you would hear the padding footfalls of a wolf. It was a larger than ordinary fare, with a coat of nigh-Obsidian fur shaking as it ran along. Nostrils flared as it tracked its prey, there was an icy chill in its grey-blue eyes as it peered around the area for clues. Most curiously, around its neck was a bandana, which had a curious tiger stripe pattern.
Those who had observed the wolf in passing would regard it as a figment of their imagination, for what wolf hunted alone? It was too big to call just a mere wolf, it seemed to be so much more. And so on the majestic beast ran, hunting after whatever quarry such a large beast might have.
Behind the wolf, a purple haired girl jogged after it, she was carrying two large packs. She was dressed in a conservative blouse and tights combo, though they both hugged her curves and gave a sense that modesty was something people lectured her on and she just didn't get. Her slippers slapped against the pavement as she tried to keep up but it seemed her companion had finally gotten a whiff of the trail.
"You is wait!" The girl cried, pausing to take a steadying breath as she adjusted the packs. "Wait for Shampoo!"
The chase continued as girl and wolf ran towards their target through the fading mists of the night, melding into the dream-like world that was the Nerima Ward.
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 6/?
|Poker Face|
As her bombastic entrance hinted at, when Kodachi Kuno's ambitions were naked, she was a force to be reckoned with. From the moment the last student left the building the day of her arrival, Furinkan High School was transformed. Over a thousand contractors descended upon the school, remodeling it under the strict orders that the building be completely renovated by the next morning.
The old typical Japanese High School aesthetic quickly vanished under hammers, saws, and drills. And when the dust settled Furinkan High School was a full story taller and had a European Private School aesthetic that radiated high class and sophistication. Glass hallways designed by a mad Austrian, Italian decor, French Cuisine in the cafeteria, and uniforms by Hugo Boss. Were a lesser accountant to have a look at the price tag for the work done on Furinkan, their eyes would explode from their sockets and their skin would melt from their faces.
For Nabiki, it was an amusement, given the budget she was carelessly handed by Kodachi and expected to work wonders with. And oh, the wonders she would work.
She was sitting in what was now the Student Council office, a large and open room that had once been two third floor classrooms before the walls were knocked down and the floor finished with the finest wood. Out the window behind her, Akane was on the gymnastics field with Kodachi and Ranma, overseeing what was the beginning of physical education for the hopeless boys of Furinkan, and directly in front of her was the paperwork regarding school clubs that Kodachi wanted financed and rolled out.
"To think this school was a laughing stock a couple of weeks back," Nabiki mused aloud. By the end of the year, this school was going to be the best on the planet, provided that Furinkan's legendary run of bad luck didn't shift back onto it.
Then again, things have been really quiet as of late, though to acknowledge it would mean that Nabiki would have to acknowledge-
"Oi, Nabiki," Katie suddenly said, and Nabiki's mood somewhat inverted, but didn't make the nosedive into the ground.
She turned and looked up at the tall transfer, now wearing Furinkan's new all black sailor fuku–albeit with an electric green tie at her insistence. "… Yes?" It wasn't an annoyed tone but it buzzed close. Enough to rattle the tower at least.
Katie less than cared. She already had what she needed to make this whole thing go her way, so she'd let Nabiki play her games. "I got a little business to talk with you."
Nabiki's eyes widened a little, as if she hadn't expected that Katie might ever need to do business with her. "You have my attention but only so much." There was the club overhaul that needed to be ran through before it met the rubber stamp after all.
"It's nothing that'll waste too much time." Katie replied to smooth things over. "How good are you at cards?"
"I get by. Which game are you beating around the bush about?" Nabiki replied with an annoyed tone. She had all this money she could be deciding how to dish out and bleh.
Katie feigned annoyance, letting the other girl feel in control. "Poker."
Nabiki smirked a little at that. "Did you know poker was banned at Furinkan starting this year?"
"No." Katie honestly had no clue about that.
"Some sore loser finally grew a set and squealed about the poker games we were having after school." Nabiki said with a vicious grin. "Sad, but it didn't pay quite as well as I had hoped anyways."
"Wait, you ran illegal poker games at school and didn't even get into trouble?" Katie seemed dubious about that.
"At the school that let the potential gang rape of my sister go unpunished until someone kicked the Principal's son through the clock tower." Nabiki reminded her.
"Oh." So much had happened Katie forgot for a moment how this had all began.
"Yeah oh." Nabiki snickered. "Anyways, there are few people you want to see with a deck of playing cards than me and they're both in America."
"I honestly can't tell who she might be making a reference to." Katie thought to herself. "That's good, because I need to learn how to play, fast."
"Need, now there's a word." Nabiki said, pursing her lips and considering it. "Let me guess, some wacky misadventure just so happened to dance into your life and now you need to play a high stakes poker game straight out of Kaiji."
"More or less." Katie figured mentioning her uncle wouldn't help. Nabiki wasn't sentimental like that. "So, you were the first person I thought of who could help me win."
"You're bad at poker?" Nabiki had figured Katie was one of those geniuses who just happened to be good at everything.
"I've never played." Katie confessed.
"Oh you need to learn how to "play"." Nabiki said, adding finger quotes around play for emphasis. "Well when you take out legitimacy, you'd probably like those other guys over me."
"How much?" Katie asked, finally getting things where she needed them.
"No impassioned speech of friendship to try and convince me?" Nabiki was hoping to at least get a laugh out of this. How disappointing.
"I'm not good at those. I'm more about other things." Katie admitted.
"Like what?" Nabiki asked.
"If we're going fully my way, I'd seduce you and you'd help me after all the nice things I did to you." Katie said with a straight face.
Nabiki narrowed her eyes at Katie and was trying to determine if her classmate was shitting her or not.
"… But my way isn't for everyone and I'd rather still have time to train for this match." Katie grinned a little, throwing Nabiki off that much more. "Your way is easy, pay money, get service."
"That is true, do you have any idea who it is you're facing off against?" Nabiki wanted to be sure it was worth it.
"One of the many assholes who fancies himself the King of Gambling. He apparently beat someone to whom I have personal ties to and I am being obliged to even the score." Katie explained. "Sounds like he might have been after me from the get go, considering how much he seemed to know about me."
Nabiki kept a straight face, using the poker face she had used to conquer her Freshman year at Furinkan. Inside though, she was remembering something really really bad. "I see."
"So how much?" Katie asked again.
"Make an offer." Nabiki replied, pushing down the feeling she wasn't familiar with.
"I have mentioned I'm Misao Darlian's bodyguard right?" Katie asked, waiting for Nabiki's confirmation. "Well, we're also good friends and long story short, I have permission to write a check on behalf of her family's company."
Nabiki's mouth ran dry for a second before she cleared her throat to compose herself. "I see."
"So again. How much?" Katie pressed, all without a single hint of physical intimidation.
"Nah, I'll be fair to you and let you guess how much you think it'd take to buy me for this little venture of yours." Nabiki didn't want to get too greedy here, messing with someone like the Darlian family was an immensely bad idea. Right up there with walking through the Tomobiki neighborhood while announcing she wasn't wearing panties.
Katie scribbled a number on a piece of paper and handed it over.
"I'm pretty sure this guy is after the bounty on her head. What a quandary, do I accept her money and sabotage her so I'm rid of her like I had planned, or do I accept the money and help her win?" Nabiki thought all of this in the time it took for Katie to scratch out the number. Opening the paper, she looked down at a sizable amount of zeroes. "Quandary averted!"
"So...?" Katie asked, sensing the shift in the other girl.
Nabiki appeared to be the perfect face of professionalism. "Tell me, do you know what a poker face is?"
"An expression that's hard to read, right? So people can't tell what if you're bluffing or not." Katie knew at least that much. "Kind of like yours right now."
Nabiki ignored the attempt at flirting, instead focusing on the task at hand. "Well, we have a starting point at least." She looked over at the stack of paperwork. "Let me get this done and we'll begin."
"So I take it you agree to the price?" Katie wanted to at least hear the affirmation.
"Yes, yes. Akane would mope for weeks if you got driven off, to say nothing of our glorious leader's tantrum if her Disciplinary Officer had to skip town." Nabiki said, rolling her eyes.
"To say nothing of the money." Katie said, giving Nabiki a certain look of quasi-innocence.
"Oh please, if not for the cash you'd never get anywhere with me on this venture." Nabiki organized the papers. "Now, sooner I get these ready, sooner you learn how to "play" poker."
Katie laughed and took the dismissal for what it was. "For the record though, I really did hope you'd try things my way." She bounced from the room before Nabiki could react.
Nabiki found it kinda hard to focus on the budget for a minute, having to fight off the odd blush that had taken root on her face. This was a little harder for her than she would like to admit, given that she was used to being to one to make other people uncomfortable. Regardless! This was a temporary setback. She'd have her revenge before long.
And if, in the process of waiting for that revenge, she got a few more cheques of comparable size? Well, Nabiki could certainly be motivated to be a little bit patient.
The sound of a student's body then crashing into one of the room's sturdy windows like a fly against a windshield made Nabiki jump, and she looked back to watch him, a kendoka slide slowly down the window and back towards the ground below with a soft squeaking sound.
|Warchild|
Two weeks of self-loathing had not been kind to even the most athletic of the hentai horde. Not in a physical sense, thank heaven, but concepts such as self-worth and basic human dignity evaporated quickly in the hours after Akane collectively dumped all of them.
While Kodachi had lit a fire under their collective asses, it was barely a match in the wind. The road to reclaiming their masculinity lay in restoring that which men placed their pride in, first off, physical aptitude and prowess.
"As the new Captain of the Kendo club, there are going to be some changes," Akane announced to the amassed young men. "The first and most important thing is that you'll be expected to all pull your weight. Not a single member will carry their clubs, especially in any of the martial arts clubs. It is because of that laziness that none of you could stand up to Kuno."
Ranma folded his arms, unsure if such a demand could be honored by this menagerie. Kodachi, however, earnestly agreed.
"A bold first step, Tendo Akane!" She declared before addressing the boys directly. "Conquer your own weakness, and your self-loathing and despair shall follow with haste!"
Ranma looked over to Akane, who was dressed in full Kendo gear, and leaning upon the shinai she was about to beat most of these young men silly with. "So what exactly do you plan to do today?"
Akane glanced over. "Determining who's the strongest of these students so that they can become club presidents."
"How're you going to find that out?" Ranma was genuinely curious.
Akane returned her attention to the front. "The same way anything is decided here in this neighborhood."
She lifted up the Shinai and rested it on her shoulder. "We fight it out."
Murmurs rumbled through the crowd. The specter of fighting Akane immediately reminded all of them of the one-sided slaughter that she repeatedly and enthusiastically committed against them on a daily basis. In the weeks since, the reasoning sank in that they had indeed made the wrong call in facing off between her and Kuno–their odds would've been so much better against the latter.
Kodachi sensed their trepidation, and elected to drive her heel into it. "Victory is not the goal in this skirmish! Your goal is merely to show what skill, talent, and strength you have. Those who perform exemplary will not only be elevated to officer position within their respective club, but their club will receive funding in accordance to that performance!"
She pointed the baton of her ribbon at the group. "This is success of the fittest, and I expect a good showing from all of you!"
That caught their attention, a club officer position? Extra club money? Fear quickly drained away, as goals actually worth fighting for gave that weak flame the fuel of ambition. It burned hotter, and the yammering became one of speculation and determination.
Ranma's concern became curiosity, as Akane stepped towards the crowd of young men, the shinai still on her shoulder, while the crowd spread out in a wide half circle around her. He'd heard plenty of her prowess to this point, but now he wanted to see it for himself. Just how did a girl like her take on so many of these guys at once and win with such ease?
Akane looked back at Ranma, and flashed him a smile. "Watch carefully, Ranma!"
She looked ahead at her opponents, before calling out to them. "One at a time, or all at once, just don't hesitate or you won't give it your all."
Kodachi then held up her ribbon, and slashed it through the air like a start flag. "BEGIN!"
There was, naturally, some hesitation at first. However, an industrious young boxer soon overcame his fear entirely, let out a kiai and charged straight for Akane. This immediately opened the floodgates, as soon every student was in a full-bodied charge straight for the Kendo Girl.
Akane lifted the shinai off her shoulder, and took it in both hands. As she neglected to wear her helmet, the charging boys could see the determined smile spread across her lips and the fire of competition burn in her own eyes. Then she was moving forward, kicking off the ground and charging that same boxer who initiated the charge.
"Here I come, Akane-!" His powerful left hook came right for Akane's jaw, as she adjusted the aim of her shinai. At the last second, his punch whiffed her face, as the shinai connected sidelong into his left side, and he was swept away as if captured by the flow of a flash flood.
The boxer went on and a half dozen bodies were soon propelled up and out of the charging crowd like a bomb had gone off. Several more boys were launched as well, this time by Akane directly as her uppercut with the shinai cleared a wedge of them closing in on her from the front.
Ranma perked up at the sheer physicality of Akane's attacks, watching her as she turned around and crossed bamboo with another kendoka, the sheer strength of her strike causing him to hit himself with his own shinai and knock him back. Two karate club members leaped over the falling kendoka, and twisted themselves out of the way when she turned and swung up at them.
One landed behind her, and charged her back. Taking the shinai, she aimed it over her shoulder and pegged him square in the forehead in it, before slamming it down upon the second club member as he tried to attack her while she was distracted.
Stepping over the flattened boy, she ducked and weaved over more strikes from another kendoka, and parried a few more quick, strikes she couldn't dodge. This was effective in allowing other boys to surround and move in, weakening Akane's defensive options.
"Oh, he's good," Kodachi said of the kendoka.
Finally taking one hand off the Shinai, she reached up and caught her opponent's bamboo blade, stopping him long enough to drive the tip of hers into his stomach and fling him into another group of boys.
Flipping the shinai over, she caught it by the handle and assumed a two sword stance, causing Ranma's eyebrows to raise.
"Is she really going to…?" He asked before she went and did it.
Whirling around, she used both shinai with great effect, knocking down and aside those earnestly foolish enough to attempt to get at her back, while using both bamboo blades to keep a circle open where only the bodies of the defeated lay. Her gaze swept left and right, the smile on her face becoming familiar to Ranma as she waited for the next comer.
She didn't have to wait long, as three sumo wrestlers came right at her, faces aggressively painted arms outstretched to swamp her before she could do any harm.
It was for naught. With one shinai, she tagged one of the sumo in the ankle, causing him to stagger, before spinning and sweeping him off his feet with both. As he cartwheeled in place, she drove both bamboo swords into his stomach, and he went spinning backward through the other boys. Sweeping the shinai to her sides, she clocked the other two sumo upside their heads, knocking them both out and leaving them crashing to the ground behind her.
And now Ranma was impressed. Not just at the magical things Akane could do with a couple of tightly bound together bamboo sticks, but the sheer, overwhelming joy that Akane was wearing on her face as she did it. It wasn't like the bloodthirsty smile that he saw with Katie… though it resembled it on the surface. No, Akane was smiling like she this was the first fight she'd ever gotten to enjoy.
"Come on!" Akane called out as she deflected and blocked one fortuitous student's attempt at striking her with a field hockey stick. "Give me everything!"
She turned away from him as she knocked him off his footing, using the time he spent recovering to similarly duel two more kendoka, knocking one out while capturing the shinai of the other and directing him around her to thrust his shinai into the field hockey player's chest. She then conked the deflected kendoka atop his head, dropping him straight down.
"Don't hold back!" She shouted right before another boxer got inside the reach of her bamboo blades and began lightning fast flicker jabs for her head. Bobbing her head, she kept just out of the boxer's reach, as she hopped back with his footsteps forward. When she brought both shinai up to block his strikes, he simply bashed them both aside with a headbutt and then followed with an uppercut, that Akane avoided by flipping up and away, throwing the shinai in her off hand down at his face and laying him out flat.
Kodachi nodded in approval. "There goes our boxing club captain."
Taking the shinai in both hands, Akane fell towards a judo club member, who simply held tightly to the belt of his gi, fire burning in his eyes as he braced himself for her attack. When it came, he didn't move, he didn't block, he simply yelled his kiai and met the shinai with his forehead.
The shinai didn't break, but Akane's momentum went to zero, and the ground buckled beneath the judo student, who screamed again and then lashed out to grab her.
Ranma tensed in excitement when he saw that. Now that was what he wanted to see!
When the judoka's hand clamped onto her shoulder, Akane twisted out of it, and swung the shinai around, only to have it strong armed by his other hand as he thrust the first to palm her back. Akane swung herself around the other way, catching the judoka behind his knees and forcing them to them. And then back around again she came, striking the burly young man across the chest and dropping him on his back.
Even on a warm pleasant day like this, Akane was running so hot that puffs of condensation were clearly visible with her breath, as she turned and charged towards the remaining horde, who were only growing bolder and more decisive with every show of courage from the the likes of those who could last more than a few seconds against her. With the drive to meet her approval replacing their fear of Tatewaki Kuno, they were beginning to see the potential that Kodachi could see in them!
While Ranma could see that potential himself, that was none of his concern at the moment. All he could see was the beautifully grinning Akane as she lost herself in the thrill of combat. It was so distinct from Katie now. The held back impulse to destroy wasn't there, instead there was amazement at her own strength, the excitement of avoiding a strike, and the joy of connecting a blow and defeating an opponent who earned it.
He could've sworn that she'd never experienced something like this, the fun of a real slap down, drag out brawl. If this were a battlefield, like in the old days, she'd be right up there with himself and Katie, a force of nature that swept through everything in her path!
And… Ranma found that he liked that a lot.
"GAHHHHH!" One of the last remaining attackers, some weird kid on a pogo stick, screamed as he was brought down and left unconscious. This left only Akane and one other kendoka, who was armed with a bokken rather than a shinai.
Akane had been keeping an eye on him, he was one of the smarter ones, lurking around the back of the crowd, watching the fight with vested interest. Akane found him interesting, but there was a problem with his pose and intention–there was a complete lack of excitement in it. Both Kodachi and Ranma noticed it as well.
"This guy's not from our school," Ranma realized.
Kodachi nodded. "An excellent observation, he must've slipped into the crowd during the gathering of students." She narrowed her eyes. "A spy from Kolkhoz High School perhaps? Oh Saginomiya, how dare you be so petty…"
"Saginomiya?" Ranma asked.
"Ohohoho, never you mind… that is merely the name of gnat who will soon be crushed," Kodachi replied.
"If he ain't from around here, he might be trouble," Ranma said.
Kodachi disagreed. "I doubt he will be anything more than a footnote in her story of greatness."
The kendoka tightened his grip, and Akane immediately recognized it. It was nothing like the style of kendo that Tatewaki Kuno drilled into his former subordinates. There was also something ominous about it, clear and real intent to do harm to her.
She just smiled, it was nothing compared to what she felt from her senpai. "Whoever you are, you're about to make a mistake."
The masked kendoka just let out a short chuckle, and came right at her, bokken low and body moving fast. His thrust missed as Akane flowed around it, guiding his wooden blade away with her bamboo. What felt like slow-motion suddenly became fast-forward as he recovered from the deflect with all the skill of a professional champion and came at Akane with slashes so fast that the air cracked. Massive, over the head blows mixed with figure-eight patterned swings that were definitely not Kuno's barrage of forward thrusts.
They were fast, very fast. Strikes glanced off Akane's armor that she couldn't deflect with her sword. They came agonizingly close, almost trapping her if not for the slightest twitch, dip, or shift in Akane's stance. It was here, as this mysterious opponent came with every intent to strike her down rather than survive, that Akane's smile did take that characteristic of Katie's… bloodlust seeping in as she recognized this opponent as only an enemy.
Ranma saw it, and he tensed up again. This wasn't going to end well.
Kodachi, however, was on the verge of drooling as she anticipated the outcome of the duel.
She would not be disappointed, as the kendoka suddenly caught Akane's shinai as she attempted to parry a strike–then swung the shinai around and around in a circle before knocking the weapon up and out of her hands, straight up. As the shinai flipped upward, and Akane's gaze was drawn up after it, she realized that she was open right as the kendoka lunged forward, to bring the bokken down on the top of her head.
"Know your place, Furinkan dog!" The swordsman shouted as the blade came down on her head… and hit nothing. "Huh?!"
That's because the bokken had been snatched from his hands when Akane caught it flat between hers and gently wrenched it free. Twirling the bokken around in her hands, she caught it by its hilt, as her opponent slowly turned towards her, his eyes growing large.
It was at this moment that he knew: he fucked up.
Akane's newly claimed bokken slammed into his crotch, shattering the skirt armor of his kendo uniform and the cup he wore to protect his berries. The impact came with such force that the bokken shattered as well, as he was lifted off the ground a good meter and a half. Casting the destroyed wooden sword over her shoulder, she kept her hand above her head and caught her shinai by the handle, before taking it in both hands and rearing back to aim a thrust straight for the kendoka's sternum.
"My place is standing over you… with my heel grinding your head!" She yelled before she fired off the thrust, the tip of the shinai striking her target dead on and accelerating him, not unlike Kuno and Genma as done by Katie, into a terminal flight straight into one of the corner windows of the top floor of the school, where he struck with a loud bang.
Thanks to the building's renovation and reinforcement, however, all the foolish kendoka left was a smear of blood and drool as he slid down the side of the now mostly glass building to the ground three stories below.
Panting, Akane lowered her shinai and looked around the unconscious or stirring young men she pummeled into the dirt. She then looked over to Kodachi and Ranma, her smile regaining all of its beautiful properties while losing all of the darker aspects. "So, how was that?!"
Kodachi began to applaud, certainly impressed. "That was magnificent, Tendo Akane."
"Yeah, you were pretty good out there," Ranma admitted.
Kodachi then gave Ranma a teasing look. "Certainly fine marriage material, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Fiancé?"
Ranma began to blush somewhat, as he was put on the spot. "I'm not saying she's not."
Not at all, in fact… seeing this side of Akane just made the prospect and conflict of marrying one of the Tendo girls all the more difficult. One by one, they were all really starting to show how amazing they were. But admitting it outright brought on so much baggage that he was almost afraid to. Bad enough that he would have to acknowledge his father for bringing him here, but then he would actually have to choose one.
Kodachi whistled, and a number of her handsome gentlemen were at her side in a flash. She then gestured to the beaten young men. "Take them to the infirmary. Our new nursing staff shall administer onto them the finest of care. Do not look down upon them, for they have taken the first step to become fine young men like yourselves."
"Yes, Kodachi-sama!" The gentlemen chorused before getting to work.
Akane walked over, still a bit huffy. "I'll have the list of club presidents in a moment, Kodachi-san."
"Yes, keep that fresh in your head. For now, we must deal with the intruder upon our garden," Kodachi said as she and Ranma turned towards the unconscious kendoist.
Akane stepped up as well, and nodded. "Yeah, let's go get Katie-senpai, some discipline is in order."
|The Devil's Sympathy|
"What did I tell you, Saotome?" Soun said to his former rival and now best friend as the two of them sat in a bar that was mostly empty due to the early hour of the day. "Tofu-dono does exceptional work."
Genma was still smarting from being launched by Katie the day before, but as Soun boasted the Tendo family's physician was surprisingly capable at treating the sort of injuries that came with being launched into the lower atmosphere. "I'm surprised but happy about the quality of work provided." He could have done without the excessive pain the treatment entailed. "Since I was gone for the time being, how did the boy's visit go?"
Soun chuckled to hide his nerves. "It went pretty well. I have a feeling the boy is smitten by all three of my daughters in some fashion."
That came as something of a relief to Genma, long as those three held his interest he didn't have to worry as much about the likes of those two young women he'd spent the last two nights with. "Finally, something starts going my way."
Soun, as if compelled by the universe to dash that hope, had to mention something to put the worry back in the elder Saotome. "Just the same, he apparently has taken up residence with those two girls."
Genma's eyes widened, as in the background someone entered the bar. "You couldn't get him to stay the night?!"
"I tried but he was too headstrong for me… and my daughters leapt to his defense." Soun said in defense of himself. He wasn't going to mention being scared shitless by Katie though.
Genma appeared mollified by this. "Oh, well at least they're interested in scoring brownie points with the boy." He had apparently tired of this point, and moved on the most pressing issue. "I can't believe I've been waylaid by the same girl twice."
Soun nodded in sympathy. "She is a budding master of Indiscriminate Grappling, even without training in our schools." That reminded him, there was the thing he didn't want Genma to know. "Saotome, your son and that girl had a spar last night."
Genma shrugged it off. "So the boy already avenged me eh?" He laughed for a couple seconds before he realized Soun wasn't laughing. "Didn't he?"
Soun shook his head sadly. "It was a close contest, but she won. He was magnificent though and had she been a little more traditional, he would have defeated her soundly."
The boy lost?! Well that was three times that this girl has humiliated him. "Tendo, we have to do something about that girl."
While Soun would readily agree that there was something wrong with the young lady Izland, and felt that her association with not only Ranma but the rest of his family didn't have a positive outlook going, he had his reservations about confronting the girl about it. "What do you reckon by 'do something about her'?"
"I mean as long as she's going to be around, she's going to be an extremely bad influence on my boy, and upon your girls too!" He shot back, inadvertently reminding Soun of why they were friends–they more often than not thought alike. "It's one thing to convince him to throw away his manhood by embracing his curse, but it's another thing entirely to beat him!"
He pounded his fist on the bar top. "I trained my son to never lose–except to me, but even that's happening less nowadays–do you have any idea what it means to have some girl, out of nowhere mind you, show up and defeat him?!"
"She's skilled, Saotome," Soun lamented. "Whoever trained her, trained her as well as you trained your son."
Though there was certainly a darker intent behind the training. Ranma was trained to master the art, certainly, but Katie was trained to use it.
Genma, however, could not let go of his lost pride. "That doesn't matter, my son is the best! He's not supposed to lose, especially not to some shifty-eyed, nosy, meddling girl too tall for her own damn good!"
The curtains draped halfway over the otherwise fully opened front doors of the bar shifted and then were pushed aside, as a figure stepped in. A foreigner wearing steel toe boots, khaki pants, and a matching vest over a gray shirt. He also wore a well-worn dark brown fedora, the right side of the wide brim pinned up against the side of the hat with what appeared to be a senbon needle.
He loped over to the counter, where the older, stern-looking bartender watched him with narrowed eyes. Without preamble, he reached the stool at Soun's left and dropped himself down on it, before calling to the bartender and slipping a few yen please. "Biggest mug you've got, Sapporo."
The bartender nodded his head, and soon enough a tall, frosted mug of beer was set in front of the foreigner, who lifted it up and took a long, slow sip. "Afternoon, gentlemen."
Genma immediately pretended that he wasn't spoken to by the foreigner, as Soun was closer to him. Left on the spot, Soun grew a bit tense, before he brought a closed fist to his lips and cleared his throat.
"Hello, can my companion or I help you?" He asked.
"No, but I think I can help you," the foreigner replied in a polite, gentlemanly fashion. "I was walking by outside this nice establishment, when I heard some fairly unkind words about a young woman. As a man whom many people seek to solve their problems for them, I thought I'd come on over and offer you a bit of assistance on this one of yours."
Soun gave Genma a look, his little outburst had been heard all the way outside? How embarrassing. "Pardon my friend, he is just frustrated over… well… a young woman that has been getting into scraps with him."
"A woman, huh?" The foreigner looked past Soun, at Genma. "An ex-lover? Baby-mama drama?"
"Don't be absurd, I'm a married man with a wife who loves me!" Genma snapped back. "This problematic woman is a high school girl who doesn't know to mind her own business!"
"People not staying in their own lane? I, ironically, can empathize with your plight." The foreigner replied. "Tell me more about it?"
Genma scowled, and took a sip from his small dish of sake. He could never turn down someone willing to pay him some sympathy. "The girl's a damn savage, beating up on both my son and I, completely unprovoked. Kicked me in the head twice, like she wanted to kill me!"
The foreign man whistled in sympathy. "That's pretty rough for ya man. Sounds like she was trained by a right cool son of a bitch, though."
Soun took exception to that. "Cool? There's nothing 'cool' in training a girl that young to kill!"
"Hey now, man, the world's a dangerous place. Rapists an' Monsters an' aliens an' shit running around. A girl ought to know how to kill so she can walk to school with some peace of mind."
Genma dismissed that outright. "What would a killer know about peace of mind?"
The foreigner snorted. "What kinda killer leaves someone they're trying to kill alive?"
Soun paused to consider that, having lost whatever sanctimonious thing he was going to say because of the sudden burst of logic.
Genma wasn't having any of that think before you speak shit though. "Just because I am so very durable doesn't mean anyone else should be so lucky!"
"A fair point," the other man conceded, before circumventing that point entirely like some kind of living snakeman. "But if this girl was just a mindless killer, wouldn't it make more sense that she'd incapacitate ya before killing ya? No matter how tough yer body is, your brain gets shook and ya go down."
Genma faltered, unable to come up with a suitable argument at the moment.
Soun wanted to pick up the fight but found himself trying to get around the logic and unable to do so.
"Now if you'll allow me one final point, knowledge of how to kill ain't the same as the will to kill." The foreigner seemed to rest his case at that.
Genma, unable to fight the argument, went to fight the guy. "You seem to know a lot about this girl despite your alleged impartiality."
The foreigner hummed. "Well, she certainly reminds me of a girl that I dropped off here some time back to do some work for a friend of a friend. I suppose that's why I feel so compelled to defend her honor from a salty bastard crying about how she beat him and his boy."
Genma resisted the urge to growl, but his voice did raise. "Just who are you anyways?"
"Nicholas Fontaine Sherman," the man introduced himself, "My niece is a shifty-eyed, nosy, too tall for her own good type o' gal named Katie Izland." His tone then dropped from easy-going and polite, to menacingly calm. "I hope that name doesn't ring a bell to you gentlemen."
Soun and Genma reacted exactly how two cowards who were used to bullying the weak around to get what they want ran into someone potentially stronger than them: complete and utter panic. Soun gibbered a little while Genma sucked on his teeth as if to stifle a scream. All in all, it wasn't quite as bad a display it could have been.
"Well now," Nick drawled, "looks like you two do know something. Good to know my 'awareness' hasn't led me wrong."
He turned on the stool, and took another sip of his beer. "So, tell me a little bit more details, guys. What exactly has my niece been up to since I left her here? I have expectations, y'see."
Self-preservation immediately kicked in for Genma, who immediately scanned the room for anything he might find to put in between him and this awkward situation and escape. So far, it was looking like he'd have to bail on Soun–which was for the best, since he was paying for this round of drinks to begin with.
That wasn't to say that Soun wasn't looking for an easy way out, though. "Well, ahem, your daughter is skilled as a martial artist. My friend here, his son enjoyed fighting her, in spite of the outcome. She also gets along well with my daughters."
Well, with Akane of course, Kasumi seemed taken enough with her, and she wasn't Nabiki's enemy at least.
"No shit?" Nick's tone ticked right back up to pleasant. "Well, if things are all hunky-dory then I'm glad. She's had trouble makin' friends, you see? Her last pals turned out to be pretty savage backstabbers, or straight up crazy–I've still got one out there who wants to break her spine like a dry twig."
He slapped his hand on the top of the bar again, revealing a bit more yen. "What do you say I buy your next few drinks there? Just you, though." He then indicated Genma. "Your buddy there can sit and spin."
Soun, ever the balanced individual (and sensing that Genma was seconds away from abandoning him to this wolf), quite eagerly accepted the offer. "Well, I can't possibly say no to that sort of generosity. I'm Tendo Soun."
Nick was all smiles. "Good to meet ya, Tendo-san. And who's your friend eyeing the door over there? You know, the dipshit?"
"Saotome Genma," Soun replied, and an arrow of betrayal went right into Genma's back.
Nick then, unexpectedly, underwent a dramatic transformation–going from maliciously amused to outright wide-eyed with surprise. "D-did you say Saotome Genma?"
Genma froze, right as he was about to leap off the stool and dash straight out of the door. Soun was taken off guard by Nick's sudden recognition as well.
Nick looked directly at him. "Saotome Genma, of the Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling? The Saotome Genma, husband of Saotome Nodoka, and father of Saotome Ranma?"
Well, if Genma's blood had been cold before in the face of a stronger opponent, it was now an icy slush that threatened to stop his heart. He turned back to face Nick, ready to go on the defensive in case this strange man had some sort of grudge against him for something else. How did he know so much about him? Even the name of his wife?!
"I am that Saotome Genma…" He said, gruffly despite his trepidation.
"Huh," Nick said, "Small world. Hey, forgive my previous rudeness… I didn't realize I was in the presence of a legend."
And now Genma was confused. "E-excuse me?"
"You've got a reputation that precedes you, especially in my community," Nick gestured to the bar. "Help yourself to the top shelf at my expense, my friend. You've earned it." To Soun he nodded. "You too, Tendo-san. I didn't think we'd all be so closely interconnected like this. Our kids all meetin' and becoming friends."
And now Genma was not confused. "Oh, well that is generous of you."
Soun would've found Nick's sudden flip-flopping odd, but the promise of top shelf alcohol and a lack of animosity from the foreigner dashed those concerns.
"Well, in my lifetime I've learned that it's good to clear the air of any misunderstandings, especially for the benefit of the kids, you know? And while Katie may be my niece, but I've raised her like a daughter for thirteen summers and at least two winters."
She certainly had some martial artists' chops if most of that raising involved the sort of training that made her into a beast that rivaled Ranma, Soun reasoned. "You've taken good care of her."
Nick nodded again. "You betcha. I still look out for her; hence my sticking my nose in here… and well… why I decided to come here from two neighborhoods over in the first place. On that note, I have a question:"
He looked between Soun and Genma, as he asked this question. "You wouldn't happen to know anyone petty enough to put an 700,000 yen bounty on my niece's head for her 'complete and utter humiliation', would you?"
And just like that, Soun knew.
|Card Shark|
At a round poker table in the school's stuffy gymnasium equipment shed, Nabiki rapidly shuffled a deck of cards overhand. Across from her, Katie sat in a folding chair, relaxed as she watched her classmate continuously shuffle the cards. After a few shuffles, Nabiki made the deck nice and neat before setting it down on the table.
"Draw the first five off the top," Nabiki instructed.
Katie looked at Nabiki, then down at the cards, before reaching over and drawing–one by one–an Ace, a King, a Queen, a Jack, and a Ten of Hearts. She looked down at the hand in surprise, then back up at Nabiki. This was the third time in as many shuffles that Nabiki had successfully put the Royal Flush on top for her to draw.
"How?" She asked as she set the cards back down for Nabiki to scoop up. The cards weren't altered in any way, no shaved edges, no thinner cardboard, nothing.
Nabiki smiled and stacked the five cards up before sweeping them back into the deck, her eyes not leaving it. "It's all about keeping your eye on the birdy."
She then began to shuffle again, working the five cards of the royal flush down to the bottom of the deck, then shuffling the brick of cards until they were back at the top. Cutting the cards, she riffled the decks back together, then shuffled them again, before setting the deck back down.
"Top five, please," Nabiki said.
Katie did as instructed. Getting this time three aces, a King of Diamonds, and a King of Clubs. She looked up at Nabiki, not as impressed.
Nabiki smirked, and then lifted the rest of the deck, leaving only the bottom five cards. Fanning those five out, she flipped the bottom one, so the others flipped in sequence, revealing the Royal Flush of Hearts.
Katie recoiled. "Yo…"
"You learn how the dealer stacks and controls the deck, and keep an eye on your cards, then you can make any hand you want as you deal," Nabiki said, "Or more importantly, you can play your hands while knowing who has what card in theirs. You don't need to do anything. You just need to know when to hold'em and know when to fold'em."
"That's pretty generous, teaching a trick like that," Katie said, somewhat subdued.
"Hey now, you're paying me a ridiculous sum of money for my loyalty, and I'd like to be able to tap that resource in the future," Nabiki replied.
Katie briefly narrowed her eyes, but then schooled her expression again to its normal cool indifference. "I could think of a few ways to keep that pipe open."
Nabiki was quick on the uptake, and headed off the innuendo at the pass. "Starting by laying it?"
She gathered up the cards and began shuffling. This time she just stared at Katie, waiting for her reaction.
"I was thinking more dinner and dancing, but hey…" Katie replied off-handedly.
Nabiki's lips turned up slightly. "I bet you think about it."
Katie's poker face didn't waver. "A girl with tastes like mine thinks about it often–the dinner and dancing part, that is."
Nabiki stopped shuffling and riffling, and dealt five cards between her and Katie. When Katie picked up her hand, she found it fairly solid. Four of a kind, all nines, and an Ace of Spades. Picking up her hand, Nabiki looked at it and began adjusting her cards.
"I bet you'd like a taste," she said.
"Well I am a girl with high standards." She had deliberately gone for that, and found Nabiki unfazed. Looking back down at her hand, she decided to test out Nabiki's poker face. "Want to put it on the table?"
Nabiki looked up. "On this hand? Sure, I bet one round of no-strings attached, purely hedonistic making out between you and I." A cheeky smile appeared on her face. "But you'd better offer me something of equal value, or you're never getting another chance."
Dealing with the house, especially when she was a card controlling master, was never a sure win. She may have had a four of a kind, but there was no telling what hand Nabiki had going. It could be a weaker hand, anticipating a fold, or a stronger hand tempting her to win. It was always safer to walk away if you could.
"I fold," she said, dropping the cards onto the table.
Nabiki threw her hand on the table, revealing a hand full of rags–all low rank cards. "You give up too easily."
Looking at the cards, Katie frowned. "Damn it."
Gathering up the cards, Nabiki riffled them, then shuffled. Cutting the deck into fours, she brought the outer two together, and then the inner two, before riffling the two reassembled decks back into one. She dealt out, in quick succession five cards to herself and Katie, before picking up her own hand, Four of a Kind right out the gate.
"What do I have?" She asked.
Katie stopped, and looked up. "Wait, what?"
She gestured to her hand. "Have you been paying attention at all, or were you too excited by the prospect of 'dinner and dancing' to notice? What cards do I have in my hand?"
Katie immediately blanched, when she realized that she hadn't been paying attention to the cards at all. "… Fuck!"
Nabiki nodded. "That's what I thought. Well? At least take a guess."
Katie looked back at her hands, a Straight of Spades. That gave her no indication of Nabiki's hand, worse still, she'd really been distracted by Nabiki's flirting, so she lost track of the Royal Flush. "I don't know, um…?"
Down came Nabiki's hand, revealing a Straight Flush of Clubs. Looking from it to Nabiki, Katie frowned in defeat. "… I see, yeah."
"Poker players are all about mind games, and I love them dearly, myself. You're not good enough now or in two days to play the long game, so just focus on counting the cards and throwing him off his. Make him tilt first and you'll just have a nice night of poker to talk about to your turkey baster babies one day."
"Ooh, dyke jokes, painful," Katie dryly replied. "But yeah, I'll do that."
Nabiki gestured to the shitty cards and Katie's own. "Now, pay attention to these cards." She swept back up the cards and began reshuffling them. "No matter how good looking I am, you need to win."
One complicated shuffle later, and Nabiki dealt herself and Katie the cards before picking up her hand. Katie found herself with a four of a kind 10s and a King. "What do I have?"
"… A losing hand," Katie said, her eyes glued to the cards and nothing else. Nabiki had dealt herself the majority of the same rags she had before.
Nabiki nodded as she turned over a pile of yuck with an 8 as her high card. "See? Even if you learn nothing else, with this you can always keep from losing the big hand."
Katie nodded, beginning to understand. 'Yeah, that'd help. Even if I can't win everything, I can save myself."
Again the cards were gathered. "Count the cards and keep cool. People lose focus on the goal and become easy prey for mind games." She held up this time the Ace of Spades. "Now then, follow the Ace."
Katie nodded as she focused on the cards. "It's how you end up having a proxy playing for you because you have nothing else to bet."
"Luck is for losers, you're never going to hit that miracle one-shot turn around except in a tournament." Nabiki said as she dealt the cards. "Let's mix it up: Do I have the ace in my hand?"
Katie, having been paying attention again, shook her head. "Nope."
She reached down and drew not from the top of the deck, but the bottom, pulling out the Ace of Spades.
"Progress, though maybe I should pop my top a little and see if your focus can hold." Nabiki said as she gathered the cards again.
"If you wanna get naked, by all means." Katie said, shrugging. "I won't complain."
"Ha, ha, you're a terrible flirt–literally, you're bad at it." Nabiki showed Katie the hand, four Kings and a Queen, and reshuffled the cards. "Follow the Kings."
Katie focused again and little by little, as Nabiki shuffled and reshuffled the cards and showed her hand after hand. One card at a time, five cards at a time, as Nabiki ordered her to follow this card or the other, she began to know the places of each, memorizing their positions as her eyes followed the deft movements of Nabiki's hands.
After a certain point, her focus tightened to the point, the world began to be swallowed by black. She could no longer see the stuffy room, just Nabiki shuffling the cards over and over.
One of the first things she learned from her Uncle was tapping into this supreme focus that let her read things beyond the norm. Because of the energy needed, she saved it for battle when she needed to process things faster and read even the most minute detail. And all because of the warm feeling it left her with, the name her Uncle gave it was fairly apt.
The melodic hum of Nabiki's heart, the suave rhythm of her breath, the sharpness of the cards cutting the air even as they appeared to be going in slow motion. All of this was present before her eyes. As if she was looking from on high, peering past the illusions of the world to see the truth she need.
Hence why her Uncle named it 'Heaven'.
Katie blinked and the world returned just in time for Nabiki to deal the cards again. Without even lifting them, Katie knew they were the four kings in the hand, alongside a Queen of Hearts.
"Who has the Kings?" Nabiki asked, making a show of picking up her cards.
Katie didn't even try to pick them up. "I do."
Nabiki stopped, and looked at the cards before back up at her. Just like that? Well, this was interesting…
"Very nice." Nabiki congratulated, showing a full house of Jacks and Tens, before flipping Katie's over to reveal the cards that she indicated. "Be cool, be focused, and follow the cards."
"Basically, be you." Katie summarized as Nabiki collected the cards.
"You're not cool enough to be me." Nabiki snapped back, the irritated twang in her heartbeat told Katie that she was not appreciative of the humor when she was trying to be serious. It was almost not even there and had Katie not been focusing on Nabiki, she'd have missed it completely.
Nabiki shuffled the cards again, making a bigger show of moving them. With the show, came the more complex game of shuffling and deck manipulation. The cards flowed like water in her hands, Nabiki getting even fancier with her tricks. It was time to really mix it up, and she did–dealing herself and Katie each two cards before quickly shuffling the deck again, and then dealing out the rest. "You may have to keep up with a number of different shuffles. Don't want him to pick up on it."
Katie didn't need the lecture but appreciated it anyways. "Right, if he catches on, he might run out before I've won."
"You may also need to lose a few hands, to keep yourself honest. What are my cards?"
"Full house, sevens full of sixes." Katie replied after a second to replay which cards were moving where in her head.
"Without looking, is your hand the winner?" Nabiki pressed on further.
Katie shook her head. "Nah, I'm an ace short of four of a kind, or a king or queen shy of a full boat."
Nabiki swept the cards back from Katie. "Remember, focus."
Katie nodded, choosing to focus on the subtle jiggle Nabiki's chest did while breathing. "Focus."
Nabiki did her most expressive shuffle yet, almost juggling the cards at one point. She dealt the cards, shuffling into between each card really trying to throw Katie off.
The deck had barely been set down and Nabiki hadn't even moved to her cards when Katie quickly flipped her own. "Royal flush." Her gaze was locked on Nabiki, she hadn't even looked at the cards while they were being dealt.
Under other circumstances, Nabiki might have frowned. But she was being paid to turn a total amateur into someone capable of beating a guy who called himself the Gambling King at his own game. Maybe it wouldn't all be cheating.
She swept the cards up and began to shuffle, jerking back ever so slightly faster than usual.
Katie managed to keep her head straight as her eyes stayed level with Nabiki's chest. "Heaven" indeed.
Nabiki dealt five cards each at high speed, not really trying to give Katie a chance to see them.
It didn't matter. Katie nodded again. "You won."
Nabiki swept up the cards and shuffled again, there wasn't any need to declare it. She said nothing, only doing her best to vary her shuffles and cuts. It'd almost be too much if not for that advice to focus.
Focus is exactly what Katie did, on the cards and the dealer. She had been annoyed at having to pay Nabiki just a little bit, but the money was to keep her honest. Going through Kasumi would only have so much effect, and if Katie just didn't learn enough to win it wasn't Nabiki's fault. There'd be no room for error, she was going to smash this asshole that was encroaching on her paradise.
The cards were dealt in rapid succession. Nabiki set the deck down for a second and waited.
"Four of a kind Aces, to a Kings full of 10s. I won." Katie said, looking at the cards just so Nabiki didn't catch on to what she was actually focused on.
"Okay, she's doing something different now," Nabiki finally caught on. She couldn't even tell if Katie was looking at the cards as she shuffled them again, this time dipping further into her repertoire of card tricks than she had before..
Katie looked down at the board to see two pair of kings and queens getting punched in the taint by a straight. She tapped the table. "You won, ten high straight mix of diamonds and clubs."
"You're really getting good at this." Nabiki said, Katie allowing the girl's face to fade back into her view. There's nothing there to lead the Izland lass into whether Nabiki is happy about that.
"I have a great teacher." Katie said without sounding like she was trying to butter the other girl up. "And I can focus real good."
"Is this how you beat Ranma?" Nabiki asked, her voice betrayed no emotions. It's only the slight twang of the breath she exhaled with it that gave away that she was unhappy to see him lose.
"We were both thinking at top speed." Katie replied, scanning the contours of the girl's face and finding she liked them after a fashion. "He just didn't consider everything a 3D environment and I did. The armbar was inspired but he couldn't take my legs from under me. Flying armbars are cool but we're not in some safe and sanitized place, fighting by strict rules to avoid getting hurt."
"We don't run a McDojo you know?" Nabiki said with a sardonic smirk. "It's too bad most of our students were such cowardly pussies, because we'd be doing a lot better for the future of the dojo than a hail mary pass to a prodigal son-in-law."
Without focusing, Katie wouldn't have known that Nabiki's breathing changed when she was annoyed. That subtle shift despite completely dispassionate look and tone was the one hole no one could have ever possibly known.
Without that focus, Katie wouldn't have finally figured out what was really eating Nabiki's ass about one Kaitlin Izland. She'd still be groping around in the dark, chasing red herrings like the business and the money. She'd remain clueless of the real thing she needed to address between them to turn them from casual antagonists who could join forces if circumstances called for it into something more along the lines of what Katie wanted.
But she did and so she decided to call it out. "Are you jealous of Akane's martial arts talent?" That wasn't it, but it was an attempt at feigning ignorance.
Nabiki's reaction, as viewed under "Heaven", was almost comical to watch. The subtle hiss of the sucked in breath that happened too fast for the middle Tendo's icy facade to halt it. The flare of her nostrils, the snarl that almost breaks out on her face before everything becomes placid. Her features are perfectly schooled before she gave a response.
"Why would I be jealous of Akane?" It's a fair question, one to imply an inferred superiority that made such a claim preposterous.
Nabiki isn't focused like Katie is and missed that the question had been a bait. Katie hooked her right in the mouth and was reeling her in for the next blow. "Oh, sorry, I misspoke. I meant, are you jealous of my martial arts ability?"
The girl in question refused to answer, switching to shuffling the cards. The cadence of the shuffling was almost ingrained in Katie's mind though, it didn't serve as the distraction it was intended to be. The folding, the cutting, nothing. Even the crisp snap of the cards when Nabiki finished didn't waver her attention.
The deal was uncharacteristically forceful, like there was the denial the dealer refused to verbalize.
It still didn't help. "You have a spade suited royal flush." Katie answered the unspoken question and now the spotlight was back on Nabiki.
Nabiki swept the cards up and thought about the question. It seemed to stupid that Katie would even dare ask, of course Nabiki was jealous! Why wouldn't she be? Someone just so happened to saunter on in, pleased as fucking punch, and had the audacity to be everything she had wanted to be but had been denied by reality. It was infuriating, even more so that Katie had the same cool, detached demeanor and everything!
"I…" Nabiki started, before she swallowed the emotion and froze it out. She was going to push this aside. "If I said I was, what would be your response?" It was meant to be a probing question, to push back Katie by making the answer focus on herself.
But it still didn't help, because the answer was obvious. "Flattered, you're actually pretty awesome."
The stark honesty rattled the cage that was Nabiki Tendo. The ice cracked and her heart beat kicked up for a few seconds at the surprising answer. She gasped a little, unnoticeable except to anyone looking for it.
For the fleeting half-second it lasted, she saw a faint twinkle of emotion. She caught how Nabiki's ears seemed to flush instead of her face and even the awkward shuffle to hide them under her hair. Nabiki was completely off guard and vulnerable right now.
Her tongue moistened suddenly dry lips and for the first time in years Nabiki Tendo has no quip back. There was no biting witticism to win back the ground lost. Katie now knew something she was not supposed to, and Nabiki had no words to bring it back. Her keen mind fumbled and groped at the words, trying to puzzle out the order to say them to try and keep the other girl at bay.
"Oh really?" Nabiki's voice is barely a whisper. She didn't trust herself to keep from snapping and snarling and ruining her reputation any further.
"Yeah, I wish I could have your nerve. It kind of drives me crazy" Katie admitted.
"You're envious… of me?" Nabiki asked, voice hissing disbelief and an anger hidden deep within. If Katie is yanking her chain, things are promised to get messy.
"You're all calm and collected no matter what." Katie said, shrugging slightly. "Around here, where there are monsters like Ranma or your sister or me walking around happy to do whatever we want through brute force, you act like we're nothing to you–even when you know that with a careless swing any one of us could break you in half. How can I not like that confidence?"
Nabiki hit the table with the deck of cards, to control her reaction. "You don't need it."
"It wouldn't hurt," Katie argued, "Because there are things out there that I'm terrified of."
It went without saying, that Nabiki would treat it with her usual cool indifference, because Nabiki caught the inference. That actually caused the heat at the tips of her ears to spread towards the edges of her cheeks, but she fought it off well, burying it in silence. She looked at the time and the session was drawing to a close. Of course, there were going to be more on the horizon until the match actually happened.
She spoke, without looking at her. "Our time is almost up. To recap, what do you need to do to win?"
"Keep calm and focus." Katie replied like a dutiful student. She'd let Nabiki get away for now. Under the ice, Nabiki was a mess of tinder. Give it a spark and she'd ignite, something Katie wanted to be able to see.
"That's right. We'll practice more of my shuffles another time" Nabiki avoided eye contact and simply focused on putting the deck away. "This is your best shot so let's not blow it."
"Wouldn't dream of it." Katie reassured her classmate.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Nabiki left once the time had been up. Katie sat there a minute longer, thinking about things that she had learned today. She then smiled and laughed as she got up and strolled out.
|Hello/Goodbye|
One toast had become many, and a mid-afternoon visit became an all-day bender before an annoyed bartender finally shoved Soun, Genma, and their new best friend out of the door, the three men singing rather loudly about the importance of being drunk in Japanese society, to deaden the pain of existing in such a fucked up country.
"Hahahaha!" Genma laughed. "When you think about it, life is pretty awful!"
Soun agreed. "It's a miracle we have alcohol! Who knows what we'd do if we didn't drink!"
"Or fight!" Nick tossed in.
"Or fuck!" Genma bellowed, and all three nearly fell over in hysterics.
Soun, who was held up between the two, became the pillar that supported all three, standing tall until the other two men managed to regain their balance. Genma was first, throwing back his head and laughing until he let out a belch, while Nick was a bit slower, the hand of the arm not draped over Soun's shoulders clamped over his face as he chuckled continuously.
"We should… we should get back home…" Soun said. "It's almost time for dinner and it's important to eat after you drink… so you don't get sick…"
"That's the other way around, Tendo! Eat before, and then you don't… pffhahaha…" Genma tried to explain, and Soun just laughed at how silly he was for getting it wrong.
Nick then shouted to the sky. "I AM REALLY DRUNK!"
All three almost fell, but this time Nick and Genma stopped to support Soun. Over alcohol and stories both heroic and horrifying, the three martial artists bonded as men, comparing scars and boasting of great accomplishments. It wasn't long before this man, Nicholas Fontaine Sherman, was their best friend, comrade in arms, and fellow traveler down the path of the fist. And he probably would be even after the alcohol wore off!
"You should c'mon over to the house, my friend!" Soun insisted. "My daughter, Kasumi… Kasumi's a wonderful cook, you'd love her…"
Nick laughed. "I would… God I would… heh heh heh…" He patted Soun on the back. "But I have my own home to get to, and a missus waitin' in bed for me."
"Lucky man!" Genma declared. "A wife who knows where to await her husband!"
Soun was surprised. "Your wife's here, in Japan?"
Nick nodded. "Yeah, yeah, we just got married the other day. Did I not mention that?"
"Well congratulations! Let's go back and toast again!" Soun suggested.
Genma looked back and saw the bartender cracking his knuckles and giving them a killing stare. "Let's not!"
"Okay!" Soun and Nick shouted together.
The three men leaned against each other, laughing uproariously. In all honesty, they could all easily take the bartender apart, but they were too drunk to really notice or care. Who needed some random jerk who hated money to kill their vibe? All three men were well and capable of doing that by themselves.
On that note, Nick let out another small laugh, and nudged Soun in the side. "Hey, hey, Tendo… hey…"
As Genma continued chuckling, Soun turned to Nick. "Yes, my friend?"
"I have… I have a secret to tell you… it's… it's pretty good… check this out…" He looked at Genma, and then leaned over and began whispering something very quietly into his ear.
Soun stopped laughing, and his eyes widened before he looked Nick dead in the eyes, as if hit by a sudden moment of clarity. "Really?!"
"That's how I know so much about him, man," Nick insisted. "It's crazy."
Soun nodded slowly, before he laughed. "Wow, well… someone has to do it, I guess."
Nick then wore a rather twisted smile. "I know, right?"
Saotome's laughter finally eased, as he looked towards the two whispering, chuckling men. "Hey, what's so funny?"
Nick chuckled. "It's a secret, well… a surprise. You'll find out. Anyway, I've had my fun y'all, so I gotta go give the missus what she's been needin', you know?"
Genma knew. "Ha, ha! Give her one for me, Sherman!"
Nick broke away from Soun and began to saunter back, laughing. "Oh I'll make her scream like a banshee buddy, don't you worry!"
He walked on, laughing hysterically, his hand clasped over his face to cover it as he staggered away, looking more like a maniac who just got away with murder than a harmless drunkard walking home from a night with friends.
Genma laughed and waved off after him, before leaning back against Soun, still chuckling. "You know, I'm willing to give that girl a second chance. Who knows, I might even be able to crib something off that style of 'is."
Soun laughed a bit more, and then nodded. "Sounds great, Saotome… now… now let's get on home… Kasumi doesn't like to be kept waiting."
Step by step, the two began walking towards the house, still laughing rather uproariously. Genma because he knew that everything was going to be perfectly fine, like he always knew it would be. Soun because he was too drunk to realize it wouldn't.
With the two out of his hair, Nick strolled from the neighborhood of Furinkan towards another part of the Nerima Ward he called home for several obvious reasons. A neighborhood that, when compared to it, made Furinkan seem like a balanced and stable community. The 2000s San Francisco alongside 1980s Oakland.
This was the neighborhood known as Tomobiki.
"What an interesting day," he said as he walked towards a nice, if small house not down the street from the high school that gave the neighborhood its dubious name. Walking in through the front door, he strolled past the sitting room, where an attractive woman in her 30s sat watching television, and towards the bedroom.
"I had hoped to see Katie, but instead I learned so much, so that was cool," he said when he reached the bedroom and turned on the light. Spread across the wall opposite of him, directly above the bed was a large blue kimono, decorated with red and black hanafuda cards, and hanging above it was a plain black hat.
"But still…" He turned and went to the wall to his left, pulling out a small photograph of Nabiki, graciously offered to him by Soun during their drinking. "Nabiki Tendo…"
Licking the back of the picture, he slapped it against the wall, where it stuck. "Putting money on my niece's head."
He turned and walked over to the opposite side of the room and a vanity, where a matte black box sat. Opening it, he pulled out a long, black knife, that he weighed and examined in his hand with care. He nodded slowly, and ran the flat of the blade against his face, teasing shaving the well-kept black beard on his face.
Then he turned and whipped it at the wall, just as the temporary adhesive of his saliva fell. It was no longer needed, as the knife pinned the picture of Nabiki into the wall.
"Definitely… un… cool…" He breathed as he let his eyes linger on the picture, and his thoughts on what he would do to the genuine article.
|Bark at the Moon|
In the late mists of the night, on the outskirts of Nerima, if you listened closely you would hear the padding footfalls of a wolf. It was a larger than ordinary fare, with a coat of nigh-Obsidian fur shaking as it ran along. Nostrils flared as it tracked its prey, there was an icy chill in its grey-blue eyes as it peered around the area for clues. Most curiously, around its neck was a bandana, which had a curious tiger stripe pattern.
Those who had observed the wolf in passing would regard it as a figment of their imagination, for what wolf hunted alone? It was too big to call just a mere wolf, it seemed to be so much more. And so on the majestic beast ran, hunting after whatever quarry such a large beast might have.
Behind the wolf, a purple haired girl jogged after it, she was carrying two large packs. She was dressed in a conservative blouse and tights combo, though they both hugged her curves and gave a sense that modesty was something people lectured her on and she just didn't get. Her slippers slapped against the pavement as she tried to keep up but it seemed her companion had finally gotten a whiff of the trail.
"You is wait!" The girl cried, pausing to take a steadying breath as she adjusted the packs. "Wait for Shampoo!"
The chase continued as girl and wolf ran towards their target through the fading mists of the night, melding into the dream-like world that was the Nerima Ward.
Chapter 7/?
Sieben.
= = =
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 7/?
The kendoka that attempted quite boldly to break a bokken over Akane's skull, only to suffer one broken over his balls in return, seemed quite uppity for a guy who just lost his reproductive capacity for an indeterminate amount of time. Following the attack, he had been restrained in the school's infirmary and left to stew in his juices before he was questioned, and it was during that time that his uppityness became quite apparent. He swore, he spat, and he derided anyone who came near him, acting rather arrogant for–again–a dude who had been near castrated by Akane.
It was early in the next morning when the student council of Furinkan High School met outside of the dark hallway outside of the nurse's office, Katie and Ranma had arrived as one pair, while Nabiki and Akane showed up as another. They had just received the report on the condition of the kendoka, and the fact that despite having a lot to say, who he was and where he came from didn't appear to be in his vocabulary.
He would not enjoy the process of learning.
"Good grief, I'd say that we didn't send assassins to knock over other students in my old school, but I literally had to put like five cheerleaders in the hospital when they tried to jump me in the showers after gym," Katie lamented.
"There weren't assassins at my old school mostly because it was an all guys school and assassins are generally the bottom bitches of any crew," Ranma said, "And no one wanted to be the bitch made man. Instead, everyone just fought everyone in the hallways, and in the cafeteria, and in gym, and in class…"
"You went to an all boys school?" Nabiki asked.
"Can we just take a step back and focus on the fact that we're talking about assassins in school like it's a normal thing?"
"Temper your exasperation, you're balls deep in this nonsense," Nabiki said, "Miss Girls Athletic Committee Chair."
Katie nodded. "It's safer to accept it, Akaneko."
Akane pouted at this, but nodded and folded her arms. "Just when I was getting used to it being peaceful and quiet. So, how do we find out who he is?"
"Nothing a car battery and some leads won't fix," Katie said.
"Could we not?" Akane pleaded.
"You're no fun." Nabiki said, sticking her tongue out at her sister.
"I'm all kinds of fun but I'd rather not go too far down the hole of unsanitary violence." Akane finished her plea with a begging smile that made it hard to say no.
Katie and Nabiki both conceded to that, while Ranma recalled something Kodachi said. "Well, he might be from wherever this Saginomiya person is."
"Asuka Saginomiya?" Nabiki asked. "Oh geez, she would send someone here, wouldn't she?"
Katie's face fell. She heard of that particular nutjob before, a rich bitch with a chip on her shoulder and a sense of moral superiority unbecoming of how she openly acted in public or on Instagram. "I've heard of her."
"I haven't, fill me in," Ranma said.
"She goes to Kolkhoz Academy, an international school right over on the border with Nakano. Her family runs the school's administration, you can imagine what kind of power she has over the students and faculty," Katie explained.
"She's also Kodachi's mortal rival," Nabiki said. "They've literally been at it since kindergarten."
She whipped out her smartphone and loaded a wikipedia page about it. "Their feud is local lore, IRL and online, because it's literally evolved with social media."
Nabiki presented the screen of the phone to Ranma and Akane, who both gawked in disbelief at the length of the rivalry.
"She's a drama queen, plain and simple," Katie said, "She was in the middle of shit with Misao back when I first moved here. Calling her a prostitute and a call girl, and trying to send her friends to intimidate her at public events."
"She sounds like a horrible person," Akane said.
"You have no idea." Asuka Saginomiya was so wretched, that Katie considered her a turn-off.
Nabiki shook her head. "Now I almost feel sorry for this dope. If he really is one of that Saginomiya's pets, he's not long on brains, just misplaced loyalty."
Katie was amazed. "Well, someone who can ruin a person enough to nearly invoke sympathy from you."
"Nearly," Nabiki reminded them. "In the end, he's just an accessory that she's tossed aside to make a statement–provided it's Saginomiya responsible for him."
"And if he's not?" Ranma asked.
Nabiki shrugged her shoulders. "Then he's an even bigger idiot, because the only other school that would take shots at us has no reason to now that Kuno the elder is indisposed."
"Who?" This was new to Katie, too.
"Mendou Shuutaro!" With Kodachi's declaration the hallway corridor's lights came on, illuminating her arrival flanked by several of her butlers. "Heir to the Mendou Zaibatsu, which owns Tomobiki High School and 51% percent of Japan's property!"
"And principal rival of Kuno," Nabiki added.
Kodachi nodded. "That is correct! Since the Kendo Nationals two years ago, where my brother swiftly struck him down in the middle school level championships. He has sought revenge and retribution for the humiliation, only to be spurned again and again on the stage of champions!"
"In short, he's a pretty shitty swordsman," Nabiki tl;dr'd.
Ranma immediately lost interest, as did Katie. A guy weaker than Kuno wasn't any fun.
Akane didn't lose the plot. "But if Kuno's gone, why is he sending assassins after us?"
Kodachi let out a small laugh. "Let us find out." She looked to Katie. "Would you mind interrogating the young man, as per your duty as Disciplinary Chair?"
"I got a couple ideas," Katie said, popping her neck. "Just let me study him a bit."
"Well, if he was a pet of Saginomiya, then we could check her Instagram. She likes to post a selfie that coincides with someone from her circle getting caught doing something dumb." Nabiki pointed out, using her phone to go check that lead out.
"And if he is from this Mendou guy?" Ranma asked, curious if she had any info on that.
"Oh, Tomobiki guys are all hard up for that alien girl who looks like a demon." Nabiki said it offhand. "Just mention Lum Invader and see if the idiot sprouts a massive stiff."
"That'll cover the who, I'll work on finding out the why," Katie said as she opened the door and walked into the infirmary. "Akaneko, come along."
Akane gestured to herself. "Me?"
Curious, she followed Katie in. In the room, she found the kendoka strapped firmly to a bed, which was in an upright position. He could hardly move at all, as much for the sake of his injuries as it was to prevent him from attempting to escape. Despite being locked away for the entire day and night, the mysterious assailant was still full of piss and vinegar. "Mongrels!"
"Wan, wan," Katie said. She rolled her eyes before giving a sharp snort. "How's it feel being a mongrel's prisoner? Or that you got stomped by one?"
"Flukes have been known to happen," the kendoka retorted with an arrogant turn of his nose. "Your birth being a prime example."
Katie ignored the barb and turned to Akane. "All right Akaneko, I'm gonna explain something that might not make sense. And then I'll demonstrate it for you."
"Okay." Akane said, before glancing at their prisoner. "It won't do anything to him will it?"
"If all goes well, I won't need to even hurt him to get him to talk." Katie reassured the girl.
"As if a mongrel could make me talk." He muttered with a dark tone.
Katie gave him an even more disdainful look. "Jesus Christ, more people with eighth-grader syndrome. Do you realize how lame you sound, calling me mongrel? Gilgamesh wasn't real, the Fate version was literally golden garbage, and even with that handicap in your favor you'd never be as intimidating as him."
He immediately tried to spit at her face, but he could've hocked that loogie after saving it up for a week and it wouldn't have gone any further than the foot of the bed where it landed.
Katie then turned to Akane again. "Now then, that explanation."
She took a breath to steady herself. "It's like this: when I fight, I tend to focus more than most people. Normally, this would be bad because you'd tend to miss things. But at some point, my Uncle learned a trick that let him bypass the limiter of sight. Basically, once you get the hang of that trick, you'll be able to "see" more, as well as hear, smell, taste, and touch more than normal. As well as focusing on things, you'll be able to also think faster and come to better decisions faster before you could be defeated. It's hard to describe, but it's kind of like learning how to fight blind."
Akane looked thoughtful, had anyone else tried to say that to her, she would have called bullshit. But this was her senpai... "So you're saying I can learn this?"
"Anyone can, even Nabiki." Katie said, shrugging her shoulders a little. "It's just, most people take their eyesight for granted and never ever try to account for times when they can't see."
The kouhai looked back at their prisoner. "So how are you going to show me?"
Katie hummed. "First, look me in the eyes and watch them closely."
Akane did as instructed, watching with deep fascination as she watched the taller girl's pupils dilated. They kept going and soon Akane wasn't sure Katie could see anything anymore. She moved to speak but Katie silenced her with a raised hand.
"Don't, I need to adjust first." Katie whispered, focusing on her hearing first, bringing it down to levels she could handle. "If you said something there it would've been like a bomb going off by my ears."
Everything was so much sharper, clearer now to Katie. She could hear both Akane and the kendoka's heart beats, the former tinged with curiosity, the latter seething with anger and hate. She slowly blurred out the room around them until only Akane and their prisoner remained. Idly, she let the scent of Akane filter through her heightened smell and it was like a field after a spring rain, so vibrant and full of life.
"Senpai?" Akane murmured, the timber of her voice showing off the full range of emotions. From concern and curiosity to friendly affection and warmth.
"It's fine, I'm just focusing and filtering everything." Katie said, turning away from Akane to look at the prisoner. "Trust me, you'll want to get good at speed focus or else you'll get to hear someone three blocks over having explosive diarrhea. Not fun."
"I imagine it wouldn't." Akane blanched, shaking her head.
Katie focused on the heartbeat of the kendoka, trying to find out what it could tell her. He was angry, prideful, dismissive and hidden within the contours of the sound was the shame he felt at losing to a girl and losing in general. "Huh, his anger is all bluster to keep from feeling the shame over losing. To a girl."
He blanched in surprise and jerked his head to deny it.
"You can tell that?" Akane asked, not having expected that.
"From the cadence and pace of his heartbeat. It takes a while to learn what each sound represents but they each have a certain tone." Katie replied, before she casually answered Akane's following question. "Before you ask, you're excited, curious and anxious."
Akane nodded. "That's amazing."
The kendoka began to sweat as he realized the implications.
"There's other things that I'll explain after the interrogation." Katie said, keeping her focus on the prisoner. "So! Tell me about Lum Invader?"
His pulse slowed and the organ beat with confusion. "Why would I know anything about that stupid thing?"
"Fascinating. It's just, we thought you were one of Mendou Shuutaro's fanboys thanks to your kendo ability." Katie explained.
His heart thudded with offense now, his breath was hot with anger. "As if I'd follow that clown!"
"All right, I believe you." Katie said, swiftly switching topics. "Man, that leaves that ugly cow Asuka Saginomiya."
Akane looked at Katie, when she noticed his hands twitch, as if he was about to clench them in to fists. Katie had seen it too, and then nudged Akane. "I mean, her face looks like someone drank some bad milk and puked it back up, upon which the sick grew legs and thought itself a person."
His eyes widened, his nostrils flared. He strained against his restraints and bared his teeth. All the while, his heart barely picked up pace, though it was tinged with slight anger.
"Impressive show chum, but either you agree with my assessment or you're faking anger to try and throw me off." Katie correctly diagnosed. "And a fine gentlemen like you going to that inbred factory of Kolkhoz?"
Now he was pissed, his heart rate jumped to a significant amount.
"I see, not a pet, a patriot. Doing good work for the glory of his school." Katie said, tsking a little. "Or I'm sure that's how she sold you on it. I mean, your school is still smarting after that incident where the Golden Pair got crippled right?"
His heart was thundering with anger, his breath was thick with fury. His pupils dilated and if he could, he would have torn himself from the bed at that very moment.
"Tell me friend, how much did it take to buy you? What did you sell your pride as a martial artist for? Did she smile at you? Promise to go out with you? Even… hold your hand in public?" Katie really laid into him.
"How lewd." Akane murmured.
Outwardly, he calmed his thrashing, but he couldn't cool his heart's raging. The insults had been too great. Trained though he had been to still his tongue, the rest of him was entirely too mouthy.
"You're sweating a lot pal." Katie said calmly, stretching her arms over her head. "You're about to lie to me aren't you?"
His heart finally slowed, not through calming down but fear. Could she read his mind?
"Let me read you the facts brother man." Katie said, taking a breath. "We're going to find out who you are. The school you go to is about to get its shit pushed in because if you're an indicator of the talent there, this war you've taken upon yourself to start is going to be very, very short. Because, my guy, you lost to my cute little kouhai here. And her job is to train the bodies of the students here at Furinkan high, turning them into better people for the future of our nature. She's still a nice girl deep down, even pleading on your behalf to spare you extreme torture. And you lost to her, completely."
She breathed out a hot breath, her eyes burning with the madness of battle. "Me? I'm the big bad wolf who hunts down those who act a fool within our grounds. I'm the Disciplinary Committee Chair bro, which means I can punish you however I want and there's not a goddamn thing you or your parent's money can do about it. I am very much the definition of not nice."
Katie closed in, her face ever so close so the boy could feel the heat of her blood.
"Now you have two options: You can tell me all I need to know, from nouns on down and we might be tempted to show you mercy. That's not up to me but maybe you can convince me to be your attorney. Or you can lie to me and we can march to the school you decided to martyr yourself for and bust heads until we get the person behind you. Now you get to choose." She bared her teeth and growled.
"And please. Lie to me. I'm begging you to."
How quickly bravado goes out the window when you're tied to a bed and staring into the eyes of a bloodthirsty monster that could apparently read your thoughts. Opening his mouth, the only thing that could tumble forth was the unfettered truth. "I'll talk, I'll talk!"
Akane could only watch in muted awe at the shift that had happened to the guy who was so obstinate yesterday. He was sobbing, actual tears and snot from his nose! "The truth is… the truth is that I was sent by both Mendou and Asuka-sama!"
Katie stopped and cocked an eyebrow. "Both?"
"Mendou and Asuka-sama both decided after Kuno was defeated, that they would try to spread their influence and turn his student body against him. Mendou would win over Furinkan's girls, and Saginomiya would woo the boys… but then Kodachi swept in from nowhere and took her brother's place. No one saw it coming, and Asuka-sama is especially furious… so she forged an outright alliance with Mendou to take Kodachi down."
Katie sighed. "It's really is Tillamook High School all over again. Oh well, at least I have real friends on my side this time."
"I was thinking that this was just Kill la Kill without the fancy-" Akane stopped and looked down at her Hugo Boss school uniform. "-Without the magical school uniforms."
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "I dunno, I bet with enough money we could make a Goku or two.
But that was neither here nor there, as she leaned down over the kendoka. "Anyway fuckboi, thank you for be so forthcoming with your information. As a reward, you won't get beaten up anymore than you already have been, but you will be dumped in front of your school in just your underwear."
Katie pulled out a permanent marker. "So your classmates can get the message."
And that was how a seventeen year old boy wound up tossed onto the front lawn of Tomobiki High School with "I started trouble at Furinkan High School and all I got was my ass kicked and my clothes taken" written in quite legible and accurate kanji for the work of a foreigner.
Suffice to say, when word got out, forces began to mobilize. Three schools were about to have a good ol' fashioned gang war.
Nabiki and Akane were walking home from school, the latter going over what she had learned about from Katie. A way to see beyond the norm, to notice that which is filtered away for our safety. Her senpai made it look so easy but there's no way it could be. Just focusing? There had to be more to it.
The opportunity was there for her to learn it, and become as strong as her. Tomorrow, she was definitely going to ask her more about it, and find out what it exactly took to gain that ability.
Nabiki was going over the raw numbers for the school war to come, with update coming from spies that had been dispatched into the territory of their enemies. Unlike those two pompous asses, Furinkan was going to fight this war on their terms.
Which started with determining what could reasonably be brought forth by their opponents. Kolkhoz was well known for its incredible array of clubs and its own notable student council, whereas Tomobiki's reputation as a school full of powerful women preceded itself and some weird magical alien shit that came with being the only school on the planet that aliens went to.
Outside of the Student Council, Furinkan didn't have much going for it in War Potential, so maybe some mystical magical bullshit would be needed before they got the boys out of their diapers and into their big boy pants. Luckily, they had money and friends in high places.
All Nabiki knew, was that if they did get Goku uniforms, she was calling dibs on Nonon's. She might be the Inumuta of the group but she needed missiles and such more than Akane did. Plus giving Akane invisibility sounded like a recipe for hilarity.
"How are things looking?" Akane asked, deciding to take her mind off the technique and put it on the battle to come.
"Well it looks like we've got parity in forces through just the Student Council alone." Nabiki said, going through the info on a tablet. "But that's with only our cursory information. By tonight I should have more numbers to crunch. And by tomorrow I'll be able to tell you how we're gonna win and what our projected cost for it will be."
"How is any of this legal?" Akane grumbled.
"I wish I could tell you but it seems like we're entering a new age of lawlessness here." Nabiki said, shrugging without a shred of sympathy. "Focus less on how you should be in jail for stuff like kidnapping and torturing students, and more on how you're going to kick all their asses."
"I suppose." Akane pouted. "It was amazing though, Katie-senpai made him talk without even torturing him."
That was news. "I had thought she just described how she ate her dinner still alive, smashing the bones apart and savoring the marrow." Nabiki said with a little bit of sass. She was still irritable from all that stuff during their lessons.
"That's gross Nabiki, seriously!" Akane made a face, before she decided to question Nabiki's seemingly unending hate-on for Katie. "Look, what is your deal? All you do is snip and snarl about her and it doesn't make sense."
Nabiki rolled her eyes. "It's nothing you could ever hope to understand."
This would be one of the rare times Nabiki would be wrong. There was a little something there that Akane could just make out.
Akane furrowed her brow. "I know it's not Kuno and your business has rebounded considerably, especially now that Kodachi-san is paying you a fat bonus for being on the Council in the first place."
Her eyes narrowed before they shot wide as a thought occurred to her. "No way!"
"What?" Nabiki asked, baffled by her sister's sudden shift from annoyed to teasing.
"Nothing~" Akane said, skipping ahead towards home.
"Damn it Akane, I'm going to cut your hair if you don't answer me." Nabiki was actually irritated by this whole thing.
"You can try but I'll shave you bald!" Akane retorted in that silly sing-song she always used when she thought she knew something Nabiki didn't.
"I'll shave you bald first!" Nabiki said, chasing after her little sister.
It was an almost idyllic scene of child-like innocence, one that came to a halt when they found their father out on the porch having a smoke. Akane skidded to a halt, with Nabiki coming to a stop behind her.
"Oh, hello girls!" He greeted them kindly. "Kasumi's almost got dinner ready."
Whatever invisible quarrel they were having got shunted to the back burner as they realized that there was important things to discuss. Mainly to do with the building gathering dust in the background. Now that Kodachi's plan to turn boys to men was in full effect, Akane and Nabiki had to pony up their end of the operation.
"Daddy." Nabiki said, taking the lead as she swiped some screens on her tablet. "We need to talk."
"Talk?" Soun asked, somewhat confused.
"About reopening the dojo. You see, the money left to us from mom is going to run out sooner than later, and with us girls getting older and turning our attentions towards college, and your friend moving in, there's a lot of expenses mounting up." Nabiki said, switching over from the war data to their financial data. She flipped the tablet around and showed a chart to her father that projected how much longer they could go on like this.
"We're running out of money that quickly?" Soun mumbled, having thought that the nest egg would last until Ranma married one of his daughters and then money would rain from the sky or whatever the hell he expected that to do.
"Well, in the few days that he's been here, Kasumi's already had to double the amount of money she spends on groceries." Nabiki went on. "He eats more than all three of us combined three times a day."
"I didn't know one person could eat that much," Akane said with a slightly haunted voice.
"… So you want me to open up the dojo?" That sounded like work, work that he'd gotten so used to not doing.
"Yeah, it's pretty much a no-brainer solution to any and all of our financial issues. Get off your duff and do some work, Daddy," Nabiki rather harshly demanded.
"But aren't you girls earning money?" Soun argued.
"Yeah but that's our money and we'll spend it on us." Nabiki shot back. "Okay, let's just go down this path: Akane and I can afford to keep eating, alongside Kasumi. You two can devour the rest of mom's money and then starve."
"You have to contribute Daddy, you've had ten years." Akane said gently, being the good cop. "Mommy will be disappointed in you if you keep this up."
Soun turned white at the idea of disappointing his wife.
"We'll make it easy on you." Nabiki said, crossing her arms. "We got a whole bunch of students who want to train lined up for you, so you don't even have to worry about advertising. All you have to do is show that you can actually teach people how to fight. If Genma's gonna stay any longer, then he's gotta train people, too."
Soun opened his mouth to protest.
"Did you know I can sell the dojo to the bank by proving you haven't trained anyone for the last five years, declaring you a negligent owner?" Nabiki asked sweetly.
"We've talked it over with Kasumi, too." Akane added. "She's ready to not give you dinner if you waffle on this any further."
Soun pitifully closed his mouth.
"That's all right, we still love you, we just need to make sure our family stays solvent for the future." Akane said, soothing his pride. "What kind of family are we to put the burden on Ranma alone for our salvation? That's not fair to him or us."
"You're right." Soun looked at the burned down cigarette and snuffed it out. "I got some thinking to do."
His daughters nodded, which allowed him to slink away.
"That went well." Akane said, looking to Nabiki.
"Told you, we just have to be firm with him." Nabiki retorted with an exasperated eye roll.
It was around here someone cleared their throat, garnering the sisters' attention.
"Excuse me," a man said, looking like the King of Diamonds on a deck of playing cards. "I'm the Gambling King and I'm looking for Nabiki Tendo in regards to a spot of business."
Akane and Nabiki shared a look before turning back to the gently smiling interloper.
Unfortunately, the rest of the school day was entirely uneventful. Kodachi did announce that in coming days there would be a great storm, but that Furinkan would weather it, there was no overt mentioning of the belligerence from the neighboring schools. But what rubbed Katie a bit raw was the fact that this Gambling King fellow hadn't shown up quite yet.
It was two days after the phone call so where the hell was he? Did he just assume she refused and ran, therefore he didn't even need to hear her answer? That would actually annoy her, she wanted to use Heaven against his card skills. Still, even if he didn't show up, at least she had a full-blown school war to look forward to.
She looked over to Ranma, who walked alongside her back towards her place. In spite of an insistent invitation from Nabiki, Ranma elected to stay a few more nights at the house Darlian, since he actually enjoyed having a night's sleep and a decent morning not having to deal with his Dad. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before Misao decided to include him on the lease. Which was fine by her, the guy could use a stable roof over his head that didn't include his old man trying to ruin everything.
Plus he had another perspective on things so it'd help to pick his brain at times. "So Ranma." She said, deciding to see how he thought of this whole mess that was coming upon them.
"Yeah?" He semi-grunted, having wanted a chance to unwind a bit.
"Nothing too heavy," Katie said, amused by his response. "Just wanted to hear your thoughts on the impending war. You know, if there was anything you couldn't say in front of the others because they might be a bit quick to judge."
"Eh, it's nothing too heavy to worry about." Ranma threw a punch to emphasize his point. "I already got some routines worked out for the guys to help keep them safe and improve both their skill and durability. Sometimes, I'd read training manuals on kung fu and stuff like that to pass the time whenever pops wasn't around."
Katie let out a noise of wonder. "Ehhh, sounds like you got it all figured out."
Ranma shrugged. "Well Kolkhoz is a bunch of pampered rich kids so their usable fighters are even less than Furinkan has now, excluding the three of us naturally. Even adding in the mass of morons from Tomobiki, they're really only loyal to their two generals. All our guys need is to wear 'em down until they get good and strong from beatin' on 'em all day, then we go in and cut the heads off. No Mendou or Saginomiya, no war."
"You want to turn this into a training thing?" Katie said, smiling a little. "Simple, yet effective."
At that, the boy chuckled. "Well, I like to look at things like this as how we get the most out of it. I mean, we could wipe them out in less than a day. I don't know how good Kodachi is, but she's supposed to be a champion or something? She could probably do it too. But if we do that, then nobody gets a chance to learn anything."
Huh, that suddenly sounded like something her uncle would say, but in a much more bloodthirsty context.
"I pitched the idea to Nabiki, and she thought it was pretty dang solid. Glad you do, too."
Katie didn't voice her opinion on the reason Nabiki caved, because it wasn't that important and it wasn't her place to sabotage the girl's chances. "Well with both of you planning this, we've got this even more in the bag."
"Hey they wanted this war," Ranma replied casually. "And for that, they're gonna have a bad time."
Katie hummed. "The worst time."
As they reached her place, Katie waved to the landlady of the building and owner of the karaoke bar that her and Misao's apartment stood over. It was an older woman, who was sitting on a chair outside the doors. "Hey Paz, any signs of creeps?"
"Hey there," the woman said in a raspy voice, "Not a loser to be found. Tell Misao thanks for fixing the rice cooker, will ya?"
Katie flashed her a smile as she unlocked the door. "Sure."
"And another thing, next time you decide to 'move furniture' in the middle of the night, give a word of warning? I could barely sleep the other night."
Katie looked aside. "Er… yeah, sorry."
"Movin' furniture? Geez, you should've woken me up, I would've helped." Ranma then tossed in.
"Oh my God." Katie said in English, her hand coming over her mouth to smother her laugh as she threw open the door and scurried up the stairs.
Ranma looked over at Paz, who just laughed and reclined on her wooden chair. Suspecting something just flew over his head, he headed upstairs, catching up with Katie–who had just opened the door.
Misao was sitting on the couch, in the middle of recording audio for a video, rather than streaming. "Let's face it, fam. If people aren't going to be able to even post video evidence of cheaters and modders without the creators making strikes against their content, then what's that say about the creators? I've already hidden all of my WT content because if this goes over, BansheeDeadSix is going to get blammed for sure again and Google's Lawyers are a bitch to fight."
She looked back over at Katie and Ranma, the latter being shushed by the former, and waved before turning back to the mic.
"So that's it for now. BansheeDeadSix is taking a break from WT until this bullshit gets resolved, if you want to lose your lives in the skies, you can find me in DCS, World of Warplanes, or Ace Combat Infinity. The handle won't change because I want you to come running, it's more experience for me. Like, comment, subscribe, always check your six and remember that the number one rule to combat is survive. BansheeDeadSix, over and out."
She quickly tapped the stop button on her remote, before getting up. "Hey guys, no extracurriculars today?"
"Nope, there's still a bunch of work to do before that. Even more now that a war's about to break out," Katie replied as she loosened the tie of her uniform. "I'm gonna jump in the shower. Paz says thanks for fixing the rice cooker, and that we need to keep it down next time we 'move furniture'."
Misao pouted. "That's entirely your fault, bae." She looked at Ranma and the pout gave way to a smile. "How's studying going, Ranma-kun?"
Ranma was confused by the moving furniture thing but pushed it from his mind. "Well, better than my old school, haven't gotten any homework yet at least."
Misao pumped a fist in celebration. "Then if you have nothing else to do tonight, you can sit down and record more Undertale with me!"
"Sounds good to me," Ranma said, rather eager to pick up and play again. "Do you want to do it now?"
Misao chuckled. "Eager aren't we? How about we get some dinner going first? You know how to cook?"
Ranma nodded. "Yeah, you learn to when you're out on the road a lot."
"Then you can make dinner today. I'm dying for something local, but I'm shit at cooking Asian dishes."
Ranma nodded. "How about some fried shrimp and noodles, then?"
Misao was keen on that idea. "Ooh, that sounds delish."
With expectations to meet, Ranma rolled up his sleeves and headed into the kitchen. "You know what? Let me handle it, you can sit back, watch, and learn from a master."
A smile played across Misao's lips as she followed him into the kitchen and hoisted herself onto the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the living room space. "Well, if you insist."
Ranma Saotome was a smart kid, a little naïve, brilliant in a fight, but short when it came to certain things. Exhibit B. "Well, I couldn't lend you a hand in your furniture moving the other night cuz I was so tired, so I figured that this would be a good way to make up for it."
Misao brought a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle when Ranma said that. "Maybe next time, it could be you and I who moves the furniture."
Ranma, moving with grace and speed, had quickly assembled the ingredients, and was already heating up the wok. Misao let out a surprised hum, at how quickly he took to prep.
"Wouldn't it be better if Katie and I moved it with you together?" Ranma asked over his shoulder.
Misao immediately clasped her hands together, as if to pray, and looked away from Ranma while biting her lip to again stifle her laughter. How could a guy his age be so pure? It was adorable!
"Did I say something wrong?" Ranma asked, conscious that she didn't say anything.
"No, no, it's fine." Misao said, smiling to herself. "You're a really unique guy, you know?"
"That isn't about the curse is it? Because I could do without that." Ranma said, checking the temperature of the wok. "Not quite hot enough."
"So what's the secret to this kind of dish?" Misao asked, remembering she was supposed to be learning about it. She aimed her phone at him and hit the record button.
"It's basically have everything you're going to cook ready because it's gonna go fast." Ranma said, gesturing to the wok. "This thing is gonna be smoking hot even before I put the oil in. Beyond that, once I start it's basically go go go. So get your veggies chopped, sauce made, those kind of things." Ranma quickly diced up a carrot.
"You got good knife skills." Misao noted, impressed. "Sure you didn't intern at a restaurant somewhere?"
"Wouldn't call it an internship, just that whenever Pop got off my back, I'd sometimes do small work around restaurants and covertly observe the chefs and how they moved. Made katas in my head and practiced them in secret." Ranma explained, chopping up a spring onion. "Worked pretty well, wouldn't you say?"
"Definitely." Misao agreed, just enjoying the sight of this buff young man making her food.
"So, how do you like your spice? I kinda like to cook it in and add some at the end so the heat is present throughout. Might get a bit much and I don't want you getting sick." Ranma inquired, checking the shrimp to make sure they were deveined.
"Oh I love it spicy." Misao giggled. "Katie can be a little stubborn when it comes to the spice, but she generally likes it. Though maybe just let her add hers at the end."
"Got it." He answered, making sure his noodles were ready. "So I'll make ours separate from hers. Which is good, because I can show you how to do it both ways really easily." He portioned out some of the shrimp for Katie. "Normally I'd put some chili paste or flakes on these before I cooked them. That'd give me the boost to the spice I like because I'll cook this fast enough spread it through the rest of the dish thanks to the magic of the wok."
Misao nodded. "I see!." She watched as he portioned out some of the sauce he made, before adding some hot sauce to the reserved sauce and stirring it in. "So that's more spice."
"Yeah, it has to go through out to a degree. Lot of people, like pops, just cook something and dump a glob of hot sauce or pepper flakes on it and call it a day. Which is okay, you got the zip of the spice but it dies quickly as you eat and it's almost like it was never there." Ranma explained as he checked the wok. "Okay it's hot enough. Now, there's two ways to do this, the normal way which is dump in your shrimp, cook them, followed by your veggies, then your noodles and sauce. You'd push the shrimp to the walls to try and keep them from over cooking, along with anything else that was about done or done. That's kinda advanced if you know what you're doing."
"That's pretty complex!." Misao said, watching him add some oil to the wok and swirl it around.
"It is, so you're going to do this another time like I'm about to do it." Ranma said, as he brought Katie's portion of shrimp to the stove. "And that's going to be to cook it, remove the shrimp, cook everything else, add the shrimp back in before the sauce and toss it all together until it's done."
He quickly dumped them in one at a time. "Don't crowd it, even though it's very hot, you can cause some spots to not cook if they're too close together. Also, because this is so hot, this is gonna go real fast so watch them."
He was already flipping them about 25 seconds after they went down, which showed they had acquired a nice golden brown color.
"Does it need to be that hot?" Misao decided she should ask. For future reference of course.
"Only with a wok, really. If you were to do this is a high sided pan, you'd probably keep the temp down." Ranma said as he took the shrimp out and rested them on a clean plate. "The high heat, fast cooking is the point. It's kinda like having a water slide without a water, y'know?"
He checked the heat and then grabbed the cut-up vegetables, quickly adding a single serving portion. "Now, leave it alone for a few seconds before you start futzing with it. Let the heat do its thing before you start poking and tossing and flipping them." Once the time had passed, Ranma quickly started moving the vegetables about.
"Now you don't need to do all the fancy stirring and tossing. It does nothing for the flavor but it does give you a slight bit of control. Sometimes the sides are a little too hot and things keep cooking a little too much so you-" He paused his lecture to toss the mixture around. "-give them a toss and let the sheer temperature difference cool them. If you're gonna toss them, remember to push it away to flick them towards you and pull the wok back to catch them. Easy." He swept the stuff he didn't want burning to the edges.
"Tell me about the noodles." Misao said, guessing they were next.
"Just rice noodles, soaked in water. You could get fatter noodles and fry them up in like a frier if you want. I've had that before, delicious." He said, shaking the water out. "Get as much excess water off them as you can, you don't want the final dish to be soupy. Plus the sauce gets diluted and loses the flavor you want."
Satisfied with the lack of excess moisture, Ranma dropped the noodles into the wok. "Now, let them cook for just a bit again, dry them out a bit before you mix them into the vegetables. You want just a little bit of color on the noodles, but not too much. The sauce is going to reinvigorate them, so be mindful." He waited the appropriate amount of time before stirring and mixing everything.
"Right, before we add our sauce, add back in our shrimp." He did just that, nestling them in. "Give it a good stir just before you add it, it can get a little loose on you." He stirred the sauce, making sure Misao and her camera could see. "Now, don't just dump it in one spot because the wok is still hot. It'll reduce too fast and you got one spot of deliciousness instead of the whole dish."
The sauce was poured evenly over the shrimp and noodle mixture. He immediately began folding the sauce in. "This, you don't want to sit until you just get everything coated. Also, if it looks like you didn't have enough, just splash on a little more water. Best to have a squirt bottle of it, just in case but this is looking quite nice." He gave it a few stirs before he dished it out onto a clean plate.
"So do we garnish it?" Misao asked, knowing the answer but keeping the tutorial going. He was really good at this, she couldn't just end it now.
"Yes, but with what? Add some tops of a spring onion, maybe some fresh herbs." Ranma said, giving a rough chop to some cilantro. "Does she like cilantro? To some people it tastes like soap."
"Tacos are one of her favorite dishes, so we keep a lot on hand." Misao said, giving him the okay.
"Sprinkle it on, not too much in one area." He finished the garnish. "And then you can add chili sauce, or flakes. Maybe some toasted nori if you like, but it's done."
Misao applauded. "Now make ours and we'll eat."
Ranma nodded, as he began to cover the shrimp in chili sauce. "Not too much, or it'll burn."
He made sure both sides were evenly coated before he wiped the wok clean since it wasn't on the heat. "Those will basically marinade for the short time it takes for the wok to come back up to temp. Now because of the added chili sauce and increased size, I'm going to go standard. It'll get done faster plus you'll have a frame of reference for that method too."
"Yeah, that'd be good." Misao said with a nod, which gave her an opportunity to raise her nose and sniffed the air. The kitchen smelled amazing.
"Right, it's almost heated back up. Since there's some sugar in the sauce I used on the shrimp, it's going to look a little darker than usual because the sugars are going to brown and become like a caramel. We don't need to get the shrimp to doneness, we just need to brown one side, flip, brown the other and then we start adding and adding." Ranma said, making sure he had everything ready. "It's gonna seem like a mess but it'll be worth it. Now it'll seem almost not worth it because two servings in one wok is almost too much, but I'll show you the trick."
Misao leaned in. "Oh do tell."
"It's hot, so we put in our oil. Let that get a little smoky and then we add the shrimp." Ranma quickly added the shrimp, almost crowding the wok. "Now it's going to seem crazy but crowding it like this is actually going to help us in the cooking of the shrimp. It'll slow down the browning of the sauce and let a little bit of the moisture evaporating almost steam them through so once we flip them we can almost immediately push them aside."
He tended the shrimp, making sure they were still cooking. "Now, just be mindful of them but be ready to turn them once it just slows down sizzling... like there!" He swiftly turned the shrimp and began pushing them out to the edges of the wok.
"And now, chaos." Ranma announced as he dumped in the vegetables. There was a bit more than Katie's single portion and it was clear they were probably going to dry out and burn without moisture.
"Remember that trick? Shake the excess water from your noodle portions into the wok to create steam and keep the vegetables from drying out. That's only because there's two portions and not enough space. Otherwise we wouldn't do this." He lectured as he did what he was talking about. Once the noodles were perfect, he dropped them in and began stirring and tossing vigorously. "Normally you'd like them to sit but you need to distribute the shrimp and veggies first. Just keep it moving until the noodles just start to lose that luster from the water and then add your sauce. Most of the excess veggie mass should wilt down nicely before then, which means you just need to cook the sauce until it thickens."
Misao was taken in by the show he put on, her eyes bouncing up and down as she watched the tossing and stirring the noodle mixture.
Ranma stirred the sauce a short while later, before distributing it around the wok evenly. He quickly began stirring it into the dish, creating a nice sheen to them. "Our sauce is pretty much down so let's plate them up." He brought the wok over and dished up two servings on two clean plates. "I'm going to garnish mine with a little chili sauce and some chili flakes. Throw in some spring onion and cilantro. Sound good for yours?"
"God yes," Misao softly.
He garnished both plates, before he brought them over to the table. He placed one in front of Misao and set his own down. He went and rooted around a drawer, finding a couple pairs of chopsticks left over from take-outs past. "Moment of truth I suppose." He passed her a pack of chopsticks, before tearing his own open.
"Thanks for the food." Misao said, opening and breaking apart her chopsticks. While she hadn't mastered cooking Asian dishes, she was a master when it came to eating them.
"Let me get some noodle, some shrimp and some veggies." It was all so steamy, glistening with sauce and smelling just fabulous. She blew out the bite she had selected out with her chopsticks, before she popped it all in her mouth.
Immediately she was taken to a spicy, savory heaven that left her swooning as the flavor danced across her tastebuds and directly into the pleasure centers of her brain. "Ohhh my gawd… I can see what you mean by the heat, it's so good!"
"You gotta cook with it to round it out." Ranma agreed, digging in himself.
They ate quietly for a few minutes, Ranma showing uncharacteristic restraint.
"Normally you eat so fast." Misao pointed out, after she had finished chewing and swallowing a mouthful of food.
"Pop can't handle heat, he almost sweats at a bell pepper." Ranma explained. "So when I spice it up, he won't steal it from me and if he does, I'll get to watch him sweat and cry."
"Good luck in this household. We got iron stomachs here," Misao said as she faked darting her chopsticks towards his shrimp.
Ranma easily parried her sticks with his own. "I wish you would," he joked back, "At my last school, it was kill or be killed when it came to food, and I'm stone cold when it comes to that!"
Misao let out a laugh, and sat back. "So, how was your last school like? You sound like you had a bad time with the teachers."
"Oh it wasn't really the teachers themselves, they were just boring." Ranma said, pausing to think about it. "It didn't help they had this weird mentality about all of us fighting all the time so a lot of guys ended up in the infirmary for no good reason. Most of them sucked so the brawls weren't any fun, except this one guy who took it upon himself to declare himself my rival."
"Do tell," Misao found herself more intrigued by a bunch of guys getting all hot and sweaty wrestling around. Hmm, to file that one away for another day.
"He was strong as hell and durable to boot. He could take a beating better than any other boy." Ranma shook his head. "Sadly, he couldn't find his way unless you physically dragged him to places. Directions were absolutely useless on the guy."
"That poor guy." Misao said, feeling sorry for someone who could literally get lost going in a straight line.
"I didn't get why he was always dramatic about stuff, but it made sense after a bit of thinking." Ranma shook his head as he continued to eat. "If I got hungry and had some pocket money, I could find a store to buy something. He could start at the front door of the store and be somewhere else about five steps in. It was uncanny how he could get lost."
Misao could only ruefully shake her head. "This world is so messed up man."
It was around here Ranma finally realized he was having dinner with his very cute and very attractive boss lady and suddenly he felt a little self conscious about things. He flushed a little as he looked across the table and found her adorable even as she continued to tuck into the food provided. God he was going to become a pervert at this rate.
Luckily, Katie showed up to save him from himself, towelling off her hair after her shower. "Hey, you should have said something about dinner being now and not later."
"It was kind of a quick decision," Ranma said, before handing her the plate of still hot shrimp and noodles.
"Hey, good deal." Katie said, going over to put the final touches on the dish. "You didn't add anything spicy to it?"
"I erred on the side of caution for you." Ranma answered, which Katie kind of expected considering the neatness of the food. "The spicy stuff is still out if you want it."
"I tend to go hotter than even people who like things a little spicy." Katie explained as she took a seat at the table. "Wouldn't have been enough to satisfy me but this is fine. I still miss hot wings though."
"I'm good at making new stuff, so tell me about it. Maybe I can figure it out and whip some up." Ranma offered.
Katie laughed a little and then took a bite of her food. Her eyes flew wide, and tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. Closing them, she took a deep breath and chewed her food before swallowing. "You know what? We gotta put you on the lease. I don't think I can live without this."
Misao piped up. "On the lease, huh?" Her grin was mostly wholesome, a record for her.
Ranma perked up at that. "Wait, what? Really? You want me to move in?"
"It would make sense logistically, and besides you wouldn't have to deal with your Dad's crap and since this place is more or less a safe house, you wouldn't have to worry about anybody stalking you." Katie suggested.
Misao certainly agreed. "Plus you'd have a roof over your head all on your own!"
"And it's totally not a ruse to get you to cook for us every once in awhile." Katie added
"Ah, thanks you guys." Ranma said, his neck flushing red. "Well, if you really want me to stay…"
"Sure I do!" Misao said. "I mean, it's only been a few days, but you've impressed me plenty."
Katie swallowed more of her food. "Me too, so… I guess welcome home, Ranma."
Misao nodded. "Yeah, welcome home!"
Touched by the gesture, Ranma put up a warm smile. "Heh, thanks guys."
Home. He finally had a home.
Katie had just finished eating when her phone rang, interrupting the chummy atmosphere with a reminder of the world outside their walls. She checked it and found that it was Akane, which lead to her answering it with a quickness. "Yo, Akaneko, what's up?"
"You know that Gambling King guy you told me about the other day?" Akane's voice came through a little strained.
The writing was on the wall but Katie decided to let Akane finish. "Yeah?"
"He's at the Dojo and he's demanding you come give him your answer." Akane said, sounding very upset.
Katie pinched the bridge of her noise. "I'll be right over."
Ranma noticed her demeanor. "What's up?"
"Got some business over at the Tendos, you stay here and do your stream." Katie said as she got up from the table.
"Is everything alright?" Misao asked, frowning just a tad.
"It's fine, I just gotta clean up a mess someone else made in my name." Katie said, ready for this but wishing it wasn't necessary. "I'll be back before you know it."
"Kick ass and take names. I know a guy who wouldn't mind a new one." Ranma said, adding some levity.
Katie chuckled, that fucking dork. "Thanks Ranma, I needed that."
"Go get 'em bae!" Misao cheered as Katie headed to the door.
She made her way down through the Karaoke bar, waving to Paz as she passed through. Out into the early evening air, the world felt oppressive and cold at the moment. Maybe it was her anger heating her blood up or maybe it was the real consequences to this fight wasn't going to be decided by her talents. If she fought and got beat, that was one thing. To lose everything that she had earned since coming to Japan on a fucking card game?
She refused.
She refused!
She refused!
The Tendo compound loomed before her now, her rage powered walking blurring the scenery between her place and here. How fitting, in the home of Kasumi and Akane, she was going to fight for her future. Her temperature cooled and her anger gelled to a molten paste, as she walked up and knocked on the door.
Kasumi opened the door, Akane was waiting with her. "Katie-chan." She murmured with worry.
"Senpai, he's…" Akane began to say, missing the subtle intensity in Kasumi's tone outright.
"I know, I'll get rid of him." Katie promised, as Kasumi stepped away to let her enter. " C'mon, Akaneko."
Akane nodded and turned to fall in step with her.
"Let the asshole stew just a second longer." She had to focus just a little more. "Keep your focus and pay attention to the cards. That's all you need to do."
She ignored Soun as she made her way to the dojo, the world melting away to black as the building became the focal point of her mind. She could do this. No, she would do this. This was her Paradise and interlopers weren't welcomed. Just win and it was over.
"Just win and-"
The door to the dojo from the house was wrenched open with a bang. Calm down, you need to be calm.
"Just be calm-"
Katie entered the dojo and found a slightly creepy looking guy who fancied himself the King of Gambling. He was even dressed like a face card and ugh. If this was a fight, she would kill him just for his shitty taste in clothes. But it wasn't so she bit down on the murderous impulse.
The Gambling King looked her, smug as fuck as though he expected her to run. Just run away and let it be.
"This wasn't your mess, this isn't you-"
"Deal the cards and get ready to lose." Katie said, her eyes looking over to see a bored looking Nabiki playing with a deck of cards. "If you don't want to play, you can just run away and keep my Uncle. He snores in his sleep and don't feed him after midnight."
Her opponent for the evening looked somewhat surprised she agreed, but a look of determination soon found his features. "So you wish to lose as well."
"The only thing I'm losing is my Uncle's stupid debt hanging over my head." Katie snapped back. "My folks wouldn't talk to me again if I let that idiot hang in the wind."
She sat down at the table, opposite of the man. Out of the corner of her eye, she got a subtle nod from Nabiki. Good, at least that was still in effect.
"I wonder what I'll add to my collection from you." The Gambling King mused in that snotty voice of his. "Maybe you'll be my bodyguard, kehehehehe."
Katie narrowed her eyes but said nothing.
"Okay, stop with the unnecessary posturing so we can get started." Nabiki said, shuffling the cards she had in her hands.
That was the only sound for a few seconds, before Nabiki finished.
"Ready?" Nabiki asked Katie.
There was only a slightly noticeable nod.
"You?" Nabiki turned to the Gambling King.
"To win it all." He taunted.
Nabiki dealt the cards, keeping everything looking like the height of neutrality.
Katie barely touched her cards and she knew she had rags. From how Nabiki dealt them, she knew that he barely had the better hand by din of better high card. A bluffing battle to start out with to see what he was made of eh? Too bad she didn't want to let this go on too long or else this would be a great way to start. She left them on the table, she didn't need to look at them for this.
The Gambling King picked up his cards and kept the frown from his face. He had gotten nothing in the deal, which meant it was down to who bluffed better between them. Tch, how annoying, but not as annoying as this mere girl not even looking at her cards. Hmm, what to do?
"One of you can fold," Nabiki reminded them. "We'll start again. If not make a wager and let's see how it goes."
"I'll let him start us off, he's the reigning champ after all," Katie said.
"Confident eh? Yet you don't look at your cards." The Gambling King bantered a little.
"My cards are my cards. I don't need to know them as long as you don't know them." Katie replied. "Bet or fold."
"Very well," he said, contemplating. "I'll start off strong… everything your loser of an Uncle lost to me. So a little over five hundred thousand yen, the titles to his car and motorcycle, the deed to his house, and his marriage license to one Helena Sherman. All totaling out to a grand total of ten million, one hundred thousand yen."
Akane gasped at the shock at the sheer amount of money just thrown onto the table. "T-ten million…!"
Nabiki kept her features cool despite the magnitude of the bet. Had she an inkling he'd have thrown it all down, she'd have given Katie the Nuts to smash through his skull.
"That's substantial." Katie said, not rising to the bait. In fact, she was cooler than ice right now. "Are you sure?"
"Positive, it'll all come back to me anyways." He chortled, looking pleased as punch at the idea of winning. "Now, can you meet that?"
Katie closed her eyes, and nodded, before she reached out and slapped something onto the table. When she removed it, she looked down at it, then at him, as from the billfold a paltry ten thousand yen and several green and black credit cards slipped out. Reaching over, she picked up the a black card with no name on it, before tossing it into the pile.
"And that is?" The Gambling King asked.
"My pay card, for services rendered to Misao Darlian. On it is eleven million, two hundred twenty thousand yen, built up over the time I've been here."
The Gambling King was rather surprised. "All of that money is yours?"
"Yeah, but I don't touch it really, I have plans of retiring before I'm thirty, you see," Katie revealed.
"How much was that again?" A rather surprised Nabiki asked.
"Eleven mil," Katie replied.
Akane shook her head. "You're better at hoarding money than Nabiki is."
"Just a tad," Nabiki thought to herself.
Katie snorted. "The majority is hazard pay. Trust me: You do not want to earn money the way I did."
She brought a hand down to her side and consciously rubbed it as she said this.
Akane saw this, and she worried her lower lip in concern. What had her senpai been doing to make her react like that?
Nabiki regarded Katie's actions carefully, she seemed more concerned with what was clearly an old injury over the game itself. Her poker face was incalculable. However… she was going in way too hard on the opening hand.
"She's going to try to bluff him out on the open, which would be great if I hadn't given her rags!" She thought behind her cool exterior. Did she really think that he was going to bow out on this? Normally she wouldn't care, but that check wasn't going to clear if she lost, and she'd have to pay out that money she promised to this jackass!
The Gambling King let out a laugh. "Well, isn't this a high-stakes game! I suppose I should put a little more into the pot."
He looked down at his cards, and then up at Katie once again. "That seems well and suitable. I'll call your bet and throw in one million yen more. Courtesy of a fool old man of many virtues except for that hopeless gambling affliction."
Katie looked at the slip of paper: a shrine and the land it sat on, a deal sealed with blood, neat. "Whatever. You ready to play?"
The Gambling King chuckled and looked at his hand. "Are you sure you want to play your hand without looking at your cards?"
"Don't need to," Katie replied. "I know exactly how this is going to go down."
Akane, was staring at Katie's cards, wondering if she had some kind of trick up her sleeve. How powerful were those cards that she hadn't even looked at?! Was she being like Jotaro?
Nabiki knew the truth, and it made her all the more dumbfounded. "Idiot, you lost the hand!"
The Gambling King let out a small laugh, and then showed his cards. "My high card is a queen, my dear! What do you have to show me?"
Katie organized her cards, and then using the fifth card, flipped the other four over in a row, revealing a 2, a 5, a 6, and a 9. She then tossed down the last card face up, revealing a Jack. "Bullshit."
Nabiki palmed her face, while Akane's mouth fell open in complete horror at the awfulness of the hand. Even the Gambling King couldn't help but stare at the complete uselessness of the hand brought against him.
"Uh… hey," he said flatly, "You do realize that's a bum hand, right?"
Katie remained unflinching. "It is?"
Nabiki didn't know whether to laugh or cry into her hand. What just happened? Why did this just happen?!
Akane was at Katie's side right away. "Katie! You lost! I don't even play poker and I know that you can't win with that!"
At that moment, Katie's eyes widened in comprehension. "Oh, so I definitely lost then."
"Yes!" Akane quickly said. "He just beat you and took all of your money!"
The Gambling King reached out, and promptly scooped up the pot, pulling it over to his side of the table. "That I did, little lady! You lose."
"But wait!" Akane cried out. "Aren't you going to give her a chance to win back the pot?"
"Well, unless she has anymore money or collateral, she has no way of buying that chance," the Gambling King said. "And despite your surprising little display of money in this card of yours, you don't have enough to buy your way back into this game."
Standing up, the large man looked down at his winnings, and–rather pleased with himself–began to gather them up to stuff into his bag. "With this ugly business out of the way, I think it's time for me to take my leave-"
"Hey," Katie then said, stopping him.
The Gambling King then looked up, and found that Katie was holding her smartphone in her hand, while looking straight at him.
"Who said anything about me not having enough?"
Akane looked at the phone, seeing "The Bae" in romaji on the contact highlighted on the screen.
Nabiki stopped shaking her head, and peeked from behind her palm. What?
Katie took the cards and after gathering them up, set them down in front of Nabiki. "Shuffle up the deck, because this is happening right now."
The Gambling King was rather surprised. "You want to lose another hand?"
"If you're so confident you'll win, I don't see why you're asking me."
At that challenge, the Gambling King chuckled and then sat right back down. "Interesting! Interesting! I don't think I've ever beaten a player this stupidly confident in their odds against me."
"There's nothing stupid about it," Katie said, as Nabiki began to deal the cards. Back and forth they went, Nabiki doling out a total of five to each, which they picked up.
Examining his hand, The Gambling King inwardly decided that he liked very much what he saw. "Oh it is, you'll see when I learn you something. Now, there's the little matter of the opening pot-"
Katie then sat the phone down. "Give me a second."
She hit the call button, and set her phone down on the table, the phone quickly connecting and ringing once, then twice, and then a third time-
"Hello?" Both Nabiki and Akane recognized Misao's voice. "Yo, what's up bae? Kind of an inopportune time to call, filming and all."
"I lost a hand of poker, and I need to open the next pot," she said. "Can I borrow thirteen million yen?"
The Gambling King froze where he sat, his eyes flying wide at the simple proposition. "You-you're going to just borrow thirteen-!"
"Huh? Oh yeah, sure. Just put it on a promissory note," Misao replied.
There was a sudden shuffling behind Katie and Akane. The latter and Nabiki both looked and saw Soun and Kasumi standing in the doorway, the patriarch of the Tendo home looking rather pale at the amount of money casually tossed around.
"Love ya, doll," Katie said as she quickly scribbled down an IOU of 13 million yen, and tossed it in the center of the table. "That's the pot."
Staring at the simple IOU, the Gambling King chuckled, and then looked up at her. "You do realize, that if neither of you can pony up that kind of money, you're going to have to pay me back somehow, right?"
Katie sat back in her chair. "That won't be a problem, because I'm not going to lose."
She gestured to the table. "So, call, raise, or fold."
The Gambling King was undeterred, and pulled out a few stacks of white papers and dropped them onto the table, they were all IOUs, bearing seals and signatures, with one at the top featuring the a child's handprint in dried blood. The brim of his hat ominously shaded his blue eyes as he looked up from under it at Katie with a smile.
"These are the deeds to businesses, properties, and other assets I've collected over my travels," he revealed. "Many a loser, frustrated at my prowess, have handed over to me their entire lives for a chance to beat me, and all of them have failed."
Akane tensed up when she saw the stack of notes. "W-what…?"
"This here amount totals to sixteen million yen," he reveals. "Feel free to look through it all, but I'm an honest man, there's no need for me to cheat."
"S-sixteen million…" Soun muttered, in disbelief at the pot.
Nabiki was much more relaxed behind her façade.
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "I believe you. I don't have reason to."
She then called to the phone. "Misao, I need to borrow another five million yen."
"Go 'head," Misao said, now sounding more interested in the drama happening over the phone.
Just like that, it clicked in Nabiki's head. "I see! Misao… she can just pour money into the pot, a girl as rich as her, it wouldn't matter how much he raises, Katie can just out-raise him!"
The Gambling King let out a boisterous laugh. "That's bold! That's bold!"
He then reached into his ugly overcoat, and pulled out another stack of IOUs, dropping them down onto the total. "I see your bet and raise it! This here is a total amount of no less than twenty-two million yen!"
"Oh my!" Kasumi said, herself shocked at how the stakes rose higher.
Akane looked at Katie, and then at her hand. "This one is a winner, right? If you can't match that, or if you lose…!"
"I'll raise," Katie said. "Misao, throw another ten million yen onto the fire."
Nabiki stared at Katie now, seeing her utter calmness. "The higher it goes, the more likely he can't match it, the more he's going to think she's bluffing. But this guy's an old pro…"
She looked at Katie's hand, and then at the Gambling King's, and then at the Gambling King himself. He was the picture of serenity, his almost comical appearance lent heavily to his imperceptible poker face.
"I see your twenty-eight million yen, and I will raise you this!" He pulled forth even more papers, but these looked like official documents. "Contractual agreements, deeds, and titles to various… unseemly establishments around Tokyo! A total of no less than eighty million yen!"
That was almost too high of a jump. Almost.
Akane looked to Katie. "Senpai… you should call…"
"Nah, don't wanna," Katie said as she looked to Misao. "Hey. Let's make this an even hundo."
"Sure!" Misao replied without hesitation.
"I see your bet and raise it," Katie said as she pushed the next promissory note forward. "Call, fold, or raise, your majesty."
It was too high, he couldn't call that, much less raise it! Nabiki resisted the urge to smirk. Misao was proving to be extremely useful in this little fiasco, and she wasn't even physically here!
Akane looked at Katie, who seemed more annoyed that sporting any confidence or cockiness, but even she could see that this was in the bag. The stakes were much too high, and Katie could keep raising them as she wished. He would have no choice but to fold in the face of such confidence.
Unless, as Nabiki noted to herself, he decided to call her massive betting or they went to showdown because he couldn't raise anymore.
Because Katie had nothing but rags again.
The Gambling King held up his cards again, peering over them at the mess of papers that had accumulated the table's center. Then up at Katie, who continued to give him a completely neutral expression. He let out a bit of a laugh, and then sat back in his chair.
"So, that's the game you're playing, hm?" The Gambling King asked. "It won't do you any good to raise the pot any higher, because I have no intention of walking away from this one."
Nabiki's blood ran cold. "Oh shit."
Katie nodded. "Calling my hand?"
The Gambling King nodded. "I'm calling it bullshit, is what I am. Honestly, little lady, you think that a man who knows his way around a poker table wouldn't know when you're counting your cards hoping for a win?"
And now there was ice in Nabiki's veins.
The Gambling King closed his eyes and spoke. "The next five cards in your deck are seven, eight, nine, ten, and an ace. All clubs, respectively."
Akane, before Nabiki could stop her, took the deck from her hand and drew those next five cards, and her eyes widened at the sight of the cards being exactly as The Gambling King predicted. Feeling eyes on her, she noticed that both Soun and Kasumi were suddenly peering over her back as well.
"He… he's right!" Soun gasped in amazement.
"He reasoned the positions of my deck based off just ten cards?!" Nabiki was in disbelief herself, again not that she'd shown it.
"Ho, ho, ho! It's precious that you would attempt to defeat me through such simple and underhanded means," The Gambling King said, "But I didn't think that the neutral dealer would be rigging the house for you."
He looked at Nabiki pointedly with that, before addressing Katie. "That certainly changes some things, but not how this story ends."
His hand landed on the table, revealing a Straight Flush of Hearts. "They say the Queen of Diamonds will beat you if she's able, but the Queen of Hearts is just as cruel."
He closed his eyes and chuckled. "It looks like–again-"
The words came to a stop when he looked up at her. The haughty sneer he wore melted into one of confusion and then of disbelief… when he saw that Katie was smiling. Not just smiling, grinning ear to ear at the sight of the Gambling King's hand.
"Buddy, I don't need to count cards to beat you," she said, "The only card I need…"
She threw her hand down onto the table, and The Gambling King nearly fell backward from his seat in a full tumble, when he saw a Royal Flush suited in Spades.
"… Is the Ace of Spades," she finished as she smiled down on the Gambling King, her eyes nearly glowing from the malice of her gaze. "Take one look and die."
It was about here that The Gambling King lost the schooled, steel composure that he had come into this game with. He stood up, recoiling from the cards as if they were an extremely venomous snake. "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!"
Soun nearly shoved his oldest and younger daughters to the floor as he raced to the table and look on in disbelief. Sure enough, there sat the Royal Flush of Spades, in all of its Straight Flush pummeling glory.
Kasumi clapped her hands together, gleeful. "That means you win… right?"
"It does!" Akane shouted ecstatically. "She beat him!"
"Ho-shit! Nice!" Misao called over the speakerphone. "GG, bae!"
Katie looked down at the phone. "Did you seriously just use textspeak IRL?"
"Did you?" Misao cattily retorted.
She needed a second to realize that she did. "… Fuck."
"HOLD ON A SECOND!" The Gambling King roared, in exasperation.
He slammed a hand down on the table, and then pointed at the hand. "You cheated!"
Katie recoiled. "I cheated how?"
"You switched hands!" He said. "There's no way you should've had a Royal Flush! Your next cards were going to be all rags! Useless! You should've had a seven-high hand!!"
Katie looked around the witnesses to the game. "Hey guys, did anyone see me switch cards?"
Kasumi shook her head. "No, I didn't."
"Nor did I," Soun said.
Akane quietly checked through the rest of the deck, then fanned them out on a clear spot of the table, face up. "The faces and the ace of spades aren't in here."
But the seven-high described by The Gambling King was, exactly after the club flush. Nabiki stared at it as well, her mouth finally shutting after hanging open.
"HOW?!" The Gambling King bellowed. Nabiki was of the same mind.
"That shouldn't have happened, I arranged the deck so that, so that…" She then stopped, as she remembered one important thing that happened. The Gambling King remembered it as well.
Katie had gathered the cards… and handed them back to Nabiki…
"Were you paying attention at all, or were you too caught up in my theatrics to notice?" Katie then asked.
Nabiki slowly looked from the cards to Katie, as those same words echoed in her head. "Oh, you sneaky cunt."
The Gambling King sagged where he stood, and then began to tremble with rage when he realized that he'd been defeated by what seemed like a simple sloppy rearrangement of the cards that turned out to be a predicted shift in card position. She had outplayed him and the dealer using the losing hand! The dramatic call to Misao and the skyrocketing pot were specifically to keep his attention away from the possibility that the cards had been shifted!
He put a trembling hand to his brow, and bowed his head. But rather than growl in rage… he let out a chuckle, before he spoke in a different, yet very familiar voice.
"Damn it girl, you ruined it."
The Tendos noticed the shift in his voice, and looked at him before it occurred to Katie that something was off.
The grin faded from Katie's face as she searched the voice in her mind… and then recognized it. "You."
Nabiki recoiled a tiny bit. "Say what?"
"You know him all of a sudden?" Akane asked.
Katie nodded. "… It's my Uncle Nick."
"I didn't lose to the asshole who used to call himself the Gambling King." The man named Nicholas Fontaine Sherman said as he grabbed the top of his face, and began to pull it and his hat off, revealing that it was a latex mask that hid a different, familiar face to Soun and Katie.
"Ah, you! Nick!" Soun yelped.
"You know him?" Nabiki asked him.
"I went drinking with him yesterday, Saotome and I!" Soun explained.
Kasumi suddenly clasped his shoulder with one hand, and leaned close. "Drinking? I thought you said you were exhausted from training, which is why you both went straight to bed when you came home."
Soun stiffened, and looked out the corner of his eye at Kasumi, who was still smiling pleasantly.
"We. Will. Talk. Later." Her stilted tone, while still very nice, emphasised her anger perfectly.
"What the literal shit, you bastard?!" Katie suddenly, and vehemently, shouted at Nick. "Do you realize how stressed I've been over this?!"
"Relax, relax, I have my reasons for this," Nick explained as he tossed the mask and hat on the table, and then began to shed his goofy overcoat as well. "I found this bozo a couple neighborhoods over hustling kids and kicked his ass first in Poker and then with my fists. Looking through his stuff, I found he was interested in trying to collect a bounty that someone put on you."
He took off the overcoat he wore, revealing his more usual vest and khaki combo.
Katie stopped. "Wait, a bounty?"
"Yeah, to make you look like an idiot. I tracked them down and I wanted to figure out what their game was." Nick said, looking irritated. "And it was all gonna go down real smooth like and then you ruined it."
"You could have just told me your plan. The only other person who would've have known it wasn't legit would be Misao." Katie pointed out, still just a tiny bit pissed. The relief that she wasn't actually on the hook for anything was soon melting under the boiling inferno of rage that her Uncle pulled a fast one on her and made her worry for nothing.
"I wanted to be sure." He defended. "But I found out who did it."
"Who?" Katie asked.
He looked at Nabiki, who blanched a bit in spite of her retained composure.
Katie actually broke down into hysterical laughter. "Shit man, you definitely should have told me! We could've hustled her on that shit and split the money!"
"You're taking that rather well." Nick noted, kind of taken aback by her blase attitude.
"Well, yeah. It was what, embarrass me or something?" Katie guessed.
Nick nodded.
"Well that's no big deal. It takes a lot to embarrass me, you know that." Katie said, shaking her head. "I mean, so what? Compared to Tillamook, this is actually small time."
Nick didn't look pleased with his niece turning defense for the girl who put a bounty on her.
"Fine whatever man. I'm gonna skip summer this year, thanks." Katie said, getting up.
"You're just going to let this go?" Nick asked, somewhat incredulous.
"Dude, she put a bounty on my head and then took a paycheck from me to be the dealer to screw over her hitman." Katie said, shaking her head. "I can't hate on a bitch that bad. It wouldn't be right." She tossed him a dark look. "Besides, the guy who tricked me into a high-stakes poker game and forced me into this whole mess just so you could confront her shouldn't be throwing stones man."
Nick let out a contemplative hum at that, before nodding. "I suppose that's fair."
Nabiki, heretofore silent, decided to make a point in her own defense. "Uh, not for nothing, but until he brought this whole thing up, I completely forgot about the bounty."
Katie laughed at that. "See? Knowing we could both kill her she says that!"
Nick decided to probe the girl a little anyways. "Would you have still paid it?"
"To you? Hell no. Complete and utter humiliation my man. Beating her in a card game? What kind of lame manga shit are trying to pull?" Nabiki seemed offended by the notion that beating her at poker would work.
"Was it even possible?" Katie asked. "Because I have my doubts."
"If you don't fulfill the terms in the contract, you don't get paid." Nabiki said, before looking a little chagrined. "That probably means I won't see that fat check since I'm the one who sent this guy after you."
"Are you kidding? I've learned an invaluable skill–next time I go to a casino, I'm going to walk out with the keys."
Nabiki actually giggled a little at that.
Hearing it, Nick realized exactly why Katie was standing up for this bitch. He wanted to bury his face in his hands but refrained. "All's well that ends well as it goes."
Akane gently elbowed Katie in the side. "Senpai… this man's really your Uncle?"
"Yeah, he's an asshole, isn't he?" Katie replied.
Asshole was being nice, in Akane's book. Putting Katie over like this, and making her come all this way for ultimately nothing. Then there was Nabiki. "Are you okay with Nabiki…?"
"What, the bounty?" Katie turned back to Nabiki. "Hey, since this has all been blown out, mind calling that whole thing off?"
"Not at all," Nabiki said. "This venture was too profitable for me to need something meaningless like schadenfreude."
"And there goes the water under the bridge," Katie replied, before she picked up her phone. "I'm not going to need all that money."
"Good, Mom would kick my ass if I suddenly had to pay all of that shit out," Misao said. "Hi Uncle Nick~!"
"Hello Misao," Nick said kindly to the phone, "Are you eighteen yet?"
"Yes, Uncle Nick~" Misao sang.
"Great, so how about we-"
"No, Uncle Nick~" Misao sang again.
Nick snapped his fingers. "Fuck."
Akane cringed, as Katie shook her head in disgust. "Could you not ever do that again?"
Her Uncle just gave her a blithe, smarmy look. "A man can aspire, can't he?"
"Aim much lower," Katie warned.
Nick nearly glanced in Soun's direction and thought of his curiously absent friend. "I always hit those marks."
And with that innuendo, Katie was done with the conversation, because her double-entendre loving creepy Uncle almost certainly implied that there was going to be drama later that she'd have to clean up somehow. "Well, I'm done. Hey Akaneko, can we go watch TV?"
Akane wholeheartedly seconded the notion. "Y-yes! Absolutely!"
With that, she took Katie by the hand and led her out of the dojo. Kasumi was two paces behind the two girls, just shaking her head in amusement. As the action was over, Soun slowly trailed out, and Nabiki was left alone with Nick, who began to gather up his things.
"I'm not going to apologize or beg for mercy." Nabiki said to break the contemplative silence. "I made a mistake that could have cost me dearly."
A little spike of killing intent danced in the air. "Who's to say it still won't?"
Nabiki sensed it, and blew out a sigh. "I know, you want to rage and howl at me, maybe rough me up and leave me in a ditch somewhere to rue the day I messed with your family, but you know what? Let's skip all that, too much energy. You intimidated me with some sinister posturing, I was scared into prostrating myself on your mercy, and you can walk out here feeling like you protected her from the big bad me."
"I don't know, I like the sinister posturing part a lot." Nick lamented in a joking tone.
"I'll trade you a secret in exchange for saving us both the bad acting." Nabiki offered.
"Okay, what?" Nick asked.
"I cancelled the bounty this morning, considering I could keep it and get the money from Katie." Nabiki said, before pausing to let him reason it out.
"So if I had won and asked for it…" Nick started to realize what trouble Katie might be in because of this girl that didn't have to do with the bounty.
"I would have asked what bounty." Nabiki replied with a nod. "So please, if you'll allow me to excuse myself."
Nick waited for her to get to the door, his expression one of surprise, before it turned into a sinister grin. "You know, the bounty being gone should make me worry less now, but knowing you're close to her doesn't actually relieve me at all."
"Oh yeah?" Nabiki asked, wondering what he was getting at.
"You're a bonafide problem and one of the few she won't ever try to get rid of," Nick replied, "A girl like you is her greatest weakness."
Nabiki contemplated the words before she nodded. "I'll have to keep that in mind. Excuse me."
Nick shook his head and looked at the cards. He picked up the Ace of Spades, and turned it over in his hand, before chuckling. "Goddamn it girl, you're gonna get yourself into some deep shit with that type of yours."
Back in the house, Nabiki was thinking over what Nick had said. No that wasn't quite right, because even if she was a petty, vindictive bitch, putting a bounty on Katie's head was a bit too much. Something more than just jealousy vexed her about Katie Izland. Something she couldn't quite put a finger on it.
She walked to the sitting room and found Katie lying on the floor with Akane as they switched it over to an international channel showing a poker tournament. Katie was explaining to her kouhai how she'd done it.
Nabiki cocked her head slightly, taking in the sight of Katie's confident, muscular back as she laid on the ground uncoiled and relaxed… like a wolf resting after a kill. A little to the side she could see that confident smile that Katie wore everyday like armor against a cynical world. Nabiki could only stand and stare, almost captivated.
The spark had been provided, the tinder had begun to burn.
Clouds had rolled in later that evening, a distant rumble of thunder in the late hour signaled that it was time for Katie to leave the Tendo home and return to her place. Much to Akane and Kasumi's chagrin.
"You know, you could stay the night," Akane suggested as she and Katie headed towards the door. "That thunder sounds close, and nasty."
Katie looked over to Akane and gave her a warm smile. "That's really generous of you, but I can't really do the spending the night thing. Part of my job is being close to Misao especially during the night. Even if Ranma is there, if I'm not and something happens… well that's my neck."
Kasumi, who was bringing up the rear, seemed just as disappointed as Akane. "Oh, well that's a shame. It's so nice having you over, I was hoping I'd get to cook breakfast for you."
"Well, tomorrow I'll just come by really early then. That's okay, right?" Katie suggested.
"As early as you can," Kasumi replied.
"Sheesh, Kasumi…" Akane muttered. "Let Senpai get some sleep before she comes over, at least."
Katie bit her lower lip, caring too much for her kouhai to point out the innuendo. "Anyway, I will see you all tomorrow. Later, Kasumi-senpai, Akaneko."
"Bye," Akane said with a happy wave, while Kasumi's farewell had considerably more warmth and longing in it.
Katie smiled back, and waved to them both as she strolled out. As the door closed behind her and she jogged out of the gate in preparation for the sprint home, she immediately noticed Nabiki leaning against the wall, holding a closed umbrella in her hand and staring directly at her.
"Yo," Nabiki greeted coolly.
"Yo yourself," Katie's jogging fell to the back burner, where it would burn away to nothing. "What, going for a walk this late?"
"I am," Nabiki said, before looking to the south, where the thunder rumbled from. Flashes of lightning illuminated the towering clouds encroaching on the horizon and moving steadily northward. The storm coming was going to be a particularly intense one.
Katie eyed Nabiki, curious about her intentions, before she looked in the direction of her house. "Let me guess, you're conveniently going in my direction?"
"Convenient nothing," Nabiki shot back, "I want to walk with you."
That turned Katie's attention back to Nabiki. "You do, now?"
Nabiki pushed off the wall, and walked to Katie's side. "Yeah, because I want to talk to you."
"Okay, sure," Katie replied, not seeing much more need to tongue wag at the middle Tendo sister.
The two turned and began to walk, the sky lighting up briefly from a much closer lightning bolt that crossed the southern sky. Neither paid it any overt attention, but Nabiki held tighter to her umbrella. Seeing this, Katie wondered if this was a ploy to get her over at Misao's house to weather the storm, and take the opportunity to have at some alone time with Ranma.
Misao, despite being reclusive, wouldn't turn a pretty girl away into a storm at night. Neither would she, actually, and she definitely wouldn't turn away Nabiki.
"So," she began, "If the weather gets there before we do, what's your plan?"
Nabiki actually hadn't really put much thought into that. "I'm a big girl, I can walk back in a little rain."
"Okay, just curious." Katie folded her hands behind her back.
In silence, the two walked up the street, their slow pace in complete defiance of the threatening storm that crept up much faster than either of them expected. By the time they had reached Tofu's clinic, not even halfway up the block, the wind had picked up noticeably. When they reached the front gates of the school and turned towards the river to cross the bridge, bright streaks of lightning, and noticeably louder rumbles of thunder were almost constant, at intervals of seconds.
"What is this, a tropical storm?" Katie asked as she looked up to the sky, only to be tagged in the face by a large, warm raindrop.
"Well, they did say something big was coming. It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow, and into the weekend. " Nabiki pointed out.
Another struck the ground, and the ambience of the night was soon joined by the increasing pitter-patter of falling rain. Before long, the only sounds were the sudden, torrential downpour and the rumbles of thunder that rolled overhead between flashes of lightning.
Rather than be caught out in the downpour, both Katie and Nabiki retreated to the nearest cover from the rain–a bus stop shelter near the bridge that crossed the river that separated where Katie lived from the Tendos. Under the dim light of a fluorescent lamp, and safe and dry out of the rain, Katie sat down on the bench, while Nabiki just stared out at the rain, standing close to the four-walled shelter's open door.
A few moments passed, then minutes as the storm only grew more intense. The two of them remained in silence, stuck in the limbo of tension and relaxation, as the warm night's rain fell in front of them.
"So what did you want to talk about?" Katie finally asked, breaking the silence after only so much longer.
Nabiki closed her eyes for a moment, before she answered. "You."
"What about me?"
"Do you think I'm still awesome?"
Katie lifted her eyebrows, before she looked ahead and laughed. "So when you say it's about me, you mean it's more about you in relation to me."
That sounded needlessly self-centered no matter whose perspective it was.
Nabiki's nostrils flared just slightly. "So?"
"So what?" Katie admitted.
"Your Uncle said something to me, before he left, something that made sense after our recent interactions…"
And now Katie was a mixture of curious at annoyed. More at Nick than at Nabiki at all. "Did he, now?"'
Sensing it, Nabiki discreetly moved to turn it into an advantage, and she smirked. "He said that I'm 'A problem you won't ever try to get rid of', to paraphrase."
Katie narrowed her eyes, more annoyed at her Uncle for that assessment. "My Uncle has a hobby of stirring up shit. He's so good at it, he made it his entire career."
"Is he hiring?" Nabiki coyly asked, inspecting her fingernails. Or pretending to, when her eyes were focused elsewhere.
Rolling them now, Katie blew out a sigh. "Thing is, he's not wrong."
The quiet that followed was broken by a much louder rumble of thunder. Seconds later a brilliant flash of lightning heralded an even more powerful crack of thunder.
Nabiki turned and looked over at her, her attention finally peeled from the rain. "Oh yeah?"
Katie was looking right up at her. "I have a type, you know."
"A type?"
"A guilty pleasure, well, a weakness… I guess…" Katie said. "I like the mean girls."
She leaned back against the acrylic glass wall of the shelter. "You know the kind, the ones like you. Cool, snarky, and quick to have and get that edge in everything. The girls that are confident and cocky all the time, and while you hate them… you have to not only respect them but want them, too."
Nabiki leaned against the opposite wall, intrigued. "Is that what you think of me?"
"Are you saying that's not you to a T?" Katie replied.
Nabiki crossed her arms, inwardly conceding that she had a point there. "Really, though? That's your 'type'? I could've sworn that your thing was pure, saintly types with how you look at Kasumi half the time."
Katie laughed. "Kasumi has a different appeal to me entirely."
"Different how?" Nabiki asked.
Katie let out another laugh, though it was a quieter, knowing chuckle. "Like I'd let you have that on me."
Ooh, that was fascinating. Was there something else to those longing looks and smiles she missed? Something to ply from her later, she supposed. "So what can I have on you?"
Katie tilted and turned her head away from Nabiki slightly, while keeping her eyes and a smirk on her. "What do you want? I can give you a lot more than you're asking for right now."
"I doubt that," Nabiki replied, just above the rumble of thunder. The tips of her ears felt intolerably hot again, but the warmth was all over her neck and cheeks. It was dark, thank goodness, so there was no chance the blush could be seen.
But then she remembered Katie probably didn't need to see it.
"The thing is, though, I've been through more than a fair share of disappointments with that 'type'," Katie said. "Because a good portion of girls like that kind of come undone when a bigger bitch comes along. There's only two ways to really impress me: be the bitch that conquers or be the bitch who can't be conquered."
"… Which am I?" Nabiki asked.
Katie tilted her head back the other way. "Definitely the one who conquers. Your answer for me embarrassing you? You slap a bounty on my head without a second thought. No drama, no throwing a fit… bam. You put your money out there to take me down."
She huffed. "The last bitch I had the misfortune of being blue-balled by tried to 'systematically destroy me' with some good ol' fashioned high school drama bullshit. Then she went crying to the cops when I dropped my elbow on it."
"Your old school, I take it?" Nabiki asked.
"Yeah," Katie replied. "Like I said before, you don't even bat an eyelash when you're surrounded by people who can and want to kick your ass. Hell, I bet you didn't even let Nick have his fun spooking you when you were alone with him."
She didn't, and Nabiki still found it surprising that Katie thought that highly of her.
"That's awesome, plain and simple," Katie said.
"It drives you crazy," Nabiki repeated, remembering how she said it.
Katie closed her eyes, and huffed. "You're bad for me, if I keep falling for girls like you one of you is going to kill me–one way or the other."
The thunder rumbled again, but even over that, Katie could sense Nabiki push off the wall of the shelter and move towards her. She opened one eye, and watched as Nabiki turned and sat down next to her on the bench, her eyes not leaving her as she did.
"In case you didn't realize it by now with me, romance isn't exactly my thing," the middle Tendo then admitted.
Rather than continue that line of dialogue, she reached up and placed her hands on Katie's face, turning her completely towards her. She leaned forward, hesitantly at first, before she steeled herself and moved forward–only to be met halfway by Katie in a kiss. The moment seemed to stretch from there, before it broke and their lips separated.
Katie chuckled. "Kissing isn't your thing either."
Nabiki huffed. "Are you saying I'm bad at it?"
"You're invited to prove me wrong," she replied.
Nabiki accepted the challenge, kissing her again with more passion than before. Katie responded in kind, pulling her closer to her. After what felt like forever, Nabiki finally pulled away and let out a confident little huff. "How was that?"
Katie smiled. "Better."
Katie this time initiated the kiss, before parting just enough to tell her. "But I want more effort from you."
"How much more?" Nabiki returned, as her fingers combed through Katie's jet black hair, caressing her scalp.
Katie let out a sigh before she pulled away and stood up. Turning to face her, she offered her hand to Nabiki. "… Everything you can give me…"
As the thunder rolled above, Nabiki smirked and took Katie's offered hand, letting her classmate pull her from her seat and out into the dark.
It was well into the night now, and a young man wearing a tiger-striped bandana was sitting next to a campfire, waiting for the late meal to be finished. It was ramen again, but they had found some ingredients and made the most of it. He looked across the fire to the girl doing the cooking, this dangerous woman named Shampoo.
"Should search for Red." The girl seethed as she stirred the broth. "Then Shampoo kill!"
"Yes, but the city is different from the countryside. It's harder to track anything here." Ryoga said, sighing only slightly. "And I can't track anything as a human and will get lost, putting us farther away from her."
"Shampoo no care, Shampoo kill Red!" The Amazon hissed, showing the honeymoon period, if it had ever been there, was over.
"We've been over this, I want to talk to Ranma." Ryoga said patiently. "Besides, we were delayed today by someone needing to play Dota at an internet cafe."
"Shampoo just want have fun." The girl groused sourly.
"And you did once you took my advice and stopped feeding." Ryoga said, though it was less advice and more taunting her about going to play LoL instead if all she wanted to do was feed. Luckily, nothing got damaged in her tantrum but it was a close call.
"Hmph." Shampoo didn't respond to the barb and switched topics. "Who this Ranma? Why so important?"
Ryoga leaned forward and pressed his hands together, before resting his chin on them. The fire framed his face as he contemplated the answer.
"A friend," he said after a couple seconds. "More than that, just someone I need to talk to."
The conversation seemed to die with Shampoo's annoyed huff at his cryptic answer, and the distant rumble of thunder.
= = =
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 7/?
|Romance of the Three Kingdoms|
The kendoka that attempted quite boldly to break a bokken over Akane's skull, only to suffer one broken over his balls in return, seemed quite uppity for a guy who just lost his reproductive capacity for an indeterminate amount of time. Following the attack, he had been restrained in the school's infirmary and left to stew in his juices before he was questioned, and it was during that time that his uppityness became quite apparent. He swore, he spat, and he derided anyone who came near him, acting rather arrogant for–again–a dude who had been near castrated by Akane.
It was early in the next morning when the student council of Furinkan High School met outside of the dark hallway outside of the nurse's office, Katie and Ranma had arrived as one pair, while Nabiki and Akane showed up as another. They had just received the report on the condition of the kendoka, and the fact that despite having a lot to say, who he was and where he came from didn't appear to be in his vocabulary.
He would not enjoy the process of learning.
"Good grief, I'd say that we didn't send assassins to knock over other students in my old school, but I literally had to put like five cheerleaders in the hospital when they tried to jump me in the showers after gym," Katie lamented.
"There weren't assassins at my old school mostly because it was an all guys school and assassins are generally the bottom bitches of any crew," Ranma said, "And no one wanted to be the bitch made man. Instead, everyone just fought everyone in the hallways, and in the cafeteria, and in gym, and in class…"
"You went to an all boys school?" Nabiki asked.
"Can we just take a step back and focus on the fact that we're talking about assassins in school like it's a normal thing?"
"Temper your exasperation, you're balls deep in this nonsense," Nabiki said, "Miss Girls Athletic Committee Chair."
Katie nodded. "It's safer to accept it, Akaneko."
Akane pouted at this, but nodded and folded her arms. "Just when I was getting used to it being peaceful and quiet. So, how do we find out who he is?"
"Nothing a car battery and some leads won't fix," Katie said.
"Could we not?" Akane pleaded.
"You're no fun." Nabiki said, sticking her tongue out at her sister.
"I'm all kinds of fun but I'd rather not go too far down the hole of unsanitary violence." Akane finished her plea with a begging smile that made it hard to say no.
Katie and Nabiki both conceded to that, while Ranma recalled something Kodachi said. "Well, he might be from wherever this Saginomiya person is."
"Asuka Saginomiya?" Nabiki asked. "Oh geez, she would send someone here, wouldn't she?"
Katie's face fell. She heard of that particular nutjob before, a rich bitch with a chip on her shoulder and a sense of moral superiority unbecoming of how she openly acted in public or on Instagram. "I've heard of her."
"I haven't, fill me in," Ranma said.
"She goes to Kolkhoz Academy, an international school right over on the border with Nakano. Her family runs the school's administration, you can imagine what kind of power she has over the students and faculty," Katie explained.
"She's also Kodachi's mortal rival," Nabiki said. "They've literally been at it since kindergarten."
She whipped out her smartphone and loaded a wikipedia page about it. "Their feud is local lore, IRL and online, because it's literally evolved with social media."
Nabiki presented the screen of the phone to Ranma and Akane, who both gawked in disbelief at the length of the rivalry.
"She's a drama queen, plain and simple," Katie said, "She was in the middle of shit with Misao back when I first moved here. Calling her a prostitute and a call girl, and trying to send her friends to intimidate her at public events."
"She sounds like a horrible person," Akane said.
"You have no idea." Asuka Saginomiya was so wretched, that Katie considered her a turn-off.
Nabiki shook her head. "Now I almost feel sorry for this dope. If he really is one of that Saginomiya's pets, he's not long on brains, just misplaced loyalty."
Katie was amazed. "Well, someone who can ruin a person enough to nearly invoke sympathy from you."
"Nearly," Nabiki reminded them. "In the end, he's just an accessory that she's tossed aside to make a statement–provided it's Saginomiya responsible for him."
"And if he's not?" Ranma asked.
Nabiki shrugged her shoulders. "Then he's an even bigger idiot, because the only other school that would take shots at us has no reason to now that Kuno the elder is indisposed."
"Who?" This was new to Katie, too.
"Mendou Shuutaro!" With Kodachi's declaration the hallway corridor's lights came on, illuminating her arrival flanked by several of her butlers. "Heir to the Mendou Zaibatsu, which owns Tomobiki High School and 51% percent of Japan's property!"
"And principal rival of Kuno," Nabiki added.
Kodachi nodded. "That is correct! Since the Kendo Nationals two years ago, where my brother swiftly struck him down in the middle school level championships. He has sought revenge and retribution for the humiliation, only to be spurned again and again on the stage of champions!"
"In short, he's a pretty shitty swordsman," Nabiki tl;dr'd.
Ranma immediately lost interest, as did Katie. A guy weaker than Kuno wasn't any fun.
Akane didn't lose the plot. "But if Kuno's gone, why is he sending assassins after us?"
Kodachi let out a small laugh. "Let us find out." She looked to Katie. "Would you mind interrogating the young man, as per your duty as Disciplinary Chair?"
"I got a couple ideas," Katie said, popping her neck. "Just let me study him a bit."
"Well, if he was a pet of Saginomiya, then we could check her Instagram. She likes to post a selfie that coincides with someone from her circle getting caught doing something dumb." Nabiki pointed out, using her phone to go check that lead out.
"And if he is from this Mendou guy?" Ranma asked, curious if she had any info on that.
"Oh, Tomobiki guys are all hard up for that alien girl who looks like a demon." Nabiki said it offhand. "Just mention Lum Invader and see if the idiot sprouts a massive stiff."
"That'll cover the who, I'll work on finding out the why," Katie said as she opened the door and walked into the infirmary. "Akaneko, come along."
Akane gestured to herself. "Me?"
Curious, she followed Katie in. In the room, she found the kendoka strapped firmly to a bed, which was in an upright position. He could hardly move at all, as much for the sake of his injuries as it was to prevent him from attempting to escape. Despite being locked away for the entire day and night, the mysterious assailant was still full of piss and vinegar. "Mongrels!"
"Wan, wan," Katie said. She rolled her eyes before giving a sharp snort. "How's it feel being a mongrel's prisoner? Or that you got stomped by one?"
"Flukes have been known to happen," the kendoka retorted with an arrogant turn of his nose. "Your birth being a prime example."
Katie ignored the barb and turned to Akane. "All right Akaneko, I'm gonna explain something that might not make sense. And then I'll demonstrate it for you."
"Okay." Akane said, before glancing at their prisoner. "It won't do anything to him will it?"
"If all goes well, I won't need to even hurt him to get him to talk." Katie reassured the girl.
"As if a mongrel could make me talk." He muttered with a dark tone.
Katie gave him an even more disdainful look. "Jesus Christ, more people with eighth-grader syndrome. Do you realize how lame you sound, calling me mongrel? Gilgamesh wasn't real, the Fate version was literally golden garbage, and even with that handicap in your favor you'd never be as intimidating as him."
He immediately tried to spit at her face, but he could've hocked that loogie after saving it up for a week and it wouldn't have gone any further than the foot of the bed where it landed.
Katie then turned to Akane again. "Now then, that explanation."
She took a breath to steady herself. "It's like this: when I fight, I tend to focus more than most people. Normally, this would be bad because you'd tend to miss things. But at some point, my Uncle learned a trick that let him bypass the limiter of sight. Basically, once you get the hang of that trick, you'll be able to "see" more, as well as hear, smell, taste, and touch more than normal. As well as focusing on things, you'll be able to also think faster and come to better decisions faster before you could be defeated. It's hard to describe, but it's kind of like learning how to fight blind."
Akane looked thoughtful, had anyone else tried to say that to her, she would have called bullshit. But this was her senpai... "So you're saying I can learn this?"
"Anyone can, even Nabiki." Katie said, shrugging her shoulders a little. "It's just, most people take their eyesight for granted and never ever try to account for times when they can't see."
The kouhai looked back at their prisoner. "So how are you going to show me?"
Katie hummed. "First, look me in the eyes and watch them closely."
Akane did as instructed, watching with deep fascination as she watched the taller girl's pupils dilated. They kept going and soon Akane wasn't sure Katie could see anything anymore. She moved to speak but Katie silenced her with a raised hand.
"Don't, I need to adjust first." Katie whispered, focusing on her hearing first, bringing it down to levels she could handle. "If you said something there it would've been like a bomb going off by my ears."
Everything was so much sharper, clearer now to Katie. She could hear both Akane and the kendoka's heart beats, the former tinged with curiosity, the latter seething with anger and hate. She slowly blurred out the room around them until only Akane and their prisoner remained. Idly, she let the scent of Akane filter through her heightened smell and it was like a field after a spring rain, so vibrant and full of life.
"Senpai?" Akane murmured, the timber of her voice showing off the full range of emotions. From concern and curiosity to friendly affection and warmth.
"It's fine, I'm just focusing and filtering everything." Katie said, turning away from Akane to look at the prisoner. "Trust me, you'll want to get good at speed focus or else you'll get to hear someone three blocks over having explosive diarrhea. Not fun."
"I imagine it wouldn't." Akane blanched, shaking her head.
Katie focused on the heartbeat of the kendoka, trying to find out what it could tell her. He was angry, prideful, dismissive and hidden within the contours of the sound was the shame he felt at losing to a girl and losing in general. "Huh, his anger is all bluster to keep from feeling the shame over losing. To a girl."
He blanched in surprise and jerked his head to deny it.
"You can tell that?" Akane asked, not having expected that.
"From the cadence and pace of his heartbeat. It takes a while to learn what each sound represents but they each have a certain tone." Katie replied, before she casually answered Akane's following question. "Before you ask, you're excited, curious and anxious."
Akane nodded. "That's amazing."
The kendoka began to sweat as he realized the implications.
"There's other things that I'll explain after the interrogation." Katie said, keeping her focus on the prisoner. "So! Tell me about Lum Invader?"
His pulse slowed and the organ beat with confusion. "Why would I know anything about that stupid thing?"
"Fascinating. It's just, we thought you were one of Mendou Shuutaro's fanboys thanks to your kendo ability." Katie explained.
His heart thudded with offense now, his breath was hot with anger. "As if I'd follow that clown!"
"All right, I believe you." Katie said, swiftly switching topics. "Man, that leaves that ugly cow Asuka Saginomiya."
Akane looked at Katie, when she noticed his hands twitch, as if he was about to clench them in to fists. Katie had seen it too, and then nudged Akane. "I mean, her face looks like someone drank some bad milk and puked it back up, upon which the sick grew legs and thought itself a person."
His eyes widened, his nostrils flared. He strained against his restraints and bared his teeth. All the while, his heart barely picked up pace, though it was tinged with slight anger.
"Impressive show chum, but either you agree with my assessment or you're faking anger to try and throw me off." Katie correctly diagnosed. "And a fine gentlemen like you going to that inbred factory of Kolkhoz?"
Now he was pissed, his heart rate jumped to a significant amount.
"I see, not a pet, a patriot. Doing good work for the glory of his school." Katie said, tsking a little. "Or I'm sure that's how she sold you on it. I mean, your school is still smarting after that incident where the Golden Pair got crippled right?"
His heart was thundering with anger, his breath was thick with fury. His pupils dilated and if he could, he would have torn himself from the bed at that very moment.
"Tell me friend, how much did it take to buy you? What did you sell your pride as a martial artist for? Did she smile at you? Promise to go out with you? Even… hold your hand in public?" Katie really laid into him.
"How lewd." Akane murmured.
Outwardly, he calmed his thrashing, but he couldn't cool his heart's raging. The insults had been too great. Trained though he had been to still his tongue, the rest of him was entirely too mouthy.
"You're sweating a lot pal." Katie said calmly, stretching her arms over her head. "You're about to lie to me aren't you?"
His heart finally slowed, not through calming down but fear. Could she read his mind?
"Let me read you the facts brother man." Katie said, taking a breath. "We're going to find out who you are. The school you go to is about to get its shit pushed in because if you're an indicator of the talent there, this war you've taken upon yourself to start is going to be very, very short. Because, my guy, you lost to my cute little kouhai here. And her job is to train the bodies of the students here at Furinkan high, turning them into better people for the future of our nature. She's still a nice girl deep down, even pleading on your behalf to spare you extreme torture. And you lost to her, completely."
She breathed out a hot breath, her eyes burning with the madness of battle. "Me? I'm the big bad wolf who hunts down those who act a fool within our grounds. I'm the Disciplinary Committee Chair bro, which means I can punish you however I want and there's not a goddamn thing you or your parent's money can do about it. I am very much the definition of not nice."
Katie closed in, her face ever so close so the boy could feel the heat of her blood.
"Now you have two options: You can tell me all I need to know, from nouns on down and we might be tempted to show you mercy. That's not up to me but maybe you can convince me to be your attorney. Or you can lie to me and we can march to the school you decided to martyr yourself for and bust heads until we get the person behind you. Now you get to choose." She bared her teeth and growled.
"And please. Lie to me. I'm begging you to."
How quickly bravado goes out the window when you're tied to a bed and staring into the eyes of a bloodthirsty monster that could apparently read your thoughts. Opening his mouth, the only thing that could tumble forth was the unfettered truth. "I'll talk, I'll talk!"
Akane could only watch in muted awe at the shift that had happened to the guy who was so obstinate yesterday. He was sobbing, actual tears and snot from his nose! "The truth is… the truth is that I was sent by both Mendou and Asuka-sama!"
Katie stopped and cocked an eyebrow. "Both?"
"Mendou and Asuka-sama both decided after Kuno was defeated, that they would try to spread their influence and turn his student body against him. Mendou would win over Furinkan's girls, and Saginomiya would woo the boys… but then Kodachi swept in from nowhere and took her brother's place. No one saw it coming, and Asuka-sama is especially furious… so she forged an outright alliance with Mendou to take Kodachi down."
Katie sighed. "It's really is Tillamook High School all over again. Oh well, at least I have real friends on my side this time."
"I was thinking that this was just Kill la Kill without the fancy-" Akane stopped and looked down at her Hugo Boss school uniform. "-Without the magical school uniforms."
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "I dunno, I bet with enough money we could make a Goku or two.
But that was neither here nor there, as she leaned down over the kendoka. "Anyway fuckboi, thank you for be so forthcoming with your information. As a reward, you won't get beaten up anymore than you already have been, but you will be dumped in front of your school in just your underwear."
Katie pulled out a permanent marker. "So your classmates can get the message."
And that was how a seventeen year old boy wound up tossed onto the front lawn of Tomobiki High School with "I started trouble at Furinkan High School and all I got was my ass kicked and my clothes taken" written in quite legible and accurate kanji for the work of a foreigner.
Suffice to say, when word got out, forces began to mobilize. Three schools were about to have a good ol' fashioned gang war.
|Open the Dojo. Stop having it be closed.|
Nabiki and Akane were walking home from school, the latter going over what she had learned about from Katie. A way to see beyond the norm, to notice that which is filtered away for our safety. Her senpai made it look so easy but there's no way it could be. Just focusing? There had to be more to it.
The opportunity was there for her to learn it, and become as strong as her. Tomorrow, she was definitely going to ask her more about it, and find out what it exactly took to gain that ability.
Nabiki was going over the raw numbers for the school war to come, with update coming from spies that had been dispatched into the territory of their enemies. Unlike those two pompous asses, Furinkan was going to fight this war on their terms.
Which started with determining what could reasonably be brought forth by their opponents. Kolkhoz was well known for its incredible array of clubs and its own notable student council, whereas Tomobiki's reputation as a school full of powerful women preceded itself and some weird magical alien shit that came with being the only school on the planet that aliens went to.
Outside of the Student Council, Furinkan didn't have much going for it in War Potential, so maybe some mystical magical bullshit would be needed before they got the boys out of their diapers and into their big boy pants. Luckily, they had money and friends in high places.
All Nabiki knew, was that if they did get Goku uniforms, she was calling dibs on Nonon's. She might be the Inumuta of the group but she needed missiles and such more than Akane did. Plus giving Akane invisibility sounded like a recipe for hilarity.
"How are things looking?" Akane asked, deciding to take her mind off the technique and put it on the battle to come.
"Well it looks like we've got parity in forces through just the Student Council alone." Nabiki said, going through the info on a tablet. "But that's with only our cursory information. By tonight I should have more numbers to crunch. And by tomorrow I'll be able to tell you how we're gonna win and what our projected cost for it will be."
"How is any of this legal?" Akane grumbled.
"I wish I could tell you but it seems like we're entering a new age of lawlessness here." Nabiki said, shrugging without a shred of sympathy. "Focus less on how you should be in jail for stuff like kidnapping and torturing students, and more on how you're going to kick all their asses."
"I suppose." Akane pouted. "It was amazing though, Katie-senpai made him talk without even torturing him."
That was news. "I had thought she just described how she ate her dinner still alive, smashing the bones apart and savoring the marrow." Nabiki said with a little bit of sass. She was still irritable from all that stuff during their lessons.
"That's gross Nabiki, seriously!" Akane made a face, before she decided to question Nabiki's seemingly unending hate-on for Katie. "Look, what is your deal? All you do is snip and snarl about her and it doesn't make sense."
Nabiki rolled her eyes. "It's nothing you could ever hope to understand."
This would be one of the rare times Nabiki would be wrong. There was a little something there that Akane could just make out.
Akane furrowed her brow. "I know it's not Kuno and your business has rebounded considerably, especially now that Kodachi-san is paying you a fat bonus for being on the Council in the first place."
Her eyes narrowed before they shot wide as a thought occurred to her. "No way!"
"What?" Nabiki asked, baffled by her sister's sudden shift from annoyed to teasing.
"Nothing~" Akane said, skipping ahead towards home.
"Damn it Akane, I'm going to cut your hair if you don't answer me." Nabiki was actually irritated by this whole thing.
"You can try but I'll shave you bald!" Akane retorted in that silly sing-song she always used when she thought she knew something Nabiki didn't.
"I'll shave you bald first!" Nabiki said, chasing after her little sister.
It was an almost idyllic scene of child-like innocence, one that came to a halt when they found their father out on the porch having a smoke. Akane skidded to a halt, with Nabiki coming to a stop behind her.
"Oh, hello girls!" He greeted them kindly. "Kasumi's almost got dinner ready."
Whatever invisible quarrel they were having got shunted to the back burner as they realized that there was important things to discuss. Mainly to do with the building gathering dust in the background. Now that Kodachi's plan to turn boys to men was in full effect, Akane and Nabiki had to pony up their end of the operation.
"Daddy." Nabiki said, taking the lead as she swiped some screens on her tablet. "We need to talk."
"Talk?" Soun asked, somewhat confused.
"About reopening the dojo. You see, the money left to us from mom is going to run out sooner than later, and with us girls getting older and turning our attentions towards college, and your friend moving in, there's a lot of expenses mounting up." Nabiki said, switching over from the war data to their financial data. She flipped the tablet around and showed a chart to her father that projected how much longer they could go on like this.
"We're running out of money that quickly?" Soun mumbled, having thought that the nest egg would last until Ranma married one of his daughters and then money would rain from the sky or whatever the hell he expected that to do.
"Well, in the few days that he's been here, Kasumi's already had to double the amount of money she spends on groceries." Nabiki went on. "He eats more than all three of us combined three times a day."
"I didn't know one person could eat that much," Akane said with a slightly haunted voice.
"… So you want me to open up the dojo?" That sounded like work, work that he'd gotten so used to not doing.
"Yeah, it's pretty much a no-brainer solution to any and all of our financial issues. Get off your duff and do some work, Daddy," Nabiki rather harshly demanded.
"But aren't you girls earning money?" Soun argued.
"Yeah but that's our money and we'll spend it on us." Nabiki shot back. "Okay, let's just go down this path: Akane and I can afford to keep eating, alongside Kasumi. You two can devour the rest of mom's money and then starve."
"You have to contribute Daddy, you've had ten years." Akane said gently, being the good cop. "Mommy will be disappointed in you if you keep this up."
Soun turned white at the idea of disappointing his wife.
"We'll make it easy on you." Nabiki said, crossing her arms. "We got a whole bunch of students who want to train lined up for you, so you don't even have to worry about advertising. All you have to do is show that you can actually teach people how to fight. If Genma's gonna stay any longer, then he's gotta train people, too."
Soun opened his mouth to protest.
"Did you know I can sell the dojo to the bank by proving you haven't trained anyone for the last five years, declaring you a negligent owner?" Nabiki asked sweetly.
"We've talked it over with Kasumi, too." Akane added. "She's ready to not give you dinner if you waffle on this any further."
Soun pitifully closed his mouth.
"That's all right, we still love you, we just need to make sure our family stays solvent for the future." Akane said, soothing his pride. "What kind of family are we to put the burden on Ranma alone for our salvation? That's not fair to him or us."
"You're right." Soun looked at the burned down cigarette and snuffed it out. "I got some thinking to do."
His daughters nodded, which allowed him to slink away.
"That went well." Akane said, looking to Nabiki.
"Told you, we just have to be firm with him." Nabiki retorted with an exasperated eye roll.
It was around here someone cleared their throat, garnering the sisters' attention.
"Excuse me," a man said, looking like the King of Diamonds on a deck of playing cards. "I'm the Gambling King and I'm looking for Nabiki Tendo in regards to a spot of business."
Akane and Nabiki shared a look before turning back to the gently smiling interloper.
|New Lease on Life|
Unfortunately, the rest of the school day was entirely uneventful. Kodachi did announce that in coming days there would be a great storm, but that Furinkan would weather it, there was no overt mentioning of the belligerence from the neighboring schools. But what rubbed Katie a bit raw was the fact that this Gambling King fellow hadn't shown up quite yet.
It was two days after the phone call so where the hell was he? Did he just assume she refused and ran, therefore he didn't even need to hear her answer? That would actually annoy her, she wanted to use Heaven against his card skills. Still, even if he didn't show up, at least she had a full-blown school war to look forward to.
She looked over to Ranma, who walked alongside her back towards her place. In spite of an insistent invitation from Nabiki, Ranma elected to stay a few more nights at the house Darlian, since he actually enjoyed having a night's sleep and a decent morning not having to deal with his Dad. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before Misao decided to include him on the lease. Which was fine by her, the guy could use a stable roof over his head that didn't include his old man trying to ruin everything.
Plus he had another perspective on things so it'd help to pick his brain at times. "So Ranma." She said, deciding to see how he thought of this whole mess that was coming upon them.
"Yeah?" He semi-grunted, having wanted a chance to unwind a bit.
"Nothing too heavy," Katie said, amused by his response. "Just wanted to hear your thoughts on the impending war. You know, if there was anything you couldn't say in front of the others because they might be a bit quick to judge."
"Eh, it's nothing too heavy to worry about." Ranma threw a punch to emphasize his point. "I already got some routines worked out for the guys to help keep them safe and improve both their skill and durability. Sometimes, I'd read training manuals on kung fu and stuff like that to pass the time whenever pops wasn't around."
Katie let out a noise of wonder. "Ehhh, sounds like you got it all figured out."
Ranma shrugged. "Well Kolkhoz is a bunch of pampered rich kids so their usable fighters are even less than Furinkan has now, excluding the three of us naturally. Even adding in the mass of morons from Tomobiki, they're really only loyal to their two generals. All our guys need is to wear 'em down until they get good and strong from beatin' on 'em all day, then we go in and cut the heads off. No Mendou or Saginomiya, no war."
"You want to turn this into a training thing?" Katie said, smiling a little. "Simple, yet effective."
At that, the boy chuckled. "Well, I like to look at things like this as how we get the most out of it. I mean, we could wipe them out in less than a day. I don't know how good Kodachi is, but she's supposed to be a champion or something? She could probably do it too. But if we do that, then nobody gets a chance to learn anything."
Huh, that suddenly sounded like something her uncle would say, but in a much more bloodthirsty context.
"I pitched the idea to Nabiki, and she thought it was pretty dang solid. Glad you do, too."
Katie didn't voice her opinion on the reason Nabiki caved, because it wasn't that important and it wasn't her place to sabotage the girl's chances. "Well with both of you planning this, we've got this even more in the bag."
"Hey they wanted this war," Ranma replied casually. "And for that, they're gonna have a bad time."
Katie hummed. "The worst time."
As they reached her place, Katie waved to the landlady of the building and owner of the karaoke bar that her and Misao's apartment stood over. It was an older woman, who was sitting on a chair outside the doors. "Hey Paz, any signs of creeps?"
"Hey there," the woman said in a raspy voice, "Not a loser to be found. Tell Misao thanks for fixing the rice cooker, will ya?"
Katie flashed her a smile as she unlocked the door. "Sure."
"And another thing, next time you decide to 'move furniture' in the middle of the night, give a word of warning? I could barely sleep the other night."
Katie looked aside. "Er… yeah, sorry."
"Movin' furniture? Geez, you should've woken me up, I would've helped." Ranma then tossed in.
"Oh my God." Katie said in English, her hand coming over her mouth to smother her laugh as she threw open the door and scurried up the stairs.
Ranma looked over at Paz, who just laughed and reclined on her wooden chair. Suspecting something just flew over his head, he headed upstairs, catching up with Katie–who had just opened the door.
Misao was sitting on the couch, in the middle of recording audio for a video, rather than streaming. "Let's face it, fam. If people aren't going to be able to even post video evidence of cheaters and modders without the creators making strikes against their content, then what's that say about the creators? I've already hidden all of my WT content because if this goes over, BansheeDeadSix is going to get blammed for sure again and Google's Lawyers are a bitch to fight."
She looked back over at Katie and Ranma, the latter being shushed by the former, and waved before turning back to the mic.
"So that's it for now. BansheeDeadSix is taking a break from WT until this bullshit gets resolved, if you want to lose your lives in the skies, you can find me in DCS, World of Warplanes, or Ace Combat Infinity. The handle won't change because I want you to come running, it's more experience for me. Like, comment, subscribe, always check your six and remember that the number one rule to combat is survive. BansheeDeadSix, over and out."
She quickly tapped the stop button on her remote, before getting up. "Hey guys, no extracurriculars today?"
"Nope, there's still a bunch of work to do before that. Even more now that a war's about to break out," Katie replied as she loosened the tie of her uniform. "I'm gonna jump in the shower. Paz says thanks for fixing the rice cooker, and that we need to keep it down next time we 'move furniture'."
Misao pouted. "That's entirely your fault, bae." She looked at Ranma and the pout gave way to a smile. "How's studying going, Ranma-kun?"
Ranma was confused by the moving furniture thing but pushed it from his mind. "Well, better than my old school, haven't gotten any homework yet at least."
Misao pumped a fist in celebration. "Then if you have nothing else to do tonight, you can sit down and record more Undertale with me!"
"Sounds good to me," Ranma said, rather eager to pick up and play again. "Do you want to do it now?"
Misao chuckled. "Eager aren't we? How about we get some dinner going first? You know how to cook?"
Ranma nodded. "Yeah, you learn to when you're out on the road a lot."
"Then you can make dinner today. I'm dying for something local, but I'm shit at cooking Asian dishes."
Ranma nodded. "How about some fried shrimp and noodles, then?"
Misao was keen on that idea. "Ooh, that sounds delish."
With expectations to meet, Ranma rolled up his sleeves and headed into the kitchen. "You know what? Let me handle it, you can sit back, watch, and learn from a master."
A smile played across Misao's lips as she followed him into the kitchen and hoisted herself onto the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the living room space. "Well, if you insist."
Ranma Saotome was a smart kid, a little naïve, brilliant in a fight, but short when it came to certain things. Exhibit B. "Well, I couldn't lend you a hand in your furniture moving the other night cuz I was so tired, so I figured that this would be a good way to make up for it."
Misao brought a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle when Ranma said that. "Maybe next time, it could be you and I who moves the furniture."
Ranma, moving with grace and speed, had quickly assembled the ingredients, and was already heating up the wok. Misao let out a surprised hum, at how quickly he took to prep.
"Wouldn't it be better if Katie and I moved it with you together?" Ranma asked over his shoulder.
Misao immediately clasped her hands together, as if to pray, and looked away from Ranma while biting her lip to again stifle her laughter. How could a guy his age be so pure? It was adorable!
"Did I say something wrong?" Ranma asked, conscious that she didn't say anything.
"No, no, it's fine." Misao said, smiling to herself. "You're a really unique guy, you know?"
"That isn't about the curse is it? Because I could do without that." Ranma said, checking the temperature of the wok. "Not quite hot enough."
"So what's the secret to this kind of dish?" Misao asked, remembering she was supposed to be learning about it. She aimed her phone at him and hit the record button.
"It's basically have everything you're going to cook ready because it's gonna go fast." Ranma said, gesturing to the wok. "This thing is gonna be smoking hot even before I put the oil in. Beyond that, once I start it's basically go go go. So get your veggies chopped, sauce made, those kind of things." Ranma quickly diced up a carrot.
"You got good knife skills." Misao noted, impressed. "Sure you didn't intern at a restaurant somewhere?"
"Wouldn't call it an internship, just that whenever Pop got off my back, I'd sometimes do small work around restaurants and covertly observe the chefs and how they moved. Made katas in my head and practiced them in secret." Ranma explained, chopping up a spring onion. "Worked pretty well, wouldn't you say?"
"Definitely." Misao agreed, just enjoying the sight of this buff young man making her food.
"So, how do you like your spice? I kinda like to cook it in and add some at the end so the heat is present throughout. Might get a bit much and I don't want you getting sick." Ranma inquired, checking the shrimp to make sure they were deveined.
"Oh I love it spicy." Misao giggled. "Katie can be a little stubborn when it comes to the spice, but she generally likes it. Though maybe just let her add hers at the end."
"Got it." He answered, making sure his noodles were ready. "So I'll make ours separate from hers. Which is good, because I can show you how to do it both ways really easily." He portioned out some of the shrimp for Katie. "Normally I'd put some chili paste or flakes on these before I cooked them. That'd give me the boost to the spice I like because I'll cook this fast enough spread it through the rest of the dish thanks to the magic of the wok."
Misao nodded. "I see!." She watched as he portioned out some of the sauce he made, before adding some hot sauce to the reserved sauce and stirring it in. "So that's more spice."
"Yeah, it has to go through out to a degree. Lot of people, like pops, just cook something and dump a glob of hot sauce or pepper flakes on it and call it a day. Which is okay, you got the zip of the spice but it dies quickly as you eat and it's almost like it was never there." Ranma explained as he checked the wok. "Okay it's hot enough. Now, there's two ways to do this, the normal way which is dump in your shrimp, cook them, followed by your veggies, then your noodles and sauce. You'd push the shrimp to the walls to try and keep them from over cooking, along with anything else that was about done or done. That's kinda advanced if you know what you're doing."
"That's pretty complex!." Misao said, watching him add some oil to the wok and swirl it around.
"It is, so you're going to do this another time like I'm about to do it." Ranma said, as he brought Katie's portion of shrimp to the stove. "And that's going to be to cook it, remove the shrimp, cook everything else, add the shrimp back in before the sauce and toss it all together until it's done."
He quickly dumped them in one at a time. "Don't crowd it, even though it's very hot, you can cause some spots to not cook if they're too close together. Also, because this is so hot, this is gonna go real fast so watch them."
He was already flipping them about 25 seconds after they went down, which showed they had acquired a nice golden brown color.
"Does it need to be that hot?" Misao decided she should ask. For future reference of course.
"Only with a wok, really. If you were to do this is a high sided pan, you'd probably keep the temp down." Ranma said as he took the shrimp out and rested them on a clean plate. "The high heat, fast cooking is the point. It's kinda like having a water slide without a water, y'know?"
He checked the heat and then grabbed the cut-up vegetables, quickly adding a single serving portion. "Now, leave it alone for a few seconds before you start futzing with it. Let the heat do its thing before you start poking and tossing and flipping them." Once the time had passed, Ranma quickly started moving the vegetables about.
"Now you don't need to do all the fancy stirring and tossing. It does nothing for the flavor but it does give you a slight bit of control. Sometimes the sides are a little too hot and things keep cooking a little too much so you-" He paused his lecture to toss the mixture around. "-give them a toss and let the sheer temperature difference cool them. If you're gonna toss them, remember to push it away to flick them towards you and pull the wok back to catch them. Easy." He swept the stuff he didn't want burning to the edges.
"Tell me about the noodles." Misao said, guessing they were next.
"Just rice noodles, soaked in water. You could get fatter noodles and fry them up in like a frier if you want. I've had that before, delicious." He said, shaking the water out. "Get as much excess water off them as you can, you don't want the final dish to be soupy. Plus the sauce gets diluted and loses the flavor you want."
Satisfied with the lack of excess moisture, Ranma dropped the noodles into the wok. "Now, let them cook for just a bit again, dry them out a bit before you mix them into the vegetables. You want just a little bit of color on the noodles, but not too much. The sauce is going to reinvigorate them, so be mindful." He waited the appropriate amount of time before stirring and mixing everything.
"Right, before we add our sauce, add back in our shrimp." He did just that, nestling them in. "Give it a good stir just before you add it, it can get a little loose on you." He stirred the sauce, making sure Misao and her camera could see. "Now, don't just dump it in one spot because the wok is still hot. It'll reduce too fast and you got one spot of deliciousness instead of the whole dish."
The sauce was poured evenly over the shrimp and noodle mixture. He immediately began folding the sauce in. "This, you don't want to sit until you just get everything coated. Also, if it looks like you didn't have enough, just splash on a little more water. Best to have a squirt bottle of it, just in case but this is looking quite nice." He gave it a few stirs before he dished it out onto a clean plate.
"So do we garnish it?" Misao asked, knowing the answer but keeping the tutorial going. He was really good at this, she couldn't just end it now.
"Yes, but with what? Add some tops of a spring onion, maybe some fresh herbs." Ranma said, giving a rough chop to some cilantro. "Does she like cilantro? To some people it tastes like soap."
"Tacos are one of her favorite dishes, so we keep a lot on hand." Misao said, giving him the okay.
"Sprinkle it on, not too much in one area." He finished the garnish. "And then you can add chili sauce, or flakes. Maybe some toasted nori if you like, but it's done."
Misao applauded. "Now make ours and we'll eat."
Ranma nodded, as he began to cover the shrimp in chili sauce. "Not too much, or it'll burn."
He made sure both sides were evenly coated before he wiped the wok clean since it wasn't on the heat. "Those will basically marinade for the short time it takes for the wok to come back up to temp. Now because of the added chili sauce and increased size, I'm going to go standard. It'll get done faster plus you'll have a frame of reference for that method too."
"Yeah, that'd be good." Misao said with a nod, which gave her an opportunity to raise her nose and sniffed the air. The kitchen smelled amazing.
"Right, it's almost heated back up. Since there's some sugar in the sauce I used on the shrimp, it's going to look a little darker than usual because the sugars are going to brown and become like a caramel. We don't need to get the shrimp to doneness, we just need to brown one side, flip, brown the other and then we start adding and adding." Ranma said, making sure he had everything ready. "It's gonna seem like a mess but it'll be worth it. Now it'll seem almost not worth it because two servings in one wok is almost too much, but I'll show you the trick."
Misao leaned in. "Oh do tell."
"It's hot, so we put in our oil. Let that get a little smoky and then we add the shrimp." Ranma quickly added the shrimp, almost crowding the wok. "Now it's going to seem crazy but crowding it like this is actually going to help us in the cooking of the shrimp. It'll slow down the browning of the sauce and let a little bit of the moisture evaporating almost steam them through so once we flip them we can almost immediately push them aside."
He tended the shrimp, making sure they were still cooking. "Now, just be mindful of them but be ready to turn them once it just slows down sizzling... like there!" He swiftly turned the shrimp and began pushing them out to the edges of the wok.
"And now, chaos." Ranma announced as he dumped in the vegetables. There was a bit more than Katie's single portion and it was clear they were probably going to dry out and burn without moisture.
"Remember that trick? Shake the excess water from your noodle portions into the wok to create steam and keep the vegetables from drying out. That's only because there's two portions and not enough space. Otherwise we wouldn't do this." He lectured as he did what he was talking about. Once the noodles were perfect, he dropped them in and began stirring and tossing vigorously. "Normally you'd like them to sit but you need to distribute the shrimp and veggies first. Just keep it moving until the noodles just start to lose that luster from the water and then add your sauce. Most of the excess veggie mass should wilt down nicely before then, which means you just need to cook the sauce until it thickens."
Misao was taken in by the show he put on, her eyes bouncing up and down as she watched the tossing and stirring the noodle mixture.
Ranma stirred the sauce a short while later, before distributing it around the wok evenly. He quickly began stirring it into the dish, creating a nice sheen to them. "Our sauce is pretty much down so let's plate them up." He brought the wok over and dished up two servings on two clean plates. "I'm going to garnish mine with a little chili sauce and some chili flakes. Throw in some spring onion and cilantro. Sound good for yours?"
"God yes," Misao softly.
He garnished both plates, before he brought them over to the table. He placed one in front of Misao and set his own down. He went and rooted around a drawer, finding a couple pairs of chopsticks left over from take-outs past. "Moment of truth I suppose." He passed her a pack of chopsticks, before tearing his own open.
"Thanks for the food." Misao said, opening and breaking apart her chopsticks. While she hadn't mastered cooking Asian dishes, she was a master when it came to eating them.
"Let me get some noodle, some shrimp and some veggies." It was all so steamy, glistening with sauce and smelling just fabulous. She blew out the bite she had selected out with her chopsticks, before she popped it all in her mouth.
Immediately she was taken to a spicy, savory heaven that left her swooning as the flavor danced across her tastebuds and directly into the pleasure centers of her brain. "Ohhh my gawd… I can see what you mean by the heat, it's so good!"
"You gotta cook with it to round it out." Ranma agreed, digging in himself.
They ate quietly for a few minutes, Ranma showing uncharacteristic restraint.
"Normally you eat so fast." Misao pointed out, after she had finished chewing and swallowing a mouthful of food.
"Pop can't handle heat, he almost sweats at a bell pepper." Ranma explained. "So when I spice it up, he won't steal it from me and if he does, I'll get to watch him sweat and cry."
"Good luck in this household. We got iron stomachs here," Misao said as she faked darting her chopsticks towards his shrimp.
Ranma easily parried her sticks with his own. "I wish you would," he joked back, "At my last school, it was kill or be killed when it came to food, and I'm stone cold when it comes to that!"
Misao let out a laugh, and sat back. "So, how was your last school like? You sound like you had a bad time with the teachers."
"Oh it wasn't really the teachers themselves, they were just boring." Ranma said, pausing to think about it. "It didn't help they had this weird mentality about all of us fighting all the time so a lot of guys ended up in the infirmary for no good reason. Most of them sucked so the brawls weren't any fun, except this one guy who took it upon himself to declare himself my rival."
"Do tell," Misao found herself more intrigued by a bunch of guys getting all hot and sweaty wrestling around. Hmm, to file that one away for another day.
"He was strong as hell and durable to boot. He could take a beating better than any other boy." Ranma shook his head. "Sadly, he couldn't find his way unless you physically dragged him to places. Directions were absolutely useless on the guy."
"That poor guy." Misao said, feeling sorry for someone who could literally get lost going in a straight line.
"I didn't get why he was always dramatic about stuff, but it made sense after a bit of thinking." Ranma shook his head as he continued to eat. "If I got hungry and had some pocket money, I could find a store to buy something. He could start at the front door of the store and be somewhere else about five steps in. It was uncanny how he could get lost."
Misao could only ruefully shake her head. "This world is so messed up man."
It was around here Ranma finally realized he was having dinner with his very cute and very attractive boss lady and suddenly he felt a little self conscious about things. He flushed a little as he looked across the table and found her adorable even as she continued to tuck into the food provided. God he was going to become a pervert at this rate.
Luckily, Katie showed up to save him from himself, towelling off her hair after her shower. "Hey, you should have said something about dinner being now and not later."
"It was kind of a quick decision," Ranma said, before handing her the plate of still hot shrimp and noodles.
"Hey, good deal." Katie said, going over to put the final touches on the dish. "You didn't add anything spicy to it?"
"I erred on the side of caution for you." Ranma answered, which Katie kind of expected considering the neatness of the food. "The spicy stuff is still out if you want it."
"I tend to go hotter than even people who like things a little spicy." Katie explained as she took a seat at the table. "Wouldn't have been enough to satisfy me but this is fine. I still miss hot wings though."
"I'm good at making new stuff, so tell me about it. Maybe I can figure it out and whip some up." Ranma offered.
Katie laughed a little and then took a bite of her food. Her eyes flew wide, and tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. Closing them, she took a deep breath and chewed her food before swallowing. "You know what? We gotta put you on the lease. I don't think I can live without this."
Misao piped up. "On the lease, huh?" Her grin was mostly wholesome, a record for her.
Ranma perked up at that. "Wait, what? Really? You want me to move in?"
"It would make sense logistically, and besides you wouldn't have to deal with your Dad's crap and since this place is more or less a safe house, you wouldn't have to worry about anybody stalking you." Katie suggested.
Misao certainly agreed. "Plus you'd have a roof over your head all on your own!"
"And it's totally not a ruse to get you to cook for us every once in awhile." Katie added
"Ah, thanks you guys." Ranma said, his neck flushing red. "Well, if you really want me to stay…"
"Sure I do!" Misao said. "I mean, it's only been a few days, but you've impressed me plenty."
Katie swallowed more of her food. "Me too, so… I guess welcome home, Ranma."
Misao nodded. "Yeah, welcome home!"
Touched by the gesture, Ranma put up a warm smile. "Heh, thanks guys."
Home. He finally had a home.
Katie had just finished eating when her phone rang, interrupting the chummy atmosphere with a reminder of the world outside their walls. She checked it and found that it was Akane, which lead to her answering it with a quickness. "Yo, Akaneko, what's up?"
"You know that Gambling King guy you told me about the other day?" Akane's voice came through a little strained.
The writing was on the wall but Katie decided to let Akane finish. "Yeah?"
"He's at the Dojo and he's demanding you come give him your answer." Akane said, sounding very upset.
Katie pinched the bridge of her noise. "I'll be right over."
Ranma noticed her demeanor. "What's up?"
"Got some business over at the Tendos, you stay here and do your stream." Katie said as she got up from the table.
"Is everything alright?" Misao asked, frowning just a tad.
"It's fine, I just gotta clean up a mess someone else made in my name." Katie said, ready for this but wishing it wasn't necessary. "I'll be back before you know it."
"Kick ass and take names. I know a guy who wouldn't mind a new one." Ranma said, adding some levity.
Katie chuckled, that fucking dork. "Thanks Ranma, I needed that."
"Go get 'em bae!" Misao cheered as Katie headed to the door.
|Gambling's For Fools|
She made her way down through the Karaoke bar, waving to Paz as she passed through. Out into the early evening air, the world felt oppressive and cold at the moment. Maybe it was her anger heating her blood up or maybe it was the real consequences to this fight wasn't going to be decided by her talents. If she fought and got beat, that was one thing. To lose everything that she had earned since coming to Japan on a fucking card game?
She refused.
She refused!
She refused!
The Tendo compound loomed before her now, her rage powered walking blurring the scenery between her place and here. How fitting, in the home of Kasumi and Akane, she was going to fight for her future. Her temperature cooled and her anger gelled to a molten paste, as she walked up and knocked on the door.
Kasumi opened the door, Akane was waiting with her. "Katie-chan." She murmured with worry.
"Senpai, he's…" Akane began to say, missing the subtle intensity in Kasumi's tone outright.
"I know, I'll get rid of him." Katie promised, as Kasumi stepped away to let her enter. " C'mon, Akaneko."
Akane nodded and turned to fall in step with her.
"Let the asshole stew just a second longer." She had to focus just a little more. "Keep your focus and pay attention to the cards. That's all you need to do."
She ignored Soun as she made her way to the dojo, the world melting away to black as the building became the focal point of her mind. She could do this. No, she would do this. This was her Paradise and interlopers weren't welcomed. Just win and it was over.
"Just win and-"
The door to the dojo from the house was wrenched open with a bang. Calm down, you need to be calm.
"Just be calm-"
Katie entered the dojo and found a slightly creepy looking guy who fancied himself the King of Gambling. He was even dressed like a face card and ugh. If this was a fight, she would kill him just for his shitty taste in clothes. But it wasn't so she bit down on the murderous impulse.
The Gambling King looked her, smug as fuck as though he expected her to run. Just run away and let it be.
"This wasn't your mess, this isn't you-"
"Deal the cards and get ready to lose." Katie said, her eyes looking over to see a bored looking Nabiki playing with a deck of cards. "If you don't want to play, you can just run away and keep my Uncle. He snores in his sleep and don't feed him after midnight."
Her opponent for the evening looked somewhat surprised she agreed, but a look of determination soon found his features. "So you wish to lose as well."
"The only thing I'm losing is my Uncle's stupid debt hanging over my head." Katie snapped back. "My folks wouldn't talk to me again if I let that idiot hang in the wind."
She sat down at the table, opposite of the man. Out of the corner of her eye, she got a subtle nod from Nabiki. Good, at least that was still in effect.
"I wonder what I'll add to my collection from you." The Gambling King mused in that snotty voice of his. "Maybe you'll be my bodyguard, kehehehehe."
Katie narrowed her eyes but said nothing.
"Okay, stop with the unnecessary posturing so we can get started." Nabiki said, shuffling the cards she had in her hands.
That was the only sound for a few seconds, before Nabiki finished.
"Ready?" Nabiki asked Katie.
There was only a slightly noticeable nod.
"You?" Nabiki turned to the Gambling King.
"To win it all." He taunted.
Nabiki dealt the cards, keeping everything looking like the height of neutrality.
Katie barely touched her cards and she knew she had rags. From how Nabiki dealt them, she knew that he barely had the better hand by din of better high card. A bluffing battle to start out with to see what he was made of eh? Too bad she didn't want to let this go on too long or else this would be a great way to start. She left them on the table, she didn't need to look at them for this.
The Gambling King picked up his cards and kept the frown from his face. He had gotten nothing in the deal, which meant it was down to who bluffed better between them. Tch, how annoying, but not as annoying as this mere girl not even looking at her cards. Hmm, what to do?
"One of you can fold," Nabiki reminded them. "We'll start again. If not make a wager and let's see how it goes."
"I'll let him start us off, he's the reigning champ after all," Katie said.
"Confident eh? Yet you don't look at your cards." The Gambling King bantered a little.
"My cards are my cards. I don't need to know them as long as you don't know them." Katie replied. "Bet or fold."
"Very well," he said, contemplating. "I'll start off strong… everything your loser of an Uncle lost to me. So a little over five hundred thousand yen, the titles to his car and motorcycle, the deed to his house, and his marriage license to one Helena Sherman. All totaling out to a grand total of ten million, one hundred thousand yen."
Akane gasped at the shock at the sheer amount of money just thrown onto the table. "T-ten million…!"
Nabiki kept her features cool despite the magnitude of the bet. Had she an inkling he'd have thrown it all down, she'd have given Katie the Nuts to smash through his skull.
"That's substantial." Katie said, not rising to the bait. In fact, she was cooler than ice right now. "Are you sure?"
"Positive, it'll all come back to me anyways." He chortled, looking pleased as punch at the idea of winning. "Now, can you meet that?"
Katie closed her eyes, and nodded, before she reached out and slapped something onto the table. When she removed it, she looked down at it, then at him, as from the billfold a paltry ten thousand yen and several green and black credit cards slipped out. Reaching over, she picked up the a black card with no name on it, before tossing it into the pile.
"And that is?" The Gambling King asked.
"My pay card, for services rendered to Misao Darlian. On it is eleven million, two hundred twenty thousand yen, built up over the time I've been here."
The Gambling King was rather surprised. "All of that money is yours?"
"Yeah, but I don't touch it really, I have plans of retiring before I'm thirty, you see," Katie revealed.
"How much was that again?" A rather surprised Nabiki asked.
"Eleven mil," Katie replied.
Akane shook her head. "You're better at hoarding money than Nabiki is."
"Just a tad," Nabiki thought to herself.
Katie snorted. "The majority is hazard pay. Trust me: You do not want to earn money the way I did."
She brought a hand down to her side and consciously rubbed it as she said this.
Akane saw this, and she worried her lower lip in concern. What had her senpai been doing to make her react like that?
Nabiki regarded Katie's actions carefully, she seemed more concerned with what was clearly an old injury over the game itself. Her poker face was incalculable. However… she was going in way too hard on the opening hand.
"She's going to try to bluff him out on the open, which would be great if I hadn't given her rags!" She thought behind her cool exterior. Did she really think that he was going to bow out on this? Normally she wouldn't care, but that check wasn't going to clear if she lost, and she'd have to pay out that money she promised to this jackass!
The Gambling King let out a laugh. "Well, isn't this a high-stakes game! I suppose I should put a little more into the pot."
He looked down at his cards, and then up at Katie once again. "That seems well and suitable. I'll call your bet and throw in one million yen more. Courtesy of a fool old man of many virtues except for that hopeless gambling affliction."
Katie looked at the slip of paper: a shrine and the land it sat on, a deal sealed with blood, neat. "Whatever. You ready to play?"
The Gambling King chuckled and looked at his hand. "Are you sure you want to play your hand without looking at your cards?"
"Don't need to," Katie replied. "I know exactly how this is going to go down."
Akane, was staring at Katie's cards, wondering if she had some kind of trick up her sleeve. How powerful were those cards that she hadn't even looked at?! Was she being like Jotaro?
Nabiki knew the truth, and it made her all the more dumbfounded. "Idiot, you lost the hand!"
The Gambling King let out a small laugh, and then showed his cards. "My high card is a queen, my dear! What do you have to show me?"
Katie organized her cards, and then using the fifth card, flipped the other four over in a row, revealing a 2, a 5, a 6, and a 9. She then tossed down the last card face up, revealing a Jack. "Bullshit."
Nabiki palmed her face, while Akane's mouth fell open in complete horror at the awfulness of the hand. Even the Gambling King couldn't help but stare at the complete uselessness of the hand brought against him.
"Uh… hey," he said flatly, "You do realize that's a bum hand, right?"
Katie remained unflinching. "It is?"
Nabiki didn't know whether to laugh or cry into her hand. What just happened? Why did this just happen?!
Akane was at Katie's side right away. "Katie! You lost! I don't even play poker and I know that you can't win with that!"
At that moment, Katie's eyes widened in comprehension. "Oh, so I definitely lost then."
"Yes!" Akane quickly said. "He just beat you and took all of your money!"
The Gambling King reached out, and promptly scooped up the pot, pulling it over to his side of the table. "That I did, little lady! You lose."
"But wait!" Akane cried out. "Aren't you going to give her a chance to win back the pot?"
"Well, unless she has anymore money or collateral, she has no way of buying that chance," the Gambling King said. "And despite your surprising little display of money in this card of yours, you don't have enough to buy your way back into this game."
Standing up, the large man looked down at his winnings, and–rather pleased with himself–began to gather them up to stuff into his bag. "With this ugly business out of the way, I think it's time for me to take my leave-"
"Hey," Katie then said, stopping him.
The Gambling King then looked up, and found that Katie was holding her smartphone in her hand, while looking straight at him.
"Who said anything about me not having enough?"
Akane looked at the phone, seeing "The Bae" in romaji on the contact highlighted on the screen.
|And don't forget the Joker|
Nabiki stopped shaking her head, and peeked from behind her palm. What?
Katie took the cards and after gathering them up, set them down in front of Nabiki. "Shuffle up the deck, because this is happening right now."
The Gambling King was rather surprised. "You want to lose another hand?"
"If you're so confident you'll win, I don't see why you're asking me."
At that challenge, the Gambling King chuckled and then sat right back down. "Interesting! Interesting! I don't think I've ever beaten a player this stupidly confident in their odds against me."
"There's nothing stupid about it," Katie said, as Nabiki began to deal the cards. Back and forth they went, Nabiki doling out a total of five to each, which they picked up.
Examining his hand, The Gambling King inwardly decided that he liked very much what he saw. "Oh it is, you'll see when I learn you something. Now, there's the little matter of the opening pot-"
Katie then sat the phone down. "Give me a second."
She hit the call button, and set her phone down on the table, the phone quickly connecting and ringing once, then twice, and then a third time-
"Hello?" Both Nabiki and Akane recognized Misao's voice. "Yo, what's up bae? Kind of an inopportune time to call, filming and all."
"I lost a hand of poker, and I need to open the next pot," she said. "Can I borrow thirteen million yen?"
The Gambling King froze where he sat, his eyes flying wide at the simple proposition. "You-you're going to just borrow thirteen-!"
"Huh? Oh yeah, sure. Just put it on a promissory note," Misao replied.
There was a sudden shuffling behind Katie and Akane. The latter and Nabiki both looked and saw Soun and Kasumi standing in the doorway, the patriarch of the Tendo home looking rather pale at the amount of money casually tossed around.
"Love ya, doll," Katie said as she quickly scribbled down an IOU of 13 million yen, and tossed it in the center of the table. "That's the pot."
Staring at the simple IOU, the Gambling King chuckled, and then looked up at her. "You do realize, that if neither of you can pony up that kind of money, you're going to have to pay me back somehow, right?"
Katie sat back in her chair. "That won't be a problem, because I'm not going to lose."
She gestured to the table. "So, call, raise, or fold."
The Gambling King was undeterred, and pulled out a few stacks of white papers and dropped them onto the table, they were all IOUs, bearing seals and signatures, with one at the top featuring the a child's handprint in dried blood. The brim of his hat ominously shaded his blue eyes as he looked up from under it at Katie with a smile.
"These are the deeds to businesses, properties, and other assets I've collected over my travels," he revealed. "Many a loser, frustrated at my prowess, have handed over to me their entire lives for a chance to beat me, and all of them have failed."
Akane tensed up when she saw the stack of notes. "W-what…?"
"This here amount totals to sixteen million yen," he reveals. "Feel free to look through it all, but I'm an honest man, there's no need for me to cheat."
"S-sixteen million…" Soun muttered, in disbelief at the pot.
Nabiki was much more relaxed behind her façade.
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "I believe you. I don't have reason to."
She then called to the phone. "Misao, I need to borrow another five million yen."
"Go 'head," Misao said, now sounding more interested in the drama happening over the phone.
Just like that, it clicked in Nabiki's head. "I see! Misao… she can just pour money into the pot, a girl as rich as her, it wouldn't matter how much he raises, Katie can just out-raise him!"
The Gambling King let out a boisterous laugh. "That's bold! That's bold!"
He then reached into his ugly overcoat, and pulled out another stack of IOUs, dropping them down onto the total. "I see your bet and raise it! This here is a total amount of no less than twenty-two million yen!"
"Oh my!" Kasumi said, herself shocked at how the stakes rose higher.
Akane looked at Katie, and then at her hand. "This one is a winner, right? If you can't match that, or if you lose…!"
"I'll raise," Katie said. "Misao, throw another ten million yen onto the fire."
Nabiki stared at Katie now, seeing her utter calmness. "The higher it goes, the more likely he can't match it, the more he's going to think she's bluffing. But this guy's an old pro…"
She looked at Katie's hand, and then at the Gambling King's, and then at the Gambling King himself. He was the picture of serenity, his almost comical appearance lent heavily to his imperceptible poker face.
"I see your twenty-eight million yen, and I will raise you this!" He pulled forth even more papers, but these looked like official documents. "Contractual agreements, deeds, and titles to various… unseemly establishments around Tokyo! A total of no less than eighty million yen!"
That was almost too high of a jump. Almost.
Akane looked to Katie. "Senpai… you should call…"
"Nah, don't wanna," Katie said as she looked to Misao. "Hey. Let's make this an even hundo."
"Sure!" Misao replied without hesitation.
"I see your bet and raise it," Katie said as she pushed the next promissory note forward. "Call, fold, or raise, your majesty."
It was too high, he couldn't call that, much less raise it! Nabiki resisted the urge to smirk. Misao was proving to be extremely useful in this little fiasco, and she wasn't even physically here!
Akane looked at Katie, who seemed more annoyed that sporting any confidence or cockiness, but even she could see that this was in the bag. The stakes were much too high, and Katie could keep raising them as she wished. He would have no choice but to fold in the face of such confidence.
Unless, as Nabiki noted to herself, he decided to call her massive betting or they went to showdown because he couldn't raise anymore.
Because Katie had nothing but rags again.
The Gambling King held up his cards again, peering over them at the mess of papers that had accumulated the table's center. Then up at Katie, who continued to give him a completely neutral expression. He let out a bit of a laugh, and then sat back in his chair.
"So, that's the game you're playing, hm?" The Gambling King asked. "It won't do you any good to raise the pot any higher, because I have no intention of walking away from this one."
Nabiki's blood ran cold. "Oh shit."
Katie nodded. "Calling my hand?"
The Gambling King nodded. "I'm calling it bullshit, is what I am. Honestly, little lady, you think that a man who knows his way around a poker table wouldn't know when you're counting your cards hoping for a win?"
And now there was ice in Nabiki's veins.
The Gambling King closed his eyes and spoke. "The next five cards in your deck are seven, eight, nine, ten, and an ace. All clubs, respectively."
Akane, before Nabiki could stop her, took the deck from her hand and drew those next five cards, and her eyes widened at the sight of the cards being exactly as The Gambling King predicted. Feeling eyes on her, she noticed that both Soun and Kasumi were suddenly peering over her back as well.
"He… he's right!" Soun gasped in amazement.
"He reasoned the positions of my deck based off just ten cards?!" Nabiki was in disbelief herself, again not that she'd shown it.
"Ho, ho, ho! It's precious that you would attempt to defeat me through such simple and underhanded means," The Gambling King said, "But I didn't think that the neutral dealer would be rigging the house for you."
He looked at Nabiki pointedly with that, before addressing Katie. "That certainly changes some things, but not how this story ends."
His hand landed on the table, revealing a Straight Flush of Hearts. "They say the Queen of Diamonds will beat you if she's able, but the Queen of Hearts is just as cruel."
He closed his eyes and chuckled. "It looks like–again-"
The words came to a stop when he looked up at her. The haughty sneer he wore melted into one of confusion and then of disbelief… when he saw that Katie was smiling. Not just smiling, grinning ear to ear at the sight of the Gambling King's hand.
"Buddy, I don't need to count cards to beat you," she said, "The only card I need…"
She threw her hand down onto the table, and The Gambling King nearly fell backward from his seat in a full tumble, when he saw a Royal Flush suited in Spades.
"… Is the Ace of Spades," she finished as she smiled down on the Gambling King, her eyes nearly glowing from the malice of her gaze. "Take one look and die."
It was about here that The Gambling King lost the schooled, steel composure that he had come into this game with. He stood up, recoiling from the cards as if they were an extremely venomous snake. "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!"
Soun nearly shoved his oldest and younger daughters to the floor as he raced to the table and look on in disbelief. Sure enough, there sat the Royal Flush of Spades, in all of its Straight Flush pummeling glory.
Kasumi clapped her hands together, gleeful. "That means you win… right?"
"It does!" Akane shouted ecstatically. "She beat him!"
"Ho-shit! Nice!" Misao called over the speakerphone. "GG, bae!"
Katie looked down at the phone. "Did you seriously just use textspeak IRL?"
"Did you?" Misao cattily retorted.
She needed a second to realize that she did. "… Fuck."
"HOLD ON A SECOND!" The Gambling King roared, in exasperation.
He slammed a hand down on the table, and then pointed at the hand. "You cheated!"
Katie recoiled. "I cheated how?"
"You switched hands!" He said. "There's no way you should've had a Royal Flush! Your next cards were going to be all rags! Useless! You should've had a seven-high hand!!"
Katie looked around the witnesses to the game. "Hey guys, did anyone see me switch cards?"
Kasumi shook her head. "No, I didn't."
"Nor did I," Soun said.
Akane quietly checked through the rest of the deck, then fanned them out on a clear spot of the table, face up. "The faces and the ace of spades aren't in here."
But the seven-high described by The Gambling King was, exactly after the club flush. Nabiki stared at it as well, her mouth finally shutting after hanging open.
"HOW?!" The Gambling King bellowed. Nabiki was of the same mind.
"That shouldn't have happened, I arranged the deck so that, so that…" She then stopped, as she remembered one important thing that happened. The Gambling King remembered it as well.
Katie had gathered the cards… and handed them back to Nabiki…
"Were you paying attention at all, or were you too caught up in my theatrics to notice?" Katie then asked.
Nabiki slowly looked from the cards to Katie, as those same words echoed in her head. "Oh, you sneaky cunt."
The Gambling King sagged where he stood, and then began to tremble with rage when he realized that he'd been defeated by what seemed like a simple sloppy rearrangement of the cards that turned out to be a predicted shift in card position. She had outplayed him and the dealer using the losing hand! The dramatic call to Misao and the skyrocketing pot were specifically to keep his attention away from the possibility that the cards had been shifted!
He put a trembling hand to his brow, and bowed his head. But rather than growl in rage… he let out a chuckle, before he spoke in a different, yet very familiar voice.
"Damn it girl, you ruined it."
The Tendos noticed the shift in his voice, and looked at him before it occurred to Katie that something was off.
The grin faded from Katie's face as she searched the voice in her mind… and then recognized it. "You."
Nabiki recoiled a tiny bit. "Say what?"
"You know him all of a sudden?" Akane asked.
Katie nodded. "… It's my Uncle Nick."
|Hi Uncle Nick!|
"I didn't lose to the asshole who used to call himself the Gambling King." The man named Nicholas Fontaine Sherman said as he grabbed the top of his face, and began to pull it and his hat off, revealing that it was a latex mask that hid a different, familiar face to Soun and Katie.
"Ah, you! Nick!" Soun yelped.
"You know him?" Nabiki asked him.
"I went drinking with him yesterday, Saotome and I!" Soun explained.
Kasumi suddenly clasped his shoulder with one hand, and leaned close. "Drinking? I thought you said you were exhausted from training, which is why you both went straight to bed when you came home."
Soun stiffened, and looked out the corner of his eye at Kasumi, who was still smiling pleasantly.
"We. Will. Talk. Later." Her stilted tone, while still very nice, emphasised her anger perfectly.
"What the literal shit, you bastard?!" Katie suddenly, and vehemently, shouted at Nick. "Do you realize how stressed I've been over this?!"
"Relax, relax, I have my reasons for this," Nick explained as he tossed the mask and hat on the table, and then began to shed his goofy overcoat as well. "I found this bozo a couple neighborhoods over hustling kids and kicked his ass first in Poker and then with my fists. Looking through his stuff, I found he was interested in trying to collect a bounty that someone put on you."
He took off the overcoat he wore, revealing his more usual vest and khaki combo.
Katie stopped. "Wait, a bounty?"
"Yeah, to make you look like an idiot. I tracked them down and I wanted to figure out what their game was." Nick said, looking irritated. "And it was all gonna go down real smooth like and then you ruined it."
"You could have just told me your plan. The only other person who would've have known it wasn't legit would be Misao." Katie pointed out, still just a tiny bit pissed. The relief that she wasn't actually on the hook for anything was soon melting under the boiling inferno of rage that her Uncle pulled a fast one on her and made her worry for nothing.
"I wanted to be sure." He defended. "But I found out who did it."
"Who?" Katie asked.
He looked at Nabiki, who blanched a bit in spite of her retained composure.
Katie actually broke down into hysterical laughter. "Shit man, you definitely should have told me! We could've hustled her on that shit and split the money!"
"You're taking that rather well." Nick noted, kind of taken aback by her blase attitude.
"Well, yeah. It was what, embarrass me or something?" Katie guessed.
Nick nodded.
"Well that's no big deal. It takes a lot to embarrass me, you know that." Katie said, shaking her head. "I mean, so what? Compared to Tillamook, this is actually small time."
Nick didn't look pleased with his niece turning defense for the girl who put a bounty on her.
"Fine whatever man. I'm gonna skip summer this year, thanks." Katie said, getting up.
"You're just going to let this go?" Nick asked, somewhat incredulous.
"Dude, she put a bounty on my head and then took a paycheck from me to be the dealer to screw over her hitman." Katie said, shaking her head. "I can't hate on a bitch that bad. It wouldn't be right." She tossed him a dark look. "Besides, the guy who tricked me into a high-stakes poker game and forced me into this whole mess just so you could confront her shouldn't be throwing stones man."
Nick let out a contemplative hum at that, before nodding. "I suppose that's fair."
Nabiki, heretofore silent, decided to make a point in her own defense. "Uh, not for nothing, but until he brought this whole thing up, I completely forgot about the bounty."
Katie laughed at that. "See? Knowing we could both kill her she says that!"
Nick decided to probe the girl a little anyways. "Would you have still paid it?"
"To you? Hell no. Complete and utter humiliation my man. Beating her in a card game? What kind of lame manga shit are trying to pull?" Nabiki seemed offended by the notion that beating her at poker would work.
"Was it even possible?" Katie asked. "Because I have my doubts."
"If you don't fulfill the terms in the contract, you don't get paid." Nabiki said, before looking a little chagrined. "That probably means I won't see that fat check since I'm the one who sent this guy after you."
"Are you kidding? I've learned an invaluable skill–next time I go to a casino, I'm going to walk out with the keys."
Nabiki actually giggled a little at that.
Hearing it, Nick realized exactly why Katie was standing up for this bitch. He wanted to bury his face in his hands but refrained. "All's well that ends well as it goes."
Akane gently elbowed Katie in the side. "Senpai… this man's really your Uncle?"
"Yeah, he's an asshole, isn't he?" Katie replied.
Asshole was being nice, in Akane's book. Putting Katie over like this, and making her come all this way for ultimately nothing. Then there was Nabiki. "Are you okay with Nabiki…?"
"What, the bounty?" Katie turned back to Nabiki. "Hey, since this has all been blown out, mind calling that whole thing off?"
"Not at all," Nabiki said. "This venture was too profitable for me to need something meaningless like schadenfreude."
"And there goes the water under the bridge," Katie replied, before she picked up her phone. "I'm not going to need all that money."
"Good, Mom would kick my ass if I suddenly had to pay all of that shit out," Misao said. "Hi Uncle Nick~!"
"Hello Misao," Nick said kindly to the phone, "Are you eighteen yet?"
"Yes, Uncle Nick~" Misao sang.
"Great, so how about we-"
"No, Uncle Nick~" Misao sang again.
Nick snapped his fingers. "Fuck."
Akane cringed, as Katie shook her head in disgust. "Could you not ever do that again?"
Her Uncle just gave her a blithe, smarmy look. "A man can aspire, can't he?"
"Aim much lower," Katie warned.
Nick nearly glanced in Soun's direction and thought of his curiously absent friend. "I always hit those marks."
And with that innuendo, Katie was done with the conversation, because her double-entendre loving creepy Uncle almost certainly implied that there was going to be drama later that she'd have to clean up somehow. "Well, I'm done. Hey Akaneko, can we go watch TV?"
Akane wholeheartedly seconded the notion. "Y-yes! Absolutely!"
With that, she took Katie by the hand and led her out of the dojo. Kasumi was two paces behind the two girls, just shaking her head in amusement. As the action was over, Soun slowly trailed out, and Nabiki was left alone with Nick, who began to gather up his things.
"I'm not going to apologize or beg for mercy." Nabiki said to break the contemplative silence. "I made a mistake that could have cost me dearly."
A little spike of killing intent danced in the air. "Who's to say it still won't?"
Nabiki sensed it, and blew out a sigh. "I know, you want to rage and howl at me, maybe rough me up and leave me in a ditch somewhere to rue the day I messed with your family, but you know what? Let's skip all that, too much energy. You intimidated me with some sinister posturing, I was scared into prostrating myself on your mercy, and you can walk out here feeling like you protected her from the big bad me."
"I don't know, I like the sinister posturing part a lot." Nick lamented in a joking tone.
"I'll trade you a secret in exchange for saving us both the bad acting." Nabiki offered.
"Okay, what?" Nick asked.
"I cancelled the bounty this morning, considering I could keep it and get the money from Katie." Nabiki said, before pausing to let him reason it out.
"So if I had won and asked for it…" Nick started to realize what trouble Katie might be in because of this girl that didn't have to do with the bounty.
"I would have asked what bounty." Nabiki replied with a nod. "So please, if you'll allow me to excuse myself."
Nick waited for her to get to the door, his expression one of surprise, before it turned into a sinister grin. "You know, the bounty being gone should make me worry less now, but knowing you're close to her doesn't actually relieve me at all."
"Oh yeah?" Nabiki asked, wondering what he was getting at.
"You're a bonafide problem and one of the few she won't ever try to get rid of," Nick replied, "A girl like you is her greatest weakness."
Nabiki contemplated the words before she nodded. "I'll have to keep that in mind. Excuse me."
Nick shook his head and looked at the cards. He picked up the Ace of Spades, and turned it over in his hand, before chuckling. "Goddamn it girl, you're gonna get yourself into some deep shit with that type of yours."
Back in the house, Nabiki was thinking over what Nick had said. No that wasn't quite right, because even if she was a petty, vindictive bitch, putting a bounty on Katie's head was a bit too much. Something more than just jealousy vexed her about Katie Izland. Something she couldn't quite put a finger on it.
She walked to the sitting room and found Katie lying on the floor with Akane as they switched it over to an international channel showing a poker tournament. Katie was explaining to her kouhai how she'd done it.
Nabiki cocked her head slightly, taking in the sight of Katie's confident, muscular back as she laid on the ground uncoiled and relaxed… like a wolf resting after a kill. A little to the side she could see that confident smile that Katie wore everyday like armor against a cynical world. Nabiki could only stand and stare, almost captivated.
The spark had been provided, the tinder had begun to burn.
|It's Raining Somewhere Close|
Clouds had rolled in later that evening, a distant rumble of thunder in the late hour signaled that it was time for Katie to leave the Tendo home and return to her place. Much to Akane and Kasumi's chagrin.
"You know, you could stay the night," Akane suggested as she and Katie headed towards the door. "That thunder sounds close, and nasty."
Katie looked over to Akane and gave her a warm smile. "That's really generous of you, but I can't really do the spending the night thing. Part of my job is being close to Misao especially during the night. Even if Ranma is there, if I'm not and something happens… well that's my neck."
Kasumi, who was bringing up the rear, seemed just as disappointed as Akane. "Oh, well that's a shame. It's so nice having you over, I was hoping I'd get to cook breakfast for you."
"Well, tomorrow I'll just come by really early then. That's okay, right?" Katie suggested.
"As early as you can," Kasumi replied.
"Sheesh, Kasumi…" Akane muttered. "Let Senpai get some sleep before she comes over, at least."
Katie bit her lower lip, caring too much for her kouhai to point out the innuendo. "Anyway, I will see you all tomorrow. Later, Kasumi-senpai, Akaneko."
"Bye," Akane said with a happy wave, while Kasumi's farewell had considerably more warmth and longing in it.
Katie smiled back, and waved to them both as she strolled out. As the door closed behind her and she jogged out of the gate in preparation for the sprint home, she immediately noticed Nabiki leaning against the wall, holding a closed umbrella in her hand and staring directly at her.
"Yo," Nabiki greeted coolly.
"Yo yourself," Katie's jogging fell to the back burner, where it would burn away to nothing. "What, going for a walk this late?"
"I am," Nabiki said, before looking to the south, where the thunder rumbled from. Flashes of lightning illuminated the towering clouds encroaching on the horizon and moving steadily northward. The storm coming was going to be a particularly intense one.
Katie eyed Nabiki, curious about her intentions, before she looked in the direction of her house. "Let me guess, you're conveniently going in my direction?"
"Convenient nothing," Nabiki shot back, "I want to walk with you."
That turned Katie's attention back to Nabiki. "You do, now?"
Nabiki pushed off the wall, and walked to Katie's side. "Yeah, because I want to talk to you."
"Okay, sure," Katie replied, not seeing much more need to tongue wag at the middle Tendo sister.
The two turned and began to walk, the sky lighting up briefly from a much closer lightning bolt that crossed the southern sky. Neither paid it any overt attention, but Nabiki held tighter to her umbrella. Seeing this, Katie wondered if this was a ploy to get her over at Misao's house to weather the storm, and take the opportunity to have at some alone time with Ranma.
Misao, despite being reclusive, wouldn't turn a pretty girl away into a storm at night. Neither would she, actually, and she definitely wouldn't turn away Nabiki.
"So," she began, "If the weather gets there before we do, what's your plan?"
Nabiki actually hadn't really put much thought into that. "I'm a big girl, I can walk back in a little rain."
"Okay, just curious." Katie folded her hands behind her back.
In silence, the two walked up the street, their slow pace in complete defiance of the threatening storm that crept up much faster than either of them expected. By the time they had reached Tofu's clinic, not even halfway up the block, the wind had picked up noticeably. When they reached the front gates of the school and turned towards the river to cross the bridge, bright streaks of lightning, and noticeably louder rumbles of thunder were almost constant, at intervals of seconds.
"What is this, a tropical storm?" Katie asked as she looked up to the sky, only to be tagged in the face by a large, warm raindrop.
"Well, they did say something big was coming. It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow, and into the weekend. " Nabiki pointed out.
Another struck the ground, and the ambience of the night was soon joined by the increasing pitter-patter of falling rain. Before long, the only sounds were the sudden, torrential downpour and the rumbles of thunder that rolled overhead between flashes of lightning.
Rather than be caught out in the downpour, both Katie and Nabiki retreated to the nearest cover from the rain–a bus stop shelter near the bridge that crossed the river that separated where Katie lived from the Tendos. Under the dim light of a fluorescent lamp, and safe and dry out of the rain, Katie sat down on the bench, while Nabiki just stared out at the rain, standing close to the four-walled shelter's open door.
A few moments passed, then minutes as the storm only grew more intense. The two of them remained in silence, stuck in the limbo of tension and relaxation, as the warm night's rain fell in front of them.
"So what did you want to talk about?" Katie finally asked, breaking the silence after only so much longer.
Nabiki closed her eyes for a moment, before she answered. "You."
"What about me?"
"Do you think I'm still awesome?"
Katie lifted her eyebrows, before she looked ahead and laughed. "So when you say it's about me, you mean it's more about you in relation to me."
That sounded needlessly self-centered no matter whose perspective it was.
Nabiki's nostrils flared just slightly. "So?"
"So what?" Katie admitted.
"Your Uncle said something to me, before he left, something that made sense after our recent interactions…"
And now Katie was a mixture of curious at annoyed. More at Nick than at Nabiki at all. "Did he, now?"'
Sensing it, Nabiki discreetly moved to turn it into an advantage, and she smirked. "He said that I'm 'A problem you won't ever try to get rid of', to paraphrase."
Katie narrowed her eyes, more annoyed at her Uncle for that assessment. "My Uncle has a hobby of stirring up shit. He's so good at it, he made it his entire career."
"Is he hiring?" Nabiki coyly asked, inspecting her fingernails. Or pretending to, when her eyes were focused elsewhere.
Rolling them now, Katie blew out a sigh. "Thing is, he's not wrong."
The quiet that followed was broken by a much louder rumble of thunder. Seconds later a brilliant flash of lightning heralded an even more powerful crack of thunder.
Nabiki turned and looked over at her, her attention finally peeled from the rain. "Oh yeah?"
Katie was looking right up at her. "I have a type, you know."
"A type?"
"A guilty pleasure, well, a weakness… I guess…" Katie said. "I like the mean girls."
She leaned back against the acrylic glass wall of the shelter. "You know the kind, the ones like you. Cool, snarky, and quick to have and get that edge in everything. The girls that are confident and cocky all the time, and while you hate them… you have to not only respect them but want them, too."
Nabiki leaned against the opposite wall, intrigued. "Is that what you think of me?"
"Are you saying that's not you to a T?" Katie replied.
Nabiki crossed her arms, inwardly conceding that she had a point there. "Really, though? That's your 'type'? I could've sworn that your thing was pure, saintly types with how you look at Kasumi half the time."
Katie laughed. "Kasumi has a different appeal to me entirely."
"Different how?" Nabiki asked.
Katie let out another laugh, though it was a quieter, knowing chuckle. "Like I'd let you have that on me."
Ooh, that was fascinating. Was there something else to those longing looks and smiles she missed? Something to ply from her later, she supposed. "So what can I have on you?"
Katie tilted and turned her head away from Nabiki slightly, while keeping her eyes and a smirk on her. "What do you want? I can give you a lot more than you're asking for right now."
"I doubt that," Nabiki replied, just above the rumble of thunder. The tips of her ears felt intolerably hot again, but the warmth was all over her neck and cheeks. It was dark, thank goodness, so there was no chance the blush could be seen.
But then she remembered Katie probably didn't need to see it.
"The thing is, though, I've been through more than a fair share of disappointments with that 'type'," Katie said. "Because a good portion of girls like that kind of come undone when a bigger bitch comes along. There's only two ways to really impress me: be the bitch that conquers or be the bitch who can't be conquered."
"… Which am I?" Nabiki asked.
Katie tilted her head back the other way. "Definitely the one who conquers. Your answer for me embarrassing you? You slap a bounty on my head without a second thought. No drama, no throwing a fit… bam. You put your money out there to take me down."
She huffed. "The last bitch I had the misfortune of being blue-balled by tried to 'systematically destroy me' with some good ol' fashioned high school drama bullshit. Then she went crying to the cops when I dropped my elbow on it."
"Your old school, I take it?" Nabiki asked.
"Yeah," Katie replied. "Like I said before, you don't even bat an eyelash when you're surrounded by people who can and want to kick your ass. Hell, I bet you didn't even let Nick have his fun spooking you when you were alone with him."
She didn't, and Nabiki still found it surprising that Katie thought that highly of her.
"That's awesome, plain and simple," Katie said.
"It drives you crazy," Nabiki repeated, remembering how she said it.
Katie closed her eyes, and huffed. "You're bad for me, if I keep falling for girls like you one of you is going to kill me–one way or the other."
The thunder rumbled again, but even over that, Katie could sense Nabiki push off the wall of the shelter and move towards her. She opened one eye, and watched as Nabiki turned and sat down next to her on the bench, her eyes not leaving her as she did.
"In case you didn't realize it by now with me, romance isn't exactly my thing," the middle Tendo then admitted.
Rather than continue that line of dialogue, she reached up and placed her hands on Katie's face, turning her completely towards her. She leaned forward, hesitantly at first, before she steeled herself and moved forward–only to be met halfway by Katie in a kiss. The moment seemed to stretch from there, before it broke and their lips separated.
Katie chuckled. "Kissing isn't your thing either."
Nabiki huffed. "Are you saying I'm bad at it?"
"You're invited to prove me wrong," she replied.
Nabiki accepted the challenge, kissing her again with more passion than before. Katie responded in kind, pulling her closer to her. After what felt like forever, Nabiki finally pulled away and let out a confident little huff. "How was that?"
Katie smiled. "Better."
Katie this time initiated the kiss, before parting just enough to tell her. "But I want more effort from you."
"How much more?" Nabiki returned, as her fingers combed through Katie's jet black hair, caressing her scalp.
Katie let out a sigh before she pulled away and stood up. Turning to face her, she offered her hand to Nabiki. "… Everything you can give me…"
As the thunder rolled above, Nabiki smirked and took Katie's offered hand, letting her classmate pull her from her seat and out into the dark.
|Roundabout|
It was well into the night now, and a young man wearing a tiger-striped bandana was sitting next to a campfire, waiting for the late meal to be finished. It was ramen again, but they had found some ingredients and made the most of it. He looked across the fire to the girl doing the cooking, this dangerous woman named Shampoo.
"Should search for Red." The girl seethed as she stirred the broth. "Then Shampoo kill!"
"Yes, but the city is different from the countryside. It's harder to track anything here." Ryoga said, sighing only slightly. "And I can't track anything as a human and will get lost, putting us farther away from her."
"Shampoo no care, Shampoo kill Red!" The Amazon hissed, showing the honeymoon period, if it had ever been there, was over.
"We've been over this, I want to talk to Ranma." Ryoga said patiently. "Besides, we were delayed today by someone needing to play Dota at an internet cafe."
"Shampoo just want have fun." The girl groused sourly.
"And you did once you took my advice and stopped feeding." Ryoga said, though it was less advice and more taunting her about going to play LoL instead if all she wanted to do was feed. Luckily, nothing got damaged in her tantrum but it was a close call.
"Hmph." Shampoo didn't respond to the barb and switched topics. "Who this Ranma? Why so important?"
Ryoga leaned forward and pressed his hands together, before resting his chin on them. The fire framed his face as he contemplated the answer.
"A friend," he said after a couple seconds. "More than that, just someone I need to talk to."
The conversation seemed to die with Shampoo's annoyed huff at his cryptic answer, and the distant rumble of thunder.
Chapter 8/?
Eight~!
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 8/?
On an unusually broad and windswept swept field of knee-high grass for such a thing to be located anywhere in the city of Tokyo, Kodachi Kuno stood alone against a considerable number of young men dressed in stylized black school uniforms. There were a good number of them, and they all looked about as fearsome as tough delinquents would look if they had maximum style going for them.
Kodachi, however, was amused more than intimidated. Though it was a sardonic amusement, for the full weight of her disgust was targeted at the dull-witted and utterly hideous leader of these delinquents, a young man aptly named Soban.
"So it has come to my attention that Butsumetsu High School is seeking an alliance with Tomobiki… in spite of recent events between your houses." Kodachi intoned.
Soban, who was a man of few words because he only knew so many, chose not to speak as a pretty boy delinquent who was his right hand man stepped forward. "Well there's a School War about to go down and the toughest School ain't invited to the festivities? You rich brats can pose and posture all you want, but in the end it's gonna be us low-born who rewrite the maps, so we're here to make a deal with you."
"Oh?" Kodachi asked.
"You make an alliance with us, Furinkan, or we make good on our signals and mosey over to back up Tomobiki. It wouldn't be hard for us, we got more muscle than you and Tomobiki combined, and one of Tomobiki's star students is real sweet on the boss here."
Kodachi took one look at Soban and rolled her eyes. "Oh, I'm sure he is."
"So what do you say?" The pretty boy asked.
Kodachi mulled over the threat, before she let out a hum. "I say… that you are not even fit to be Alligator shit."
The boys didn't take too kindly to that response, a loud and angry "EHHHHHHH?!" rising to a pitch before it devolved into random jeers and insults. Soban's pretty boy stepped up, gesturing rudely to Kodachi.
"Alligator shit, huh?! Then let's see how it is when we trash your school! Butsumetsu High School ain't nothin' ta fuck with!"
Kodachi chuckled. "Fufufu… plebeians like yourselves could only dream of being beaten up at a Wu Tang Concert."
Furious, the pretty boy looked to Soban. "Boss! Get in there and show her the power of a guy who fought for an hour straight against Lum Invader!"
Soban, an extremely fat and mostly bald (he still had two hairs atop his head, two!) with a set of massive fish lips that took up most of his face and a pair of small round sunglasses that covered his beady eyes, stepped up and cracked his massive knuckles.
"Fufu… you say you have faced Lum Invader?" Kodachi asked with an amused smirk on her face. "Then this will be a good exercise for us, to see how we will measure up against her later."
The pretty boy didn't take that well. "You think you can face the man who fought Lum Invader and live?" He was even pointing a finger at her all serious like.
"It won't matter if I can or not, because I have no intention of fighting him one on one. That is not what I came out here for," she revealed. "I am merely here to let my Student Council annihilate your war potential so I can carry on without concern from you."
There was a whistling, followed by a mighty dust creating impact between Kodachi and the rival school. The wind that swept the field cleared it quickly, revealing Ranma, Akane, Katie, and Nabiki standing under inexplicable spotlights that shone down from the low, dark clouds that hung over the field. Akane held a shinai across her shoulders, Nabiki was crunching the numbers on a cellphone, Katie was tightening bandages around her palms and wrists, and Ranma was cracking his knuckles.
"Yo, Soban! Still as ugly and bald as I remember!" Ranma called with a joking smile on his face.
"I'm actually glad most of the boys at Furinkan were actually human." Akane grumbled.
Nabiki was doing calculations on a cellphone. "Yep, this is the entire Butsumetsu fighting force. The School is currently empty."
"Don't have to worry about stragglers huh?" Katie asked with a bloodthirsty chuckle. "Let's see if they live up to their rep."
Kodachi suddenly dropped back, landing in the reclining position in the arms of two of her Gentlemen, as a third offered her a cup of tea that she took gratefully from him. "Even if they do not, I expect to be entertained."
"God, I love her," Katie said as she got ready.
"You say that, when I'm standing here?" Nabiki teased.
Soban looked at the four students, and then around, a little confused. "That's it?"
His right hand was more livid than confused. "You're really asking for it, huh, thinking your guys are that hot?!"
"A flea like you hardly requires more than the force it takes to crush you." Kodachi said, sipping her tea. "But please, do keep posturing, maybe you can bore us into submission?"
"KICK THEIR ASSES!" With that, the floodgates came open and four-hundred angry young men charged the paltry line that four people were expected to hold.
Of the four members of the Student Council, it was Nabiki of all people who performed the first move, opening an app on her phone and performing a swipe on the screen, targeting the group of charging youths. "Incoming~"
From the clouds, a single missile broke through and oriented itself before heading straight towards the leading edge of the charging line. Before it hit the ground, it opened up and scattered all over the area of charging steel ball bearings that pelted those who charged into the rain of steel and caused others to trip, slip, and stumble first over the bearings and then over each other's bodies.
"God I love technology." Nabiki said, blowing a kiss at her phone.
With the initial charge sputtering a tad, the other three began to make their moves. Akane waded forward, smashing through the horde of boys with precise, looping swings of her shinai. Bodies began to litter the air as she tore into the human wave before her.
Even as they hit the floor, Katie was adding to the unexpected air traffic, grabbing and throwing her opponents as they rushed towards her, only striking those who attempted something fancy of their own, like the dumbass with a heavy duty chain who tried to swing it into her side. She caught that weak sauce in her left hand and drove her right elbow into his left cheek, shattering his jaw and sending him twirling away like a drunken ballerina.
Ranma was exerting a similar lack of effort, his hands darting in and out of his pockets almost casually to block, deflect or strike while he hopped and danced around the crowd of attackers that funneled themselves towards him. One guy with a 2x4 of wood let out a yell when he thought he had Ranma's blind spot, and for his complete failure to achieve surprise was kicked so many times in such short notice that he passed out standing up in the windup position of his swing.
A few young men who managed to escape the whirlwind of bodies courtesy of the actual fighters of the Student Council found themselves with only Nabiki in between them and Kodachi. A shout to rush them before it was too late came too late, as Nabiki's casual swiping of her smartphone brought more missiles down onto them. Unlike the last one, these exploded with considerable concussive force, flinging students this way and that.
A speck of dirt landed on Nabiki's shoulder from the explosion, which was promptly dusted off her shoulder by another of Kodachi's Gentlemen. She smiled graciously to him. "Why thank you."
"It was my pleasure, Tendo Nabiki-sama," the Gentleman replied.
Nabiki found it harder to disagree with Katie's pronouncement of love for Kodachi. "This is going fourteen seconds faster than our golden estimates."
"Only that much?" Kodachi hummed in surprise.
"Well, those three are holding back to draw it out." Nabiki said even as Akane was basically pitching people into the air for Ranma and Katie to punch or kick other people up into them.
"All three are eager to see how this Soban fights." Kodachi surmised, the promise of fighting someone who fought that well against Tomobiki's strongest was an attractive prospect.
"Like putting A5 beef in front of starving dogs." Nabiki agreed, peering into the chaos to see what the enemy commander was doing. There were too many bodies hitting the floor, so she looked at her phone, and was provided an isometric bird's eye view of the gang leader, who was wading towards the fight even as a lot of his guys were running away from it.
"It would seem he has some measure of temerity." Kodachi said, slightly impressed that he was continuing to fight when it was obvious they were outmatched.
Nabiki pondered it. "I think it's a case of him being too stupid to realize the danger he's in, honestly."
Indeed, for the danger was close as Ranma melted out of the maelstrom and came face to face with the hulking Soban. "Hey there, big fella… it's been years."
Soban blinked behind his tiny sunglasses, before recollection somehow came to him. "Oi! Saotome?! That's you?!"
"Yeah there, guy! I was wondering if you'd even made it to High School, since they held you back like three times in 8th Grade," he replied.
"Who the heck is this guy?" Soban's friend asked.
"Someone I never had ta mess with," Soban replied. "This kid's Ranma Saotome, the only other guy in Junior High School to never go hungry."
Soban's Lieutenant paled and then looked at Ranma. "This guy…?"
"For real though, this is a treat, I always wanted to fight you but I had to settle for making wall art with your boys. This is gonna be great!"
Katie then walked over. "Well, don't rough him up too much… I want to take a crack at him too."
Soban's Lieutenant looked between Ranma and Katie, then at the strewn around other students. "What… where the heck is everybody else?"
Ranma and Katie looked to the right, and found Akane in the middle of violently, gleefully smashing her shinai into the remaining few conscious young men of Butsumetsu as the chorus Rob Zombie's Dragula blared.
"She wasn't really interested in fighting you," Katie revealed.
Soban looked, almost solemnly at the devastation, before he looked down at his opponents. "You guys… you trashed my boys."
"Oh please," Ranma insisted. "Tell me all about what you want to do about it."
Katie was in full agreement. "Come on buddy, I wanna see it too… what's the legend of Butsumetsu got to show us? A guy that Lum Invader couldn't even put down after an hour of non-stop fighting?"
The towering Butsumetsu's already ugly face became a twisted mockery of anger, as he raised his arms and then let out a mighty kiai that sounded more like a monster's roar. "GURAAAAAAAH!"
Kodachi could hear the roar from where she stood, and looked on in interest. "Oh, ho?"
He then curled his arms inward, his body tensing up, his muscles rippling and bulging, his skin becoming like iron.
Katie bit her lower lip, she might actually have to hit a little hard to make this guy feel it.
The fire was lit in Ranma's eyes, as he assumed a fighting stance. "Oh yeah, this isn't going to be-"
A projectile, whistling through the air at high speed then cut through the air narrowly above Ranma's head and plowed straight into the hulking Soban's forehead, the force of the impact lifting the massive gang leader off his feet and sending him sailing through the air before he crashed onto his back with a great cloud of dust. He was out cold before he hit the ground.
"-Anti-climatic… at… all…" Ranma said, before the projectile in question finished flipping through the air hit the ground point down with a thud. "What the hell?"
"This is a what the fuck, actually," Katie said.
"AHHH BOSS!" Soban's second in command screamed in terror.
Kodachi and Nabiki were similarly surprised by the intervening object and looked around.
There was no sign of its source, even when Nabiki looked at her bird's eye view. She looked over at Kodachi and shrugged her shoulders. "No skin off my teeth, but…"
Kodachi rose from her seat of Gentlemen, and returned her cup of tea to the specimen who served it to her. "Curious!"
Akane ran over to Ranma and Katie. "Ranma! Senpai! What just happened?!"
Ranma looked at the big guy of Butsumetsu. "Our fight just got stolen."
Katie nodded as she walked over to the well embedded projectile that did it, and looked back towards the direction it came from. As with Nabiki, she saw no sign of the thrower or launcher or whatever could do this, and reached down to grab the projectile by the handle.
The first thing that surprised her was its weight. "… You know what? Fuck this fight, whoever could lug around this and throw it like that is way more interesting!"
She then pulled it out and held it up, and she only grew more interested at it. "Holy shit…"
It was a large, old fashioned umbrella. Made of extremely dense metal and tough fabric. Seeing it, Ranma's own expression flashed to surprise.
"Holy shit!" He said, and Akane and Katie looked over to him.
"You familiar with this?" The latter girl asked.
Ranma nodded. "You bet I am… this belongs to someone I know, and someone I went to school with ol' Soban here."
Katie's eyes widened in recognition. "Wait… you mean… that guy?"
Ranma nodded. "Yeah, that guy."
He turned and looked back towards the direction the umbrella came from. "Looks like after all this time, Ryoga's finally found me."
"Ryoga? Who's Ryoga?" Akane asked.
Ranma turned to her and smiled big. "The only person other than Senpai here to make fighting fun."
It didn't take long before the news of Butsumetsu's complete annihilation at the hands of Furinkan to reach the ears of the respective enemy generals. If they could really be called that, considering Mendou's grasp on Tomobiki was tenuous at best and Asuka was reigning over Kolkhoz more or less by default. Nevertheless, they were given the news at roughly the same time.
Their reactions couldn't be more diametrically opposed.
"THOSE WORTHLESS DOGS!" Saginomiya Asuka roared in frustrated anger. "They make all this noise about how they deserve to be included in this farce and this is what happens? Annihilated in mere minutes?! The toughest school eh?! Feh!" The tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed maiden dressed in an elegant white gown was so angry her normally beautiful features were twisted into some kind of nightmarish scowl, the veins in her face giving it more detail than it probably should have.
"O-oujo-sama!" Her butler, the one who drew the short lot in having to tell her the bad news, cried. "There was nothing to be done! They refused to answer our request to discuss their possible addition." This was a lie, the Butsumetsu punks had wanted their boss to get a date from THE Asuka Saginomiya just for showing up.
"And this is what they get for their hubris!" Asuka continued to rage, a dark aura of malice around her. "Trash like that can only ever be considered for the trash they are!" She calmed only slightly. "How has been the progress of our defenses?"
"We have been attempting to bolster our forces, Oujo-sama," the unlucky butler went on. "But without the Golden Pair our war potential is much lower, our best fighters are in the Cheerleading Club, Tea Ceremony Club, and… Fine Dining. We do have options, but they are limited for the time being until Shiratori-sama and Sanzenin-sama make full recoveries."
Asuka's anger became brittle with bitterness, as the realization that her high-born status made her school ill-suited for low-born war. Had she deigned to go to these commoner schools, what could she offer to this alliance? It savaged her pride to have to rely on Tomobiki but what choice did she have? Her right thumbnail was placed in her mouth as she chewed on it to try and calm herself.
"So you have heard the news regarding our would-be friends at Butsumetsu as well, I take it?" An equally handsome and poised young man with dark hair and a refined tone of speaking, Mendou Shuutaro, observed calmly as he walked into the domain of the White Lily, a lavish and stately office with a large oak desk and leather chairs as its centerpiece. "I could hear the shouting from the end of the hallway."
The nail snapped as Asuka bit through it. Without care, she spat the nail out and turned to face Mendou. "Did you come here to tell me what I already knew from the beginning?"
"I came here because I believe our alliance can still bear the sweetened fruit we dreamt of when we shared the bitter sake." Mendou replied, almost poetically. "The fools at Butsumetsu were all parasites clinging to Soban's indomitable strength, and while their numbers were impressive they were no more threatening than the young men of Furinkan, or Kolkhoz's Hockey Club."
That reminded her of the Golden Pair and only caused Asuka's mood to sour further. "So what, are you going to try and take control of this from me?"
"Not at all," Mendou revealed. "I have come to you with good news. Tomobiki's war potential is being reorganized and rebuilt, and I have the connections to ensure that our school will gain new… exotic students to augment our forces. But more than that, I have intelligence to share with you regarding a young couple who has come to Nerima."
Asuka had held her poise through most of the information, raised her eyebrows. "I didn't take you for a gossip Mendou."
"I'm not one for it, but I always keep an open ear if it regards an enemy… or an enemy of an enemy." Mendou rested a hand on the oak desk. "Two young people, a young man with a Chinese Bride, returned from China in search of Ranma Saotome. A look in the background of the young man revealed a rivalry spanning all of Junior High School."
She had wanted to chide him for desperately chasing after some fool with a Chinese whore, but the information about their pursuit of Ranma Saotome stayed her ire. "Well now, isn't this perhaps interesting?"
"Shall I make it tantalizing?" Mendou produced a series of photographs and laid them on the table.
They showed Hibiki Ryoga armed with an umbrella, a picture taken from low cover showing Katie holding the same umbrella above her head in curiousity as the Furinkan Student Council stood nearby an unconscious Soban, and then a third picture of Ryoga walking with Shampoo, now without his umbrella.
"This young man's strength is monumental, with that umbrella he knocked out Soban in a single strike, from long range, a feat that Lum-san could only dream of without her electricity and flight abilities."
If her interest was merely piqued before, it was now a burning inferno. "So, we are looking at some potential allies then." She cared not one wit for the girl, but the man... well, now that was something of a fun distraction waiting to happen.
Another butler appeared then. "Asuka-sama, I have word from your father."
"Go on and tell me now," Asuka replied without looking at the man.
"With all this talk of fighting, and having heard what happened to Shiratori-sama, he has taken the liberty of hiring some instructors for you."
She snorted and rolled her eyes, putting on a show of suffering for Mendou.
"As much of a pain it will surely be, you would do well to brush up on your physical prowess." Mendou said seriously, looking off in the direction of Furinkan. "They have already been emboldened by their recent victory. Do not dally and leave yourself vulnerable."
Asuka merely laughed. "As if I, Saginomiya Asuka, need to worry." She finally looked at her butler. "I will be along shortly, to see what my father has wasted his money on now."
"Enjoy your glibness while you can Saginomiya, with the destruction of Butsumetsu, we can't afford to be arrogant." Mendou said, as he turned to leave. "Prepare yourself so the waves of war don't sweep you away."
Asuka sighed, turning to the butler. "Well, show me to my teachers in the art of war then."
It was the day after the destruction of Butsumetsu High, the old sign for the school now mounted on the wall like a trophy. Also present was a jacket from one of the punks, just as posterity to preserve the memory of the fallen school. It really tied the Student Council room together, or so Kodachi had said and no one wanted to go against her on it.
Anywho, the Student Council was holding a war meeting to go over the new things crushing Butsumetsu brought them. Nabiki had the floor since the logistics and data was her field of expertise. A 3D map of Nerima was projected into the air for helpful reference, as Nabiki began to disseminate.
"Well, everything breaks down like this." She said, dots for Tomobiki, Kolkhoz, Butsumetsu and a dozen others. "Before our clash with Butsumetsu, there were twelve other schools rumored to be willing to leap to the call of Saginomiya if need be. Of course, this was contingent on Butsumetsu not being annihilated in six minutes and forty three seconds." The dot for Butsumetsu was crossed out.
"Not surprisingly, all of the suspected dozen have gone quiet with talks of joining the conflict and they have begun to set up defenses just in case." The twelve dots were crossed out, leaving Tomobiki and Kolkhoz. "And thus with one victory we also won twelve other battles, very efficient yes?"
"Yes indeed." Kodachi said, looking at the map. "How do our forces fair under the news of our victory?"
"Morale is very high right now, it's already been up there since the benefits to Ranma-kun's training regimen began to show themselves." Nabiki said, as a small cluster of dots at the location of Furinkan. "They're almost combat ready, if we plan on splitting them between the two schools."
"About that," Katie said, shaking her head. "At this point, splitting them only helps our enemy. Kolkhoz is the weaker of the two right?"
"That's correct." Nabiki said, allowing Katie to have the floor.
"So let's just wash them away under the tide of our whole forces." Katie reasoned. "They're a bunch of athletic clubs, I doubt they have even a single club for martial arts."
"By all account this is correct, the closest they have to something for combat is an ice hockey club." Nabiki said, shrugging a little.
"Ice Hockey?" Ranma asked, a little confused.
"Fighting is not only allowed but encouraged." Akane explained. "In fact, you can be disqualified for refusing to fight."
"Dude, that's awesome." Ranma said, drawing a nod of agreement from Katie.
"Japan is great like that." Katie said, before shrugging. "So, I guess we can dispense with being fancy and march our forces over them right?"
"As long as the rest of us keep Tomobiki still." Ranma said, rubbing his chin. "The vulnerability of Kolkhoz is obvious to see."
"Kolkhoz lost its two best fighters a couple months back." Nabiki mentioned. "The Golden Pair, one of the few martial arts figure skaters in Japan."
"More like the only, most of their matches were against ordinary people," Katie said, frowning a bit. "But they're on the shelf so they're nothing to concern ourselves with."
"We need field commanders though, to help keep the morale up." Akane said, rubbing her chin. "If there's one person we need leading, it's Hatanaka-kun." Akane tapped the board and a picture of a brown-haired, brown-eyed young man in boxing shorts and gloves appeared, with the words Boxing Club Captain under his name.
"Kosaku eh?" Ranma said, nodding his head. "Definitely, him and the Boxing Club alone would deal heavy damage to Kolkhoz."
"He's made an impression on you has he Saotome Ranma?" Kodachi asked, before she nodded as well. "He has taken this challenge seriously, someone to surely show the potential of Furinkan."
"That's true," Ranma said, tapping a button and switching to some video of the Boxing Club practicing. "They've already incorporated the health routines into their normal boxing stuff. As a result, they've gone from a bunch of useless goons who would be laughed out of a tournament to someone who could take Nationals."
"A magnificent transformation is it not?" Kodachi asked, drawing agreeing nods from her council. "Very well, Hatanaka Kosaku shall be rewarded for his diligence. We shall host a banquet for those who will be leaders on our field of battle with Kolkhoz."
"The only question is who goes to Tomobiki and who goes to Kolkhoz from our little group." Nabiki said, before smirking. "Better translated, who amongst our three warriors wants to fight Lum Invader the most?"
Akane raised her hand. "I'll go!"
Katie looked at her. "You sure, Akaneko?"
"Well, yes," Akane replied. "She doesn't seem like a bad person, aside from being a space alien. Fighting her might be fun."
"That's Akane, and she should have backup just in case." Nabiki said, crunching numbers at high speed. "Especially if she gets held up by Lum Invader."
"We're not trying to take them out, but we don't want them running up our boys' backs as they take out Kolkhoz." Ranma said, before nodding. "I'll back her up then."
Katie mulled it over. "You know, if any cowards stream over there, me being there waiting on them will be too much fun."
"And Nabiki-san shall keep watch over the battle to help it flow in the proper manner." Kodachi announced. "Her prudent judgment and potential use of her technological assets will be an invaluable force multiplier for us."
Nabiki smiled. "I'll be great if I can get another drone from your Sugar-Momma."
At that, Katie rolled her eyes. "You know my price, and hers."
Nabiki nodded. "Sold."
Well, Katie's Saturday night was now full.
At that moment there was a room-rattling slam that made all five of the Student Council members jump. Followed by another one. It was coming from the wall adjacent to the door… like someone was trying to smash through the wall with sheer brute force.
Had the school not been rebuilt to take into consideration extremely powerful martial artists, it would've crumbled like dry, unreinforced plaster.
"Uh… okay?" Ranma asked, before he heard muffled swears in Chinese through the door. Immediately he stiffened, his skin going a shade whiter as the swearing came closer to the door, then stopped.
Then the door was swung open, and a healthy-figured, purple-haired girl dressed in a pink cheongsam and yellow pants, carrying a pair of red and pink melon hammers walked into the room and looked at the five of them.
"I beg your pardon?" Kodachi asked the Chinese woman, who immediately pointed one of the melon hammers at Katie.
Xian Pu of the Joketsuzoku, often mistakenly referred to as Shampoo until it stuck, narrowed her eyes at the other foreign girl, before she spoke. "Tell me where RicePony is, right now."
Ranma had gone pale as a sheet. "Oh… fuck."
RicePony was the handle he had chosen for his girl form's gaming channel. RicePony appeared alongside BansheeDeadSix in more than one video in the couple of weeks since she started the channel. And Katie, despite not having a channel at all, did appear onscreen with Misao… generally for stuff like gift box openings and reaction clips.
Shampoo was going to try to track down his girl form through her!
Akane, who didn't understand Chinese, shot up from her chair. "Who the heck are you?!"
Katie, who was raised by a Chinese speaking mother and thus did understand Chinese, answered in kind. "You need to get out of here, this is a school and we're in the middle of a council meeting."
"I am not leaving until you tell me where RicePony is, even if I have to beat it out of you," Shampoo said without reservation.
Katie didn't back down and fired back a threat of her own. "You do not want to give me an excuse, because I'm always looking for one."
To emphasize her threat, she stood up, making her height and physique well known to the much shorter Chinese Amazon. Akane immediately assumed an aggressive stance, but Ranma remained in his seat… in fact by Nabiki's observation, he was doing what he could to not be noticed.
"Your threat is as ridiculous as your appearance." Shampoo said in a dismissive sniff. "Though I welcome your futile attempts to protect RicePony. I look forward to presenting her with your broken corpse."
She made the mistake of blinking, and in the next instant, Katie was there in her face, fist reaching for the Chinese girl's face at a blinding speed. It missed but it was close thing, sending Shampoo skittering back a little, head low before she raised her head and showed a surprise to those watching.
"Wow, I thought Senpai missed." Akane murmured in shock.
"Only grazed her." Katie said in disappointment. "Want to talk more shit and leave yourself open to get hit?"
"So you have a little bit of speed." Shampoo said without concern, wiping the blood away all nonchalant like. "It's nothing to concern myself with."
The brief second her arm covered her eyes was all Katie needed to clear the gap between them again. Another punch came flying at Shampoo's face, but this one was cleanly evaded. "Oh!"
Katie jerked herself back and to the side, avoiding one of the melon hammers. Then turned and slammed the back of her fist into the other, a loud clang sounding before the hammer cracked and split much like its namesake.
Shampoo withdrew a pace, this time keeping her eyes locked upon Katie as she abandoned the broken melon hammer. This girl was strong, very, very strong.
Katie's lips were turned upward in a slight curve. "What was that about nothing to concern yourself with?"
Shampoo, returning the smile, twirled the second melon hammer and then let it slip from her fingers straight for Katie, who ignored it completely and moved from its path before it could fill her vision. She punched straight for Shampoo's face, and the blow was deflected up and above her head by her crossed forearms. Pulling back, the two began exchanging quick blows, Shampoo deflecting Katie's strikes with finesse while her own attacks were more brushed aside with brute force from Katie's strong arms.
Katie then caught a chop for her throat and attempted to turn and throw Shampoo onto her back. Catching herself on her feet instead, Shampoo rolled herself over, twisting free of her grip and kept spinning into a back kick that Katie blocked with her raised forearm, both girls pushing each other back.
Kodachi was impressed. "A magnificent fighter…"
Ranma was tense as he watched the exchange of blows.
Shampoo adjusted her stance, lowering her body and bringing her hands forward, causing Katie to tense as well. She couldn't help but be a little cocky. "I get it now, you got started in Muay Thai, you are all about full force. I know how to beat you, now."
That looked like a Southern Style stance, Katie didn't like fighting Southern Styles… because that usually meant they-
Shampoo was attacking again, but her strikes were much different, they were like rifle shots… and like rifle shots they were being specifically aimed.
"Ah shit, ah shit!" Katie thought as she quite rapidly moved to parry the strikes, aiming her own at Shampoo's wrists and arms to deflect her fingers away from the vital points that she was targeting.
Akane's eyes grew large when she saw the sudden defensive shift in Katie's style against the intruder. She was doing everything she could now to avoid being tagged by Shampoo's strikes, while leaving herself no room of her own to attack. "Something's wrong."
Katie dodged another strike, and this time watched Shampoo carefully, and the girl's attacks suddenly slowed down to something much more manageable. Still it was difficult, her attempt at grabbing Shampoo's wrist was promptly foiled, and she had to weave her entire body to avoid a pair of counter strikes before she could fire back with her own punch.
Shampoo caught and forced down the blow with with one hand while her other hand came down in a windmill motion that Katie slapped aside with her other hand, and used the turn to swing a backward spin kick that Shampoo leaned back to avoid in a display of agile flexibility. She came back just as fast, and Katie strong armed deflected two more quick pokes aimed for her shoulder blades.
"She's good… she's really good…!" Katie thought, thinking right away of Ranma, before she finally realized that a sacrifice had to be made, and she let her guard slip long enough for Shampoo's next jab to tag her right shoulder.
Shampoo's eyes lit up when she saw her blow connect, but in her moment of triumph came the end of the fight, as Katie suddenly charged forward to grab one of her long purple tresses, and pulled Shampoo forward into her jerked up knee, hitting Shampoo in the crotch something fierce and causing her to collapse to the floor, groaning in pain.
"Will you calm the fuck down, you crazy bitch?!" Katie snapped at Shampoo in Chinese. "I just told you that you needed to leave!"
Shampoo rolled over, getting back up. "You are either an obstacle in my way, or a helping hand in pointing me where I need to go. Now, where is RicePony?"
"I. Said. Leave," Katie growled as she clutched her right arm with her left… much louder than she meant to. It was about then she realized that she wasn't the one growling. Turning around, her eyes grew large and she stepped back.
Kodachi, Akane, and Nabiki all gave a start when they heard the growl of an animal, and Ranma recognized it as well as a large majestic black wolf, wearing a large yellow bandana tied around its neck strode in, growling at Shampoo with its teeth bared. Since it seemed to be pissed at Shampoo, it didn't prompt them to move to act.
Ranma was up on his feet, amazed to see the powerful creature–an old friend from his trip to China. "Garou…!"
However, the most dramatic reaction came from the person that the wolf faced. Shampoo's sudden shift in posture was fascinating, looking like a child who just got caught by their parents being bad. And much like an intervening parent, the wolf sauntered over to the Chinese girl and simply took a mouthful of the seat of her pants and began to drag her away.
"No! No! But husband, I have lead on Red! She is named RicePony on internet! Giant girl know where she live!" Shampoo pleaded in clunky Japanese and flailed her arms while being careful not to move her legs too much lest the seat of her pants be torn off.
The wolf simply growled something that seemed to say, "I don't care, we're leaving!"
"But…! But…!" Shampoo could only wail as she was drug out of the council room.
"… Okay, I'm pretty sure I thought we switched from sativa after the whole blunt-smoking alien thing." Katie muttered to herself. That was weird even after the parkouring panda and she felt like the drugs just weren't going to compare to reality.
"Senpai!" Akane called, coming over by her. "Are you all right?"
"It's not important right now," Katie said, while conspicuously gripping her arm. "We have more important concerns."
Kodachi agreed. "That is correct! A martial artist of that girl's caliber running loose in the wild is an intolerable threat to my ambition… tell me, Izurando Katie, who was that girl and who was she after?"
Nabiki turned to Ranma. "I think that's a question Ranma can answer better."
Kodachi looked in his direction. "Can he now?"
Ranma grimaced. "Well…"
"You knew the girl that just interrupted the meeting." Nabiki pressed him.
Akane whirled upon him. "Is this true?"
Ranma looked uncertainly towards Kodachi for a second. "Well… it's a matter that's kind of personal, Kodachi-san. I can't exactly be letting people know about it."
"In the interest of resolving this matter swiftly." Kodachi said, standing up. "I vow that nothing that is said will leave this room, upon my life." She gestured emphatically to Ranma and the others. "I am burdening you all with my ambitions, it is only fair that I share in your burdens, is it not?"
To show her sincerity, she quickly and quietly had the Gentlemen leave the room and shut off the security cameras and listening equipment taking notes. Once in privacy, she gestured for Ranma to continue.
Ranma stared at her, before he closed his eyes and nodded. "Okay, so when I was traveling in China before I came here… I was cursed to transform into a girl when I doused with cold water."
Kodachi stared at him, rather surprised by this revelation. "Truly?"
"I'd demonstrate it, but… it's a bit of a hassle. Everyone else can vouch for me, though," Ranma replied.
"I really can," Katie said. "I've seen it myself."
Akane and Nabiki agreed, they'd seen it too since they've come to know Ranma.
Kodachi, rather than push the subject and reveal any skepticism (there was plenty) elected to go forward assuming she believed him. "And this has to do with this girl?"
Ranma sighed in relief and continued. "The guide decided to take us over to this village that might've been able to help called Joketsuzoku-"
"She must be the person your dad was trying to convince us attacked him." Akane said, upon hearing the name of the village.
"… Yeah I can see how he'd think that. She's been chasing me since China, because I beat her in a fight when I was in the form of a girl." Ranma continued, not minding the interruption since it meant he didn't have explain it. "Apparently, you beat a warrior from their village and they're obligated to hunt you down and kill you."
Katie's eyebrows flattened out as she got something from this. "And lemme guess, you didn't bother to ask the guide about any peculiar laws or anything you should watch for just in case?"
"It… well I was incredibly pissed about the curse so it slipped my mind." Ranma said, a little defensive.
"So why did you have to fight her?" Katie asked, crossing her arms.
"… We kind of ate her victory feast? We were starving and it was out there in the open..." Ranma shrank under the glares of the four girls.
"Honestly!" Kodachi snapped.
Nabiki blew out a sigh. "Ranma-kun, please remember that just because food is left sitting out that doesn't mean you can just eat it."
Akane was more concerned about Shampoo. "So she's going to keep coming after you huh?"
"Unless something suddenly changes." Ranma said miserably.
"Which isn't a good thing at all," Katie said.
"What about the wolf?" Kodachi asked. "You referred to him by a name, do you have a history with that handsome beast as well?"
"Yeah. After I started trying to get away from Shampoo, Garou began showing up to help me fight Shampoo off. We travelled together all the way until we reached the East Sea, and we really bonded on our way to the coast." Ranma said, looking thoughtful. "We got separated when we were leaving, Shampoo caught up with us at the shore and he elected to stay back and delay her one final time…"
Nabiki bought up a salient point. "Apparently the fight went well, because they're married now."
"Oh, so that wasn't the sativa." Katie muttered.
"Married to a wolf, though?" Ranma asked.
Akane looked confused before she looked at Ranma and had an epiphany. "Jusenkyo!"
"Someone with a curse huh?" Nabiki asked, pursing her lips.
"But who?" Katie asked, looking around.
Ranma paused, thinking for a moment, remembering the yellow bandanna around the wolf's neck and the sudden umbrella attack on Soban…
"I think," he said, drawing all their eyes. "That the wolf was someone I know, but I'm gonna need to find him and confirm it."
Nabiki saw an opportunity and went for it. "I'll come along to help you look."
"Thanks," Ranma said gratefully to her.
"If it is a friend of yours, then confirm it fast because if she's coming after me to get to you then we got a whole different problem. I don't want this bitch following me home and dragging Misao into this bullshit" Katie said to Ranma as she looked at her arm.
Akane then finally noticed it. "Senpai, can you move your arm?"
"Unfortunately, no," she muttered. "If I have to say something against my fighting style, it's that I'm kind of a bad match against those esoteric types who like to hit pressure points and bullshit like that. I need to get this patched up and reassess how I'm going to deal with her."
Akane nodded in understanding. "Yeah, but before that, we need to get you over to Dr. Tofu's and get your arm fixed."
And that just soured Katie further. "… Oh, great."
With the meeting done, Ranma had decided to go see Ryoga, to confirm his suspicions. In tow was Nabiki, who wanted to see this mythic Hibiki person in the flesh as well as maybe help keep her potential fiance intact however it were to happen. Well she wasn't going to be much help, but there were other ways than throwing a punch to help out.
Besides, with Akane tending to Katie, someone needed to go and bear witness to whatever new thing of madness that hit their lives. It was guaranteed to be a thing at least, so she wouldn't be bored. Hah, as if she was actually worried about that right now.
Her hunk of a fiancé had someone after his life and there was zero way she was going to sit passively on the sideline and just wring her hands in worry.
"So," Nabiki said, as they were well on the way to Ryoga's house. "Tell me about this Ryoga, and more than just he's good in a fight."
"Well, he's kinda thick I suppose." Ranma said, shrugging his shoulders. "Physically and mentally, but he at least tries not to be overtly dumb. He just gets swallowed by the pace."
"I see," Nabiki said, clucking her tongue as she tried to think about what to say. "So how are you feeling this meeting is gonna go?"
"He might attack me, he might not." Ranma said, before shrugging. "Heck, before he showed up to pull Shampoo out of there I would have told you he was gonna try and fight me. Now I'm not sure."
"An old rival right?" Nabiki asked, taking the answering nod to continue. "You know him from where?"
"Butsumetsu Junior High," he answered. "You had to fight for your food, so he had an issue only in arriving on time before they were down to the last of the bread."
"Chronically late or…" Nabiki was confused by this arriving on time thing.
"He's incredibly bad with directions." Ranma said, sighing a little. "Like if you told him to go to the end of the street and turn right. He might turn right immediately, or turn go in the opposite direction of the way you're pointing and then turn right."
"He could get lost in an empty room." Nabiki said with a small bit of wonder. He must be incredibly tough to survive that kind of handicap. "So you two scrapped a lot."
"Every day, I was always there around the end of it because I didn't want to step all over Soban's toes, and because his boys hogged up all the best stuff, I had to fight it out with Ryoga for it. I always won, though."
"And you didn't let him have the bread because?" Nabiki asked, trying not to get mad at him.
"Well, it was mostly we liked the same kind of breads." Ranma scratched the back of his neck. "So after so many slights, it was only natural he'd come after me. Thing was, he got lost trying to get to where I was waiting for him."
It was pretty hilarious to think back on now. "I'm still upset I never got to fight him full out but after three whole days waiting for him I had to consider it a forfeit."
"You waited three days?" She asked, amazed.
"I would've waited longer, but Dad dragged me off to China on the third day…"
"So he followed you to China?" Nabiki didn't like that vindictiveness.
"If he's Garou, yeah." Ranma looked ahead and saw a black and white dog running towards them from the front porch of a nice little house that seemed to have undergone quite the cleanup recently. "Hey, Shirokuro!"
"What a beautiful dog!" Nabiki said, as the named dog came to stop in front of her. She was taken aback by how the dog eagerly accepted her petting, but found herself lost in the soft fur.
Ranma knelt down and rubbed the top of the dog's head with her. "This is Ryoga's dog. She's a pretty swell gal, she used to walk him to and from school so he wouldn't get lost."
He then turned to Nabiki. "I think she might also be a ninken, too."
"Such an amazing dog." Nabiki could only find herself agreeing with the assessment. She couldn't hear the dog making any excess noise, when usually just breathing lit up the audio board.
"What's up gal? Is your master home?"
Shirokuro got up and trotted to the front door, before pawing it open and looking back at the two of them, invitingly. Nabiki, for one, was impressed at such a smart dog.
"I'm taking that as a yes." Ranma said, nodding his head. "Come on, let's not keep him waiting."
Nabiki followed Ranma into the Hibiki home, wondering just what they'd see.
"Careful with that Xian!" Ryoga's voice wafted through the house. "Don't burn yourself just to show off for me!"
"Silly husband, it fine!" Shampoo's voice danced into the common area where Ranma and Nabiki were standing. "Shampoo do this for too long to get burn."
Shirokuro barked to let Ryoga know they had company.
"Hey, sorry I couldn't greet you at the door," Ryoga said as he began to emerge from the kitchen. He hadn't seen who it was yet. "We're making some food and–wait, Ranma?"
Rather than shout a declaration of revenge and attack, the young man in a mustard yellow shirt and brown pants, with a bright yellow bandanna hanging around his neck, merely slapped his forehead. "Of course you remembered where my house was, I'm the one who couldn't find it."
Ranma raised an eyebrow at the chummy atmosphere, but still went with it. "Hey man, how's it shakin'?"
Ryoga shrugged. "It's been pretty good. I was actually hoping to talk to you sooner than later."
Ranma nodded. "Well that's why I'm here, I was a little curious about about what you'd been up to the last month or so."
Ryoga glanced back to the kitchen. "I bet you're wondering about Xian Pu, too?"
Ranma slowly nodded. "Yeah, that too. She and I got a history and I had a hunch I'd find her here with you."
Ryoga tensed a little bit. "It was a good hunch."
"So you are Garou, then?" Ranma said.
"Well, it was the darndest thing. I followed you all the way to China, and as it turned out you knocked into a spring that turned me into this big badass wolf."
Ranma's eyes widened a bit. "Wait, you were the guy I knocked over? Oh geez, sorry man…"
Ryoga grinned. "Don't be! At first, was kinda mad. Then when I realized the nose overrode my directional problems, I was so happy I couldn't think straight."
Ranma understood. "Oh… so that's why you were so helpful all those times."
He then stopped. "Also explains why you refused to lick me or do tricks like a normal dog would, too. You know what? I'm not as broken up about that as I was anymore."
"Yeah, but if it's any consolation I really liked the name 'Garou', I was afraid of something lame like Okami-chan." Ryoga finished with a great big smile.
"Well, you were always hungry so…" Ranma thought it was an obvious name. "By the way, this is Tendo Nabiki, my senpai at Furinkan and a member of the council a certain girl crashed the meeting of."
"And him as well," Nabiki said, waving with a bright smile. "It's nice to meet you, Ranma's had a lot of good things to say about you even without the wolf thing tacked on."
Ryoga gave her a once over before he gave Ranma a sly smile. "Oh yeah? That must've been a short list."
"Longer than I thought," Ranma replied.
"My, to think that you two used to be such bitter rivals," Nabiki said.
"We had our good days," Ranma admitted.
"Long as food wasn't on the line," Ryoga said, and both shared a bit of a sharp look as the spike of excitement that came from competition flared up.
"I'm sure you have some fantastic stories of the good old days," Nabiki said as she gestured her head towards Shampoo, who was emerging from the kitchen with some food. "But I think what we want to discuss has just walked in."
Shampoo, not having picked up the mood but definitely the eyes on her, blinked and said cutely. "Nihao."
She recognized Ranma, the guy who didn't seem too interested in fighting back at the school, and of course she recognized Nabiki, who seemed otherwise harmless. She looked at Ryoga. "These you friends?"
Ryoga nodded. "Well, I went to School with Ranma, and Nabiki is his…"
"Prospective fiancée," Nabiki replied, impressed that he wasn't going to presume.
Ryoga looked at Ranma with a raised eyebrow.
"My old man is stupid and so is hers," Ranma explained with a stern nod. "Because they don't care about the love lives of their respective children, I'm kinda stuck choosing between three different girls as my fiancée."
Ryoga gave him a flat look. "Oh your life must be so terrible." He nodded twice to Shampoo. "But yes, that's who they are."
"Ah, nihao." Shampoo said again, not sure what she should say in this position.
"And this beautiful woman is my wife Xian Pu." Ryoga said with, well, a wolfish grin. "It was a tenuous courtship, but well… if someone ever asks if love can bloom on the battlefield, the answer is yes." He even added a cheesy thumbs up.
Ranma looked shocked, Nabiki less so but that's because she didn't know Ryoga.
"Well, it was a little bit of their village laws, but I, uh, brushed up on the particulars and I have no complaints." His grin diminished just a bit. "Outside of where to live, but there has to be some kind of contention I guess."
And boy howdy was there.
Nabiki grasped what he meant by village laws and covered her mouth to suppress the gasp of recognition about to be issued forth from said orifice.
Ranma didn't and just nodded a little. "Oh, well congratulations man. Speaking of village laws, we uh… wanted to talk about that girl, RicePony."
Upon mentioning of the handle, and reminding her of the association, Shampoo scowled. "You know where Shampoo can find?"
"Even if we did, you going after her would be a bad idea," Nabiki warned Shampoo. "That's what we wanted to discuss. You see, RicePony is… she's in a position where going after her would end pretty badly for you. It's gonna be pretty much safer for you to let this one slip."
"Shampoo kill RicePony, don't care who in way," Shampoo immediately said with a scowl as if she heard nothing Nabiki just said.
Ryoga shook his head. "It's no use, Ranma, Nabiki-san. Joketsuzoku pride is so strong that if it's even slightly insulted they will hold that grudge until they get payback. I mean… I fell on the right side of the slight, thank God."
Ranma frowned. "What do you mean?"
Ryoga glanced at Shampoo, then to Ranma. "Well, when I stayed back to hold Xian Pu off, the fight took us back into town and ended in a restaurant. I had managed to overpower and defeat her… right as a pot of water heating up to boil fell on me."
"So she found out you were a cursed guy, and…" His eyes widened in realization. "… Let me guess… since you were a man who defeated a Joketsuzoku Warrior…"
Ryoga nodded. "I had to marry her. It wasn't bad, she's really nice to anyone who isn't her target… but the only reason we're really even here in Japan is because she wants to kill her."
"That right," Shampoo said. "Shampoo kill then go home, that is rule of village."
"Let me see that in writing," Nabiki said.
Almost immediately Shampoo produced a book on Joketsuzoku law, and Nabiki cracked it open to read. "Hmm… outsider… if defeated by woman… ends of the Earth… if defeated by man… ends of the Earth…" She closed the book. "Huh, it's there in writing."
She looked to Ranma. "RicePony's fucked."
"Shampoo agree, now tell where is."
"One track mind, damn," Nabiki muttered.
Ranma bristled and stepped forward. "Has it ever occurred to you that going around wanting to kill people because they beat you in a fair fight is not just a little shy of insane?"
"Fat pig ate all Shampoo's food that Shampoo fight all day for! Then beat Shampoo up! You think Shampoo let that slide?"
"You think it might be less a hassle to just bill her for the food?!" Ranma demanded.
"You no can buy pride!" Shampoo shouted back. "Why you care so much for RicePony?! It none of you business!"
"It is my business because RicePony is my…!" Ranma stopped and recoiled when Shampoo stepped forward, fire blazing in her eyes.
"She. Is. What." She enunciated clearly and intently, all too darkly eager to hear the connection she could exploit.
Ryoga's arms were like steel cables wrapped around Shampoo a second later, pinning hers at her sides and lifting her up off the ground. With a yelp she began to squirm in his grip, but the young man's strength was monstrous, and she could only thrash and start shouting angrily.
"AIREN! LET SHAMPOO GO! PUT SHAMPOO DOWN!" She shrieked as Ryoga began to step back from Ranma and towards the kitchen.
"Ranma, Nabiki-san, I think you should leave…" He warned them. "You're not going to convince her–believe me I've tried and I can be very persuasive with her!"
Shampoo was now trying to kick out from his grip, but he had leaned back enough so her feet could not touch the floor and gain purchase, or strike his own legs properly. "Let go! Let go! Shampoo kill stupid Red! Shampoo get revenge!"
Ranma tensed up, furious. "Fine! Go ahead and try it! But you're gonna be in deep shit if you come near her or any of my friends again!"
Shampoo then shouted at Ranma something in Chinese that Ranma didn't really want to hear a translation of, but the way she sounded when she said it gave him an idea of how vile it was. Before Ranma could spit back more threats, Nabiki placed a hand on his chest and led him to the door.
"Okay, this is a clustertruck. We're leaving," she said as she pushed him back towards the front door, which Shirokuro was waiting by. The dog looked a little said, so Nabiki felt compelled to comfort her. "It'll be okay girl."
"Sorry girl, we'll try to make things right." Ranma said to Shirokuro as they left.
Once they were a considerable distance from the Hibiki home, a thought occurred to Nabiki.
"You know, you never mentioned how the fight went," Nabiki said, turning to look at Ranma.
"I would like to say it was an epic clash, but she charged me like a bull with no guard and I knocked her out her with a single kick." Ranma admitted, somewhat embarrassed.
"Aaaaand thus why she felt compelled to give you the Kiss of Death." Nabiki said with a defeated expression.
"… 'Compelled'?" Ranma echoed with a raised eyebrow.
"It's not so iron-clad as do it or be killed kind of thing. Most of it is up to the warrior." Nabiki explained, waving a hand in the air. "In Chinese, it's a lot more in depth than the Japanese translation. I assume it's either because they were unsure how to translate the more esoteric bits..."
"… Or they didn't want Japanese outsiders to know about any those parts." Ranma finished with a nod. "Sounds like a secretive village. So there's no way out of this?"
"I don't think Ryoga would take kindly to you crippling or kill his wife." Nabiki said, blowing out a sigh. "Okay, considering what I managed to speedskim, she isn't technically compelled to give the Kiss of Marriage because she banished herself from the village to pursue you. They can't actually have all their strong warriors running off after every single person to beat them, so it's only a matter of if it's approved."
Ranma felt defeated. "And here she is, the Champion in Exile."
"Why didn't you just break her legs and leave her to the wilderness?" Nabiki decided to ask after a small bit of quiet.
"She never got close to me so I could hit her." Ranma said, helplessly shrugging his shoulders. "She kept firing arrows or hurling knives at me."
"Shrewd, just like how she recognized how to fight Izurando." Nabiki nodded. "That girl is a problem."
They had no idea how much of a goddamned problem she'd end up being.
"Still, thanks for coming with me. I don't know if I could have handled it alone." Ranma said after a little bit of quiet. They were pretty far from the Hibiki home now.
"Well someone had to," Nabiki said with a sly little grin. "Plus two of us going gives a better accounting for how things went and all."
"Yeah," he agreed, "It's just you helped put my mind at ease. You helped keep everything at talking without any fighting breaking out in Ryoga's house."
Nabiki's ears did that little flush they do when she gets overwhelmed with emotion, but they were thankfully hidden by her hair at the moment. "I did what I thought was best for the situation. It's just… you hope to be civil with someone who might be your enemy."
"Yeah," Ranma agreed, feeling the atmosphere turn a little chummy. It wasn't a bad thing though. "Well, we tried but maybe we can expect a little more interference from Ryoga."
"We can only hope that it doesn't come to the worse." Nabiki said, sighing. "She's not a bad girl, you know. She's just from a different culture than me. Might be closer to you, considering you spent your youth on the road."
"Why Nabiki-chan," Ranma drawled, grinning at squeak of surprise she failed to suppress at the sudden honorific. "Do you mean to imply that I am an uncivilized barbarian?"
Nabiki took a moment to school herself. "Well you're not exactly your everyday average teenager."
"Something we're both grateful for." Ranma said, smirking just a tad as he leaned in closer to her.
"Someone's full of himself." Nabiki said, trying not to laugh.
"Man if I only was, then I wouldn't have had the appetite to be in this mess to begin with." Ranma replied innocently.
Nabiki lost the battle with her laughter. "Okay okay, you win! My sides are going to hurt for a while now."
"Your laughing muscles are out of shape." Ranma said in his best doctor voice. "Laughter is the best medicine after all."
"I'll keep that in mind." Nabiki said, before she gave him a sly smile. "But you know, I don't mind if you're a little arrogant."
"Oh yea?" He asked, looking a little.
"A little confidence goes a long way you know." She confirmed with a semi-serious nod.
"And the banging martial arts bod isn't hurting the deal." Ranma flexed one arm for emphasis.
Nabiki mocked swoon. "Oh sir, you are a danger to a girl's health with those guns."
"It's okay," Ranma said without a trace of irony. "I'm fully licensed to carry them."
Nabiki laughed again and Ranma joined in, which served to obscure the fact that they were being followed by Shampoo. The Amazon watched the chummy scene with a bit of a pit forming in her stomach. RicePony was someone very close to both of them and they weren't bad people from what she could see.
It wouldn't be the first time she cursed her pride and hubris to chase after the girl who defeated her. She could have let her go, just let the girl walk away. After all, they were fighting over the prize and she had lost. The girl and panda had already eaten most of it, so let them have it and let her go.
But she was a challenge, the first she had ever encountered around her age. The tournament had been dull and she had been exhausted just waiting for her opponents to inevitably fuck up. But here was someone arguably better than her and she wasn't about to let her go. She could have let it go, just turned away and chalk it up as an L.
And yet, she had made a vow to kill this new rival, and Xian Pu of Joketsuzoku kept her promises… always.
Meanwhile, Katie and Akane were making their way to Tofu's clinic. It was a slow walk, one rife with tension, as the Kouhai wrestled with the fact her invincible Senpai wasn't so invincible. Of course, this was obvious to anyone who thought about it, but rose colored glasses hide the imperfection pretty well. Well it was that and Katie was still a little pissed about everything concerning Shampoo and was not in the mood to talk.
That would not deter Akane. "Come on Senpai, you can't expect to beat everyone."
"Technically, I still won." Katie said with a minor sulk. "She forfeited when her wolf boyfriend drug her away."
"Yeah, well it was looking kind of iffy there, especially since you sacrificed an arm to land that hit." Akane wasn't about to chastise the groin hit. It was the first place her father ever taught her to attack after all.
"Shit..." Katie muttered, she had been foolish in letting the Amazon take her arm but she had little choice. Or so she told herself.
"Still, Tofu-sensei will take care of it." Akane said, keeping her tone focused.
"I still don't like him." Katie muttered. "His attitude is too shifty for someone who acts so aloof."
"Be that as it may, if you want to use your arm anytime soon, he's your best bet." Akane admonished, eyeing the clinic in the distance. "He's an expert on pressure points."
"Is he now…?" Katie thought, before filing it away. "If you have concerns about a possible fight between us, I'd win eight times out of ten."
"But your weakness…" Akane protested.
"It's a weakness not an instant-win button." Katie said with a laugh. "Give me some credit, I trained in Southern Mantis because of my weakness. It's not perfect but she only got my arm because I let her. And if you thought it'll give you an edge, pressure points ain't your thing, girl."
"But what about Ranma?" Akane asked, curious now.
"He could pull it off but they're not something he'd do on a whim." Katie said, smiling. "A part of your true self always shines through in a fight. I like to hit real hard which is why it's harder for me to adapt to the misdirection of Southern Mantis. Ranma, however, loves to go fast and overwhelm his opponent with sheer speed. If I had to guess, a part of him loves the shocked expression of someone so sure they're gonna land a punch and then misses."
Akane nodded, that sounded like Ranma as far as she knew him.
"That's the reason I dominated Ranma though." Katie said in all seriousness. "I'm as fast as he is but I hit way harder." She thought for a second. "It's not just that, the way we think is different. He may act wild but he's ruled solely by logic. When he got me in the flying armbar, he thought I'd tumble to the ground and fight it there. Because grappling arts teach you to instinctively not fighting and I'm a pretty instinctive fighter…"
"… He thought you'd fall to the ground and give him a way to end it." Akane realized, shocked at how much more deep that had been. "So why didn't you?"
"My uncle was like, 'I don't have time for weak shit like that. If you're dumb enough to find yourself in an armbar, do what you do best and smash it apart.' Or something like that." Katie grinned. "I never trained to fall or concede position in that situation. Because he didn't try to force me down I was able to focus on putting enough in my jump to reach the ceiling. And that's his real weakness, when he thinks he absolutely won't lose, he relaxes."
"Not much of a weakness." Akane said, considering Katie's was so much more pronounced.
"Against me it's fatal." Katie retorted with a wry snort. "And it might be against that girl if he isn't careful. She was watching the whole time, observing how to fight instead of just trying to fight me head on." She shook her head, wanting to be optimistic.
"I see," Akane said, they were almost at the clinic. "So why do you think you can beat Tofu-sensei?"
"It's because he knows martial arts, but he's not a fighter." Katie said, shrugging her shoulders indifferently. "He doesn't have the fangs to go against me and the only way he can win-"
She stopped, spun and swung a kick behind her, sending the sneaking Tofu scrambling away.
"-is by sneaking up on me." Katie finished, snorting at him. "A piece of advice my guy, instead of just erasing your presence, remember to take your slippers off. I could hear you click clacking up behind me a mile away."
"Oh my, you must have some incredible ears." Tofu said with a gallant smile. It was strained if you looked closely however.
"I trained more than my body y'know?" Katie remarked with a snotty grin. "It's the height of idiocy to think your senses as a baby are the same as your senses throughout your life. If that were true, no one would need glasses or hearing aids. If they can grow weaker they can also get stronger." She laughed a little. "Or omething like that anyways."
"She's talking about 'Heaven' just now." Akane realized.
"As much fun as it'd be to have it out, I'm wounded here so I need your help." Katie said, smoothly moving on to their business. "Sooner we get away from him the better I'll feel."
"Such an unsporting customer, attacking me and asking me for help?" Tofu asked with a disappointed frown. "Well I suppose playing jokes like I was isn't exactly sporting of me."
"Come on Tofu-sensei." Akane pouted. "This is serious, you can play your jokes later."
Tofu looked in surprise at Akane, before he laughed it off. "Well she is related to HER after all...." He dusted himself off and spoke this time. "All right, come into the clinic and I'll take care of your right arm."
Katie nodded and the three of them headed inside, Tofu leading and Akane bringing up the rear just behind Katie.
"To begin I must ask, what happened that caused your arm to end up like this?" Tofu asked as Katie sat down and rolled up her sleeve.
"I fought a single-minded idiot, it turns out that she is proficient at hitting pressure points."
Tofu took her arm and examined the point where Katie was struck. Right away he could see that the strike was intentional, an ideally safe spot to hit that only temporarily took the use of her arm away.
"So you let her hit you?"
"Seemed like the best idea at the time," Katie said as he examined the point of impact closer, like he was trying to see under the skin itself.
Best idea nothing, she had sacrificed the arm knowing full well that the strike would miss the point that would render the arm useless for a week.
"Well for a matter of haphazard luck, your arm will recover by tomorrow on its own." Tofu announced, finishing his examination. "I can offer you a sling to keep it in place until then."
Katie nodded. "Yeah, that should be fi-""
"Just kidding!" Tofu then jammed a finger into Katie's arm just below her elbow, and Katie felt a painful twinge that made her flinch in extreme pain.
"Gah! Motherfuck… er…" She stopped and looked at her arm as she moved it and wiggled her fingers. It didn't even hurt anymore. "Huh."
Akane gave Katie a smile. "He's such a good doctor."
Katie scowled a bit petulantly. "With a pretty awful sense of humor."
At that, Akane looked away a bit. "You're not exactly comedian material, yourself…"
"That's because I don't try to be funny." Katie punctuated that by sticking her tongue out at Akane, who returned the gesture before giggling.
Tofu stepped away, satisfied to see his work done and his patients in high spirits. "Well, unless there's anything else, you young ladies are free to go."
Katie ran her arm through the full range of motion. "I'd call this a smashing success, thanks Doc. The check will be in the mail."
She slipped off the examination table and nodded to Akane.
"By the way Akane-chan," Tofu said as Katie and Akane had almost reached the door. "Is… is e-everything all right with K-Kasumi-san?"
Akane blinked, not expecting the question. "Eh? Everything is fine why?"
"Sh-she just hasn't been by as much as the past," he said, looking a little embarrassed and upset. "I was w-worried. She hasn't been by since she returned my books she borrowed…"
Akane raised an eyebrow. "Well, a lot has happened so she's probably busy with things."
Katie wanted to snicker or laugh or make some kind of noise that might give away she knew what those things are. But she held it in mainly to see how the good doctor reacted.
"I… I see." He said, trying to keep his friendly exterior.
"Now," Katie said, ushering Akane out the door. "We'll take our leave."
They were outside before Akane could finally ask the obvious question. "What's the hurry?"
Katie glanced at Akane and shrugged a little. "He's going to start grumbling darkly about your older sister and it didn't seem like a good idea to stick around." Katie defended, even as the atmosphere over the clinic darkened. "See?"
Akane then said something that Katie did not expect to hear from her kouhai's mouth. "Well, that's your fault, isn't it, Senpai?"
"Ah…?" Katie took a step back from Akane, a little surprised. "What?"
Akane gave Katie a sidelong look. "I know my older sister, I also know that when she was in high school she was really popular with the girls and not just because she was the nicest of them. I also know when you're looking at her like you want to do perverted things with her… and she has the same looks."
Katie's normally pale features lit up in an embarrassed flush. Busted, outright. "O-oh…"
"I'm of two minds about it, but neither of them are upset at you about it, don't worry," Akane reassured her. "It's not like I think it's weird or anything…"
She stopped herself. "Okay… it's a little perverted, but it's okay if it's you."
Katie barely couldn't help her short laugh. "Are you talking about with Kasumi or you?"
It was Akane's turn to go red in the face, as she recoiled. "Ah?! S-Senpai!" She looked away, her blush only getting deeper. "I-I'm not that kind of girl!"
"Ah, like her name suggests," Katie said faux-poetically, "The youngest Tendo is red at the roots."
"Stop it~!" Akane whined as she cupped her cheeks and leaned away from Katie.
Katie wasn't about to do that, and continued down this path of teasing. "Ah, ah, you need to work on your phrasing Akane-chan. People will get ideas~"
Akane continued to shrink away in embarrassment. That wasn't what she meant at all. "No, I mean, I-"
"But don't worry Akane-chan," Katie said solemnly, before her face twisted into a perverted leer. "I won't be too rough, ghihihihihi~"
In mock terror, Akane squealed and brought her hands to her chest as she swayed from side to side while strolling past a mailbox. "Aaaah! My senpai is a pervert! A pervert!"
Katie loomed over Akane, laughing evilly. "In me power…!"
Her wicked chortling came to a stop when a scimitar came out, the blade glinting in the evening light. Katie and Akane stared at the blade and the large-sleeve shrouded hand that held it. All of that belonged to a young man wearing blue pants and a long white robe with black cuffs on the sleeves. He had an youthful, handsome face, piercing pale blue eyes, and long waist-length black hair.
The young man gazed piercingly down his blade at the target. Coolly, he spoke, "For someone deserving of the title senpai, you are awfully blatant in your lecherous desires to your kouhai."
Katie and Akane continued to stare at him, before Akane began. "Um… we were just joking around. And uh…"
"… That's a mailbox you're pointing your blade at," Katie finished.
The young man blinked in confusion, and squinted at the mailbox. He then withdrew his blade into his sleeve, and instead produced a pair of awfully thick glasses that he slipped over his eyes, the material so obscuring that his eyes could barely be seen. Stepped back, looking somewhat embarrassed.
"Oh… so it is." He then turned towards the two young women. "… And you seem to… be… my apologies."
On the bright side, he seemed to be rather polite, by Akane's measure. "It's okay, long as you don't want to make a scene about it."
"Oh no, no… I actually had no intention to fight, just…"
Scare the would-be pervert off, Katie had that vibe off him from word one, but she noticed something else that actually put her off.
"No harm no foul, my friend." She glanced over to Akane, then to him. "Everything all right with you, man? You seem…"
Before she could edge towards her observation, he headed her off. "I'm fine, don't worry, just tired from my trip from China… it was a long flight."
Akane then spoke. "Are you hungry, too? You look like you could use a meal."
Katie was glad Akane was on the same page. "If you'd like, we can show you around. Get you somewhere you can rest."
The young man held up his hands, gesturing politely to them. "That is very kind of you, but I couldn't impose, I'm looking-"
Akane took it even further. "My sister always loves to have guests. You can have dinner with us."
The young man stopped, taken aback by the kindness of these locals. He did not expect such hospitality or kindness from strangers he'd pulled a blade upon. "You are so kind…"
Akane smiled to him. "Well it's not every day that a guy who pulls a weapon on us stops and apologizes after. You seem like a nice person."
Oh, how the young man wished he was. A nice person wouldn't be here, doing what he was about to do. "It would be rude of me to turn down such generosity. So please, lead the way."
Katie relaxed, a sigh of relief escaping inaudibly. She looked over to Akane. "I'm gonna call Misao and tell her I'll be late getting home."
Akane nodded and gestured for the young man to come along. Come on then, my name is Tendo Akane, and you?"
"Mu Tsu," the young man replied, the ghost of a smile appearing on his lips. "It is nice to make your acquaintance, Tendo-san."
Behind them, a slightly scowling Katie called the bae.
"Ayy gurl, what's good?" Misao, who was happily cooking up a simple dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches atop a griddle set atop her stove, asked into her Bluetooth headset as she flipped another cooked sandwich onto the plate of a near dozen meant for her, Katie, and Ranma.
"I got that cheddar, yo, that grilled cheddar."
"Fuck, I forgot," Katie immediately hissed.
Misao paused and frowned. "Forgot what, that you were gonna eat and toke while I help Ran-chan grind in World of Warships?"
"Uh… yeah, today's been busy and it doesn't look like it'll stop soon, plus heading home ain't exactly safe for you right now."
Misao didn't like how that sounded. "What happened?"
"That Xian Pu girl is in town, and she knows I'm connected to Ranma's girl side. I don't want her following me home."
Misao frowned. "Okay, thanks for the heads up. You'll be home though, right?"
"Yeah, I have something to do to lay low until dark. Akaneko and me ran into a dude all fatigued from his flight from China," Katie explained, trying to alleviate any worries. "He's not a bad guy so I figured I'd help him out a bit."
"Just be careful about bringing home another stray." Misao joked.
"I dunno, you seem taken by the last one I brought home." Katie remarked in a dry fashion.
"Yeah, I don't want to drool over another one when I haven't finished enjoying this one!" Misao chirped, rolling with the verbal punches like a damn bawss.
"Just be careful with him," Katie warned. "Don't go getting too involved."
"Yes yes, I'm still 1000% yours, you greedy pig." Misao rolled her eyes.
"Oink oink." Katie snorted, cracking up at the humor. "Anyways, I gotta get going."
"Okay, be safe bae." Misao said, before her tone took a crooning edge. "Luv ya~"
"Love you too." Katie said, before the line went dead.
Misao cleared the screen and set her phone down off to the side. Now all that needed to happen was-
"Hey boss, I'm home." What impeccable timing.
"Hey sweetie, just in time. You okay with cheese?" Misao called as he walked in.
"It never bothered me," Ranma said as he walked in and found Misao wearing a surprisingly modest pink tank top and white sweatpants. The tank top featured the objectively best pony, Rainbow Dash, the same who graced her planes, tanks, ships, and guns in her multiplayer games. The shirt was still, like much everything else she tended to wear, stretched alluringly tight by her impressive chest… where Ranma's gaze was lingering again.
"You know, if you're going to stare like that, at least tell me what you'd do to them," she teased.
There went Ranma's face, red as a tomato as his eyes aimed anywhere but at her, and Misao fell into a fit of giggles.
"Don't be so shy! I like when you look," she reassured him as she turned to make sure the last sandwiches didn't get too crispy.
That did nothing to abate his blush.
"It's why I dress so nice~"
In fact it got worse.
"I got you something nice to wear for stream tonight," Misao then revealed.
Still struggling with the revelation, Ranma thanked God for the subject change. "It isn't anything lewd, is it?"
"Nah, just something cute and comfy," Misao reassured him. "A spaghetti-strap top and some sweatpants as pajamas. It's the 'sleepover stream', after all," she said before she tossed Ranma a sandwich.
Catching it, Ranma took a bite. "Good thing we have off tomorrow, then, are we really gonna be up all night?"
"Only until about 0200 at the latest. I don't like being up super late unless I'm playing online with the western youtubers or doing a Let's Play Run. Sleep is as important for chubby gamers like me as it is for superheroes like you."
Ranma nodded, he rather liked the sandwich given to him, the cheese was exquisite, and he could taste a hint of shredded pork belly in there. He really couldn't get how Misao could call herself fat–sure she was on the heavier side but it definitely wasn't out of place.
"Speaking of sleep, we could upgrade your arrangements some. You don't have to make a bed of the couch or love seats every night."
"Are you kidding? It's like I have three beds," Ranma half-joked back.
"Yeah, but I could swap one of them out for a couch futon, or just set up a bed on one side of the room…" Misao shrugged her shoulders and grinned a bit. "Or you could save me the anguish over the Feng Shui of it, and just sleep in my room, with Katie and I."
"It's fine, really!" Ranma insisted, trying to keep the temperature of his face down as he tried not to imagine that last one.
"Well I won't be too pushy about it." The for now in there went unspoken. "Just remember you can sleep a lot more… comfortably."
There was a lot loaded into that reminder and only some of it escaped Ranma's notice. "Jeez, I can't tell if you're flirting with me or just out to get a rise out of me sometimes…"
Misao put on a wry smile, as she tore a sandwich in half to bite into one of the halves. "It's definitely more one than the other~"
She then gave him a more pointed look. "Tell me, which do you think it is?"
"Well, given how awesome I am…" Ranma began.
"Which is incredibly," Misao piped in.
"… I'd say you've been flirting with me like crazy since I first got here."
Misao half-closed her eyes, and a soft laugh escaped her lips as her cheeks colored up a bit. "Oh nice. You're either that confident in your charms, or you've been paying attention."
Ranma's eyebrows hopped up a bit, and he watched Misao take another bite out of her sandwich while giving him an even warmer look than the usual flirtatious gazes she'd subjected him to. The bit of cheese pull she had going there made her a little cuter than she normally was.
"Um… thanks…" He murmured, not expecting that kind of look from her.
With a soft laugh, Misao picked up the plate of sandwiches and headed for the living room. "Go get changed, sweetie, stream starts in fifteen."
Ranma was thankful to be excused to the bathroom. It meant that he could at least get some cold water to put out that fire that short look had set blazing in his chest. "Jeez… she really wants me like that, doesn't she?"
Ten minutes went by after that, with Ranma using that time to really cool herself in the shower, before she emerged dressed in a pair of pink sweat pants and a matching pink and red top that was actually rather comfortable and not too loose. She felt a little exposed at the shoulders and around the midriff, but it wasn't terrible.
"These might actually be nice to sleep in," she said to Misao, who was happily enjoying a hit from her bong to whet her appetite.
Misao smirked to him. "To be honest, I prefer your usual sleeping attire."
Which consisted, nowadays, of just a pair of boxer shorts.
"You would," Ranma said with greater confidence as she sat down next to Misao. "Do we still have a few minutes?"
"Yep!" Misao said as she passed the bong and lighter to Ranma, who took it graciously.
Bringing the bong's lip to her own, Ranma crossed her legs yoga style and took her hit. She'd gotten much better at enjoying Misao's glassware since the first time those weeks ago, and now there wasn't even a stigma attached to it for her. It was relaxing and it felt good to just sit back and get a nice comfy high going before throwing herself into some crazy game.
As she felt the lift from the bong already start to take hold, Ranma released the cloud she inhaled with a relaxed sigh, and returned the bong to Misao. "Is this really my life right now?"
Misao stopped short of toking. "Hm?"
Ranma sighed. "I live in a really nice apartment, making a lot of money off this curse… I haven't seen my old man in almost two weeks… I'm one of the popular kids in school… and I know so many cute and awesome girls. I've even kinda sorta made peace with a dude I used to fight all the time."
She shook her head. "It's a lot to think about, you know? I'm actually kind of scared for when the other shoe drops."
"Other shoe, huh?" Misao asked as she set the bong on the floor beside her, out of any possible camera shot. The stream was about to begin.
"The good times don't last forever," Ranma said. "Something bad will come along, and I don't want to think about how bad it'll be when it does."
Misao nodded in agreement. "Well, there is Xian Pu running around, that's not all that great."
"No," Ranma said with a sigh, "And I'm worried that when it all goes bad… it'll be because of her."
Misao smiled. "Hey now, it's not like she'll be too big a problem! You got Katie, and Akane, and Kodachi all backing you up if you have to fight her. I mean, she might be a crazy warrior woman from China, but it ain't like she's got an army or something to fight you all with."
She nodded with confidence. "Even if she does find your girl side, beating her up won't be a problem for all of you when it comes to it."
Ranma thought about that. "Yeah, you're right. She's in for a world of hurt if she tries to mess with me, and she's pretty smart… hopefully she'll get that hint, or Ryoga will convince her of how bad her situation really is…"
Misao nodded again, and picked up the remote to turn on her entertainment complex of a home theater system. "But enough belly-aching about the bad, it's time for the objective good of getting people on the internet to throw their monies at us while we play video games and look cute for their entertainment."
She pressed the power button and then everything in front of her exploded in a storm of sparking electronics, plastic, glass, plaster, brick, and mortar. In an instant, half the living room was destroyed and the couch was upended, Ranma and Misao both thrown heavily to the floor as bits of debris scattered onto the floor on and around them and the lights of the apartment flickered and then went out.
Stunned, Misao laid on the floor, looking up at her dark ceiling. Her eyes fixed on it for a moment, before she realized she was somehow still alive and looked to her left, where Ranma was supposed to be. She was already up on her knees, hands resting on the overturned couch with a look on her face that was well in the range of shock, horror, and rage.
Slowly, Misao got up herself, bits of plastic and plaster falling from her hair and off her face as she looked towards where Ranma was looking… and her eyes grew large with shock as well.
Her television, her computer, her game consoles, her standing speakers, her cameras… and the entire wall behind them were gone, exposing the hallway of the apartment. In its place, Shampoo stood with her outstretched fist holding another melon hammer in front of her and a cold, murderous look in her eyes leveled onto Ranma.
"My… my apartment…" she whispered, her face completely pale. "… My equipment…"
Shampoo lowered the melon hammer, and prepared both of the weapons she carried.
"Shampoo finally find you," she said resolutely. "Shampoo will now kill. You is not escaping."
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 8/?
|The Elite Four of Furinkan Academy|
On an unusually broad and windswept swept field of knee-high grass for such a thing to be located anywhere in the city of Tokyo, Kodachi Kuno stood alone against a considerable number of young men dressed in stylized black school uniforms. There were a good number of them, and they all looked about as fearsome as tough delinquents would look if they had maximum style going for them.
Kodachi, however, was amused more than intimidated. Though it was a sardonic amusement, for the full weight of her disgust was targeted at the dull-witted and utterly hideous leader of these delinquents, a young man aptly named Soban.
"So it has come to my attention that Butsumetsu High School is seeking an alliance with Tomobiki… in spite of recent events between your houses." Kodachi intoned.
Soban, who was a man of few words because he only knew so many, chose not to speak as a pretty boy delinquent who was his right hand man stepped forward. "Well there's a School War about to go down and the toughest School ain't invited to the festivities? You rich brats can pose and posture all you want, but in the end it's gonna be us low-born who rewrite the maps, so we're here to make a deal with you."
"Oh?" Kodachi asked.
"You make an alliance with us, Furinkan, or we make good on our signals and mosey over to back up Tomobiki. It wouldn't be hard for us, we got more muscle than you and Tomobiki combined, and one of Tomobiki's star students is real sweet on the boss here."
Kodachi took one look at Soban and rolled her eyes. "Oh, I'm sure he is."
"So what do you say?" The pretty boy asked.
Kodachi mulled over the threat, before she let out a hum. "I say… that you are not even fit to be Alligator shit."
The boys didn't take too kindly to that response, a loud and angry "EHHHHHHH?!" rising to a pitch before it devolved into random jeers and insults. Soban's pretty boy stepped up, gesturing rudely to Kodachi.
"Alligator shit, huh?! Then let's see how it is when we trash your school! Butsumetsu High School ain't nothin' ta fuck with!"
Kodachi chuckled. "Fufufu… plebeians like yourselves could only dream of being beaten up at a Wu Tang Concert."
Furious, the pretty boy looked to Soban. "Boss! Get in there and show her the power of a guy who fought for an hour straight against Lum Invader!"
Soban, an extremely fat and mostly bald (he still had two hairs atop his head, two!) with a set of massive fish lips that took up most of his face and a pair of small round sunglasses that covered his beady eyes, stepped up and cracked his massive knuckles.
"Fufu… you say you have faced Lum Invader?" Kodachi asked with an amused smirk on her face. "Then this will be a good exercise for us, to see how we will measure up against her later."
The pretty boy didn't take that well. "You think you can face the man who fought Lum Invader and live?" He was even pointing a finger at her all serious like.
"It won't matter if I can or not, because I have no intention of fighting him one on one. That is not what I came out here for," she revealed. "I am merely here to let my Student Council annihilate your war potential so I can carry on without concern from you."
There was a whistling, followed by a mighty dust creating impact between Kodachi and the rival school. The wind that swept the field cleared it quickly, revealing Ranma, Akane, Katie, and Nabiki standing under inexplicable spotlights that shone down from the low, dark clouds that hung over the field. Akane held a shinai across her shoulders, Nabiki was crunching the numbers on a cellphone, Katie was tightening bandages around her palms and wrists, and Ranma was cracking his knuckles.
"Yo, Soban! Still as ugly and bald as I remember!" Ranma called with a joking smile on his face.
"I'm actually glad most of the boys at Furinkan were actually human." Akane grumbled.
Nabiki was doing calculations on a cellphone. "Yep, this is the entire Butsumetsu fighting force. The School is currently empty."
"Don't have to worry about stragglers huh?" Katie asked with a bloodthirsty chuckle. "Let's see if they live up to their rep."
Kodachi suddenly dropped back, landing in the reclining position in the arms of two of her Gentlemen, as a third offered her a cup of tea that she took gratefully from him. "Even if they do not, I expect to be entertained."
"God, I love her," Katie said as she got ready.
"You say that, when I'm standing here?" Nabiki teased.
Soban looked at the four students, and then around, a little confused. "That's it?"
His right hand was more livid than confused. "You're really asking for it, huh, thinking your guys are that hot?!"
"A flea like you hardly requires more than the force it takes to crush you." Kodachi said, sipping her tea. "But please, do keep posturing, maybe you can bore us into submission?"
"KICK THEIR ASSES!" With that, the floodgates came open and four-hundred angry young men charged the paltry line that four people were expected to hold.
Of the four members of the Student Council, it was Nabiki of all people who performed the first move, opening an app on her phone and performing a swipe on the screen, targeting the group of charging youths. "Incoming~"
From the clouds, a single missile broke through and oriented itself before heading straight towards the leading edge of the charging line. Before it hit the ground, it opened up and scattered all over the area of charging steel ball bearings that pelted those who charged into the rain of steel and caused others to trip, slip, and stumble first over the bearings and then over each other's bodies.
"God I love technology." Nabiki said, blowing a kiss at her phone.
With the initial charge sputtering a tad, the other three began to make their moves. Akane waded forward, smashing through the horde of boys with precise, looping swings of her shinai. Bodies began to litter the air as she tore into the human wave before her.
Even as they hit the floor, Katie was adding to the unexpected air traffic, grabbing and throwing her opponents as they rushed towards her, only striking those who attempted something fancy of their own, like the dumbass with a heavy duty chain who tried to swing it into her side. She caught that weak sauce in her left hand and drove her right elbow into his left cheek, shattering his jaw and sending him twirling away like a drunken ballerina.
Ranma was exerting a similar lack of effort, his hands darting in and out of his pockets almost casually to block, deflect or strike while he hopped and danced around the crowd of attackers that funneled themselves towards him. One guy with a 2x4 of wood let out a yell when he thought he had Ranma's blind spot, and for his complete failure to achieve surprise was kicked so many times in such short notice that he passed out standing up in the windup position of his swing.
A few young men who managed to escape the whirlwind of bodies courtesy of the actual fighters of the Student Council found themselves with only Nabiki in between them and Kodachi. A shout to rush them before it was too late came too late, as Nabiki's casual swiping of her smartphone brought more missiles down onto them. Unlike the last one, these exploded with considerable concussive force, flinging students this way and that.
A speck of dirt landed on Nabiki's shoulder from the explosion, which was promptly dusted off her shoulder by another of Kodachi's Gentlemen. She smiled graciously to him. "Why thank you."
"It was my pleasure, Tendo Nabiki-sama," the Gentleman replied.
Nabiki found it harder to disagree with Katie's pronouncement of love for Kodachi. "This is going fourteen seconds faster than our golden estimates."
"Only that much?" Kodachi hummed in surprise.
"Well, those three are holding back to draw it out." Nabiki said even as Akane was basically pitching people into the air for Ranma and Katie to punch or kick other people up into them.
"All three are eager to see how this Soban fights." Kodachi surmised, the promise of fighting someone who fought that well against Tomobiki's strongest was an attractive prospect.
"Like putting A5 beef in front of starving dogs." Nabiki agreed, peering into the chaos to see what the enemy commander was doing. There were too many bodies hitting the floor, so she looked at her phone, and was provided an isometric bird's eye view of the gang leader, who was wading towards the fight even as a lot of his guys were running away from it.
"It would seem he has some measure of temerity." Kodachi said, slightly impressed that he was continuing to fight when it was obvious they were outmatched.
Nabiki pondered it. "I think it's a case of him being too stupid to realize the danger he's in, honestly."
Indeed, for the danger was close as Ranma melted out of the maelstrom and came face to face with the hulking Soban. "Hey there, big fella… it's been years."
Soban blinked behind his tiny sunglasses, before recollection somehow came to him. "Oi! Saotome?! That's you?!"
"Yeah there, guy! I was wondering if you'd even made it to High School, since they held you back like three times in 8th Grade," he replied.
"Who the heck is this guy?" Soban's friend asked.
"Someone I never had ta mess with," Soban replied. "This kid's Ranma Saotome, the only other guy in Junior High School to never go hungry."
Soban's Lieutenant paled and then looked at Ranma. "This guy…?"
"For real though, this is a treat, I always wanted to fight you but I had to settle for making wall art with your boys. This is gonna be great!"
Katie then walked over. "Well, don't rough him up too much… I want to take a crack at him too."
Soban's Lieutenant looked between Ranma and Katie, then at the strewn around other students. "What… where the heck is everybody else?"
Ranma and Katie looked to the right, and found Akane in the middle of violently, gleefully smashing her shinai into the remaining few conscious young men of Butsumetsu as the chorus Rob Zombie's Dragula blared.
"She wasn't really interested in fighting you," Katie revealed.
Soban looked, almost solemnly at the devastation, before he looked down at his opponents. "You guys… you trashed my boys."
"Oh please," Ranma insisted. "Tell me all about what you want to do about it."
Katie was in full agreement. "Come on buddy, I wanna see it too… what's the legend of Butsumetsu got to show us? A guy that Lum Invader couldn't even put down after an hour of non-stop fighting?"
The towering Butsumetsu's already ugly face became a twisted mockery of anger, as he raised his arms and then let out a mighty kiai that sounded more like a monster's roar. "GURAAAAAAAH!"
Kodachi could hear the roar from where she stood, and looked on in interest. "Oh, ho?"
He then curled his arms inward, his body tensing up, his muscles rippling and bulging, his skin becoming like iron.
Katie bit her lower lip, she might actually have to hit a little hard to make this guy feel it.
The fire was lit in Ranma's eyes, as he assumed a fighting stance. "Oh yeah, this isn't going to be-"
A projectile, whistling through the air at high speed then cut through the air narrowly above Ranma's head and plowed straight into the hulking Soban's forehead, the force of the impact lifting the massive gang leader off his feet and sending him sailing through the air before he crashed onto his back with a great cloud of dust. He was out cold before he hit the ground.
"-Anti-climatic… at… all…" Ranma said, before the projectile in question finished flipping through the air hit the ground point down with a thud. "What the hell?"
"This is a what the fuck, actually," Katie said.
"AHHH BOSS!" Soban's second in command screamed in terror.
Kodachi and Nabiki were similarly surprised by the intervening object and looked around.
There was no sign of its source, even when Nabiki looked at her bird's eye view. She looked over at Kodachi and shrugged her shoulders. "No skin off my teeth, but…"
Kodachi rose from her seat of Gentlemen, and returned her cup of tea to the specimen who served it to her. "Curious!"
Akane ran over to Ranma and Katie. "Ranma! Senpai! What just happened?!"
Ranma looked at the big guy of Butsumetsu. "Our fight just got stolen."
Katie nodded as she walked over to the well embedded projectile that did it, and looked back towards the direction it came from. As with Nabiki, she saw no sign of the thrower or launcher or whatever could do this, and reached down to grab the projectile by the handle.
The first thing that surprised her was its weight. "… You know what? Fuck this fight, whoever could lug around this and throw it like that is way more interesting!"
She then pulled it out and held it up, and she only grew more interested at it. "Holy shit…"
It was a large, old fashioned umbrella. Made of extremely dense metal and tough fabric. Seeing it, Ranma's own expression flashed to surprise.
"Holy shit!" He said, and Akane and Katie looked over to him.
"You familiar with this?" The latter girl asked.
Ranma nodded. "You bet I am… this belongs to someone I know, and someone I went to school with ol' Soban here."
Katie's eyes widened in recognition. "Wait… you mean… that guy?"
Ranma nodded. "Yeah, that guy."
He turned and looked back towards the direction the umbrella came from. "Looks like after all this time, Ryoga's finally found me."
"Ryoga? Who's Ryoga?" Akane asked.
Ranma turned to her and smiled big. "The only person other than Senpai here to make fighting fun."
|The Oncoming Storm|
It didn't take long before the news of Butsumetsu's complete annihilation at the hands of Furinkan to reach the ears of the respective enemy generals. If they could really be called that, considering Mendou's grasp on Tomobiki was tenuous at best and Asuka was reigning over Kolkhoz more or less by default. Nevertheless, they were given the news at roughly the same time.
Their reactions couldn't be more diametrically opposed.
"THOSE WORTHLESS DOGS!" Saginomiya Asuka roared in frustrated anger. "They make all this noise about how they deserve to be included in this farce and this is what happens? Annihilated in mere minutes?! The toughest school eh?! Feh!" The tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed maiden dressed in an elegant white gown was so angry her normally beautiful features were twisted into some kind of nightmarish scowl, the veins in her face giving it more detail than it probably should have.
"O-oujo-sama!" Her butler, the one who drew the short lot in having to tell her the bad news, cried. "There was nothing to be done! They refused to answer our request to discuss their possible addition." This was a lie, the Butsumetsu punks had wanted their boss to get a date from THE Asuka Saginomiya just for showing up.
"And this is what they get for their hubris!" Asuka continued to rage, a dark aura of malice around her. "Trash like that can only ever be considered for the trash they are!" She calmed only slightly. "How has been the progress of our defenses?"
"We have been attempting to bolster our forces, Oujo-sama," the unlucky butler went on. "But without the Golden Pair our war potential is much lower, our best fighters are in the Cheerleading Club, Tea Ceremony Club, and… Fine Dining. We do have options, but they are limited for the time being until Shiratori-sama and Sanzenin-sama make full recoveries."
Asuka's anger became brittle with bitterness, as the realization that her high-born status made her school ill-suited for low-born war. Had she deigned to go to these commoner schools, what could she offer to this alliance? It savaged her pride to have to rely on Tomobiki but what choice did she have? Her right thumbnail was placed in her mouth as she chewed on it to try and calm herself.
"So you have heard the news regarding our would-be friends at Butsumetsu as well, I take it?" An equally handsome and poised young man with dark hair and a refined tone of speaking, Mendou Shuutaro, observed calmly as he walked into the domain of the White Lily, a lavish and stately office with a large oak desk and leather chairs as its centerpiece. "I could hear the shouting from the end of the hallway."
The nail snapped as Asuka bit through it. Without care, she spat the nail out and turned to face Mendou. "Did you come here to tell me what I already knew from the beginning?"
"I came here because I believe our alliance can still bear the sweetened fruit we dreamt of when we shared the bitter sake." Mendou replied, almost poetically. "The fools at Butsumetsu were all parasites clinging to Soban's indomitable strength, and while their numbers were impressive they were no more threatening than the young men of Furinkan, or Kolkhoz's Hockey Club."
That reminded her of the Golden Pair and only caused Asuka's mood to sour further. "So what, are you going to try and take control of this from me?"
"Not at all," Mendou revealed. "I have come to you with good news. Tomobiki's war potential is being reorganized and rebuilt, and I have the connections to ensure that our school will gain new… exotic students to augment our forces. But more than that, I have intelligence to share with you regarding a young couple who has come to Nerima."
Asuka had held her poise through most of the information, raised her eyebrows. "I didn't take you for a gossip Mendou."
"I'm not one for it, but I always keep an open ear if it regards an enemy… or an enemy of an enemy." Mendou rested a hand on the oak desk. "Two young people, a young man with a Chinese Bride, returned from China in search of Ranma Saotome. A look in the background of the young man revealed a rivalry spanning all of Junior High School."
She had wanted to chide him for desperately chasing after some fool with a Chinese whore, but the information about their pursuit of Ranma Saotome stayed her ire. "Well now, isn't this perhaps interesting?"
"Shall I make it tantalizing?" Mendou produced a series of photographs and laid them on the table.
They showed Hibiki Ryoga armed with an umbrella, a picture taken from low cover showing Katie holding the same umbrella above her head in curiousity as the Furinkan Student Council stood nearby an unconscious Soban, and then a third picture of Ryoga walking with Shampoo, now without his umbrella.
"This young man's strength is monumental, with that umbrella he knocked out Soban in a single strike, from long range, a feat that Lum-san could only dream of without her electricity and flight abilities."
If her interest was merely piqued before, it was now a burning inferno. "So, we are looking at some potential allies then." She cared not one wit for the girl, but the man... well, now that was something of a fun distraction waiting to happen.
Another butler appeared then. "Asuka-sama, I have word from your father."
"Go on and tell me now," Asuka replied without looking at the man.
"With all this talk of fighting, and having heard what happened to Shiratori-sama, he has taken the liberty of hiring some instructors for you."
She snorted and rolled her eyes, putting on a show of suffering for Mendou.
"As much of a pain it will surely be, you would do well to brush up on your physical prowess." Mendou said seriously, looking off in the direction of Furinkan. "They have already been emboldened by their recent victory. Do not dally and leave yourself vulnerable."
Asuka merely laughed. "As if I, Saginomiya Asuka, need to worry." She finally looked at her butler. "I will be along shortly, to see what my father has wasted his money on now."
"Enjoy your glibness while you can Saginomiya, with the destruction of Butsumetsu, we can't afford to be arrogant." Mendou said, as he turned to leave. "Prepare yourself so the waves of war don't sweep you away."
Asuka sighed, turning to the butler. "Well, show me to my teachers in the art of war then."
|Order of Battle|
It was the day after the destruction of Butsumetsu High, the old sign for the school now mounted on the wall like a trophy. Also present was a jacket from one of the punks, just as posterity to preserve the memory of the fallen school. It really tied the Student Council room together, or so Kodachi had said and no one wanted to go against her on it.
Anywho, the Student Council was holding a war meeting to go over the new things crushing Butsumetsu brought them. Nabiki had the floor since the logistics and data was her field of expertise. A 3D map of Nerima was projected into the air for helpful reference, as Nabiki began to disseminate.
"Well, everything breaks down like this." She said, dots for Tomobiki, Kolkhoz, Butsumetsu and a dozen others. "Before our clash with Butsumetsu, there were twelve other schools rumored to be willing to leap to the call of Saginomiya if need be. Of course, this was contingent on Butsumetsu not being annihilated in six minutes and forty three seconds." The dot for Butsumetsu was crossed out.
"Not surprisingly, all of the suspected dozen have gone quiet with talks of joining the conflict and they have begun to set up defenses just in case." The twelve dots were crossed out, leaving Tomobiki and Kolkhoz. "And thus with one victory we also won twelve other battles, very efficient yes?"
"Yes indeed." Kodachi said, looking at the map. "How do our forces fair under the news of our victory?"
"Morale is very high right now, it's already been up there since the benefits to Ranma-kun's training regimen began to show themselves." Nabiki said, as a small cluster of dots at the location of Furinkan. "They're almost combat ready, if we plan on splitting them between the two schools."
"About that," Katie said, shaking her head. "At this point, splitting them only helps our enemy. Kolkhoz is the weaker of the two right?"
"That's correct." Nabiki said, allowing Katie to have the floor.
"So let's just wash them away under the tide of our whole forces." Katie reasoned. "They're a bunch of athletic clubs, I doubt they have even a single club for martial arts."
"By all account this is correct, the closest they have to something for combat is an ice hockey club." Nabiki said, shrugging a little.
"Ice Hockey?" Ranma asked, a little confused.
"Fighting is not only allowed but encouraged." Akane explained. "In fact, you can be disqualified for refusing to fight."
"Dude, that's awesome." Ranma said, drawing a nod of agreement from Katie.
"Japan is great like that." Katie said, before shrugging. "So, I guess we can dispense with being fancy and march our forces over them right?"
"As long as the rest of us keep Tomobiki still." Ranma said, rubbing his chin. "The vulnerability of Kolkhoz is obvious to see."
"Kolkhoz lost its two best fighters a couple months back." Nabiki mentioned. "The Golden Pair, one of the few martial arts figure skaters in Japan."
"More like the only, most of their matches were against ordinary people," Katie said, frowning a bit. "But they're on the shelf so they're nothing to concern ourselves with."
"We need field commanders though, to help keep the morale up." Akane said, rubbing her chin. "If there's one person we need leading, it's Hatanaka-kun." Akane tapped the board and a picture of a brown-haired, brown-eyed young man in boxing shorts and gloves appeared, with the words Boxing Club Captain under his name.
"Kosaku eh?" Ranma said, nodding his head. "Definitely, him and the Boxing Club alone would deal heavy damage to Kolkhoz."
"He's made an impression on you has he Saotome Ranma?" Kodachi asked, before she nodded as well. "He has taken this challenge seriously, someone to surely show the potential of Furinkan."
"That's true," Ranma said, tapping a button and switching to some video of the Boxing Club practicing. "They've already incorporated the health routines into their normal boxing stuff. As a result, they've gone from a bunch of useless goons who would be laughed out of a tournament to someone who could take Nationals."
"A magnificent transformation is it not?" Kodachi asked, drawing agreeing nods from her council. "Very well, Hatanaka Kosaku shall be rewarded for his diligence. We shall host a banquet for those who will be leaders on our field of battle with Kolkhoz."
"The only question is who goes to Tomobiki and who goes to Kolkhoz from our little group." Nabiki said, before smirking. "Better translated, who amongst our three warriors wants to fight Lum Invader the most?"
Akane raised her hand. "I'll go!"
Katie looked at her. "You sure, Akaneko?"
"Well, yes," Akane replied. "She doesn't seem like a bad person, aside from being a space alien. Fighting her might be fun."
"That's Akane, and she should have backup just in case." Nabiki said, crunching numbers at high speed. "Especially if she gets held up by Lum Invader."
"We're not trying to take them out, but we don't want them running up our boys' backs as they take out Kolkhoz." Ranma said, before nodding. "I'll back her up then."
Katie mulled it over. "You know, if any cowards stream over there, me being there waiting on them will be too much fun."
"And Nabiki-san shall keep watch over the battle to help it flow in the proper manner." Kodachi announced. "Her prudent judgment and potential use of her technological assets will be an invaluable force multiplier for us."
Nabiki smiled. "I'll be great if I can get another drone from your Sugar-Momma."
At that, Katie rolled her eyes. "You know my price, and hers."
Nabiki nodded. "Sold."
Well, Katie's Saturday night was now full.
At that moment there was a room-rattling slam that made all five of the Student Council members jump. Followed by another one. It was coming from the wall adjacent to the door… like someone was trying to smash through the wall with sheer brute force.
Had the school not been rebuilt to take into consideration extremely powerful martial artists, it would've crumbled like dry, unreinforced plaster.
"Uh… okay?" Ranma asked, before he heard muffled swears in Chinese through the door. Immediately he stiffened, his skin going a shade whiter as the swearing came closer to the door, then stopped.
Then the door was swung open, and a healthy-figured, purple-haired girl dressed in a pink cheongsam and yellow pants, carrying a pair of red and pink melon hammers walked into the room and looked at the five of them.
"I beg your pardon?" Kodachi asked the Chinese woman, who immediately pointed one of the melon hammers at Katie.
Xian Pu of the Joketsuzoku, often mistakenly referred to as Shampoo until it stuck, narrowed her eyes at the other foreign girl, before she spoke. "Tell me where RicePony is, right now."
|Nope|
Ranma had gone pale as a sheet. "Oh… fuck."
RicePony was the handle he had chosen for his girl form's gaming channel. RicePony appeared alongside BansheeDeadSix in more than one video in the couple of weeks since she started the channel. And Katie, despite not having a channel at all, did appear onscreen with Misao… generally for stuff like gift box openings and reaction clips.
Shampoo was going to try to track down his girl form through her!
Akane, who didn't understand Chinese, shot up from her chair. "Who the heck are you?!"
Katie, who was raised by a Chinese speaking mother and thus did understand Chinese, answered in kind. "You need to get out of here, this is a school and we're in the middle of a council meeting."
"I am not leaving until you tell me where RicePony is, even if I have to beat it out of you," Shampoo said without reservation.
Katie didn't back down and fired back a threat of her own. "You do not want to give me an excuse, because I'm always looking for one."
To emphasize her threat, she stood up, making her height and physique well known to the much shorter Chinese Amazon. Akane immediately assumed an aggressive stance, but Ranma remained in his seat… in fact by Nabiki's observation, he was doing what he could to not be noticed.
"Your threat is as ridiculous as your appearance." Shampoo said in a dismissive sniff. "Though I welcome your futile attempts to protect RicePony. I look forward to presenting her with your broken corpse."
She made the mistake of blinking, and in the next instant, Katie was there in her face, fist reaching for the Chinese girl's face at a blinding speed. It missed but it was close thing, sending Shampoo skittering back a little, head low before she raised her head and showed a surprise to those watching.
"Wow, I thought Senpai missed." Akane murmured in shock.
"Only grazed her." Katie said in disappointment. "Want to talk more shit and leave yourself open to get hit?"
"So you have a little bit of speed." Shampoo said without concern, wiping the blood away all nonchalant like. "It's nothing to concern myself with."
The brief second her arm covered her eyes was all Katie needed to clear the gap between them again. Another punch came flying at Shampoo's face, but this one was cleanly evaded. "Oh!"
Katie jerked herself back and to the side, avoiding one of the melon hammers. Then turned and slammed the back of her fist into the other, a loud clang sounding before the hammer cracked and split much like its namesake.
Shampoo withdrew a pace, this time keeping her eyes locked upon Katie as she abandoned the broken melon hammer. This girl was strong, very, very strong.
Katie's lips were turned upward in a slight curve. "What was that about nothing to concern yourself with?"
Shampoo, returning the smile, twirled the second melon hammer and then let it slip from her fingers straight for Katie, who ignored it completely and moved from its path before it could fill her vision. She punched straight for Shampoo's face, and the blow was deflected up and above her head by her crossed forearms. Pulling back, the two began exchanging quick blows, Shampoo deflecting Katie's strikes with finesse while her own attacks were more brushed aside with brute force from Katie's strong arms.
Katie then caught a chop for her throat and attempted to turn and throw Shampoo onto her back. Catching herself on her feet instead, Shampoo rolled herself over, twisting free of her grip and kept spinning into a back kick that Katie blocked with her raised forearm, both girls pushing each other back.
Kodachi was impressed. "A magnificent fighter…"
Ranma was tense as he watched the exchange of blows.
Shampoo adjusted her stance, lowering her body and bringing her hands forward, causing Katie to tense as well. She couldn't help but be a little cocky. "I get it now, you got started in Muay Thai, you are all about full force. I know how to beat you, now."
That looked like a Southern Style stance, Katie didn't like fighting Southern Styles… because that usually meant they-
Shampoo was attacking again, but her strikes were much different, they were like rifle shots… and like rifle shots they were being specifically aimed.
"Ah shit, ah shit!" Katie thought as she quite rapidly moved to parry the strikes, aiming her own at Shampoo's wrists and arms to deflect her fingers away from the vital points that she was targeting.
Akane's eyes grew large when she saw the sudden defensive shift in Katie's style against the intruder. She was doing everything she could now to avoid being tagged by Shampoo's strikes, while leaving herself no room of her own to attack. "Something's wrong."
Katie dodged another strike, and this time watched Shampoo carefully, and the girl's attacks suddenly slowed down to something much more manageable. Still it was difficult, her attempt at grabbing Shampoo's wrist was promptly foiled, and she had to weave her entire body to avoid a pair of counter strikes before she could fire back with her own punch.
Shampoo caught and forced down the blow with with one hand while her other hand came down in a windmill motion that Katie slapped aside with her other hand, and used the turn to swing a backward spin kick that Shampoo leaned back to avoid in a display of agile flexibility. She came back just as fast, and Katie strong armed deflected two more quick pokes aimed for her shoulder blades.
"She's good… she's really good…!" Katie thought, thinking right away of Ranma, before she finally realized that a sacrifice had to be made, and she let her guard slip long enough for Shampoo's next jab to tag her right shoulder.
Shampoo's eyes lit up when she saw her blow connect, but in her moment of triumph came the end of the fight, as Katie suddenly charged forward to grab one of her long purple tresses, and pulled Shampoo forward into her jerked up knee, hitting Shampoo in the crotch something fierce and causing her to collapse to the floor, groaning in pain.
"Will you calm the fuck down, you crazy bitch?!" Katie snapped at Shampoo in Chinese. "I just told you that you needed to leave!"
Shampoo rolled over, getting back up. "You are either an obstacle in my way, or a helping hand in pointing me where I need to go. Now, where is RicePony?"
"I. Said. Leave," Katie growled as she clutched her right arm with her left… much louder than she meant to. It was about then she realized that she wasn't the one growling. Turning around, her eyes grew large and she stepped back.
Kodachi, Akane, and Nabiki all gave a start when they heard the growl of an animal, and Ranma recognized it as well as a large majestic black wolf, wearing a large yellow bandana tied around its neck strode in, growling at Shampoo with its teeth bared. Since it seemed to be pissed at Shampoo, it didn't prompt them to move to act.
Ranma was up on his feet, amazed to see the powerful creature–an old friend from his trip to China. "Garou…!"
However, the most dramatic reaction came from the person that the wolf faced. Shampoo's sudden shift in posture was fascinating, looking like a child who just got caught by their parents being bad. And much like an intervening parent, the wolf sauntered over to the Chinese girl and simply took a mouthful of the seat of her pants and began to drag her away.
"No! No! But husband, I have lead on Red! She is named RicePony on internet! Giant girl know where she live!" Shampoo pleaded in clunky Japanese and flailed her arms while being careful not to move her legs too much lest the seat of her pants be torn off.
The wolf simply growled something that seemed to say, "I don't care, we're leaving!"
"But…! But…!" Shampoo could only wail as she was drug out of the council room.
"… Okay, I'm pretty sure I thought we switched from sativa after the whole blunt-smoking alien thing." Katie muttered to herself. That was weird even after the parkouring panda and she felt like the drugs just weren't going to compare to reality.
"Senpai!" Akane called, coming over by her. "Are you all right?"
"It's not important right now," Katie said, while conspicuously gripping her arm. "We have more important concerns."
Kodachi agreed. "That is correct! A martial artist of that girl's caliber running loose in the wild is an intolerable threat to my ambition… tell me, Izurando Katie, who was that girl and who was she after?"
Nabiki turned to Ranma. "I think that's a question Ranma can answer better."
Kodachi looked in his direction. "Can he now?"
Ranma grimaced. "Well…"
"You knew the girl that just interrupted the meeting." Nabiki pressed him.
Akane whirled upon him. "Is this true?"
Ranma looked uncertainly towards Kodachi for a second. "Well… it's a matter that's kind of personal, Kodachi-san. I can't exactly be letting people know about it."
"In the interest of resolving this matter swiftly." Kodachi said, standing up. "I vow that nothing that is said will leave this room, upon my life." She gestured emphatically to Ranma and the others. "I am burdening you all with my ambitions, it is only fair that I share in your burdens, is it not?"
To show her sincerity, she quickly and quietly had the Gentlemen leave the room and shut off the security cameras and listening equipment taking notes. Once in privacy, she gestured for Ranma to continue.
Ranma stared at her, before he closed his eyes and nodded. "Okay, so when I was traveling in China before I came here… I was cursed to transform into a girl when I doused with cold water."
Kodachi stared at him, rather surprised by this revelation. "Truly?"
"I'd demonstrate it, but… it's a bit of a hassle. Everyone else can vouch for me, though," Ranma replied.
"I really can," Katie said. "I've seen it myself."
Akane and Nabiki agreed, they'd seen it too since they've come to know Ranma.
Kodachi, rather than push the subject and reveal any skepticism (there was plenty) elected to go forward assuming she believed him. "And this has to do with this girl?"
Ranma sighed in relief and continued. "The guide decided to take us over to this village that might've been able to help called Joketsuzoku-"
"She must be the person your dad was trying to convince us attacked him." Akane said, upon hearing the name of the village.
"… Yeah I can see how he'd think that. She's been chasing me since China, because I beat her in a fight when I was in the form of a girl." Ranma continued, not minding the interruption since it meant he didn't have explain it. "Apparently, you beat a warrior from their village and they're obligated to hunt you down and kill you."
Katie's eyebrows flattened out as she got something from this. "And lemme guess, you didn't bother to ask the guide about any peculiar laws or anything you should watch for just in case?"
"It… well I was incredibly pissed about the curse so it slipped my mind." Ranma said, a little defensive.
"So why did you have to fight her?" Katie asked, crossing her arms.
"… We kind of ate her victory feast? We were starving and it was out there in the open..." Ranma shrank under the glares of the four girls.
"Honestly!" Kodachi snapped.
Nabiki blew out a sigh. "Ranma-kun, please remember that just because food is left sitting out that doesn't mean you can just eat it."
Akane was more concerned about Shampoo. "So she's going to keep coming after you huh?"
"Unless something suddenly changes." Ranma said miserably.
"Which isn't a good thing at all," Katie said.
"What about the wolf?" Kodachi asked. "You referred to him by a name, do you have a history with that handsome beast as well?"
"Yeah. After I started trying to get away from Shampoo, Garou began showing up to help me fight Shampoo off. We travelled together all the way until we reached the East Sea, and we really bonded on our way to the coast." Ranma said, looking thoughtful. "We got separated when we were leaving, Shampoo caught up with us at the shore and he elected to stay back and delay her one final time…"
Nabiki bought up a salient point. "Apparently the fight went well, because they're married now."
"Oh, so that wasn't the sativa." Katie muttered.
"Married to a wolf, though?" Ranma asked.
Akane looked confused before she looked at Ranma and had an epiphany. "Jusenkyo!"
"Someone with a curse huh?" Nabiki asked, pursing her lips.
"But who?" Katie asked, looking around.
Ranma paused, thinking for a moment, remembering the yellow bandanna around the wolf's neck and the sudden umbrella attack on Soban…
"I think," he said, drawing all their eyes. "That the wolf was someone I know, but I'm gonna need to find him and confirm it."
Nabiki saw an opportunity and went for it. "I'll come along to help you look."
"Thanks," Ranma said gratefully to her.
"If it is a friend of yours, then confirm it fast because if she's coming after me to get to you then we got a whole different problem. I don't want this bitch following me home and dragging Misao into this bullshit" Katie said to Ranma as she looked at her arm.
Akane then finally noticed it. "Senpai, can you move your arm?"
"Unfortunately, no," she muttered. "If I have to say something against my fighting style, it's that I'm kind of a bad match against those esoteric types who like to hit pressure points and bullshit like that. I need to get this patched up and reassess how I'm going to deal with her."
Akane nodded in understanding. "Yeah, but before that, we need to get you over to Dr. Tofu's and get your arm fixed."
And that just soured Katie further. "… Oh, great."
|Bonds|
With the meeting done, Ranma had decided to go see Ryoga, to confirm his suspicions. In tow was Nabiki, who wanted to see this mythic Hibiki person in the flesh as well as maybe help keep her potential fiance intact however it were to happen. Well she wasn't going to be much help, but there were other ways than throwing a punch to help out.
Besides, with Akane tending to Katie, someone needed to go and bear witness to whatever new thing of madness that hit their lives. It was guaranteed to be a thing at least, so she wouldn't be bored. Hah, as if she was actually worried about that right now.
Her hunk of a fiancé had someone after his life and there was zero way she was going to sit passively on the sideline and just wring her hands in worry.
"So," Nabiki said, as they were well on the way to Ryoga's house. "Tell me about this Ryoga, and more than just he's good in a fight."
"Well, he's kinda thick I suppose." Ranma said, shrugging his shoulders. "Physically and mentally, but he at least tries not to be overtly dumb. He just gets swallowed by the pace."
"I see," Nabiki said, clucking her tongue as she tried to think about what to say. "So how are you feeling this meeting is gonna go?"
"He might attack me, he might not." Ranma said, before shrugging. "Heck, before he showed up to pull Shampoo out of there I would have told you he was gonna try and fight me. Now I'm not sure."
"An old rival right?" Nabiki asked, taking the answering nod to continue. "You know him from where?"
"Butsumetsu Junior High," he answered. "You had to fight for your food, so he had an issue only in arriving on time before they were down to the last of the bread."
"Chronically late or…" Nabiki was confused by this arriving on time thing.
"He's incredibly bad with directions." Ranma said, sighing a little. "Like if you told him to go to the end of the street and turn right. He might turn right immediately, or turn go in the opposite direction of the way you're pointing and then turn right."
"He could get lost in an empty room." Nabiki said with a small bit of wonder. He must be incredibly tough to survive that kind of handicap. "So you two scrapped a lot."
"Every day, I was always there around the end of it because I didn't want to step all over Soban's toes, and because his boys hogged up all the best stuff, I had to fight it out with Ryoga for it. I always won, though."
"And you didn't let him have the bread because?" Nabiki asked, trying not to get mad at him.
"Well, it was mostly we liked the same kind of breads." Ranma scratched the back of his neck. "So after so many slights, it was only natural he'd come after me. Thing was, he got lost trying to get to where I was waiting for him."
It was pretty hilarious to think back on now. "I'm still upset I never got to fight him full out but after three whole days waiting for him I had to consider it a forfeit."
"You waited three days?" She asked, amazed.
"I would've waited longer, but Dad dragged me off to China on the third day…"
"So he followed you to China?" Nabiki didn't like that vindictiveness.
"If he's Garou, yeah." Ranma looked ahead and saw a black and white dog running towards them from the front porch of a nice little house that seemed to have undergone quite the cleanup recently. "Hey, Shirokuro!"
"What a beautiful dog!" Nabiki said, as the named dog came to stop in front of her. She was taken aback by how the dog eagerly accepted her petting, but found herself lost in the soft fur.
Ranma knelt down and rubbed the top of the dog's head with her. "This is Ryoga's dog. She's a pretty swell gal, she used to walk him to and from school so he wouldn't get lost."
He then turned to Nabiki. "I think she might also be a ninken, too."
"Such an amazing dog." Nabiki could only find herself agreeing with the assessment. She couldn't hear the dog making any excess noise, when usually just breathing lit up the audio board.
"What's up gal? Is your master home?"
Shirokuro got up and trotted to the front door, before pawing it open and looking back at the two of them, invitingly. Nabiki, for one, was impressed at such a smart dog.
"I'm taking that as a yes." Ranma said, nodding his head. "Come on, let's not keep him waiting."
Nabiki followed Ranma into the Hibiki home, wondering just what they'd see.
"Careful with that Xian!" Ryoga's voice wafted through the house. "Don't burn yourself just to show off for me!"
"Silly husband, it fine!" Shampoo's voice danced into the common area where Ranma and Nabiki were standing. "Shampoo do this for too long to get burn."
Shirokuro barked to let Ryoga know they had company.
"Hey, sorry I couldn't greet you at the door," Ryoga said as he began to emerge from the kitchen. He hadn't seen who it was yet. "We're making some food and–wait, Ranma?"
Rather than shout a declaration of revenge and attack, the young man in a mustard yellow shirt and brown pants, with a bright yellow bandanna hanging around his neck, merely slapped his forehead. "Of course you remembered where my house was, I'm the one who couldn't find it."
Ranma raised an eyebrow at the chummy atmosphere, but still went with it. "Hey man, how's it shakin'?"
Ryoga shrugged. "It's been pretty good. I was actually hoping to talk to you sooner than later."
Ranma nodded. "Well that's why I'm here, I was a little curious about about what you'd been up to the last month or so."
Ryoga glanced back to the kitchen. "I bet you're wondering about Xian Pu, too?"
Ranma slowly nodded. "Yeah, that too. She and I got a history and I had a hunch I'd find her here with you."
Ryoga tensed a little bit. "It was a good hunch."
"So you are Garou, then?" Ranma said.
"Well, it was the darndest thing. I followed you all the way to China, and as it turned out you knocked into a spring that turned me into this big badass wolf."
Ranma's eyes widened a bit. "Wait, you were the guy I knocked over? Oh geez, sorry man…"
Ryoga grinned. "Don't be! At first, was kinda mad. Then when I realized the nose overrode my directional problems, I was so happy I couldn't think straight."
Ranma understood. "Oh… so that's why you were so helpful all those times."
He then stopped. "Also explains why you refused to lick me or do tricks like a normal dog would, too. You know what? I'm not as broken up about that as I was anymore."
"Yeah, but if it's any consolation I really liked the name 'Garou', I was afraid of something lame like Okami-chan." Ryoga finished with a great big smile.
"Well, you were always hungry so…" Ranma thought it was an obvious name. "By the way, this is Tendo Nabiki, my senpai at Furinkan and a member of the council a certain girl crashed the meeting of."
"And him as well," Nabiki said, waving with a bright smile. "It's nice to meet you, Ranma's had a lot of good things to say about you even without the wolf thing tacked on."
Ryoga gave her a once over before he gave Ranma a sly smile. "Oh yeah? That must've been a short list."
"Longer than I thought," Ranma replied.
"My, to think that you two used to be such bitter rivals," Nabiki said.
"We had our good days," Ranma admitted.
"Long as food wasn't on the line," Ryoga said, and both shared a bit of a sharp look as the spike of excitement that came from competition flared up.
"I'm sure you have some fantastic stories of the good old days," Nabiki said as she gestured her head towards Shampoo, who was emerging from the kitchen with some food. "But I think what we want to discuss has just walked in."
Shampoo, not having picked up the mood but definitely the eyes on her, blinked and said cutely. "Nihao."
She recognized Ranma, the guy who didn't seem too interested in fighting back at the school, and of course she recognized Nabiki, who seemed otherwise harmless. She looked at Ryoga. "These you friends?"
Ryoga nodded. "Well, I went to School with Ranma, and Nabiki is his…"
"Prospective fiancée," Nabiki replied, impressed that he wasn't going to presume.
Ryoga looked at Ranma with a raised eyebrow.
"My old man is stupid and so is hers," Ranma explained with a stern nod. "Because they don't care about the love lives of their respective children, I'm kinda stuck choosing between three different girls as my fiancée."
Ryoga gave him a flat look. "Oh your life must be so terrible." He nodded twice to Shampoo. "But yes, that's who they are."
"Ah, nihao." Shampoo said again, not sure what she should say in this position.
"And this beautiful woman is my wife Xian Pu." Ryoga said with, well, a wolfish grin. "It was a tenuous courtship, but well… if someone ever asks if love can bloom on the battlefield, the answer is yes." He even added a cheesy thumbs up.
Ranma looked shocked, Nabiki less so but that's because she didn't know Ryoga.
"Well, it was a little bit of their village laws, but I, uh, brushed up on the particulars and I have no complaints." His grin diminished just a bit. "Outside of where to live, but there has to be some kind of contention I guess."
And boy howdy was there.
Nabiki grasped what he meant by village laws and covered her mouth to suppress the gasp of recognition about to be issued forth from said orifice.
Ranma didn't and just nodded a little. "Oh, well congratulations man. Speaking of village laws, we uh… wanted to talk about that girl, RicePony."
Upon mentioning of the handle, and reminding her of the association, Shampoo scowled. "You know where Shampoo can find?"
"Even if we did, you going after her would be a bad idea," Nabiki warned Shampoo. "That's what we wanted to discuss. You see, RicePony is… she's in a position where going after her would end pretty badly for you. It's gonna be pretty much safer for you to let this one slip."
"Shampoo kill RicePony, don't care who in way," Shampoo immediately said with a scowl as if she heard nothing Nabiki just said.
Ryoga shook his head. "It's no use, Ranma, Nabiki-san. Joketsuzoku pride is so strong that if it's even slightly insulted they will hold that grudge until they get payback. I mean… I fell on the right side of the slight, thank God."
Ranma frowned. "What do you mean?"
Ryoga glanced at Shampoo, then to Ranma. "Well, when I stayed back to hold Xian Pu off, the fight took us back into town and ended in a restaurant. I had managed to overpower and defeat her… right as a pot of water heating up to boil fell on me."
"So she found out you were a cursed guy, and…" His eyes widened in realization. "… Let me guess… since you were a man who defeated a Joketsuzoku Warrior…"
Ryoga nodded. "I had to marry her. It wasn't bad, she's really nice to anyone who isn't her target… but the only reason we're really even here in Japan is because she wants to kill her."
"That right," Shampoo said. "Shampoo kill then go home, that is rule of village."
"Let me see that in writing," Nabiki said.
Almost immediately Shampoo produced a book on Joketsuzoku law, and Nabiki cracked it open to read. "Hmm… outsider… if defeated by woman… ends of the Earth… if defeated by man… ends of the Earth…" She closed the book. "Huh, it's there in writing."
She looked to Ranma. "RicePony's fucked."
"Shampoo agree, now tell where is."
"One track mind, damn," Nabiki muttered.
Ranma bristled and stepped forward. "Has it ever occurred to you that going around wanting to kill people because they beat you in a fair fight is not just a little shy of insane?"
"Fat pig ate all Shampoo's food that Shampoo fight all day for! Then beat Shampoo up! You think Shampoo let that slide?"
"You think it might be less a hassle to just bill her for the food?!" Ranma demanded.
"You no can buy pride!" Shampoo shouted back. "Why you care so much for RicePony?! It none of you business!"
"It is my business because RicePony is my…!" Ranma stopped and recoiled when Shampoo stepped forward, fire blazing in her eyes.
"She. Is. What." She enunciated clearly and intently, all too darkly eager to hear the connection she could exploit.
Ryoga's arms were like steel cables wrapped around Shampoo a second later, pinning hers at her sides and lifting her up off the ground. With a yelp she began to squirm in his grip, but the young man's strength was monstrous, and she could only thrash and start shouting angrily.
"AIREN! LET SHAMPOO GO! PUT SHAMPOO DOWN!" She shrieked as Ryoga began to step back from Ranma and towards the kitchen.
"Ranma, Nabiki-san, I think you should leave…" He warned them. "You're not going to convince her–believe me I've tried and I can be very persuasive with her!"
Shampoo was now trying to kick out from his grip, but he had leaned back enough so her feet could not touch the floor and gain purchase, or strike his own legs properly. "Let go! Let go! Shampoo kill stupid Red! Shampoo get revenge!"
Ranma tensed up, furious. "Fine! Go ahead and try it! But you're gonna be in deep shit if you come near her or any of my friends again!"
Shampoo then shouted at Ranma something in Chinese that Ranma didn't really want to hear a translation of, but the way she sounded when she said it gave him an idea of how vile it was. Before Ranma could spit back more threats, Nabiki placed a hand on his chest and led him to the door.
"Okay, this is a clustertruck. We're leaving," she said as she pushed him back towards the front door, which Shirokuro was waiting by. The dog looked a little said, so Nabiki felt compelled to comfort her. "It'll be okay girl."
"Sorry girl, we'll try to make things right." Ranma said to Shirokuro as they left.
Once they were a considerable distance from the Hibiki home, a thought occurred to Nabiki.
"You know, you never mentioned how the fight went," Nabiki said, turning to look at Ranma.
"I would like to say it was an epic clash, but she charged me like a bull with no guard and I knocked her out her with a single kick." Ranma admitted, somewhat embarrassed.
"Aaaaand thus why she felt compelled to give you the Kiss of Death." Nabiki said with a defeated expression.
"… 'Compelled'?" Ranma echoed with a raised eyebrow.
"It's not so iron-clad as do it or be killed kind of thing. Most of it is up to the warrior." Nabiki explained, waving a hand in the air. "In Chinese, it's a lot more in depth than the Japanese translation. I assume it's either because they were unsure how to translate the more esoteric bits..."
"… Or they didn't want Japanese outsiders to know about any those parts." Ranma finished with a nod. "Sounds like a secretive village. So there's no way out of this?"
"I don't think Ryoga would take kindly to you crippling or kill his wife." Nabiki said, blowing out a sigh. "Okay, considering what I managed to speedskim, she isn't technically compelled to give the Kiss of Marriage because she banished herself from the village to pursue you. They can't actually have all their strong warriors running off after every single person to beat them, so it's only a matter of if it's approved."
Ranma felt defeated. "And here she is, the Champion in Exile."
"Why didn't you just break her legs and leave her to the wilderness?" Nabiki decided to ask after a small bit of quiet.
"She never got close to me so I could hit her." Ranma said, helplessly shrugging his shoulders. "She kept firing arrows or hurling knives at me."
"Shrewd, just like how she recognized how to fight Izurando." Nabiki nodded. "That girl is a problem."
They had no idea how much of a goddamned problem she'd end up being.
"Still, thanks for coming with me. I don't know if I could have handled it alone." Ranma said after a little bit of quiet. They were pretty far from the Hibiki home now.
"Well someone had to," Nabiki said with a sly little grin. "Plus two of us going gives a better accounting for how things went and all."
"Yeah," he agreed, "It's just you helped put my mind at ease. You helped keep everything at talking without any fighting breaking out in Ryoga's house."
Nabiki's ears did that little flush they do when she gets overwhelmed with emotion, but they were thankfully hidden by her hair at the moment. "I did what I thought was best for the situation. It's just… you hope to be civil with someone who might be your enemy."
"Yeah," Ranma agreed, feeling the atmosphere turn a little chummy. It wasn't a bad thing though. "Well, we tried but maybe we can expect a little more interference from Ryoga."
"We can only hope that it doesn't come to the worse." Nabiki said, sighing. "She's not a bad girl, you know. She's just from a different culture than me. Might be closer to you, considering you spent your youth on the road."
"Why Nabiki-chan," Ranma drawled, grinning at squeak of surprise she failed to suppress at the sudden honorific. "Do you mean to imply that I am an uncivilized barbarian?"
Nabiki took a moment to school herself. "Well you're not exactly your everyday average teenager."
"Something we're both grateful for." Ranma said, smirking just a tad as he leaned in closer to her.
"Someone's full of himself." Nabiki said, trying not to laugh.
"Man if I only was, then I wouldn't have had the appetite to be in this mess to begin with." Ranma replied innocently.
Nabiki lost the battle with her laughter. "Okay okay, you win! My sides are going to hurt for a while now."
"Your laughing muscles are out of shape." Ranma said in his best doctor voice. "Laughter is the best medicine after all."
"I'll keep that in mind." Nabiki said, before she gave him a sly smile. "But you know, I don't mind if you're a little arrogant."
"Oh yea?" He asked, looking a little.
"A little confidence goes a long way you know." She confirmed with a semi-serious nod.
"And the banging martial arts bod isn't hurting the deal." Ranma flexed one arm for emphasis.
Nabiki mocked swoon. "Oh sir, you are a danger to a girl's health with those guns."
"It's okay," Ranma said without a trace of irony. "I'm fully licensed to carry them."
Nabiki laughed again and Ranma joined in, which served to obscure the fact that they were being followed by Shampoo. The Amazon watched the chummy scene with a bit of a pit forming in her stomach. RicePony was someone very close to both of them and they weren't bad people from what she could see.
It wouldn't be the first time she cursed her pride and hubris to chase after the girl who defeated her. She could have let her go, just let the girl walk away. After all, they were fighting over the prize and she had lost. The girl and panda had already eaten most of it, so let them have it and let her go.
But she was a challenge, the first she had ever encountered around her age. The tournament had been dull and she had been exhausted just waiting for her opponents to inevitably fuck up. But here was someone arguably better than her and she wasn't about to let her go. She could have let it go, just turned away and chalk it up as an L.
And yet, she had made a vow to kill this new rival, and Xian Pu of Joketsuzoku kept her promises… always.
|Doctor Feelsbadman|
Meanwhile, Katie and Akane were making their way to Tofu's clinic. It was a slow walk, one rife with tension, as the Kouhai wrestled with the fact her invincible Senpai wasn't so invincible. Of course, this was obvious to anyone who thought about it, but rose colored glasses hide the imperfection pretty well. Well it was that and Katie was still a little pissed about everything concerning Shampoo and was not in the mood to talk.
That would not deter Akane. "Come on Senpai, you can't expect to beat everyone."
"Technically, I still won." Katie said with a minor sulk. "She forfeited when her wolf boyfriend drug her away."
"Yeah, well it was looking kind of iffy there, especially since you sacrificed an arm to land that hit." Akane wasn't about to chastise the groin hit. It was the first place her father ever taught her to attack after all.
"Shit..." Katie muttered, she had been foolish in letting the Amazon take her arm but she had little choice. Or so she told herself.
"Still, Tofu-sensei will take care of it." Akane said, keeping her tone focused.
"I still don't like him." Katie muttered. "His attitude is too shifty for someone who acts so aloof."
"Be that as it may, if you want to use your arm anytime soon, he's your best bet." Akane admonished, eyeing the clinic in the distance. "He's an expert on pressure points."
"Is he now…?" Katie thought, before filing it away. "If you have concerns about a possible fight between us, I'd win eight times out of ten."
"But your weakness…" Akane protested.
"It's a weakness not an instant-win button." Katie said with a laugh. "Give me some credit, I trained in Southern Mantis because of my weakness. It's not perfect but she only got my arm because I let her. And if you thought it'll give you an edge, pressure points ain't your thing, girl."
"But what about Ranma?" Akane asked, curious now.
"He could pull it off but they're not something he'd do on a whim." Katie said, smiling. "A part of your true self always shines through in a fight. I like to hit real hard which is why it's harder for me to adapt to the misdirection of Southern Mantis. Ranma, however, loves to go fast and overwhelm his opponent with sheer speed. If I had to guess, a part of him loves the shocked expression of someone so sure they're gonna land a punch and then misses."
Akane nodded, that sounded like Ranma as far as she knew him.
"That's the reason I dominated Ranma though." Katie said in all seriousness. "I'm as fast as he is but I hit way harder." She thought for a second. "It's not just that, the way we think is different. He may act wild but he's ruled solely by logic. When he got me in the flying armbar, he thought I'd tumble to the ground and fight it there. Because grappling arts teach you to instinctively not fighting and I'm a pretty instinctive fighter…"
"… He thought you'd fall to the ground and give him a way to end it." Akane realized, shocked at how much more deep that had been. "So why didn't you?"
"My uncle was like, 'I don't have time for weak shit like that. If you're dumb enough to find yourself in an armbar, do what you do best and smash it apart.' Or something like that." Katie grinned. "I never trained to fall or concede position in that situation. Because he didn't try to force me down I was able to focus on putting enough in my jump to reach the ceiling. And that's his real weakness, when he thinks he absolutely won't lose, he relaxes."
"Not much of a weakness." Akane said, considering Katie's was so much more pronounced.
"Against me it's fatal." Katie retorted with a wry snort. "And it might be against that girl if he isn't careful. She was watching the whole time, observing how to fight instead of just trying to fight me head on." She shook her head, wanting to be optimistic.
"I see," Akane said, they were almost at the clinic. "So why do you think you can beat Tofu-sensei?"
"It's because he knows martial arts, but he's not a fighter." Katie said, shrugging her shoulders indifferently. "He doesn't have the fangs to go against me and the only way he can win-"
She stopped, spun and swung a kick behind her, sending the sneaking Tofu scrambling away.
"-is by sneaking up on me." Katie finished, snorting at him. "A piece of advice my guy, instead of just erasing your presence, remember to take your slippers off. I could hear you click clacking up behind me a mile away."
"Oh my, you must have some incredible ears." Tofu said with a gallant smile. It was strained if you looked closely however.
"I trained more than my body y'know?" Katie remarked with a snotty grin. "It's the height of idiocy to think your senses as a baby are the same as your senses throughout your life. If that were true, no one would need glasses or hearing aids. If they can grow weaker they can also get stronger." She laughed a little. "Or omething like that anyways."
"She's talking about 'Heaven' just now." Akane realized.
"As much fun as it'd be to have it out, I'm wounded here so I need your help." Katie said, smoothly moving on to their business. "Sooner we get away from him the better I'll feel."
"Such an unsporting customer, attacking me and asking me for help?" Tofu asked with a disappointed frown. "Well I suppose playing jokes like I was isn't exactly sporting of me."
"Come on Tofu-sensei." Akane pouted. "This is serious, you can play your jokes later."
Tofu looked in surprise at Akane, before he laughed it off. "Well she is related to HER after all...." He dusted himself off and spoke this time. "All right, come into the clinic and I'll take care of your right arm."
Katie nodded and the three of them headed inside, Tofu leading and Akane bringing up the rear just behind Katie.
"To begin I must ask, what happened that caused your arm to end up like this?" Tofu asked as Katie sat down and rolled up her sleeve.
"I fought a single-minded idiot, it turns out that she is proficient at hitting pressure points."
Tofu took her arm and examined the point where Katie was struck. Right away he could see that the strike was intentional, an ideally safe spot to hit that only temporarily took the use of her arm away.
"So you let her hit you?"
"Seemed like the best idea at the time," Katie said as he examined the point of impact closer, like he was trying to see under the skin itself.
Best idea nothing, she had sacrificed the arm knowing full well that the strike would miss the point that would render the arm useless for a week.
"Well for a matter of haphazard luck, your arm will recover by tomorrow on its own." Tofu announced, finishing his examination. "I can offer you a sling to keep it in place until then."
Katie nodded. "Yeah, that should be fi-""
"Just kidding!" Tofu then jammed a finger into Katie's arm just below her elbow, and Katie felt a painful twinge that made her flinch in extreme pain.
"Gah! Motherfuck… er…" She stopped and looked at her arm as she moved it and wiggled her fingers. It didn't even hurt anymore. "Huh."
Akane gave Katie a smile. "He's such a good doctor."
Katie scowled a bit petulantly. "With a pretty awful sense of humor."
At that, Akane looked away a bit. "You're not exactly comedian material, yourself…"
"That's because I don't try to be funny." Katie punctuated that by sticking her tongue out at Akane, who returned the gesture before giggling.
Tofu stepped away, satisfied to see his work done and his patients in high spirits. "Well, unless there's anything else, you young ladies are free to go."
Katie ran her arm through the full range of motion. "I'd call this a smashing success, thanks Doc. The check will be in the mail."
She slipped off the examination table and nodded to Akane.
"By the way Akane-chan," Tofu said as Katie and Akane had almost reached the door. "Is… is e-everything all right with K-Kasumi-san?"
Akane blinked, not expecting the question. "Eh? Everything is fine why?"
"Sh-she just hasn't been by as much as the past," he said, looking a little embarrassed and upset. "I was w-worried. She hasn't been by since she returned my books she borrowed…"
Akane raised an eyebrow. "Well, a lot has happened so she's probably busy with things."
Katie wanted to snicker or laugh or make some kind of noise that might give away she knew what those things are. But she held it in mainly to see how the good doctor reacted.
"I… I see." He said, trying to keep his friendly exterior.
"Now," Katie said, ushering Akane out the door. "We'll take our leave."
They were outside before Akane could finally ask the obvious question. "What's the hurry?"
Katie glanced at Akane and shrugged a little. "He's going to start grumbling darkly about your older sister and it didn't seem like a good idea to stick around." Katie defended, even as the atmosphere over the clinic darkened. "See?"
Akane then said something that Katie did not expect to hear from her kouhai's mouth. "Well, that's your fault, isn't it, Senpai?"
"Ah…?" Katie took a step back from Akane, a little surprised. "What?"
Akane gave Katie a sidelong look. "I know my older sister, I also know that when she was in high school she was really popular with the girls and not just because she was the nicest of them. I also know when you're looking at her like you want to do perverted things with her… and she has the same looks."
Katie's normally pale features lit up in an embarrassed flush. Busted, outright. "O-oh…"
"I'm of two minds about it, but neither of them are upset at you about it, don't worry," Akane reassured her. "It's not like I think it's weird or anything…"
She stopped herself. "Okay… it's a little perverted, but it's okay if it's you."
Katie barely couldn't help her short laugh. "Are you talking about with Kasumi or you?"
It was Akane's turn to go red in the face, as she recoiled. "Ah?! S-Senpai!" She looked away, her blush only getting deeper. "I-I'm not that kind of girl!"
"Ah, like her name suggests," Katie said faux-poetically, "The youngest Tendo is red at the roots."
"Stop it~!" Akane whined as she cupped her cheeks and leaned away from Katie.
Katie wasn't about to do that, and continued down this path of teasing. "Ah, ah, you need to work on your phrasing Akane-chan. People will get ideas~"
Akane continued to shrink away in embarrassment. That wasn't what she meant at all. "No, I mean, I-"
"But don't worry Akane-chan," Katie said solemnly, before her face twisted into a perverted leer. "I won't be too rough, ghihihihihi~"
In mock terror, Akane squealed and brought her hands to her chest as she swayed from side to side while strolling past a mailbox. "Aaaah! My senpai is a pervert! A pervert!"
Katie loomed over Akane, laughing evilly. "In me power…!"
Her wicked chortling came to a stop when a scimitar came out, the blade glinting in the evening light. Katie and Akane stared at the blade and the large-sleeve shrouded hand that held it. All of that belonged to a young man wearing blue pants and a long white robe with black cuffs on the sleeves. He had an youthful, handsome face, piercing pale blue eyes, and long waist-length black hair.
The young man gazed piercingly down his blade at the target. Coolly, he spoke, "For someone deserving of the title senpai, you are awfully blatant in your lecherous desires to your kouhai."
Katie and Akane continued to stare at him, before Akane began. "Um… we were just joking around. And uh…"
"… That's a mailbox you're pointing your blade at," Katie finished.
The young man blinked in confusion, and squinted at the mailbox. He then withdrew his blade into his sleeve, and instead produced a pair of awfully thick glasses that he slipped over his eyes, the material so obscuring that his eyes could barely be seen. Stepped back, looking somewhat embarrassed.
"Oh… so it is." He then turned towards the two young women. "… And you seem to… be… my apologies."
On the bright side, he seemed to be rather polite, by Akane's measure. "It's okay, long as you don't want to make a scene about it."
"Oh no, no… I actually had no intention to fight, just…"
Scare the would-be pervert off, Katie had that vibe off him from word one, but she noticed something else that actually put her off.
"No harm no foul, my friend." She glanced over to Akane, then to him. "Everything all right with you, man? You seem…"
Before she could edge towards her observation, he headed her off. "I'm fine, don't worry, just tired from my trip from China… it was a long flight."
Akane then spoke. "Are you hungry, too? You look like you could use a meal."
Katie was glad Akane was on the same page. "If you'd like, we can show you around. Get you somewhere you can rest."
The young man held up his hands, gesturing politely to them. "That is very kind of you, but I couldn't impose, I'm looking-"
Akane took it even further. "My sister always loves to have guests. You can have dinner with us."
The young man stopped, taken aback by the kindness of these locals. He did not expect such hospitality or kindness from strangers he'd pulled a blade upon. "You are so kind…"
Akane smiled to him. "Well it's not every day that a guy who pulls a weapon on us stops and apologizes after. You seem like a nice person."
Oh, how the young man wished he was. A nice person wouldn't be here, doing what he was about to do. "It would be rude of me to turn down such generosity. So please, lead the way."
Katie relaxed, a sigh of relief escaping inaudibly. She looked over to Akane. "I'm gonna call Misao and tell her I'll be late getting home."
Akane nodded and gestured for the young man to come along. Come on then, my name is Tendo Akane, and you?"
"Mu Tsu," the young man replied, the ghost of a smile appearing on his lips. "It is nice to make your acquaintance, Tendo-san."
Behind them, a slightly scowling Katie called the bae.
|A hundred thousand dollar set up|
"Ayy gurl, what's good?" Misao, who was happily cooking up a simple dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches atop a griddle set atop her stove, asked into her Bluetooth headset as she flipped another cooked sandwich onto the plate of a near dozen meant for her, Katie, and Ranma.
"I got that cheddar, yo, that grilled cheddar."
"Fuck, I forgot," Katie immediately hissed.
Misao paused and frowned. "Forgot what, that you were gonna eat and toke while I help Ran-chan grind in World of Warships?"
"Uh… yeah, today's been busy and it doesn't look like it'll stop soon, plus heading home ain't exactly safe for you right now."
Misao didn't like how that sounded. "What happened?"
"That Xian Pu girl is in town, and she knows I'm connected to Ranma's girl side. I don't want her following me home."
Misao frowned. "Okay, thanks for the heads up. You'll be home though, right?"
"Yeah, I have something to do to lay low until dark. Akaneko and me ran into a dude all fatigued from his flight from China," Katie explained, trying to alleviate any worries. "He's not a bad guy so I figured I'd help him out a bit."
"Just be careful about bringing home another stray." Misao joked.
"I dunno, you seem taken by the last one I brought home." Katie remarked in a dry fashion.
"Yeah, I don't want to drool over another one when I haven't finished enjoying this one!" Misao chirped, rolling with the verbal punches like a damn bawss.
"Just be careful with him," Katie warned. "Don't go getting too involved."
"Yes yes, I'm still 1000% yours, you greedy pig." Misao rolled her eyes.
"Oink oink." Katie snorted, cracking up at the humor. "Anyways, I gotta get going."
"Okay, be safe bae." Misao said, before her tone took a crooning edge. "Luv ya~"
"Love you too." Katie said, before the line went dead.
Misao cleared the screen and set her phone down off to the side. Now all that needed to happen was-
"Hey boss, I'm home." What impeccable timing.
"Hey sweetie, just in time. You okay with cheese?" Misao called as he walked in.
"It never bothered me," Ranma said as he walked in and found Misao wearing a surprisingly modest pink tank top and white sweatpants. The tank top featured the objectively best pony, Rainbow Dash, the same who graced her planes, tanks, ships, and guns in her multiplayer games. The shirt was still, like much everything else she tended to wear, stretched alluringly tight by her impressive chest… where Ranma's gaze was lingering again.
"You know, if you're going to stare like that, at least tell me what you'd do to them," she teased.
There went Ranma's face, red as a tomato as his eyes aimed anywhere but at her, and Misao fell into a fit of giggles.
"Don't be so shy! I like when you look," she reassured him as she turned to make sure the last sandwiches didn't get too crispy.
That did nothing to abate his blush.
"It's why I dress so nice~"
In fact it got worse.
"I got you something nice to wear for stream tonight," Misao then revealed.
Still struggling with the revelation, Ranma thanked God for the subject change. "It isn't anything lewd, is it?"
"Nah, just something cute and comfy," Misao reassured him. "A spaghetti-strap top and some sweatpants as pajamas. It's the 'sleepover stream', after all," she said before she tossed Ranma a sandwich.
Catching it, Ranma took a bite. "Good thing we have off tomorrow, then, are we really gonna be up all night?"
"Only until about 0200 at the latest. I don't like being up super late unless I'm playing online with the western youtubers or doing a Let's Play Run. Sleep is as important for chubby gamers like me as it is for superheroes like you."
Ranma nodded, he rather liked the sandwich given to him, the cheese was exquisite, and he could taste a hint of shredded pork belly in there. He really couldn't get how Misao could call herself fat–sure she was on the heavier side but it definitely wasn't out of place.
"Speaking of sleep, we could upgrade your arrangements some. You don't have to make a bed of the couch or love seats every night."
"Are you kidding? It's like I have three beds," Ranma half-joked back.
"Yeah, but I could swap one of them out for a couch futon, or just set up a bed on one side of the room…" Misao shrugged her shoulders and grinned a bit. "Or you could save me the anguish over the Feng Shui of it, and just sleep in my room, with Katie and I."
"It's fine, really!" Ranma insisted, trying to keep the temperature of his face down as he tried not to imagine that last one.
"Well I won't be too pushy about it." The for now in there went unspoken. "Just remember you can sleep a lot more… comfortably."
There was a lot loaded into that reminder and only some of it escaped Ranma's notice. "Jeez, I can't tell if you're flirting with me or just out to get a rise out of me sometimes…"
Misao put on a wry smile, as she tore a sandwich in half to bite into one of the halves. "It's definitely more one than the other~"
She then gave him a more pointed look. "Tell me, which do you think it is?"
"Well, given how awesome I am…" Ranma began.
"Which is incredibly," Misao piped in.
"… I'd say you've been flirting with me like crazy since I first got here."
Misao half-closed her eyes, and a soft laugh escaped her lips as her cheeks colored up a bit. "Oh nice. You're either that confident in your charms, or you've been paying attention."
Ranma's eyebrows hopped up a bit, and he watched Misao take another bite out of her sandwich while giving him an even warmer look than the usual flirtatious gazes she'd subjected him to. The bit of cheese pull she had going there made her a little cuter than she normally was.
"Um… thanks…" He murmured, not expecting that kind of look from her.
With a soft laugh, Misao picked up the plate of sandwiches and headed for the living room. "Go get changed, sweetie, stream starts in fifteen."
Ranma was thankful to be excused to the bathroom. It meant that he could at least get some cold water to put out that fire that short look had set blazing in his chest. "Jeez… she really wants me like that, doesn't she?"
Ten minutes went by after that, with Ranma using that time to really cool herself in the shower, before she emerged dressed in a pair of pink sweat pants and a matching pink and red top that was actually rather comfortable and not too loose. She felt a little exposed at the shoulders and around the midriff, but it wasn't terrible.
"These might actually be nice to sleep in," she said to Misao, who was happily enjoying a hit from her bong to whet her appetite.
Misao smirked to him. "To be honest, I prefer your usual sleeping attire."
Which consisted, nowadays, of just a pair of boxer shorts.
"You would," Ranma said with greater confidence as she sat down next to Misao. "Do we still have a few minutes?"
"Yep!" Misao said as she passed the bong and lighter to Ranma, who took it graciously.
Bringing the bong's lip to her own, Ranma crossed her legs yoga style and took her hit. She'd gotten much better at enjoying Misao's glassware since the first time those weeks ago, and now there wasn't even a stigma attached to it for her. It was relaxing and it felt good to just sit back and get a nice comfy high going before throwing herself into some crazy game.
As she felt the lift from the bong already start to take hold, Ranma released the cloud she inhaled with a relaxed sigh, and returned the bong to Misao. "Is this really my life right now?"
Misao stopped short of toking. "Hm?"
Ranma sighed. "I live in a really nice apartment, making a lot of money off this curse… I haven't seen my old man in almost two weeks… I'm one of the popular kids in school… and I know so many cute and awesome girls. I've even kinda sorta made peace with a dude I used to fight all the time."
She shook her head. "It's a lot to think about, you know? I'm actually kind of scared for when the other shoe drops."
"Other shoe, huh?" Misao asked as she set the bong on the floor beside her, out of any possible camera shot. The stream was about to begin.
"The good times don't last forever," Ranma said. "Something bad will come along, and I don't want to think about how bad it'll be when it does."
Misao nodded in agreement. "Well, there is Xian Pu running around, that's not all that great."
"No," Ranma said with a sigh, "And I'm worried that when it all goes bad… it'll be because of her."
Misao smiled. "Hey now, it's not like she'll be too big a problem! You got Katie, and Akane, and Kodachi all backing you up if you have to fight her. I mean, she might be a crazy warrior woman from China, but it ain't like she's got an army or something to fight you all with."
She nodded with confidence. "Even if she does find your girl side, beating her up won't be a problem for all of you when it comes to it."
Ranma thought about that. "Yeah, you're right. She's in for a world of hurt if she tries to mess with me, and she's pretty smart… hopefully she'll get that hint, or Ryoga will convince her of how bad her situation really is…"
Misao nodded again, and picked up the remote to turn on her entertainment complex of a home theater system. "But enough belly-aching about the bad, it's time for the objective good of getting people on the internet to throw their monies at us while we play video games and look cute for their entertainment."
She pressed the power button and then everything in front of her exploded in a storm of sparking electronics, plastic, glass, plaster, brick, and mortar. In an instant, half the living room was destroyed and the couch was upended, Ranma and Misao both thrown heavily to the floor as bits of debris scattered onto the floor on and around them and the lights of the apartment flickered and then went out.
Stunned, Misao laid on the floor, looking up at her dark ceiling. Her eyes fixed on it for a moment, before she realized she was somehow still alive and looked to her left, where Ranma was supposed to be. She was already up on her knees, hands resting on the overturned couch with a look on her face that was well in the range of shock, horror, and rage.
Slowly, Misao got up herself, bits of plastic and plaster falling from her hair and off her face as she looked towards where Ranma was looking… and her eyes grew large with shock as well.
Her television, her computer, her game consoles, her standing speakers, her cameras… and the entire wall behind them were gone, exposing the hallway of the apartment. In its place, Shampoo stood with her outstretched fist holding another melon hammer in front of her and a cold, murderous look in her eyes leveled onto Ranma.
"My… my apartment…" she whispered, her face completely pale. "… My equipment…"
Shampoo lowered the melon hammer, and prepared both of the weapons she carried.
"Shampoo finally find you," she said resolutely. "Shampoo will now kill. You is not escaping."
Chapter 9/?
Nine! Nine! Nine!
Oh yes! Yes! Yes!
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 9/?
"So this is the other shoe." Ranma thought, a fair assessment indeed. For here it was, in the sanctuary the young Saotome had made that the villain out for her life had appeared.
There was no movement from Shampoo yet, the ghost image of being so easily kicked in the face fresh in her mind. Indeed, she was sizing up the room, taking in the measurements and every detail she could use. Though gifted with great destructive power, what made this girl a champion was her keen mind and battle sense. For indeed, she was prepared for this encounter, as she was for every other encounter with Red.
Her rival, so like an Amazon, not an Outsider woman. Normally quick to shriek and scream, panic in the face of danger. Even the warrior women of the outside world were mere infants before the might of Joketsuzoku. It was in this understanding that women outside of their village were such frail things that the Kiss of Death became a reality.
After all, how could you fall to such useless meat?
Misao's shock wore off just enough for her anger to come roaring to the front. "WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?! YOU FUCKING FUCK! WHAT DID YOU… FUCK!"
… But not coherency.
Shampoo ignored it. "Make you peace and bid you byes. Shampoo send you to hell quick if you good girl."
Ranma's fear at Shampoo melted away with the realization she had to protect Misao. In Katie's absence, it fell to her to protect this amazing woman. "Go fuck yourself."
The Amazon's eyes narrowed. "You is only making thing worse."
Ranma snorted. "Come and get me you chickenshit bitch. I already know you know you can't win against me up close. I'll put you down again, you damn glassjaw bitch."
"You is think you can win?" Shampoo asked, cracking her neck. "You is think you beat Shampoo like that again?"
"Well you're standing there talking shit from over there because you're afraid of me." Ranma stood up, her bravado doing wonders to keep down her instinct to grab Misao and run. "That's actually what she wants. She wants me to try and run so she can keep her distance and try to snipe me down."
"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Misao hollered, finally forming something resembling human speech... though screamed at the top of her lungs. "Why is it that any of you muscle brained dumbfucks have to do such stupid shit?! LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO MY HOUSE!"
"If you is so confident, come get Shampoo." Shampoo made a motion like she was beckoning a cat.
"So you can run from me? You have me at a distance but your challenge required you to get in close." Ranma said, measuring the distance and how long it'd take for her to reach Shampoo. "I just have to get her guard down…" Easier said than done of course.
Misao was going to help, as she switched to Chinese before her next tirade. "Do you know how much this cost, you meathead moron?! More than your entire fucking ass backwards village of bumpkin yokels! You think you can just smash your way into people's houses and do what you want?!"
"Weakling sows should be quiet." Shampoo retorted sharply, sparing a withering glare for the girl as contempt rolled off the Amazon in waves. "If useless meat think it get say, maybe Shampoo slaughter you first for warm-up."
Misao drew back, her gray eyes wide with fury. "… Oh no you did not-"
"I say shut up, stupid fat girl!" Shampoo snapped louder at her, and that was the opening Ranma needed, crossing the distance between her and Shampoo with such speed that the dust in the air scattered to get out of her way.
Quickly, Shampoo tried to swing one of the melon hammers down, but Ranma was faster, her punch shearing through the shaft of the hammer on its way to Shampoo's face, while she narrowly avoided the head of the hammer. Shampoo twisted out of the way, Ranma's fist barely grazing her chin as she got clear, and jumped back to swing the other melon hammer down.
The hammer hit the floor, splintering it, and Ranma vaulted over it, her body twisting to snap a kick at Shampoo. "Don't you ever…"
She let the kick fly, right as Shampoo's arms came up to block it. "… THREATEN MY FRIENDS YOU DUMB BITCH!"
The force of the kick launched Shampoo down the hallway and through the window to the fire escape that waited outside. Smashing through the fire escape, Shampoo crossed the street and the roof of a shorter building–a general store–and collided loudly with an air conditioner unit on the roof, which sputtered and exploded.
Shampoo, rubbing the back of her head, managed to stagger from the cloud of smoke. Relieved that she had remembered to block the hit this time. She looked back towards the building she just left, and saw that Ranma was already falling towards her, positioning herself into a flying kick that was coming way too fast to be safely blocked.
So instead Shampoo dodged, springing into a somersault that helped her get clear of Ranma's point of impact, which buckled the part of the roof she landed on.
"You really want this fight… then you're going to get it!" She growled as she got back up and stared Shampoo down. "You're going to get it and more than you can handle you psycho bitch!"
There was that impossible strength again, Shampoo could only stand in wonder at how such a tiny girl hit so goddamned hard! But it didn't matter, here was where she was in her element, having already cased the neighborhood. The chance for victory had already fallen out of her opponent's hands, now it was a matter of executing the plan.
"Not best start, but things still go Shampoo way." She chortled with glee. The despair on Red's face was gonna be orgasmic… "Everyone struggle when death come. Let see how you do yes?"
An outside spectator could hear the sound of an oncoming train horn as Ranma barreled towards Shampoo, blood in her eyes and her vision red. The sound of that was immediately interrupted by the explosion of the air conditioning unit as it met its end at Ranma's fist.
Spinning through the air in a neat triple axle, Shampoo landed and unwrapped from her waist a long length of rope with a large bundle at the end. As Ranma pulled her fist out of the smashed air conditioner's remains, she watched the rope become fully unfurled, the bundle releasing to reveal a deadly jagged steel dart that became a blur as Shampoo swung it around in her right hand.
Shampoo stared at Ranma, excited, bloodthirsty. Now the real fight began. "Let's go… Red!"
With that, she launched the rope dart like a rifle shot, a crack sounding as the rope dart accelerated towards Ranma.
As the two began to clash, Misao looked around her ruined apartment. Overturned furniture, destroyed electronics, her shattered bong and scattered cannabis. She lowered her head, and took a deep breath, before she looked up, her face a mask of cold fury.
"Useless meat, huh? Let's so how useful yours is when I hack it from your God damned body…"
She went to find her phone, she had to call her Mom.
"I really can't thank you enough for your hospitality," Mousse said kindly to Kasumi over the dinner that she served him.
Kasumi was all smiles as she returned his compliment. "There's no need to thank me, I'm just happy that you enjoy it."
Mousse looked back down at his food, a small, gracious, but ultimately strained smile across his lips. "It's very good."
"So what brings you to Japan, Mu-san?" Akane asked him.
"Just to settle some business, nothing serious." Mousse picked at his food, and took a bite.
Katie regarded his answer through the eyes of heaven, and was worried by the fact that there was nothing there. His heart rate, his breathing, they were perfectly calm as though he were resting. It made him completely unreadable.
There were two types of people like this, and one of them was extremely dangerous if they were a martial artist. The first was, naturally a person who was at rest. Relaxed. Perfectly calm. A good example Katie could use as a baseline would be Misao, or Kasumi-senpai. The second sort was Mousse, a person who had no visible tells whatsoever to offer insight into his thoughts and feelings.
Mousse was an empty, emotionally suppressed shell of a man with no thoughts or desires. Which meant that he was a person who was totally at peace with himself. These were the sort of people who were extremely dangerous to themselves and others, especially others, because whatever they had decided upon was that–they would see their objective to the end and they didn't care about any other factor in their way.
People like this tended to do awful things to themselves or others unless something shook them out of it.
"Business, ah?" Akane asked. "What kind? You've traveled kind of far for it."
"Personal business," he explained. "I would rather not such kind people as yourselves not get caught up in my… well… business."
These people were too kind for that. Too kind to see the mess he would have to make…
Akane respectfully backed down, though she kept getting this strong vibe that something was off. "Well, I hope whatever business you have, it's taken care of."
"It will be," he whispered.
Akane and Kasumi shared worried glances. Katie just furrowed her brows.
Nabiki entered the Tendo home then, feeling pretty happy. She got to spend uninterrupted time with Ranma and there was at least hope on the horizon. Still, she wasn't really ready for what awaited her when she walked into the common room to find Katie, Akane, and some Chinese guy she didn't know.
"Okay what?" She said, looking right at him.
"Uh, hello." Mousse, who like Shampoo wound up attached to the mispronunciation of his name, looked away all pitiful like and it was only deepening the sense that she was missing something.
Akane gestured to Mousse. "This is Mu Tsu, there was a small misunderstanding, but it's cool now and since he's kind of worn out from his travels we're being hospitable."
"It's a pleasure to meet you," he said politely.
Well mannered at least. "I'm Nabiki, a pleasure." She seemed a little lost as the unexpected guest threw off her mental train.
Akane was always there to throw her a bone. "So how'd the search for Ranma's rival go?"
Nabiki furrowed her brows a bit. "Well, we were right about him and the wolf being one and the same…"
Mousse, who was sipping some miso soup, grew very tense at that moment a wolf was mentioned.
Katie spoke up then. "Seems there is some luck on our side."
"Turns out that he's a pretty nice guy too," she went on. "Apparently because of Ranma he doesn't have nearly as many problems as he did, and he really likes his curse."
Mousse stared into his cup of soup, his every muscle tense and his breathing surprisingly still.
Akane was relieved. "That's good." She then remembered. "Oh wait… that wolf… he's…"
Katie scowled. "Shampoo's husband?"
Nabiki nodded. "They are happily married, it appears. One mention of RicePony though and she lost all other pretenses, she was ready to kill anyone who got in her way."
Katie's scowl flew into a shocked gasp. "Wait… what? She was there?!"
Akane was equally alarmed. "Please tell us she wasn't there!"
Nabiki looked back and forth between them. "Yeah, she was…"
"Did Ranma go straight back to my house?!" Katie demanded.
Nabiki froze as she realized why they were alarmed. "Oh… shit."
The universe's timing was impeccable again as an alarm app on Katie's phone blared to life right after Nabiki said that.
Katie whipped her phone out in the space between seconds and paled at all the alarm reports. Door breached, wall breached, window breached… "That... that bitch just attacked my house."
Akane gasped in horror but couldn't find words to express it.
Nabiki had words that were surprisingly self-incriminating. "Oh shit, I was too busy flirting with Ranma to check if she might be following us!"
Katie was already up and headed for the door. "Don't worry about it for now, I gotta get back there!"
Akane was right behind her. "I'm coming too!"
Before Katie could start an argument, Mousse suddenly showed a spark of life. "Xian Pu…" He muttered somewhat darkly. "I will come help too." He was still mostly lifeless and empty, enough to make your skin crawl.
"There's no time, we can assign blame later!" Nabiki snapped, ending any debate. "Go save our fiancé!" That was to Akane, a sign to show how serious Nabiki viewed what was happening.
Katie screwed up her face and just let out a frustrated "Damn it!" as she lead the rescue party out of the dojo.
Adrenaline was high, fire thrumming in their veins as they ran. Shampoo had shaken the school, something that had been reinforced in case of building smashing martial artists. But the apartment building was just a regular building, built like normal people lived there and not superhuman martial artists who sent people into clock towers for being shitheads. It was that oversight that worried Katie the most and why she was at the lead.
Behind her, Akane could only worry for Ranma. He had been so afraid of Shampoo, only resembling the cocksure boy she knew once the wolf showed up. Could he really be all right against her? And what of Misao, she was a normal girl?! She might be caught in the crossfire and the youngest Tendo's heart lurched in fear what something happening to Misao might do to Katie.
There were no thoughts to Mousse, he simply ran on autopilot to keep up with the girls. However, there was a faint glimmer in his eye, as if something was still lurking within the husk he had been reduced to. What was it exactly and what had happened to him?
Such was their speed, they arrived just as the fight was beginning in earnest overhead.
"Is that them?" Akane asked as the sound of the rope dart cracked the air apart. "What was that?"
"Some kind of weapon that Shampoo girl uses." Katie said, trying to focus her sight as fast as she could to make out the details.
"Xian... Pu." Mousse hissed under his breath, suddenly finding focus. The glimmer became a glint in rapid succession that caused his glasses to grow completely opaque.
Ranma twisted around the odd weapon, using her increased speed and smaller frame to evade it. The distance had to narrow down and fast, which was why she focused on her legs and launched herself like a rocket at Shampoo. It was truly a marvel what could be done when you really stop holding back, as the redhead overtook the retreating Shampoo and narrowly missed the haymaker that took a chunk out of the side of the roof Shampoo had been standing on.
The Amazon threw a kick to distract her prey from the dart's sudden nigh impossible return. The gambit might have worked if her quarry had been interested in conventional defense. As such, the kick missed when Ranma ducked and evading the scorching left pulled her sneak attack off. Still, the chunk it tore off the roof right by the redhead gave her time to start getting distance again.
"Get back here and take your medicine bitch!" Ranma hollered, stopping only long enough to break the dart. She was off after the Amazon without a thought, though in reality she was watching for anything.
The speed was wrong, unless she had leveled it up somehow. The girl was charging faster and harder than she had when fleeing in China. Was it somehow related to her desire to fight? Whatever it was, it was already being filed away for later by Shampoo, who threw three throwing knives behind her without looking.
Of course, they missed but the mere half second of delay granted Shampoo a wider berth. Out came the bow and an arrow was nocked before Ranma or the spectators below could register the bow had been drawn. It was all so amazingly fast, befitting a Champion.
Champion, yes it was a title she had been born to own. She ran harder, soared farther than anyone else in her age group. Her strength was already on par with some adults by ten. She excelled at everything it seemed, even when she failed. Tasting that strength once was enough to learn her of the mistake of letting that girl hit her.
She was always watching, this girl named Xian Pu. Her eyes absorbing information as she planned and placed the pieces that would ensure her success. She twisted and let the arrow fly, straight at the heart of her opponent. It was perfect, this was her-
Ranma never saw the arrow but her left hand plucked it from the air and broke it without even pausing to consider it.
"The hell?" Shampoo thought as she pulled another arrow out to nock it faster than before.
The redhead closed in and the radius she could fire shrank immeasurably, Gritting her teeth, the Amazon put the three dimensional nature of the environment to her benefit, jumping up and away from Ranma as she loosed the second arrow. This too was perfect and yet-
Ranma's right hand slashed the arrow out of the air, cutting the arrow in half mid flight before she even began to understand why she was moving.
"… Holy shit." Katie was using Heaven now and could see the magnificent defense. "Ranma must be in some kind of zone because how the fuck did he do that?"
"Do what?" Akane asked, not paying attention to Mousse and focusing on Katie.
"He just like fucking karate chopped an arrow out of the air without even recognizing it was there." Katie explained, exasperated. "His danger sense is unworldly!"
Mousse began to take several breaths as he focused on where Shampoo was.
"Impossible." This was said in Chinese, she didn't trust her Japanese to give her something close to right. "What is she?"
The distance was still in her favor but it was clear that the anger in her rival was focusing her instead of making her sloppy. She put the bow away, folding it up in a fraction of a second and pulled out a dozen throwing knives, six in each hand. She had to keep her distance, she had-
Ranma suddenly zipped forward again, almost teleporting forward.
"No you don't!" Shampoo thought, throwing all twelve knives at one, managing to make an near impossible to dodge wall of steel.
Near impossible of course meant there was the possibility of evasion and it was in that possibility that the demonic redhead found her salvation. She twisted, twirling herself over most of them, grabbing the ones that got closest to her. Upon landing, Ranma launched one of the knives at Shampoo.
That was a clang of metal on metal as it took out the next knife Shampoo had thrown as an insurance policy.
The second of the pilfered knives was sent hurtling at the owner, who had to evade with great haste. The knife hurtled into roof with enough force to crack it. Shampoo touched down and sprinted off, desperate to keep ahead. The distance was hers, the distance was-
She had miscalculated when she had enraged Red, this much was obvious as she raised her arms to block the thundering right cross from Ranma who had anticipated the Amazon's likely escape route and leapt in front of her. This power, this unbelievable power, what was its secret?
The Amazon was sent bodily off the roof her guard broken but her arms luckily were not. Still they stung but she twisted to fling herself towards the ground to give her some respite to recover. Every second counted with this monster and she needed to-
"Look there she is!" Katie hollered, pointing her out for the spectators only a scant number meters away.
"How in the world did they know?" Shampoo thought, before she spotted a familiar face. "Mu Tsu?! But he-"
"The fuck?" Katie asked as a berserker scream erupted from Mousse. She turned to see him charging towards Shampoo with the hunger of a starving animal. "Whoa!" She avoided being trampled.
"What got into him?" Akane wondered.
"Xian Pu!" The once reserved and placid shell of a man hollered, sounding possessed by a demon. The scimitar he had earlier was out and being brought down at Shampoo at lighting speed.
"Whoa, what?!" Ranma called from the rooftops, as she watched the sudden interloper interrupt. The blade had missed, but the impact caused nearby cars to jump in their place and the street to crack.
"Mu Tsu, what are you even doing here?!" Shampoo hollered as she dodged the slash, skipping along the road to avoid the splitting pavement.
"Killing you!" Mousse roared, not even coming close to explaining anything. He pulled his weapon from the ground and pointed it at Shampoo. "You're scum… SCUM!"
Katie whistled. "Well, the man's got style. Let's stomp a mudhole in this cunt's ass." She was about to go join in on the festivities when she heard a familiar voice.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY PAZ, I TOLD YOU I'LL PAY FOR THE FUCKING DAMAGES!" Misao screamed at the landlady, sounding a thousand times more furious than Katie ever heard before.
"The hell's crawled up your ass?" Katie called, turning back towards the source of the shouting.
"Apparently we were supposed to psychically know some building busting cunt from China was gonna fly in and wreck the fucking place!" Misao roared back. "And don't you start sassing me either! I've had it up to here with tonight and I'm not in the fucking mood."
"Okay okay, what happened?" Katie tried to placate the infuriated girl.
"She destroyed everything, my bong, my weed, AND MY FUCKING HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR PRODUCTION SET!" Misao started out calmly but was screaming loud enough to wake the dead by the end. "Do you know how much I'm losing on this outside of repairs? I'm going to be out of commission for weeks! That's money I make!"
"Right, um." Katie said, before pointing towards where Mousse was engaging Shampoo in sworded combat. "Well we kind of have her cornered so I was gonna elbow her face in as payback."
"No, you're taking me to Mom's." Misao said, tone brokering no argument. "That bitch's ass is MINE."
Akane heard all the shouting and understood most of why she'd feel that way but leave it to Senpai right? "Excuse me, but shouldn't you leave to Katie-senpai and the others?"
"Listen, sweetie, when a psychopath busts a wall in your house, destroying a ton of expensive shit, looks down upon you while you voice your very valid complaints and then INSULTS YOU ON TOP OF IT, THEN YOU CAN TELL ME HOW TO FUCKING HANDLE THIS!" Misao almost got through the recap before her rage overtook her again.
"… I'm sorry." Akane said, shrinking away.
"Okay, so you want to kick her ass, but how?" Katie asked.
"That's why we're going to Mom's. She's got something for her punk ass." Misao said, pointing at Katie. "You're going to make sure no one gets in our way from here to there."
There'd be no discussion it seemed. "All right, you got it. Let's go to your Mom's and see what she's got."
Misao nodded, before she looked at Akane. "You seem like someone who tries to see the best in people. If you want to end this without someone getting thoroughly fucking ruined, do it before I get back. Because if she's still standing when I get here, there will be Blood."
"Duty calls," Katie said, bowing to Akane. "Sorry Akaneko, she'll apologize once she's not super pissed."
"Th-that's all right." Akane said, waving it off. "You two go, I'll wait for my turn."
Katie and Misao promptly made tracks in the direction of Misao's mother's house.
Ranma called down. "Hey, you ok?"
"Considering I just pulled on Godzilla's tail and asked her politely not destroy Tokyo and she didn't crush me like ant... yeah, I'm good." Akane said, looking over at the fight. "I wonder how Mousse is going to fair." He was so weak before.
"Mousse?" Ranma asked.
"The guy who is trying to cut your Shampoo problem down to size." Akane explained.
"Oh." It was a simple response, but one that suited the moment.
In the grand scheme of things, there were a lot of words that could be spared on the history between Mousse and Shampoo. From the time they met as children, the threads of fate's rich tapestry had seen fit to tie them together. To be certain, there had been a lot of incidents that had fostered everything that had lead. But none were as bad as-
"You used me, " Mousse accused Shampoo, swinging for her face with the scimitar at high speed. "You took my love and threw it on the ground just for what? A revenge you didn't need to obtain? That you tried cripple me just to cover your guilt is the only reason I'm still standing here."
"You're an idiot." Shampoo said without a trace of emotion. Her dao did an admirable job of keeping the curved blade away from her. "I told you countless times that I hated you. Days on end without count. That you could fall for such an easy trick is exactly why you were never worthy of me in the first place."
Their slashes blurred as they danced along the street, sparks dancing off into the night like fireflies.
"And that somehow makes it okay for you to trample my heart like that?" Mousse asked, snorting in contempt. "Ah but I do forget, since you have no say in who becomes your husband, you wouldn't understand what romance and love is in the first place."
Shampoo snarled. "Shut your filthy mouth before I close it!" She forced him away with a mighty shove.
"Struck a nerve have I?" Mousse asked as he alighted himself on his feet. "Tell me, do you believe he loves you really because he punched you in the face first?"
"A male who has no clue what goes into our prized rituals doesn't get to question who I give my heart to!" Shampoo snapped back, holding her blade in front of her.
"Oh I know all about those 'prized rituals' and how you throw yourself at the feet of the barbarous outsiders so he'll put his dick in you." Mousse sneered, switching tactics to throw a knife at Shampoo.
Without even trying, Shampoo blocked the projectile, eyes never leaving the male who was out for her life.
"Look at that, you only even know how to block like that because of me." Mousse said, laughing with madness. "And yet you act like you were always the best."
"Shut up and fight," Shampoo returned.
"I'll fight how I wish!" Mousse hollered, attacking with further abandon. He whipped a bladed chain at Shampoo's face. When that was blocked, he came at her with a spinning slash that she narrowly avoided.
"Wow, he's pretty good." Akane murmured, though she wasn't sure she liked how the timid guy she met had morphed into some kind of psycho.
"Nah, she's holding back," Ranma said, shaking her head. "She knows I'm still here so she's taking it easy."
"He was pretty weak before, can he keep going at this pace?" Akane asked with apparent apprehension.
That thought was going through Shampoo's mind as well, as she could tell that Mousse was going at full throttle, not even caring about redlining. He was going to just hurl everything he had at her in this desperate scramble. Scramble, yes, that was a good word for this hectic hack and slash fight as they continued to fight back and forth across the street.
"You and that old bat, you think you can use people however you wish." Mousse shouted, now using two swords to press Shampoo. "That everyone else are pawns for you to move and sacrifice like they have no feelings or desires of their own."
"If you had a brain in your head, you'd have never fallen for that ploy in the first place." Shampoo said, just barely now exerting herself against him with the second sword in place. "But you keep blaming other people for your failures."
"Excuses, excuses!" Mousse roared, continue to pour on the effort. He was going to crash any second it seemed but he had something keeping him on his feet. "As if you don't know what she did to me, her most devoted pawn!" He lashed out at her with kick just to mix it up.
Shampoo actually shouldered the kick and skittered back with it. "What nonsense are you babbling now?"
Mousse actually stopped. "Don't pretend you don't know!"
"I'm not pretending, I don't." Shampoo said earnestly. "What the hell did she do to you that made you this bloodthirsty?"
Mousse laughed, weakly at first before he was full bore insanity laughing. "That's just great you… you don't know! You don't… know… ahuh…"
"Know what? Spit it out or stop yelling about it!" Shampoo snapped.
"If you really want to know, the old ba-" Mousse started, before a very solid and muscular arm slammed across his chest, flipping the poor bastard around a couple times before he landed face first into the pavement completely out cold.
"You never give up do you?" Ryoga spat, looking down at the unconscious young man.
"Airen!" Shampoo yelped, having thought she had given him the slip long enough to end this.
"Ryoga!" Ranma called, leaping down to stand next to Akane.
"You're being a bad girl…" Ryoga admonished before he turned to face the pair of people across from him. "But I love that about you."
"Ready to change your mind about that?" Ranma said. "She fucked up big time."
"Only one who fucked up is you, Red!" Shampoo said as she readied her dao.
Ranma bristled. "You just don't get it, do you?! This isn't even about that stupid food anymore! It's what you just freaking did! You wrecked my house! How is that worth more than your stupid pride?!"
Akane called out as well. "People who have nothing to do with this are getting caught up in this… if this keeps up…!"
Shampoo shot her a look much as she did Misao. "People who have nothing to do with this stay out of Shampoo way! Get hint! Go away so Shampoo can kill Red!"
"That's IT!" Ranma yelled. "I don't even know why I'm arguing with you, I'm just going to beat the stuffing out of you!"
Ryoga just blew out a sigh and stepped forward. "Can't let you do that, Red."
Ranma recoiled a bit. "What?"
"I said, I'm not going to stand by and watch you beat up my wife," he said simply.
"She trashed my apartment! My roommate's pissed!" Ranma shouted back. "And did I forget to mention that she still wants to kill me?!"
Ranma was beyond furious. After the time he spent fighting alongside her against this nutjob, he was going to do nothing because he got roped into some insane marriage tradition?
"It's not that I don't want this to happen, and I really don't want it to," Ryoga lamented as he sank into a fighting crouch. "But I have a duty as a husband to uphold."
Ranma bristled, her eyes narrowing. "Even when she's going to… you know what? Nevermind." Ranma said, throwing out any hope she had of a friendship with Ryoga at this moment. "Bring it on Ryoga."
Akane stepped up, drawing off her back the shinai she brought with her, tapping it against the ground. "Ranma… I am with you on this."
Ranma looked over at Akane. "Akane…"
She then looked ahead. "This girl… she doesn't care who she trashes as long as she has her way. That reminds me way too much of Kuno."
Raising her shinai, she achieved a mid stance, the tip of the shinai aimed at Shampoo. "I don't care how important she is to you, Ryoga! But I'm not letting someone like that run around, never again!"
"Airen?" Shampoo asked uncertainly, having expected him to just drag her away anyways.
"It's okay, Xian Pu." Ryoga assured. "I won't let them hurt you."
"There no need for-" She began to protest the protection
"I love you, so stop arguing and get ready to fight." He snapped back. "Let's see how they fair against the both of us."
"L-Love?!" She thought almost, dumbfounded. "Y-yes!"
"You want her? Get through me!" Ryoga roared, stamping a foot and shattering the asphalt.
"With pleasure!" Akane and Ranma both replied as they began to walk towards them.
Misao Darlian was not a girl given to a temper. In fact, when it came to matters of anger, it took a tremendous amount to really agitate her. However–as one Mikado Sanzenin learned several months ago–when her fury was triggered, she had a wrath that shook the world and even drove Katie into silent compliance. The two of them stood outside a hastily summoned limousine in front of the towering black monolith in the heart of Shinjuku Ward, the headquarters of Hyuuga Heavy Industries.
Hyuuga Heavy, as it was often shortened to, was the company inherited by Hyuuga Momiji and Hyuuga Mizuho, Misao's mother and aunt respectively. Since the 70s, the company built ships and planes for the Japanese Self-Defense Forces–among others–but in the last twelve years, since the sisters Hyuuga took leadership, more esoteric technology. With such interesting work accelerating in the last year alone.
"I could be breaking her in half for you right now," Katie pointed out as they began to walk towards the front doors of the building.
"That bitch has her pride, and I have mine. My apartment got trashed, and my roommate has a target on his back and I'm supposed to sit back and have no say on that? Fuck that. I'm destroying that cow and shipping her home to her inbred family so they know the fuck better than to march through people's houses like they own them. And a bill will be attached."
She waved her hand, much like a Jedi, as she reached the doors, and they swept wide open. Across the long blue carpet on white tile floor at a front desk, a colorful woman sat behind the desk. Sporting bright orange hair with yellow-dyed tresses and darker red tips, the hazel-eyed woman looked up and smiled brightly.
"Hello, Misa-chan, Katie-chan-" She stopped when she saw the look on her face. "Ah… Misao…?"
"Unlock the basement elevator, Reika-san," Misao said. "I need to talk to Mom."
Reika nodded obediently, and hit a button on the phone at her desk. "The elevator's open."
As the two walked past, Reika looked over to Katie, mouthing a "What happened?"
Katie shook her head, warning her to not ask lest she get dragged into something she wasn't ready to handle. Accepting that, the secretary went back to what she'd been doing before the couple walked in–watching the King of Braves GaoGaiGar punch a Zondar's face off with an envious sigh.
Less than a minute later, the elevator doors opened, revealing a large, wide-corridor laboratory lined with thick glass windows, showing various machines and production lines constructing parts and equipment ranging from engines to weapons, to mechanical limbs of various sizes. It didn't look like anything standard she'd seen before.
Katie looked back and forth at the lines, before her eyes fell to the front, watching the back of Misao's head as she led her to a laboratory at the end of the hall.
"The heck is all this?" She asked. "I mean, I know you guys make military stuff, but…"
"Don't worry about, it's a side project," Misao advised as they reached the doors.
The double doors opened, revealing a row of seven large metal cylinders, each labeled 00-07, with a cylinder labeled 08 pulled from the wall to the floor, underneath a large gantry that a mass of manipulator arms hung over, hard at work on the machine within.
Surrounding the container were several engineers and scientists, with one standing out–a black-haired woman shorter than the already diminutive Misao, wearing a lab coat. Turning to face them the woman, who was a spitting image of Misao without the dye job and having a chest flatter than Katie's, lit up in a warm smile.
"Hey there, girls… what's…" Momiji Darlian trailed off when she saw how angry Misao looked. "… What happened?"
"I need the CX Type 2," Misao said simply.
Momiji tilted her head to the side, and brought up a hand to adjust her the black-rimmed glasses she wore.
Katie looked over at Misao, then at Momiji. "CX?"
"Type 2, the Oni unit? Why?" Misao's mother asked.
"Type 2?" Katie asked before she looked up at the cylinders. "What is this stuff?"
"A bitch destroyed my apartment to try to kill one of my friends, and she had the nerve to rub my face in it. Type 2 is perfect for her," Misao said.
Momiji looked over at the Cylinder labeled 02, then back to her daughter. "You do realize what the Type 2 is designed for."
"I know, I designed it," Misao responded. "And I want the lesson I teach to stick."
Turning to face the cylinder completely, Momiji sighed. "Good thing you live in Nerima… Prepare CX Type 2 for combat deployment."
The cylinder opened slowly opened, and when the light hit the contents, Katie tensed up. "Uh… Misao…"
Misao walked towards the cylinder, the fury even colder. "I'd text Akane if I were you for a status update; because it won't take me long to get dressed."
Mousse regained consciousness, his head throbbing something fierce as his senses had returned. Shaking it, he groped around on the ground, searching for his glasses, and managed to find them lying not too far from where he lay. Taking them in hand, he slipped them on and prepared to rise to reengage Shampoo.
"Ow… ow!"
Or not, apparently whatever hit him had done so with such force that it broke something, probably two or three ribs. Crossing his arm over his chest and remaining on his knees, he searched around for whatever could have hit him that hard so he could properly vow revenge against them. Of all the times… when he was so close to getting her…
"Who am I kidding?" He growled to himself. "I wasn't anywhere near getting her."
He pounded his free hand onto the ground. "She's even stronger than she was… because I had been the fool…"
Yes, ever the lamentable fool...
There was a cacophonous bang nearby, as Ranma collided against Ryoga, her high-speed cross being caught in his hand with ease. As Mousse strained himself to turn to see, he saw Akane launching herself at Shampoo with that bamboo stick of hers. Before he could begin to scoff, the girl made a clever hop to position herself for a strike, only for Shampoo to avoid it by going after Ranma.
"What... the..." Mousse could only gawk at the high speed battle. It was like something out of fiction made real.
Shampoo paid for her dismissal of Akane when the shinai brushed against her hip. It only stung but it brought Shampoo around to wave the dao at the interloper. That slice had been fast but it whiffed Akane as she hopped away. This girl...
"Hmph, you is dumb to come at Shampoo with stick. If want go find real weapon, you have Shampoo permission to run." She made a shooing motion, before she started turn again towards her quarry.
Again, this was a mistake, as Akane was almost blindingly fast in closing the gap, shinai screaming for Shampoo's face.
"What the...?" Shampoo thought as she brought up an arm to block the strike, feeling a bit of the power behind it. "Who is this girl?"
"Don't get cocky," Akane said, pupils dilated as she began to focus on Shampoo. "You'll regret it when you face me."
Ryoga got bored of holding Ranma back, sending a backhand swipe that ripped the air apart as it came for the redhead's ribs.
Ranma pushed herself up and over the swipe, performing a handstand on Ryoga, before using her perch to try and twist around to kick the stalwart Hibiki.
Try is the optimal word as Ryoga shoved his rival away before she was even a quarter of the way through the move.
"You're pretty strong like this," Ryoga congratulated. "But you sure you can hurt me?"
"Just watch me." Ranma promised, crouching down as she did the calculations in her head. That exchange gave her data on how fast Ryoga was reacting to her right now, which was crucial for this next part.
A knife sailed in from the side, thrown by Shampoo who was moving to another position. Akane followed the Amazon, unconcerned about the knife. The world was melting away and there was only her target it seemed.
Without looking, Ranma caught it and flung it into the dirt. In the next instant between breaths, she was charging towards Shampoo's new position.
"No you don't," Ryoga hollered, managing to body block the charging redhead. "I said go through me damnit!"
"All right, we'll do it your way!" Ranma had momentarily bounced off Ryoga's body, coming back with a left hook to the body Ryoga just tanked.
"Come on, hit me for real man!" Ryoga taunted, twisting around and plunging an overhand thrust. Ranma avoided it narrowly and the pavement below was shattered by what seemed to be a very casual effort for the young man.
"That strength is still unreal," Ranma thought as she took a position away from Ryoga. "His destructive power is insane but... he's still slow and has a nasty habit of not defending attacks. I can do this... I can win!" She was back in, swinging a blow for Hibiki's head.
He moved to block but she wove around him, sprinting at Shampoo. Ryoga didn't let the surprise catch him flat footed, as he was in hot pursuit. This was bad, so very bad!
Shampoo danced around another swing from Akane, feeling the hum and power behind the blow. She was powerful, really powerful, her hit power bordered on Shampoo's own if the estimate was right. Also, it was quick to see why she had chosen that stick; by focusing on the shinai, Akane's wild swings became tight and precise.
And very fast as another looping slash came at the Amazon, missing by a narrower margin.
"Shampoo!" Ranma roared, lunging at her back and ready to clobber her in the back of the head.
"You coward!" She was still recovering, if that blow landed it-
"I said no you don't!" Ryoga bellowed, catching ranma by the back of her shirt and yanking the girl away, thwarting the haymaker that just brushed Shampoo's hair.
A fluff of purple hair filled the air as Shampoo could feel the power behind that attack down to her toes. That fury was still there and the promise to harm the Amazon was still on the table of being fulfilled.
"Stop getting in my way dumbass!" Ranma yelled, kicking off the ground and tumbling over Ryoga's outstretched arm to slam both feet into his face. She tumbled backwards, alighting on her feet and slamming a one-two into Ryoga's exposed side.
"That tickles!" Ryoga snapped, warding Ranma off with another backhand. He was once again between the redhead and Shampoo. "Try hitting me for real."
"I still don't have the adjustment down to bring out 100% of my power." Ranma thought with a bitter look on her face. "If I could reach that, I could send this jackass flying!" Problem was, that'd take time and time she didn't have. If she kept going she was bound to run out of energy and slow down, which would mean her death.
"Come on come on!" Ryoga taunted. "Don't you want at her?"
"Ignore the bait and break him down. Where to hit and how hard." Ranma silently categorized her opponent, trying to determine how much more punishment he could take. "At least if he fails Shampoo will be at a severe disadvantage." Plan set, she was ready to rumble.
Shampoo bent backwards over the thrust, but this proved foolish as Akane snapped the shinai down right between the Amazon's breasts with a stinging retort.
"Ow!" Shampoo squealed. "You stupid pig!"
"You aren't good enough at Japanese to talk shit are you?" Akane was breathing slightly heavier than normal, her eyes almost glowing.
"Shut up." Shampoo snapped, swiping at her with the dao.
But Akane had seen it coming the literal instant Shampoo's muscles so much as twitched to begin the swing. With that much advanced warning, dodging it was easy. The counterattack to the wrist was even easier.
"Wrist!" Akane said, just before her shinai caught the Amazon on the wrist with a sharp smack.
"Ahh?" Shampoo silently reacted, her right hand going numb from the power of the strike. She kept the sword in her left and thrusted it at Akane.
Again though, Akane's focus had alerted her to the attack what seemed like a minute before hand. She dodged towards Shampoo's right to avoid the thrust and swung a horizontal slash into Shampoo's chest.
"Torso!" She crowed as it slammed home just above the breasts,
"Agh!" The Amazon squealed in pain as her lungs burned from the sudden forceful ejection of breath. "How?"
"I can see through you." Akane said simply. "Come at me if you think you can win."
Come at her Shampoo did, flowing into a series of one handed thrusts and swipes that should have been too hard to follow. If Akane were bluffing that is, but to the Amazon's growing ire, she was being read so thoroughly. Nothing came close, nothing but maybe... there! She thrusted out a right cross with her thought to be injured hand, hoping to surprise this stupid obstacle.
"Head!" Akane called as her shinai banged down on Shampoo's head. She had gotten behind the Amazon by using the girl's own attacks to hide her movements.
"Gah!" Shampoo screamed, that one hurt!
"Huh?" Ryoga turned, having thought Shampoo could handle the other girl.
This was all Ranma needed to slam home a thunderous left to the jaw. As Ryoga tried to counter, Ranma slipped down and slammed a three piece combo right to her opponent's exposed stomach. An attempted front kick to ward her off only gave the redhead a platform to spring up and once more slam both feet into Ryoga's face.
"Warm your way up to it." Ranma thought as she tumbled away from the seemingly unharmed Hibiki. "Don't try to rush a hundred, just make your way up until he feels it. And then make him feel it some more."
"Are you even trying?" Ryoga asked, laughing a little. He was a little concerned about Shampoo though. Still, Ranma was right there and he had to contend with his old rival for now.
"Just getting started." Ranma promised and even though Ryoga didn't blink he still missed her step in.
"He's so much faster now!" Ryoga fully realized as now a four hit combo slammed into his stomach. He thrusted his left out at her to bait the counter, and countered with speedy right hook.
It was anticipated and Ranma only half stepped in, letting the deadly hook fall short before sending his own right into Ryoga's face. A left managed to follow in and land before Ryoga could uncross himself to again send Ranma away with a fearsome swipe.
Mousse, who had been watching everything, could only stare in slack jawed amazement. Who the hell were these strange people and why were they so strong? Just what kind of Outsider place was this? Some kind of monster breeding ground?!
"Where did they get this kind of power?" Mousse wondered, before jealousy gripped him. "And why don't I have it?!" His fist found the dirt again as bitter tears filled his eyes.
Back over with Akane and Shampoo, they were locked in a deadly dance, the former skating on the razor's edge as she flirted with disaster in the form of a lethally sharp blade that would carve her up like a cheap slab of meat. Though to the latter, no matter how close it looked, the swings never felt farther than they had before now. It was impossible for someone to get this much of a read on a total stranger and yet-
"Head! Torso! Wrist!" Akane was literally calling her shots and Shampoo could do nothing to evade the stinging slaps. Each one rattled her bones and sapped dry her stamina, little by little it was proving that stick was better than her sword.
"How? How is you do this?" Shampoo was almost going nuts trying to figure it out. "Tell Shampoo!"
"Sorry, there's no more freebies." Akane said simply, already reading ahead so much that she had evaded the third move Shampoo was going to throw before the first even began to come out.
"TELL SHAMPOO!" The Amazon's composure just as she let fly the useless throwing knife that went off into the night.
"Head!" Akane roared back, smacking her over the head with the shinai.
"This is impossible!" Shampoo thought, her teeth chattering from the hit.
Ryoga again turned to look at the fight behind him, having heard Shampoo's cry. "Time to switch partners then." He slumped his guard, inviting Ranma to try something.
In this moment, Ranma had forgotten Akane and even Shampoo, and all she saw was Ryoga mocking her. With that rage inducing sight before her, she rushed forward and slammed a flying kick that sent Ryoga skidding back.
Also at this moment, all Akane could see was Shampoo. Nothing else even existed but her and Shampoo. She was so focused and centered on Shampoo she forgot to filter in Ryoga. She was new to this technique and hadn't been shown the downside of it and as such she used it without a single bit of care. She rushed Shampoo again, determined that she had worn down Shampoo enough to end it.
It was a pity, had she remembered Ryoga, had she been able to see him at all, what happened next would have been avoided. Instead she hopped face first into Ryoga's outstretched fist after the boy spun himself right into her path. Her head snapped back and her legs flew out from under her as she tumbled to the ground not even trying to catch herself.
"Why don't you just take a nap, eh girlie?" Ryoga said, not even following through.
From Ranma's vantage point, it unfolded in a matter of microseconds, as the joy of a strong hit gave way to the realization of a ploy to the horror of seeing Akane run right into Ryoga's fist. She wasn't placid for long, as she managed to catch Akane just before she could hit the pavement.
"AKANE!" Ranma screamed as she cradled the unconscious girl. "Akane! Speak to me, oi!"
She was breathing but completely out cold. There was a slight twitching as the youngest Tendo's body tried to complete its last command. She didn't even realize she had been knocked out!
This was too much, it was all too fucking much man. All this because of food, because of stupid pride?! What the fuck man, what the fuck?
"Hibiki… I'm gonna fucking kill you." Ranma swore as she put Akane down gently. "But only after you watch me tear that bitch's lungs from her chest." An aura of sheer rage enveloped her, even if she knew such threats were idle. Two against one? That would be fair odds if she were a guy at the moment.
"Bluff all you want." Ryoga said, before shrugging his head. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry it went this way. I really did want to be friends." There was a sense of fatalism there, knowing that Shampoo was going to make good on her vow.
Shampoo was still stunned by Ryoga's sudden appearance but she was recovering, both from the hits and from the shock. She had enough in the tank and with her invincible shield of a husband, this fight was as good as theirs.
"Is checkmate yes?" She asked, smiling for Ryoga.
"About to be." Ryoga was ready to charge in now, no more just getting in the way.
"Shit…" Ranma cursed, even as she prepared to make her last stand. "Shit…"
"Hey, you two," Katie called out then.
Ryoga and Shampoo both turned and found Katie and Misao standing right whereabouts the latter last saw them. Katie was now wearing a three-piece black suit and tie and a pair of slightly tinted glasses. Misao's attire was entirely different, wearing a raincoat that was much bigger than her, the hood pulled over her head.
"Your chance at victory just left," she continued before her tone dovetailed into a lament. "I'm sure you two had big plans but they were over the moment she attacked our home."
Her breath blew out in a sigh. "But hey, big fella, you can just sit this out and you can walk away. But if you insist on standing with her, you're going to accept the bill."
There was a violent chill in the air, as the words were said with absolute certainty. There was no bluffing, no joshing, just straight talk. Plain as day how it was, thank you very much it was that frank.
"You're talking big lady, but if you want to beat the both of us, you're gonna need a miracle." Ryoga replied, trying to push through the feeling of dread in his stomach.
"And one has arrived." Misao's cool voice belied her rage as a crackling sound overtook it. Blue lights appeared under the raincoat, .which then began to burn away until it revealed that Misao was wearing gray and light blue armor, similar in form and shape to a mecha, except the helmet appeared to be an armored flight suit helmet. An 02 was embossed on the shoulder, and upon its back was a backpack with four wings that rose up and out, and a fifth fin rising up behind her head, giving it a much more menacing feel. On her shoulders and thighs were large scissor blades bearing similar fins to the ones upon her back, with smaller versions on her forearms and hips.
"What the hell is that?" Ryoga asked.
Of all the people Shampoo expected to come get in her way… she certainly did not expect the fat girl to come back acting tough in a suit of armor. She had certainly expected the giant girl who could fight, but she didn't seem interested in this fight at all. In fact, she seemed much more concerned about the weird kendo girl that her airen had just left a wreck all over the floor.
The fact that she had the nerve to show up in such a ridiculous armor, looking like a cosplayer from a robot video game, just insulted Shampoo more than anything. Who did this fat dumb girl think she was? Didn't she get the hint when she destroyed her house?
"What did Shampoo tell you, Fat Girl? This is not your business," she warned her as she readied the dao.
"Bitch," Misao said, "This is my business now, and I don't want anyone in my way until it is resolved. Like the bae said, it was the moment you came into my house."
The fins began to crackle with power, bolts of electricity arcing between the and across the armor. Then, to Shampoo's surprise and Ryoga's immense dread, she lifted up onto her toes, and then completely off her feet as if propelled by magic..
"As for what this is?" She said to Ryoga as she saw the dread in his eyes. "This is that bitch called payback."
With that, the helmet's armored visor fell over her eyes and the face guard slid in place, creating the expressionless face of a mechanical soldier, whose eyes flashed a brilliant green–then red.
Readying her dao, Shampoo let out something of a caustic laugh. She was really going to do this! Complete with some silly special effects and anime bullshit that would probably sell a bunch of model kits! No, Shampoo had no taste for a can of over-ripened pork, but she was going to bust it open all over the street anyway.
Katie joined Ranma's side, kneeling over Akane. She was still twitching involuntarily, her body and brain still trying to restore its connection after the knockout blow. Gently resting her fingers on her neck, she checked around and sighed in relief when she found no sign of her neck being broken. "Oh thank God, she's just knocked out."
She looked to Ranma, who was looking back and forth between the bad battle couple and the armored Misao. "You okay?"
"I'm not fine," she snapped back. "This is out of control!"
Katie looked towards their wrecked apartment. She could now see the large hole in the side of the building Shampoo made on her way out. She then looked at the street, cracked and cratered by the clashes between the involved parties. Bitterly, she nodded in agreement and rose to her feet.
"Shampoo was the one to choose how to escalate this, dude, not you. She could've handled this in a whole lot of different ways, but instead she went with the one hand-crafted to piss everyone off and burn almost every bridge she has." She gave Ranma a small smile. "So don't blame yourself for any of this. Just sit back and watch Misao take this bitch apart like a Mr. Potato Head."
Ranma turned back towards the showdown, more specifically at Misao still hovering there, her arms coming folded across her armored chest plate as her wings spread out. It was a pose that Katie recognized… the contempt… the arrogance… the certainty in her power… the murderous intent worthy only of a God of Death. She was that confident that she was going to show off for them?
Shampoo took the sudden pose as a challenge. "No more warning for Fat Dumb Girl then," she said as she began walking towards Misao, and then broke into a sprint towards her, taking the dao in both hands for maximum power with her swing.
Behind her, Ryoga realized that Shampoo was going straight for her, and reacted with dismay. "Shampoo! Wait!"
She didn't, instead accelerating to a blur as she reached Misao, steel flashing as she swung the dao to bisect the anime trash clean in half.
"That armor is cool and all, but can she take Shampoo down?" Ranma asked. "Misao's like a flirty cuddly bear, she can't be that-"
The blade sliced majestically through air and lingering bolts of lightning, to Shampoo's wide-eyed surprise.
Ranma's mouth fell open, and her eyes darted up when she saw Misao was much higher in the air now, and the scissors on her shoulder were sparking and crackling as their jaws opened, revealing the jagged edges of chainsaw teeth that quickly began to rev up.
The sound caught Shampoo's attention, and she looked up in time to see Misao spin one way, launching the scissor on her right shoulder, then spin the other way, launching the other scissor–both of which tumbled mechanically through the air as their electrical thrusters oriented them to aim at Shampoo, before they accelerated at her like missiles.
"What the…?!" Shampoo quickly ducked over the first Flying Scissor, the blade passing low under her. The second came from a higher angle, and she dove forward from barely landing on the ground.
When the second scissor hit the ground, there was the sound, like an asphalt grinder going on overdrive, and Shampoo looked back to see the second scissor eating through the street at high speed, before it simply pulled up and out of the ground, stopped, flipped over along with its brother, and then shot right back at her.
There was a single thought in Shampoo's head at that very moment.
Run.
Shampoo dove out of the way of one of the scissors, and then leaped straight from her tumble to avoid the second. The second one barreled on towards a building, but rather than hit it stopped for all of a half second to reorient itself and go straight up. It changed direction with the same jarring quickness and came down at Shampoo as she scanned the sky for it and the other one.
Turning at the last second she swung the dao to cut the scissor in half, but it simply clamped down on the sword and with a shearing of metal bisected it while barely missing her.
"Xian Pu!" Ryoga yelled as he tackled her clear of the second scissor, which had closed in on her while she gaped at her destroyed dao for that brief instant.
The second scissor pulled out of its dive and ascended as the couple both tumbled across the ground.
As they came to a stop, Shampoo looked up at her husband in relief. "Airen!"
Her relief turned into fright, before she turned over, throwing herself and Ryoga out the path of Misao's thunderous diving punch that smashed the street and kicked up a cloud of dust.
"What that thing?" Shampoo hollered, the din of the impact still rumbling.
"I don't know, some kind of military mecha? Whatever it is, keep aw-" Ryoga started, before he was cut off by Misao suddenly coming out of the dust cloud like a very angry Terminator with a jet pack, aiming straight for Shampoo. "Shit, Xian Pu!"
"Hiya!" Shampoo screamed as she narrowly avoided the artless punch. There was zero martial arts behind it but thanks to technology it had power unmatched by any human. The air rippled violently and the Amazon still found herself tumbling away just from the air pressure wave that happened just from the miss. "Aiya!"
"If something like that lands," Ryoga thought, realizing he couldn't expect to body block more than one or two of those before he was down. Then there were the scissors, which came the way Misao went, homing in on Shampoo again. "Xian Pu, look out!"
"Be quiet!" Misao snapped, backhanding a wave of air pressure that knocked Ryoga back several feet. "If you're going to scream anything, it should be goodbye!"
"Think Hibiki think! Now is not the time for fancy." Ryoga needed an idea of how to fight this thing and fast. He wasn't capable of Ranma's battle innovation, but he was a strong motherfucker who hit like a ton of bricks. But was that ton enough?
He didn't have time to worry about it as Misao was after her quarry again, moving faster than Ryoga could believe possible as the mech suit closed in on Shampoo yet again.
"Shit!" He cursed aloud, charging after the monster trying to make him a widower.
It was gonna be a close thing, as he ran as hard as he could. He once again cursed his lack of speed but he could make it, he could! He did make it but the shoulder check failed to budge Misao at all and only bounced him off.
"Ah?!" It was way stronger than him?!
Misao didn't give him the relief of a pithy rejoinder as she slapped the air into him and sent him tumbling away. Distraction gone, she turned her sights on Shampoo again, ready for brasstacks.
"I may have bitten off more than I can chew." This was the thought looping through Shampoo's brain. This was even worse than Red and it really looked bad for her. But she was an Amazon, a Champion, a hero for all women!
So she dug in her heels to fight, knowing that the girl inside the beast wasn't a fighter. Use that to your advantage and tear it apart. It was a simple thought, one that didn't match the insurmountable wall before her.
Misao's punch was read but not even the power of a counter could dent the armor. Meanwhile, the grass behind Shampoo was ripped up and scattered just from the puff of air pressure passing over it. Shampoo hit the armor again but nothing happened.
Was it invincible? No, that was impossible. Just sheer lu-
"Come on bitch, put your back into it!" Misao snapped, stomping a foot and shattering the ground beneath the girl's feet.
"What do I do?" Shampoo thought as she scrambled away from the collapsing ground. "What can I do?"
Even as she wondered this, those damnable scissors returned, joining Misao's flanks and snapping their jaws at Shampoo like starving dogs looking for a bite. After their intimidating display, they propelled themselves forward to take those bites.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Shampoo screamed, ducking and darting away from the snapping jaws, but it was a close thing each time.
It could be said that a full body punch from Ryoga Hibiki was nothing to laugh at. Indeed, on most human opponents, such a thing would result in grievous injuries. But what he faced wasn't a human opponent but something created to dominate things beyond human.
Misao didn't even feel the impact, the armor absorbed it quite readily. Still, a bug getting on you needed to be swatted at to remind them who was the greater being. Without staying her scissors, she turned ever so slightly and flicked a finger at the boy.
The tuft of air pressure hit Ryoga in the face like a kick from Ranma, sending him to his ass and dazing him for a moment.
Satisfied he was down for the moment, Misao turned back to watch and observe the cornered Amazon.
"How do I win? How do I win?" Shampoo hadn't given up, for she still had her mind. The cunning that marked her the greatest of her generation and made her so very deadly. Indeed, she could think and formulate a plan for anything, even something short of a god.
But time was a precious resource she was being denied as her desperate dodging continued to rob her of the space to breath and allow a plan to live. She still had throwing knives but if the dao got obliterated by those demonic things, then her knives were worthless. What else could she bring to bear? Her melon hammer? She had discarded it already after losing its paired mate.
Forward she pitched herself over a particularly close snap of the scissors, one that surely would have shorn her in twain. What was she supposed to do against this anime bullshit?! Still, despite her frustration, she rolled to her feet and sprinted away once more.
Misao retracted her lovely little pups, satisfied with watching Shampoo squirm. With her cute little pets hovering obediently at her side, she took aim and flicked a finger at Shampoo much like she had Ryoga. The tuft of air pressure hit down at the Amazon's feet, sending her into the air.
If she were interested in ending it, she could easily send her scissors up and tear the helpless girl apart. But Shampoo had humiliated her and the favor would be returned in kind. She'd make the bitch piss herself in frustrated terror, her helplessness all too much of a forgone conclusion.
Then and only then would she deign it necessary to wipe the cunt out.
When you get down to it, the reason Misao loved video games, more than their capacity for fun and making money, was that it allowed her to make other people happy. She was probably the nicest person you could meet, honest and gentle to a fault. She tried to keep the peace and do her best to keep a smile on her face. If she could help other people be happy by telling dirty jokes and running around without a top, then she'd do it.
But that had been taken from her, that connection to people who needed her had been severed by this stupid bitch. The money, their happiness, her happiness from being able to do something for people. It was all gone for now and it was going to be hard to get back to where she was before thanks to this shitpile that thought that everyone would roll over for her.
However, at the very core of it all, the key part to Misao's rage is that the danger to Ranma's life wasn't something held at bay by her castle's wall. The enemy had invaded her sanctum and came for this sweet boy who while making mistakes was honestly, earnestly living to make up for them. The thought that she could really lose him had spurred her forward to this end.
"No more worries Ranma," she thought, as she rocketed towards where the Amazon was trying to recoup after being sent flying. "Misao's gonna make it all better again."
Shampoo lolled her head over just in time to see that armored demon approaching again. Her reaction time was slowed but still enough to evade the punch that slammed into the Earth and sent dirt and Amazon both into the air. As she tumbled into the air again, she realized she was being toyed with.
By this useless lump of meat. Well, she certainly was of use now wasn't she? What could she do, what would work?
"Xian Pu!" Ryoga called as he managed to run under her and catch her from her fall. It was almost obvious to him they couldn't win like this but how could they flee? Where could they flee? All they had were questions when they needed answers. Still, they had to find some small purchase of time to plan and come up with some way of attack.
"Airen..." Shampoo murmured, feeling safe for the moment.
"I'm sure you were wondering," Katie said to Ranma as they watched well away from the hazard zone Misao had created. "Why, beyond anger, I'm not the one in the suit."
"It had crossed my mind." Ranma admitted.
"It's kind of how Misao is." Katie said, sighing a little. "You really don't try to get her pissed because the more pissed she gets the more she feels she needs to do to calm down. She's nice and can laugh off a lot of things but once you've stepped over the line, she goes off."
She paused, thinking of a way to describe it.
"You know how the Golden Pair got wiped out? Well, during a Christmas Party at this pretty swanky place, that was my first job with her, we crossed paths with them."
Ranma nodded. "What happened?"
"Well, the guy of the duo, Mikado Sanzenin, had this thing where he had to kiss every pretty girl he met, and the elusive Misao was his Christmas Gift to himself. He eventually got that kiss though, but he did it while she was on camera and chatting with her subs, and it caused this huge shitstorm in seconds."
Ranma cringed. "That dick!"
"Yeah, ended up giving him a good slap across the face, and some unkind words were said, with him deciding that 'Kissing such a fat girl' was a mistake." Katie shook her head. "He said that on camera, too… and that just made the people raging at her even worse."
Kissed her without her permission, got her subscribers in a tizzy, and then called her fat. "What did she do?"
Katie huffed. "She called me over, and told me to beat the shit out of his skating partner. Just destroy her so she couldn't skate again. She her own issues that crossed a line with me already that night, I did so with gusto."
She then let out a dark laugh. "I snapped all her ribs, crushed her legs, and nearly broke her back right over my knee before I tossed her into a swimming pool from 20 stories up." All at Misao's instruction, and it was at that moment that she realized that she was in love with the palmtop tiger.
Ranma gaped at her. "You did what?"
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "It's not like she didn't make a fight of it. Like I said, the little gremlin had her own issues that crossed a few lines. She was a klepto with a penchant for using her cuteness to get away with stealing people's stuff. Factor that in and I was already burning mad at her."
Ranma looked at her for a long second. "That doesn't fit though."
"Oh I was a lot more anti-social when I first got here so I was a lot less restrained in expressing my anger." Katie looked back towards the fight. "Misao doesn't have any restraint at all. Not when she's been slighted. You take something from her, you break something, you threaten her or the people she loves… and she will end you."
Ranma shuddered. "It's almost like the Joketsuzoku…"
Katie gave him a sidelong look and smirked . "Then, can you imagine anything more poetic? Shampoo's picked a fight with her own dark reflection, and it aims to kill her."
With a clack, Misao's armored boots touched down onto the ground, a few errant arcs of electricity rising to meet her before they connected. With a final backflip, the two scissors returned to their hardpoints. In front of her, Ryoga set Shampoo back down and stared intensely at the armored fiend, before he looked past her at the damage caused all over the street, and even further beyond where Ranma and Katie watched.
He focused back on her, when her visor came up, revealing the upper half of her face and her cold stone-gray eyes.
"What was that you said?" She asked Shampoo. "That slaughtering me would be a warm-up?"
Her eyes rolled to her left, then right, as if she were trying to recall those words exactly. They then fell back on Shampoo, as a single bolt of electricity jumped the gap between her visor and her facemask. "Tell me, are you feeling the heat yet?"
The annoyed tone in her voice told the battle couple that they were boring her. That they couldn't put up a sufficient enough fight against this monster she had brought to the battlefield. It was absurd for her to get annoyed when her very misses sent them tumbling away.
Or that's how Ryoga saw it anyways. "If you're that bored, why don't you go away then?"
"Is she going to leave RicePony alone and apologize for all the shit she's destroyed?" Misao asked in that same deadened tone.
It was an idea but there was no way to even bluff it. Before he could stop her, Shampoo was already shouting her answer.
"Shampoo never stop until Red dead!" It was admirable in some respects but sticking to your guns when outmuscled and outgunned was just damn moronic.
"And that's why I'm still here." Misao said, before looking at Ryoga. "Sure you got the guts to watch me rip hers out?"
Ryoga gritted his teeth. "Just what do you want out of this fight?"
"Your little slut trashed my home, insulted me to my face and is a constant threat against someone I care a great deal for." Misao replied. "If you were in my shoes, would you stop fighting because you got bored?"
She had him there, but he had to try. "Then you can understand why I can't sit by and watch you try to hurt her."
"Oh silly boy, I'm not trying to hurt her." Misao said to reassure him. "I'm going to hurt her. And you if you keep this up."
It was no use, words couldn't reach her. If that was the case... "Xian Pu, we can't fight separately like we have been. We have to coordinate our attacks, all right?" He sounded so brave and sure, but it could easily be bravado.
But Shampoo wanted to believe in him, this young man she gave her heart to. Even now as her confidence dwindled, he was still there with her. To the end, whatever it may be. What had she done to deserve such a wonderful man? It troubled her she couldn't answer that right away.
"Yes!" Shampoo went the easy route and said what made it easiest to reply with. "Shampoo fight with Airen to victory!"
"You will, but it won't be yours," Misao said right before her visor snapped back into place.
Ryoga looked ahead, and quickly got ready. "Here she co-!"
Misao thrust her right arm out, and the scissors on her forearm ignited and accelerated off her arm, a long waving cable trailing behind it as it accelerated to a speed well in excess of Ryoga's own fastest strikes. Before Ryoga could react, the scissors opened wide, like a shackle that slammed into and locked around his neck.
Shampoo, alarmed, quickly drew a knife to cut it, but in that same instant Ryoga accelerated forward, recalled towards Misao. "Airen!"
When Ryoga reached Misao, the shackle let go and he was left stumbling forward, gagging from the impact to his neck, right into a high kick that connected with Ryoga's chin and launched him straight into the air, condensation rings trailing behind his body.
"Hey, Shampoo… remember when you broke my stuff, threatened me, mocked me while I was helpless to do anything, and tried to kill someone I cared about?" Misao asked calmly. "Watch this."
And then Misao was the rocket, accelerating straight towards the dazed Ryoga as he reached the apex of his punt-induced flight.
"She… she hit me… so hard…!" Ryoga thought as his head swam in the pain. His eyes then widened when he saw her coming at him, the eyes of her visor gleaming a terrifying red.
She shot straight up past him, before turning and firing her left arm's shackle down at him, catching him by the leg with it. Winching him up, she let him go and punched him with a haymaker right, firing him back towards the ground.
As he descended, she held out her arms, and the scissors on her shoulders and her thighs lit up before flying off the rails. Instead of assuming their normal pattern of flight, they began to spin at high speed, until they became discus that swirled around her.
"Releasing the Hounds!" She called out, and the four weapons took off down while she went up and away.
Ryoga was a durable dude, he'd tanked plenty hard hits, but that was a level on par with an angry Ranma. Before he could think of recovering and reorienting himself to land, he was clocked hard across the face by a powerful force. Then another one hit him, clipping his right side. A third hit, launching him up and into another that launched him laterally.
On the ground, Shampoo could only watch as the Hounds, as Misao called them, converged upon her husband as their namesake implied, and began battering him left and right, up and down through the sky, keeping him well above the rooftops, and out of range of any meaningful rescue attempt.
Then the shackle came down, catching Ryoga around the right arm and yanking him through the air horizontally. As Misao swung him around, each of the four Hounds struck him on the flypast, before she plowed him through a billboard and then beyond that into the side of a water tower, shattering it.
In the building beyond that there was a tremendous thud, and the sound of crumbling brick. Deeply embedded in the side of the building wall, but not completely through it, was the majestic wolf that was Ryoga's cursed form, unconscious and twitching.
Misao stared at the fallen wolf, as the shackle returned to its place, and the Hounds reattached to her armor.
She then turned and looked down at Shampoo, the visor coming up again so she could see her with her own eyes. "I wanted to do more, but after a while you're just smacking around a slab of useless meat, and I've already had my warm-up."
It was impossible, everything since this monster appeared just couldn't be real. It had to be a nightmare, a nightmare! Shampoo fought down her terror and focused on the faint fan of flames that was her remaining rage. She needed to avenge her husband, this was no longer about Red anymore.
"About time fat pig." It wasn't a smart thing to say and at this point, she should just be surrendering. But she held onto her pride like a certain prince might.
A sound left Misao's throat, a soft, easy-sounding laugh. She then descended from on high, landing in front of Shampoo, but not too close.
"I'm sorry leaving your husband a beaten mess took so long, but now that we don't have distractions I can get to the…" She stopped herself from making another meat pun. "… Point."
She stared at Shampoo. "You can't hurt me. You can't touch me. When you attack me, all you'll do is flail uselessly until I slap you down."
One by one, the Hounds detached and appeared to float up into the air above her, like balloons.
"But until I finally get around to that slap, you're going to try. You're going to fight me with all of your might, and you're going to lose. Then when you're done, you're done." She held out her arms as the visor shut again. "Now come at me, with everything you've got. I won't even defend myself. I won't need to."
Shampoo turned her senses inward, closing her eyes and gathering everything she had. All she had to do was pummel that armor until that fat pig came spilling out and then kill her. She had enough left for that, there was still that last glimmer of victory. Time for revenge then…
"Haaauuuu…" Her breathing slowed as her body began to hold in this last rush of destructive power. It had to end with this, it had to! Her eyes opened and she was ready.
"I'm waaaaiting~" Misao taunted.
She didn't have to wait much longer as Shampoo's first punch, a right cross, landed. The bang was rather loud but the suit didn't budge even a micro-fraction of an inch. A left followed but it did nothing as well. She came with a beautiful spinning right roundhouse kick that yet again did nothing. Three left middle kicks banged on in but all they did was make noise.
There was no time to worry, just swing and swing and swing. Don't think this one attack would settle it, wear it down for the next one and the next one after that. She began to apply the principles of all the varying kempo collected under the Amazonian tree of martial arts. Snake strikes, crane strikes, tiger smashing paws and more. Her attacks still did nothing more than make noise.
It wasn't enough but she had to press on. For her Airen who fought so bravely beside her, for her people back home. She was of the pinnacle, of the Elite! She would not fall here, she would win! For her future!
Lightning fast kicks began to batter Misao next, who took it all without care. The attacks were fierce but her armor was more than capable of withstanding it. Shampoo switched legs once, twice, three times before she switched back to punches. There was still gas left, still hope left.
Always hope, always…
A tear fell down her cheek, mixing with her pouring sweat as reality cruelly set in. She was deluding herself and doing exactly as the fat pig wanted. Just a puppet on a string but she had her pride damn it!
From the depths of her belly came a berserker yell as she redoubled her efforts, pounding away even as her fists ached and her shoulders burned from the exertion. Just a little more, just one hit more… one lucky hit…
Her arms dropped dead from exhaustion. Had she ran out of gas already? Were the embers of fight that weak? Where was her pride, her skills? Where was anything that could bring this bitch down?
Shampoo threw a truly pathetic kick that didn't even make a sound after it connected. There was nothing left it seemed. Nothing, but failure and defeat again. Some champion she was.
"All done? That was shorter than I expected." Misao taunted, before she just so casually bopped Shampoo across the chin with a dainty backhand left.
It was more than enough as Shampoo collapsed to the ground, still conscious but helpless. The bitch wasn't even going to give her the satisfaction of a worthy defeat. Bitter tears poured down her face as she realized just how miserably she failed.
"Welp, time to get to work." Misao said, reaching down and taking a handful of that purple hair and hauled her up by it. "You asked for this, just remember." She marched Shampoo over to the nearest building and leaned her against it.
"Just end Shampoo." The Amazon wasn't pleading, she was still prideful enough to be put out of her misery.
"Tempting but no." Misao said, summoning one of the Hounds close. "Your hair is such a mess darling, let me clean it up for you." She held up the hair for the Hound to greedily bite through, shortening Shampoo's hair even shorter than Nabiki's bowl 'do.
Holding out her hand, Misao placed it on her now shortened hair. A gentle electric hum sounded and the not so gentle smell of burnt hair filled the air as she rubbed her metallic hand back and forth over Shampoo's head, cutting down what is left until there is nothing but a violet fuzz atop her head barely a half inch in length.
"Much better darling." Misao purred, the facemask parting so Shampoo can see the wicked grin on the face of the woman who beat her. "But this isn't enough."
Two more Hounds then slammed into the wall, trapping her outstretched arms between their jaws. Shampoo didn't even react, she let herself hang limply in their embrace, her gaze lowered to Misao's feet. She knew what was coming: those teeth would rev up, and there would go her arms and the only hope she'd ever have of being a warrior.
It didn't quite happen like that. Instead there was the crunch and searing agony of the Hounds' jaws crushing Shampoo's arms just below the shoulder. The other two Hounds went in for her elbows, grabbing them and crushing them with tremendous PSI but no teeth. Then they twisted, breaking her bones further before they released her and let her fall to her knees.
A lesser woman would've gone insane or fainted from the agony. Shampoo silently endured it, with tears running down her face.
"You're no warrior," Misao then said. "For all your fancy martial arts you get destroyed by a fat girl in power armor that did all the fighting for her. How many of your proud warriors can claim that? How many of your village would like to find that out?"
Shampoo stared down at the ground, now trying to avoid even looking at Misao's feet. "Shampoo… never tell. Shampoo… die first."
Misao let out a light laugh. "Well, it's a good thing I filmed it then."
Shampoo's breathing got caught in her lungs. It wasn't, no, not that… Her face lost color and she recoiled, finally bringing her head up to look at this demon who destroyed her in abject horror.
"So here's my advice on how to make sure no one important to your little traditions see it: Take your big wolf stud home, have yourself a litter of puppies, and forget about fighting ever again. Because if you were beaten by me, then you've been doing it wrong all your life." Misao said in a matter of fact tone. "You're no warrior, you're just some dude's Chinese bride."
That tone then darkened. "And that's more than you deserve."
The atmosphere brightened again as she clapped her hands. "Okay, that was fun and all but let's never do it again. I'm very much a lover and not a fighter."
She turned and with a quick boost alighted herself into the air to coast slowly over towards Katie and Ranma. Setting down, she looked back and forth between both of them, looking weary for a girl who'd gotten her well deserved revenge.
"I'd say let's go home," she said, "But… you know how that is."
Katie nodded, before she stepped forward and embraced Misao tightly. "We can go to your Auntie's place, or get a hotel…"
"I don't know where I want to go," Misao said. "I want to go back to my not destroyed apartment and my not destroyed stuff and just veg out and play video games…"
Ranma hugged her as well, catching her bit by surprise. "Ah?"
"Yeah… I know," Ranma said.
Misao sighed, and hugged both of them tightly back. "I'll call my Mom. She'll hook us up."
"Sounds good," Ranma replied.
Katie kissed Misao on the cheek. "I love you, bae."
Misao returned the smile and pulled Katie down for a much more intimate kiss on the lips, right before Ranma's stunned eyes. After Katie returned it for a moment, they pulled away, and Misao stepped back, a small giggle coming from her lips.
They both looked over at Ranma, and before either could say anything. "We should get Akane and that Mousse guy to uh… Dr. Tofu's! Yes!"
He turned to find that Mousse had already gathered up Akane, who now had a bandage around her head and looked at least consciousness.
"Akane! Are you okay?" Ranma asked, coming over to her.
"As much as anyone who gets knocked out like I did." Akane said, looking contrite. "I was so focused on Shampoo I never saw Ryoga, not even when it was too late. Mu-san was kind enough to tell me what happened."
Mousse looked kind of chagrined at attention turned on him. "Well I needed to bandage her head but she was still trying to fight."
"Well, either way you did a good thing." Katie said, knowing exactly what Akane was talking about. "Don't let it eat at you Akaneko, trying a new thing is always hard."
"I had her, I was so exhilarated that I was winning I lost sight of everything and blam." Akane said, fighting off tears. "I had her… I had her."
"Peace girl, you won as far as I'm concerned." Katie whispered. "Just let us get you to the doctor's all right?"
"Yeah, okayl Senpai." Akane said, still looking a little bitter.
"For what it's worth, Akane, you were amazing." Ranma said, giving her a small smile.
"Thank you Ranma." Akane said, smiling despite the pain.
"It's over." Mousse mumbled looking over the devastation. "What a night this turned out to be."
"Yeah," Katie agreed, looking back towards Misao and giving her a smile. "But that'll make sunrise all the better."
"You said it," Ranma said, looking out over the devastated landscape and finding it hard not to feel responsible.
Sometime later, Shampoo awoke in the room she shared with Ryoga in the Hibiki home. Her arms were in both casts and splints, the rest of her body aching from exhaustion and damage from the fight. Off to the side, she heard Shirokuro bark before the dog came over to lick her face.
"Aiya." She could barely bring herself to voice the complaint.
"So you're awake." Ryoga said, from a chair in the opposite direction. He was being quiet out of respect for her injuries.
"A…" Shampoo started to use her familiar name for him but stopped short. Her hair was lost and she felt so very hideous after being ruined like that.
"Right, you're not really a warrior anymore and your village marriages aren't recognized here." He said gravelly, before his tone brightened. "So I'll just have to marry you by Japanese law then when you're better. It's not much but I still love you."
"But Shampoo hair…" She felt so embarrassed and small because of it.
"You're still beautiful to me, even if your hair never grows back." He said, smiling in the face of her tears of joy. "So if you'll have me, I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
Her cheeks burned, her eyes were wet and her heart thumped with the emotion. She managed a nod, relieved that he wasn't going to abandon her.
"Come on Shirokuro, we need to get some food going so the other lady of the House can start to recover." Ryoga said as he got up, nodding at her happy bark. "I'll whip something up real fast and send Shirokuro back along with the food. Don't wanna do too much more.
She watched him leave, a hollow pit in her stomach that contrasted the warmth of emotion in her heart. There was no redemption for her, she wasn't going to raise herself up from this pit of despair and get revenge. It was over, she and her stupid pride had been defeated and humbled.
This was no happy ending for her, but for him. She couldn't go back ever which meant their argument over where to live ended in his victory. She was no longer fit to be a warrior or walk on that path ever again.
Xian Pu the Amazon Champion was gone, soon to be replaced by Hibiki Xian Pu, just a Japanese boy's Chinese bride.
Oh yes! Yes! Yes!
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 9/?
|Useless Meat|
"So this is the other shoe." Ranma thought, a fair assessment indeed. For here it was, in the sanctuary the young Saotome had made that the villain out for her life had appeared.
There was no movement from Shampoo yet, the ghost image of being so easily kicked in the face fresh in her mind. Indeed, she was sizing up the room, taking in the measurements and every detail she could use. Though gifted with great destructive power, what made this girl a champion was her keen mind and battle sense. For indeed, she was prepared for this encounter, as she was for every other encounter with Red.
Her rival, so like an Amazon, not an Outsider woman. Normally quick to shriek and scream, panic in the face of danger. Even the warrior women of the outside world were mere infants before the might of Joketsuzoku. It was in this understanding that women outside of their village were such frail things that the Kiss of Death became a reality.
After all, how could you fall to such useless meat?
Misao's shock wore off just enough for her anger to come roaring to the front. "WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?! YOU FUCKING FUCK! WHAT DID YOU… FUCK!"
… But not coherency.
Shampoo ignored it. "Make you peace and bid you byes. Shampoo send you to hell quick if you good girl."
Ranma's fear at Shampoo melted away with the realization she had to protect Misao. In Katie's absence, it fell to her to protect this amazing woman. "Go fuck yourself."
The Amazon's eyes narrowed. "You is only making thing worse."
Ranma snorted. "Come and get me you chickenshit bitch. I already know you know you can't win against me up close. I'll put you down again, you damn glassjaw bitch."
"You is think you can win?" Shampoo asked, cracking her neck. "You is think you beat Shampoo like that again?"
"Well you're standing there talking shit from over there because you're afraid of me." Ranma stood up, her bravado doing wonders to keep down her instinct to grab Misao and run. "That's actually what she wants. She wants me to try and run so she can keep her distance and try to snipe me down."
"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Misao hollered, finally forming something resembling human speech... though screamed at the top of her lungs. "Why is it that any of you muscle brained dumbfucks have to do such stupid shit?! LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO MY HOUSE!"
"If you is so confident, come get Shampoo." Shampoo made a motion like she was beckoning a cat.
"So you can run from me? You have me at a distance but your challenge required you to get in close." Ranma said, measuring the distance and how long it'd take for her to reach Shampoo. "I just have to get her guard down…" Easier said than done of course.
Misao was going to help, as she switched to Chinese before her next tirade. "Do you know how much this cost, you meathead moron?! More than your entire fucking ass backwards village of bumpkin yokels! You think you can just smash your way into people's houses and do what you want?!"
"Weakling sows should be quiet." Shampoo retorted sharply, sparing a withering glare for the girl as contempt rolled off the Amazon in waves. "If useless meat think it get say, maybe Shampoo slaughter you first for warm-up."
Misao drew back, her gray eyes wide with fury. "… Oh no you did not-"
"I say shut up, stupid fat girl!" Shampoo snapped louder at her, and that was the opening Ranma needed, crossing the distance between her and Shampoo with such speed that the dust in the air scattered to get out of her way.
Quickly, Shampoo tried to swing one of the melon hammers down, but Ranma was faster, her punch shearing through the shaft of the hammer on its way to Shampoo's face, while she narrowly avoided the head of the hammer. Shampoo twisted out of the way, Ranma's fist barely grazing her chin as she got clear, and jumped back to swing the other melon hammer down.
The hammer hit the floor, splintering it, and Ranma vaulted over it, her body twisting to snap a kick at Shampoo. "Don't you ever…"
She let the kick fly, right as Shampoo's arms came up to block it. "… THREATEN MY FRIENDS YOU DUMB BITCH!"
The force of the kick launched Shampoo down the hallway and through the window to the fire escape that waited outside. Smashing through the fire escape, Shampoo crossed the street and the roof of a shorter building–a general store–and collided loudly with an air conditioner unit on the roof, which sputtered and exploded.
Shampoo, rubbing the back of her head, managed to stagger from the cloud of smoke. Relieved that she had remembered to block the hit this time. She looked back towards the building she just left, and saw that Ranma was already falling towards her, positioning herself into a flying kick that was coming way too fast to be safely blocked.
So instead Shampoo dodged, springing into a somersault that helped her get clear of Ranma's point of impact, which buckled the part of the roof she landed on.
"You really want this fight… then you're going to get it!" She growled as she got back up and stared Shampoo down. "You're going to get it and more than you can handle you psycho bitch!"
There was that impossible strength again, Shampoo could only stand in wonder at how such a tiny girl hit so goddamned hard! But it didn't matter, here was where she was in her element, having already cased the neighborhood. The chance for victory had already fallen out of her opponent's hands, now it was a matter of executing the plan.
"Not best start, but things still go Shampoo way." She chortled with glee. The despair on Red's face was gonna be orgasmic… "Everyone struggle when death come. Let see how you do yes?"
An outside spectator could hear the sound of an oncoming train horn as Ranma barreled towards Shampoo, blood in her eyes and her vision red. The sound of that was immediately interrupted by the explosion of the air conditioning unit as it met its end at Ranma's fist.
Spinning through the air in a neat triple axle, Shampoo landed and unwrapped from her waist a long length of rope with a large bundle at the end. As Ranma pulled her fist out of the smashed air conditioner's remains, she watched the rope become fully unfurled, the bundle releasing to reveal a deadly jagged steel dart that became a blur as Shampoo swung it around in her right hand.
Shampoo stared at Ranma, excited, bloodthirsty. Now the real fight began. "Let's go… Red!"
With that, she launched the rope dart like a rifle shot, a crack sounding as the rope dart accelerated towards Ranma.
As the two began to clash, Misao looked around her ruined apartment. Overturned furniture, destroyed electronics, her shattered bong and scattered cannabis. She lowered her head, and took a deep breath, before she looked up, her face a mask of cold fury.
"Useless meat, huh? Let's so how useful yours is when I hack it from your God damned body…"
She went to find her phone, she had to call her Mom.
|Olympus Has Fallen|
"I really can't thank you enough for your hospitality," Mousse said kindly to Kasumi over the dinner that she served him.
Kasumi was all smiles as she returned his compliment. "There's no need to thank me, I'm just happy that you enjoy it."
Mousse looked back down at his food, a small, gracious, but ultimately strained smile across his lips. "It's very good."
"So what brings you to Japan, Mu-san?" Akane asked him.
"Just to settle some business, nothing serious." Mousse picked at his food, and took a bite.
Katie regarded his answer through the eyes of heaven, and was worried by the fact that there was nothing there. His heart rate, his breathing, they were perfectly calm as though he were resting. It made him completely unreadable.
There were two types of people like this, and one of them was extremely dangerous if they were a martial artist. The first was, naturally a person who was at rest. Relaxed. Perfectly calm. A good example Katie could use as a baseline would be Misao, or Kasumi-senpai. The second sort was Mousse, a person who had no visible tells whatsoever to offer insight into his thoughts and feelings.
Mousse was an empty, emotionally suppressed shell of a man with no thoughts or desires. Which meant that he was a person who was totally at peace with himself. These were the sort of people who were extremely dangerous to themselves and others, especially others, because whatever they had decided upon was that–they would see their objective to the end and they didn't care about any other factor in their way.
People like this tended to do awful things to themselves or others unless something shook them out of it.
"Business, ah?" Akane asked. "What kind? You've traveled kind of far for it."
"Personal business," he explained. "I would rather not such kind people as yourselves not get caught up in my… well… business."
These people were too kind for that. Too kind to see the mess he would have to make…
Akane respectfully backed down, though she kept getting this strong vibe that something was off. "Well, I hope whatever business you have, it's taken care of."
"It will be," he whispered.
Akane and Kasumi shared worried glances. Katie just furrowed her brows.
Nabiki entered the Tendo home then, feeling pretty happy. She got to spend uninterrupted time with Ranma and there was at least hope on the horizon. Still, she wasn't really ready for what awaited her when she walked into the common room to find Katie, Akane, and some Chinese guy she didn't know.
"Okay what?" She said, looking right at him.
"Uh, hello." Mousse, who like Shampoo wound up attached to the mispronunciation of his name, looked away all pitiful like and it was only deepening the sense that she was missing something.
Akane gestured to Mousse. "This is Mu Tsu, there was a small misunderstanding, but it's cool now and since he's kind of worn out from his travels we're being hospitable."
"It's a pleasure to meet you," he said politely.
Well mannered at least. "I'm Nabiki, a pleasure." She seemed a little lost as the unexpected guest threw off her mental train.
Akane was always there to throw her a bone. "So how'd the search for Ranma's rival go?"
Nabiki furrowed her brows a bit. "Well, we were right about him and the wolf being one and the same…"
Mousse, who was sipping some miso soup, grew very tense at that moment a wolf was mentioned.
Katie spoke up then. "Seems there is some luck on our side."
"Turns out that he's a pretty nice guy too," she went on. "Apparently because of Ranma he doesn't have nearly as many problems as he did, and he really likes his curse."
Mousse stared into his cup of soup, his every muscle tense and his breathing surprisingly still.
Akane was relieved. "That's good." She then remembered. "Oh wait… that wolf… he's…"
Katie scowled. "Shampoo's husband?"
Nabiki nodded. "They are happily married, it appears. One mention of RicePony though and she lost all other pretenses, she was ready to kill anyone who got in her way."
Katie's scowl flew into a shocked gasp. "Wait… what? She was there?!"
Akane was equally alarmed. "Please tell us she wasn't there!"
Nabiki looked back and forth between them. "Yeah, she was…"
"Did Ranma go straight back to my house?!" Katie demanded.
Nabiki froze as she realized why they were alarmed. "Oh… shit."
The universe's timing was impeccable again as an alarm app on Katie's phone blared to life right after Nabiki said that.
Katie whipped her phone out in the space between seconds and paled at all the alarm reports. Door breached, wall breached, window breached… "That... that bitch just attacked my house."
Akane gasped in horror but couldn't find words to express it.
Nabiki had words that were surprisingly self-incriminating. "Oh shit, I was too busy flirting with Ranma to check if she might be following us!"
Katie was already up and headed for the door. "Don't worry about it for now, I gotta get back there!"
Akane was right behind her. "I'm coming too!"
Before Katie could start an argument, Mousse suddenly showed a spark of life. "Xian Pu…" He muttered somewhat darkly. "I will come help too." He was still mostly lifeless and empty, enough to make your skin crawl.
"There's no time, we can assign blame later!" Nabiki snapped, ending any debate. "Go save our fiancé!" That was to Akane, a sign to show how serious Nabiki viewed what was happening.
Katie screwed up her face and just let out a frustrated "Damn it!" as she lead the rescue party out of the dojo.
Adrenaline was high, fire thrumming in their veins as they ran. Shampoo had shaken the school, something that had been reinforced in case of building smashing martial artists. But the apartment building was just a regular building, built like normal people lived there and not superhuman martial artists who sent people into clock towers for being shitheads. It was that oversight that worried Katie the most and why she was at the lead.
Behind her, Akane could only worry for Ranma. He had been so afraid of Shampoo, only resembling the cocksure boy she knew once the wolf showed up. Could he really be all right against her? And what of Misao, she was a normal girl?! She might be caught in the crossfire and the youngest Tendo's heart lurched in fear what something happening to Misao might do to Katie.
There were no thoughts to Mousse, he simply ran on autopilot to keep up with the girls. However, there was a faint glimmer in his eye, as if something was still lurking within the husk he had been reduced to. What was it exactly and what had happened to him?
Such was their speed, they arrived just as the fight was beginning in earnest overhead.
"Is that them?" Akane asked as the sound of the rope dart cracked the air apart. "What was that?"
"Some kind of weapon that Shampoo girl uses." Katie said, trying to focus her sight as fast as she could to make out the details.
"Xian... Pu." Mousse hissed under his breath, suddenly finding focus. The glimmer became a glint in rapid succession that caused his glasses to grow completely opaque.
Ranma twisted around the odd weapon, using her increased speed and smaller frame to evade it. The distance had to narrow down and fast, which was why she focused on her legs and launched herself like a rocket at Shampoo. It was truly a marvel what could be done when you really stop holding back, as the redhead overtook the retreating Shampoo and narrowly missed the haymaker that took a chunk out of the side of the roof Shampoo had been standing on.
The Amazon threw a kick to distract her prey from the dart's sudden nigh impossible return. The gambit might have worked if her quarry had been interested in conventional defense. As such, the kick missed when Ranma ducked and evading the scorching left pulled her sneak attack off. Still, the chunk it tore off the roof right by the redhead gave her time to start getting distance again.
"Get back here and take your medicine bitch!" Ranma hollered, stopping only long enough to break the dart. She was off after the Amazon without a thought, though in reality she was watching for anything.
The speed was wrong, unless she had leveled it up somehow. The girl was charging faster and harder than she had when fleeing in China. Was it somehow related to her desire to fight? Whatever it was, it was already being filed away for later by Shampoo, who threw three throwing knives behind her without looking.
Of course, they missed but the mere half second of delay granted Shampoo a wider berth. Out came the bow and an arrow was nocked before Ranma or the spectators below could register the bow had been drawn. It was all so amazingly fast, befitting a Champion.
Champion, yes it was a title she had been born to own. She ran harder, soared farther than anyone else in her age group. Her strength was already on par with some adults by ten. She excelled at everything it seemed, even when she failed. Tasting that strength once was enough to learn her of the mistake of letting that girl hit her.
She was always watching, this girl named Xian Pu. Her eyes absorbing information as she planned and placed the pieces that would ensure her success. She twisted and let the arrow fly, straight at the heart of her opponent. It was perfect, this was her-
Ranma never saw the arrow but her left hand plucked it from the air and broke it without even pausing to consider it.
"The hell?" Shampoo thought as she pulled another arrow out to nock it faster than before.
The redhead closed in and the radius she could fire shrank immeasurably, Gritting her teeth, the Amazon put the three dimensional nature of the environment to her benefit, jumping up and away from Ranma as she loosed the second arrow. This too was perfect and yet-
Ranma's right hand slashed the arrow out of the air, cutting the arrow in half mid flight before she even began to understand why she was moving.
"… Holy shit." Katie was using Heaven now and could see the magnificent defense. "Ranma must be in some kind of zone because how the fuck did he do that?"
"Do what?" Akane asked, not paying attention to Mousse and focusing on Katie.
"He just like fucking karate chopped an arrow out of the air without even recognizing it was there." Katie explained, exasperated. "His danger sense is unworldly!"
Mousse began to take several breaths as he focused on where Shampoo was.
"Impossible." This was said in Chinese, she didn't trust her Japanese to give her something close to right. "What is she?"
The distance was still in her favor but it was clear that the anger in her rival was focusing her instead of making her sloppy. She put the bow away, folding it up in a fraction of a second and pulled out a dozen throwing knives, six in each hand. She had to keep her distance, she had-
Ranma suddenly zipped forward again, almost teleporting forward.
"No you don't!" Shampoo thought, throwing all twelve knives at one, managing to make an near impossible to dodge wall of steel.
Near impossible of course meant there was the possibility of evasion and it was in that possibility that the demonic redhead found her salvation. She twisted, twirling herself over most of them, grabbing the ones that got closest to her. Upon landing, Ranma launched one of the knives at Shampoo.
That was a clang of metal on metal as it took out the next knife Shampoo had thrown as an insurance policy.
The second of the pilfered knives was sent hurtling at the owner, who had to evade with great haste. The knife hurtled into roof with enough force to crack it. Shampoo touched down and sprinted off, desperate to keep ahead. The distance was hers, the distance was-
She had miscalculated when she had enraged Red, this much was obvious as she raised her arms to block the thundering right cross from Ranma who had anticipated the Amazon's likely escape route and leapt in front of her. This power, this unbelievable power, what was its secret?
The Amazon was sent bodily off the roof her guard broken but her arms luckily were not. Still they stung but she twisted to fling herself towards the ground to give her some respite to recover. Every second counted with this monster and she needed to-
"Look there she is!" Katie hollered, pointing her out for the spectators only a scant number meters away.
"How in the world did they know?" Shampoo thought, before she spotted a familiar face. "Mu Tsu?! But he-"
"The fuck?" Katie asked as a berserker scream erupted from Mousse. She turned to see him charging towards Shampoo with the hunger of a starving animal. "Whoa!" She avoided being trampled.
"What got into him?" Akane wondered.
"Xian Pu!" The once reserved and placid shell of a man hollered, sounding possessed by a demon. The scimitar he had earlier was out and being brought down at Shampoo at lighting speed.
"Whoa, what?!" Ranma called from the rooftops, as she watched the sudden interloper interrupt. The blade had missed, but the impact caused nearby cars to jump in their place and the street to crack.
"Mu Tsu, what are you even doing here?!" Shampoo hollered as she dodged the slash, skipping along the road to avoid the splitting pavement.
"Killing you!" Mousse roared, not even coming close to explaining anything. He pulled his weapon from the ground and pointed it at Shampoo. "You're scum… SCUM!"
Katie whistled. "Well, the man's got style. Let's stomp a mudhole in this cunt's ass." She was about to go join in on the festivities when she heard a familiar voice.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY PAZ, I TOLD YOU I'LL PAY FOR THE FUCKING DAMAGES!" Misao screamed at the landlady, sounding a thousand times more furious than Katie ever heard before.
"The hell's crawled up your ass?" Katie called, turning back towards the source of the shouting.
"Apparently we were supposed to psychically know some building busting cunt from China was gonna fly in and wreck the fucking place!" Misao roared back. "And don't you start sassing me either! I've had it up to here with tonight and I'm not in the fucking mood."
"Okay okay, what happened?" Katie tried to placate the infuriated girl.
"She destroyed everything, my bong, my weed, AND MY FUCKING HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR PRODUCTION SET!" Misao started out calmly but was screaming loud enough to wake the dead by the end. "Do you know how much I'm losing on this outside of repairs? I'm going to be out of commission for weeks! That's money I make!"
"Right, um." Katie said, before pointing towards where Mousse was engaging Shampoo in sworded combat. "Well we kind of have her cornered so I was gonna elbow her face in as payback."
"No, you're taking me to Mom's." Misao said, tone brokering no argument. "That bitch's ass is MINE."
Akane heard all the shouting and understood most of why she'd feel that way but leave it to Senpai right? "Excuse me, but shouldn't you leave to Katie-senpai and the others?"
"Listen, sweetie, when a psychopath busts a wall in your house, destroying a ton of expensive shit, looks down upon you while you voice your very valid complaints and then INSULTS YOU ON TOP OF IT, THEN YOU CAN TELL ME HOW TO FUCKING HANDLE THIS!" Misao almost got through the recap before her rage overtook her again.
"… I'm sorry." Akane said, shrinking away.
"Okay, so you want to kick her ass, but how?" Katie asked.
"That's why we're going to Mom's. She's got something for her punk ass." Misao said, pointing at Katie. "You're going to make sure no one gets in our way from here to there."
There'd be no discussion it seemed. "All right, you got it. Let's go to your Mom's and see what she's got."
Misao nodded, before she looked at Akane. "You seem like someone who tries to see the best in people. If you want to end this without someone getting thoroughly fucking ruined, do it before I get back. Because if she's still standing when I get here, there will be Blood."
"Duty calls," Katie said, bowing to Akane. "Sorry Akaneko, she'll apologize once she's not super pissed."
"Th-that's all right." Akane said, waving it off. "You two go, I'll wait for my turn."
Katie and Misao promptly made tracks in the direction of Misao's mother's house.
Ranma called down. "Hey, you ok?"
"Considering I just pulled on Godzilla's tail and asked her politely not destroy Tokyo and she didn't crush me like ant... yeah, I'm good." Akane said, looking over at the fight. "I wonder how Mousse is going to fair." He was so weak before.
"Mousse?" Ranma asked.
"The guy who is trying to cut your Shampoo problem down to size." Akane explained.
"Oh." It was a simple response, but one that suited the moment.
|Love Like Winter|
In the grand scheme of things, there were a lot of words that could be spared on the history between Mousse and Shampoo. From the time they met as children, the threads of fate's rich tapestry had seen fit to tie them together. To be certain, there had been a lot of incidents that had fostered everything that had lead. But none were as bad as-
"You used me, " Mousse accused Shampoo, swinging for her face with the scimitar at high speed. "You took my love and threw it on the ground just for what? A revenge you didn't need to obtain? That you tried cripple me just to cover your guilt is the only reason I'm still standing here."
"You're an idiot." Shampoo said without a trace of emotion. Her dao did an admirable job of keeping the curved blade away from her. "I told you countless times that I hated you. Days on end without count. That you could fall for such an easy trick is exactly why you were never worthy of me in the first place."
Their slashes blurred as they danced along the street, sparks dancing off into the night like fireflies.
"And that somehow makes it okay for you to trample my heart like that?" Mousse asked, snorting in contempt. "Ah but I do forget, since you have no say in who becomes your husband, you wouldn't understand what romance and love is in the first place."
Shampoo snarled. "Shut your filthy mouth before I close it!" She forced him away with a mighty shove.
"Struck a nerve have I?" Mousse asked as he alighted himself on his feet. "Tell me, do you believe he loves you really because he punched you in the face first?"
"A male who has no clue what goes into our prized rituals doesn't get to question who I give my heart to!" Shampoo snapped back, holding her blade in front of her.
"Oh I know all about those 'prized rituals' and how you throw yourself at the feet of the barbarous outsiders so he'll put his dick in you." Mousse sneered, switching tactics to throw a knife at Shampoo.
Without even trying, Shampoo blocked the projectile, eyes never leaving the male who was out for her life.
"Look at that, you only even know how to block like that because of me." Mousse said, laughing with madness. "And yet you act like you were always the best."
"Shut up and fight," Shampoo returned.
"I'll fight how I wish!" Mousse hollered, attacking with further abandon. He whipped a bladed chain at Shampoo's face. When that was blocked, he came at her with a spinning slash that she narrowly avoided.
"Wow, he's pretty good." Akane murmured, though she wasn't sure she liked how the timid guy she met had morphed into some kind of psycho.
"Nah, she's holding back," Ranma said, shaking her head. "She knows I'm still here so she's taking it easy."
"He was pretty weak before, can he keep going at this pace?" Akane asked with apparent apprehension.
That thought was going through Shampoo's mind as well, as she could tell that Mousse was going at full throttle, not even caring about redlining. He was going to just hurl everything he had at her in this desperate scramble. Scramble, yes, that was a good word for this hectic hack and slash fight as they continued to fight back and forth across the street.
"You and that old bat, you think you can use people however you wish." Mousse shouted, now using two swords to press Shampoo. "That everyone else are pawns for you to move and sacrifice like they have no feelings or desires of their own."
"If you had a brain in your head, you'd have never fallen for that ploy in the first place." Shampoo said, just barely now exerting herself against him with the second sword in place. "But you keep blaming other people for your failures."
"Excuses, excuses!" Mousse roared, continue to pour on the effort. He was going to crash any second it seemed but he had something keeping him on his feet. "As if you don't know what she did to me, her most devoted pawn!" He lashed out at her with kick just to mix it up.
Shampoo actually shouldered the kick and skittered back with it. "What nonsense are you babbling now?"
Mousse actually stopped. "Don't pretend you don't know!"
"I'm not pretending, I don't." Shampoo said earnestly. "What the hell did she do to you that made you this bloodthirsty?"
Mousse laughed, weakly at first before he was full bore insanity laughing. "That's just great you… you don't know! You don't… know… ahuh…"
"Know what? Spit it out or stop yelling about it!" Shampoo snapped.
"If you really want to know, the old ba-" Mousse started, before a very solid and muscular arm slammed across his chest, flipping the poor bastard around a couple times before he landed face first into the pavement completely out cold.
"You never give up do you?" Ryoga spat, looking down at the unconscious young man.
"Airen!" Shampoo yelped, having thought she had given him the slip long enough to end this.
"Ryoga!" Ranma called, leaping down to stand next to Akane.
"You're being a bad girl…" Ryoga admonished before he turned to face the pair of people across from him. "But I love that about you."
"Ready to change your mind about that?" Ranma said. "She fucked up big time."
"Only one who fucked up is you, Red!" Shampoo said as she readied her dao.
Ranma bristled. "You just don't get it, do you?! This isn't even about that stupid food anymore! It's what you just freaking did! You wrecked my house! How is that worth more than your stupid pride?!"
Akane called out as well. "People who have nothing to do with this are getting caught up in this… if this keeps up…!"
Shampoo shot her a look much as she did Misao. "People who have nothing to do with this stay out of Shampoo way! Get hint! Go away so Shampoo can kill Red!"
"That's IT!" Ranma yelled. "I don't even know why I'm arguing with you, I'm just going to beat the stuffing out of you!"
Ryoga just blew out a sigh and stepped forward. "Can't let you do that, Red."
Ranma recoiled a bit. "What?"
"I said, I'm not going to stand by and watch you beat up my wife," he said simply.
"She trashed my apartment! My roommate's pissed!" Ranma shouted back. "And did I forget to mention that she still wants to kill me?!"
Ranma was beyond furious. After the time he spent fighting alongside her against this nutjob, he was going to do nothing because he got roped into some insane marriage tradition?
"It's not that I don't want this to happen, and I really don't want it to," Ryoga lamented as he sank into a fighting crouch. "But I have a duty as a husband to uphold."
Ranma bristled, her eyes narrowing. "Even when she's going to… you know what? Nevermind." Ranma said, throwing out any hope she had of a friendship with Ryoga at this moment. "Bring it on Ryoga."
Akane stepped up, drawing off her back the shinai she brought with her, tapping it against the ground. "Ranma… I am with you on this."
Ranma looked over at Akane. "Akane…"
She then looked ahead. "This girl… she doesn't care who she trashes as long as she has her way. That reminds me way too much of Kuno."
Raising her shinai, she achieved a mid stance, the tip of the shinai aimed at Shampoo. "I don't care how important she is to you, Ryoga! But I'm not letting someone like that run around, never again!"
"Airen?" Shampoo asked uncertainly, having expected him to just drag her away anyways.
"It's okay, Xian Pu." Ryoga assured. "I won't let them hurt you."
"There no need for-" She began to protest the protection
"I love you, so stop arguing and get ready to fight." He snapped back. "Let's see how they fair against the both of us."
"L-Love?!" She thought almost, dumbfounded. "Y-yes!"
"You want her? Get through me!" Ryoga roared, stamping a foot and shattering the asphalt.
"With pleasure!" Akane and Ranma both replied as they began to walk towards them.
|But Her Pride Refused to Die|
Misao Darlian was not a girl given to a temper. In fact, when it came to matters of anger, it took a tremendous amount to really agitate her. However–as one Mikado Sanzenin learned several months ago–when her fury was triggered, she had a wrath that shook the world and even drove Katie into silent compliance. The two of them stood outside a hastily summoned limousine in front of the towering black monolith in the heart of Shinjuku Ward, the headquarters of Hyuuga Heavy Industries.
Hyuuga Heavy, as it was often shortened to, was the company inherited by Hyuuga Momiji and Hyuuga Mizuho, Misao's mother and aunt respectively. Since the 70s, the company built ships and planes for the Japanese Self-Defense Forces–among others–but in the last twelve years, since the sisters Hyuuga took leadership, more esoteric technology. With such interesting work accelerating in the last year alone.
"I could be breaking her in half for you right now," Katie pointed out as they began to walk towards the front doors of the building.
"That bitch has her pride, and I have mine. My apartment got trashed, and my roommate has a target on his back and I'm supposed to sit back and have no say on that? Fuck that. I'm destroying that cow and shipping her home to her inbred family so they know the fuck better than to march through people's houses like they own them. And a bill will be attached."
She waved her hand, much like a Jedi, as she reached the doors, and they swept wide open. Across the long blue carpet on white tile floor at a front desk, a colorful woman sat behind the desk. Sporting bright orange hair with yellow-dyed tresses and darker red tips, the hazel-eyed woman looked up and smiled brightly.
"Hello, Misa-chan, Katie-chan-" She stopped when she saw the look on her face. "Ah… Misao…?"
"Unlock the basement elevator, Reika-san," Misao said. "I need to talk to Mom."
Reika nodded obediently, and hit a button on the phone at her desk. "The elevator's open."
As the two walked past, Reika looked over to Katie, mouthing a "What happened?"
Katie shook her head, warning her to not ask lest she get dragged into something she wasn't ready to handle. Accepting that, the secretary went back to what she'd been doing before the couple walked in–watching the King of Braves GaoGaiGar punch a Zondar's face off with an envious sigh.
Less than a minute later, the elevator doors opened, revealing a large, wide-corridor laboratory lined with thick glass windows, showing various machines and production lines constructing parts and equipment ranging from engines to weapons, to mechanical limbs of various sizes. It didn't look like anything standard she'd seen before.
Katie looked back and forth at the lines, before her eyes fell to the front, watching the back of Misao's head as she led her to a laboratory at the end of the hall.
"The heck is all this?" She asked. "I mean, I know you guys make military stuff, but…"
"Don't worry about, it's a side project," Misao advised as they reached the doors.
The double doors opened, revealing a row of seven large metal cylinders, each labeled 00-07, with a cylinder labeled 08 pulled from the wall to the floor, underneath a large gantry that a mass of manipulator arms hung over, hard at work on the machine within.
Surrounding the container were several engineers and scientists, with one standing out–a black-haired woman shorter than the already diminutive Misao, wearing a lab coat. Turning to face them the woman, who was a spitting image of Misao without the dye job and having a chest flatter than Katie's, lit up in a warm smile.
"Hey there, girls… what's…" Momiji Darlian trailed off when she saw how angry Misao looked. "… What happened?"
"I need the CX Type 2," Misao said simply.
Momiji tilted her head to the side, and brought up a hand to adjust her the black-rimmed glasses she wore.
Katie looked over at Misao, then at Momiji. "CX?"
"Type 2, the Oni unit? Why?" Misao's mother asked.
"Type 2?" Katie asked before she looked up at the cylinders. "What is this stuff?"
"A bitch destroyed my apartment to try to kill one of my friends, and she had the nerve to rub my face in it. Type 2 is perfect for her," Misao said.
Momiji looked over at the Cylinder labeled 02, then back to her daughter. "You do realize what the Type 2 is designed for."
"I know, I designed it," Misao responded. "And I want the lesson I teach to stick."
Turning to face the cylinder completely, Momiji sighed. "Good thing you live in Nerima… Prepare CX Type 2 for combat deployment."
The cylinder opened slowly opened, and when the light hit the contents, Katie tensed up. "Uh… Misao…"
Misao walked towards the cylinder, the fury even colder. "I'd text Akane if I were you for a status update; because it won't take me long to get dressed."
|Sadie Hawkin's Fight|
Mousse regained consciousness, his head throbbing something fierce as his senses had returned. Shaking it, he groped around on the ground, searching for his glasses, and managed to find them lying not too far from where he lay. Taking them in hand, he slipped them on and prepared to rise to reengage Shampoo.
"Ow… ow!"
Or not, apparently whatever hit him had done so with such force that it broke something, probably two or three ribs. Crossing his arm over his chest and remaining on his knees, he searched around for whatever could have hit him that hard so he could properly vow revenge against them. Of all the times… when he was so close to getting her…
"Who am I kidding?" He growled to himself. "I wasn't anywhere near getting her."
He pounded his free hand onto the ground. "She's even stronger than she was… because I had been the fool…"
Yes, ever the lamentable fool...
There was a cacophonous bang nearby, as Ranma collided against Ryoga, her high-speed cross being caught in his hand with ease. As Mousse strained himself to turn to see, he saw Akane launching herself at Shampoo with that bamboo stick of hers. Before he could begin to scoff, the girl made a clever hop to position herself for a strike, only for Shampoo to avoid it by going after Ranma.
"What... the..." Mousse could only gawk at the high speed battle. It was like something out of fiction made real.
Shampoo paid for her dismissal of Akane when the shinai brushed against her hip. It only stung but it brought Shampoo around to wave the dao at the interloper. That slice had been fast but it whiffed Akane as she hopped away. This girl...
"Hmph, you is dumb to come at Shampoo with stick. If want go find real weapon, you have Shampoo permission to run." She made a shooing motion, before she started turn again towards her quarry.
Again, this was a mistake, as Akane was almost blindingly fast in closing the gap, shinai screaming for Shampoo's face.
"What the...?" Shampoo thought as she brought up an arm to block the strike, feeling a bit of the power behind it. "Who is this girl?"
"Don't get cocky," Akane said, pupils dilated as she began to focus on Shampoo. "You'll regret it when you face me."
Ryoga got bored of holding Ranma back, sending a backhand swipe that ripped the air apart as it came for the redhead's ribs.
Ranma pushed herself up and over the swipe, performing a handstand on Ryoga, before using her perch to try and twist around to kick the stalwart Hibiki.
Try is the optimal word as Ryoga shoved his rival away before she was even a quarter of the way through the move.
"You're pretty strong like this," Ryoga congratulated. "But you sure you can hurt me?"
"Just watch me." Ranma promised, crouching down as she did the calculations in her head. That exchange gave her data on how fast Ryoga was reacting to her right now, which was crucial for this next part.
A knife sailed in from the side, thrown by Shampoo who was moving to another position. Akane followed the Amazon, unconcerned about the knife. The world was melting away and there was only her target it seemed.
Without looking, Ranma caught it and flung it into the dirt. In the next instant between breaths, she was charging towards Shampoo's new position.
"No you don't," Ryoga hollered, managing to body block the charging redhead. "I said go through me damnit!"
"All right, we'll do it your way!" Ranma had momentarily bounced off Ryoga's body, coming back with a left hook to the body Ryoga just tanked.
"Come on, hit me for real man!" Ryoga taunted, twisting around and plunging an overhand thrust. Ranma avoided it narrowly and the pavement below was shattered by what seemed to be a very casual effort for the young man.
"That strength is still unreal," Ranma thought as she took a position away from Ryoga. "His destructive power is insane but... he's still slow and has a nasty habit of not defending attacks. I can do this... I can win!" She was back in, swinging a blow for Hibiki's head.
He moved to block but she wove around him, sprinting at Shampoo. Ryoga didn't let the surprise catch him flat footed, as he was in hot pursuit. This was bad, so very bad!
Shampoo danced around another swing from Akane, feeling the hum and power behind the blow. She was powerful, really powerful, her hit power bordered on Shampoo's own if the estimate was right. Also, it was quick to see why she had chosen that stick; by focusing on the shinai, Akane's wild swings became tight and precise.
And very fast as another looping slash came at the Amazon, missing by a narrower margin.
"Shampoo!" Ranma roared, lunging at her back and ready to clobber her in the back of the head.
"You coward!" She was still recovering, if that blow landed it-
"I said no you don't!" Ryoga bellowed, catching ranma by the back of her shirt and yanking the girl away, thwarting the haymaker that just brushed Shampoo's hair.
A fluff of purple hair filled the air as Shampoo could feel the power behind that attack down to her toes. That fury was still there and the promise to harm the Amazon was still on the table of being fulfilled.
"Stop getting in my way dumbass!" Ranma yelled, kicking off the ground and tumbling over Ryoga's outstretched arm to slam both feet into his face. She tumbled backwards, alighting on her feet and slamming a one-two into Ryoga's exposed side.
"That tickles!" Ryoga snapped, warding Ranma off with another backhand. He was once again between the redhead and Shampoo. "Try hitting me for real."
"I still don't have the adjustment down to bring out 100% of my power." Ranma thought with a bitter look on her face. "If I could reach that, I could send this jackass flying!" Problem was, that'd take time and time she didn't have. If she kept going she was bound to run out of energy and slow down, which would mean her death.
"Come on come on!" Ryoga taunted. "Don't you want at her?"
"Ignore the bait and break him down. Where to hit and how hard." Ranma silently categorized her opponent, trying to determine how much more punishment he could take. "At least if he fails Shampoo will be at a severe disadvantage." Plan set, she was ready to rumble.
Shampoo bent backwards over the thrust, but this proved foolish as Akane snapped the shinai down right between the Amazon's breasts with a stinging retort.
"Ow!" Shampoo squealed. "You stupid pig!"
"You aren't good enough at Japanese to talk shit are you?" Akane was breathing slightly heavier than normal, her eyes almost glowing.
"Shut up." Shampoo snapped, swiping at her with the dao.
But Akane had seen it coming the literal instant Shampoo's muscles so much as twitched to begin the swing. With that much advanced warning, dodging it was easy. The counterattack to the wrist was even easier.
"Wrist!" Akane said, just before her shinai caught the Amazon on the wrist with a sharp smack.
"Ahh?" Shampoo silently reacted, her right hand going numb from the power of the strike. She kept the sword in her left and thrusted it at Akane.
Again though, Akane's focus had alerted her to the attack what seemed like a minute before hand. She dodged towards Shampoo's right to avoid the thrust and swung a horizontal slash into Shampoo's chest.
"Torso!" She crowed as it slammed home just above the breasts,
"Agh!" The Amazon squealed in pain as her lungs burned from the sudden forceful ejection of breath. "How?"
"I can see through you." Akane said simply. "Come at me if you think you can win."
Come at her Shampoo did, flowing into a series of one handed thrusts and swipes that should have been too hard to follow. If Akane were bluffing that is, but to the Amazon's growing ire, she was being read so thoroughly. Nothing came close, nothing but maybe... there! She thrusted out a right cross with her thought to be injured hand, hoping to surprise this stupid obstacle.
"Head!" Akane called as her shinai banged down on Shampoo's head. She had gotten behind the Amazon by using the girl's own attacks to hide her movements.
"Gah!" Shampoo screamed, that one hurt!
"Huh?" Ryoga turned, having thought Shampoo could handle the other girl.
This was all Ranma needed to slam home a thunderous left to the jaw. As Ryoga tried to counter, Ranma slipped down and slammed a three piece combo right to her opponent's exposed stomach. An attempted front kick to ward her off only gave the redhead a platform to spring up and once more slam both feet into Ryoga's face.
"Warm your way up to it." Ranma thought as she tumbled away from the seemingly unharmed Hibiki. "Don't try to rush a hundred, just make your way up until he feels it. And then make him feel it some more."
"Are you even trying?" Ryoga asked, laughing a little. He was a little concerned about Shampoo though. Still, Ranma was right there and he had to contend with his old rival for now.
"Just getting started." Ranma promised and even though Ryoga didn't blink he still missed her step in.
"He's so much faster now!" Ryoga fully realized as now a four hit combo slammed into his stomach. He thrusted his left out at her to bait the counter, and countered with speedy right hook.
It was anticipated and Ranma only half stepped in, letting the deadly hook fall short before sending his own right into Ryoga's face. A left managed to follow in and land before Ryoga could uncross himself to again send Ranma away with a fearsome swipe.
Mousse, who had been watching everything, could only stare in slack jawed amazement. Who the hell were these strange people and why were they so strong? Just what kind of Outsider place was this? Some kind of monster breeding ground?!
"Where did they get this kind of power?" Mousse wondered, before jealousy gripped him. "And why don't I have it?!" His fist found the dirt again as bitter tears filled his eyes.
Back over with Akane and Shampoo, they were locked in a deadly dance, the former skating on the razor's edge as she flirted with disaster in the form of a lethally sharp blade that would carve her up like a cheap slab of meat. Though to the latter, no matter how close it looked, the swings never felt farther than they had before now. It was impossible for someone to get this much of a read on a total stranger and yet-
"Head! Torso! Wrist!" Akane was literally calling her shots and Shampoo could do nothing to evade the stinging slaps. Each one rattled her bones and sapped dry her stamina, little by little it was proving that stick was better than her sword.
"How? How is you do this?" Shampoo was almost going nuts trying to figure it out. "Tell Shampoo!"
"Sorry, there's no more freebies." Akane said simply, already reading ahead so much that she had evaded the third move Shampoo was going to throw before the first even began to come out.
"TELL SHAMPOO!" The Amazon's composure just as she let fly the useless throwing knife that went off into the night.
"Head!" Akane roared back, smacking her over the head with the shinai.
"This is impossible!" Shampoo thought, her teeth chattering from the hit.
Ryoga again turned to look at the fight behind him, having heard Shampoo's cry. "Time to switch partners then." He slumped his guard, inviting Ranma to try something.
In this moment, Ranma had forgotten Akane and even Shampoo, and all she saw was Ryoga mocking her. With that rage inducing sight before her, she rushed forward and slammed a flying kick that sent Ryoga skidding back.
Also at this moment, all Akane could see was Shampoo. Nothing else even existed but her and Shampoo. She was so focused and centered on Shampoo she forgot to filter in Ryoga. She was new to this technique and hadn't been shown the downside of it and as such she used it without a single bit of care. She rushed Shampoo again, determined that she had worn down Shampoo enough to end it.
It was a pity, had she remembered Ryoga, had she been able to see him at all, what happened next would have been avoided. Instead she hopped face first into Ryoga's outstretched fist after the boy spun himself right into her path. Her head snapped back and her legs flew out from under her as she tumbled to the ground not even trying to catch herself.
"Why don't you just take a nap, eh girlie?" Ryoga said, not even following through.
From Ranma's vantage point, it unfolded in a matter of microseconds, as the joy of a strong hit gave way to the realization of a ploy to the horror of seeing Akane run right into Ryoga's fist. She wasn't placid for long, as she managed to catch Akane just before she could hit the pavement.
"AKANE!" Ranma screamed as she cradled the unconscious girl. "Akane! Speak to me, oi!"
She was breathing but completely out cold. There was a slight twitching as the youngest Tendo's body tried to complete its last command. She didn't even realize she had been knocked out!
This was too much, it was all too fucking much man. All this because of food, because of stupid pride?! What the fuck man, what the fuck?
"Hibiki… I'm gonna fucking kill you." Ranma swore as she put Akane down gently. "But only after you watch me tear that bitch's lungs from her chest." An aura of sheer rage enveloped her, even if she knew such threats were idle. Two against one? That would be fair odds if she were a guy at the moment.
"Bluff all you want." Ryoga said, before shrugging his head. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry it went this way. I really did want to be friends." There was a sense of fatalism there, knowing that Shampoo was going to make good on her vow.
Shampoo was still stunned by Ryoga's sudden appearance but she was recovering, both from the hits and from the shock. She had enough in the tank and with her invincible shield of a husband, this fight was as good as theirs.
"Is checkmate yes?" She asked, smiling for Ryoga.
"About to be." Ryoga was ready to charge in now, no more just getting in the way.
"Shit…" Ranma cursed, even as she prepared to make her last stand. "Shit…"
"Hey, you two," Katie called out then.
Ryoga and Shampoo both turned and found Katie and Misao standing right whereabouts the latter last saw them. Katie was now wearing a three-piece black suit and tie and a pair of slightly tinted glasses. Misao's attire was entirely different, wearing a raincoat that was much bigger than her, the hood pulled over her head.
"Your chance at victory just left," she continued before her tone dovetailed into a lament. "I'm sure you two had big plans but they were over the moment she attacked our home."
Her breath blew out in a sigh. "But hey, big fella, you can just sit this out and you can walk away. But if you insist on standing with her, you're going to accept the bill."
There was a violent chill in the air, as the words were said with absolute certainty. There was no bluffing, no joshing, just straight talk. Plain as day how it was, thank you very much it was that frank.
"You're talking big lady, but if you want to beat the both of us, you're gonna need a miracle." Ryoga replied, trying to push through the feeling of dread in his stomach.
"And one has arrived." Misao's cool voice belied her rage as a crackling sound overtook it. Blue lights appeared under the raincoat, .which then began to burn away until it revealed that Misao was wearing gray and light blue armor, similar in form and shape to a mecha, except the helmet appeared to be an armored flight suit helmet. An 02 was embossed on the shoulder, and upon its back was a backpack with four wings that rose up and out, and a fifth fin rising up behind her head, giving it a much more menacing feel. On her shoulders and thighs were large scissor blades bearing similar fins to the ones upon her back, with smaller versions on her forearms and hips.
"What the hell is that?" Ryoga asked.
Of all the people Shampoo expected to come get in her way… she certainly did not expect the fat girl to come back acting tough in a suit of armor. She had certainly expected the giant girl who could fight, but she didn't seem interested in this fight at all. In fact, she seemed much more concerned about the weird kendo girl that her airen had just left a wreck all over the floor.
The fact that she had the nerve to show up in such a ridiculous armor, looking like a cosplayer from a robot video game, just insulted Shampoo more than anything. Who did this fat dumb girl think she was? Didn't she get the hint when she destroyed her house?
"What did Shampoo tell you, Fat Girl? This is not your business," she warned her as she readied the dao.
"Bitch," Misao said, "This is my business now, and I don't want anyone in my way until it is resolved. Like the bae said, it was the moment you came into my house."
The fins began to crackle with power, bolts of electricity arcing between the and across the armor. Then, to Shampoo's surprise and Ryoga's immense dread, she lifted up onto her toes, and then completely off her feet as if propelled by magic..
"As for what this is?" She said to Ryoga as she saw the dread in his eyes. "This is that bitch called payback."
With that, the helmet's armored visor fell over her eyes and the face guard slid in place, creating the expressionless face of a mechanical soldier, whose eyes flashed a brilliant green–then red.
|Battle Against a True Woman|
Readying her dao, Shampoo let out something of a caustic laugh. She was really going to do this! Complete with some silly special effects and anime bullshit that would probably sell a bunch of model kits! No, Shampoo had no taste for a can of over-ripened pork, but she was going to bust it open all over the street anyway.
Katie joined Ranma's side, kneeling over Akane. She was still twitching involuntarily, her body and brain still trying to restore its connection after the knockout blow. Gently resting her fingers on her neck, she checked around and sighed in relief when she found no sign of her neck being broken. "Oh thank God, she's just knocked out."
She looked to Ranma, who was looking back and forth between the bad battle couple and the armored Misao. "You okay?"
"I'm not fine," she snapped back. "This is out of control!"
Katie looked towards their wrecked apartment. She could now see the large hole in the side of the building Shampoo made on her way out. She then looked at the street, cracked and cratered by the clashes between the involved parties. Bitterly, she nodded in agreement and rose to her feet.
"Shampoo was the one to choose how to escalate this, dude, not you. She could've handled this in a whole lot of different ways, but instead she went with the one hand-crafted to piss everyone off and burn almost every bridge she has." She gave Ranma a small smile. "So don't blame yourself for any of this. Just sit back and watch Misao take this bitch apart like a Mr. Potato Head."
Ranma turned back towards the showdown, more specifically at Misao still hovering there, her arms coming folded across her armored chest plate as her wings spread out. It was a pose that Katie recognized… the contempt… the arrogance… the certainty in her power… the murderous intent worthy only of a God of Death. She was that confident that she was going to show off for them?
Shampoo took the sudden pose as a challenge. "No more warning for Fat Dumb Girl then," she said as she began walking towards Misao, and then broke into a sprint towards her, taking the dao in both hands for maximum power with her swing.
Behind her, Ryoga realized that Shampoo was going straight for her, and reacted with dismay. "Shampoo! Wait!"
She didn't, instead accelerating to a blur as she reached Misao, steel flashing as she swung the dao to bisect the anime trash clean in half.
"That armor is cool and all, but can she take Shampoo down?" Ranma asked. "Misao's like a flirty cuddly bear, she can't be that-"
The blade sliced majestically through air and lingering bolts of lightning, to Shampoo's wide-eyed surprise.
Ranma's mouth fell open, and her eyes darted up when she saw Misao was much higher in the air now, and the scissors on her shoulder were sparking and crackling as their jaws opened, revealing the jagged edges of chainsaw teeth that quickly began to rev up.
The sound caught Shampoo's attention, and she looked up in time to see Misao spin one way, launching the scissor on her right shoulder, then spin the other way, launching the other scissor–both of which tumbled mechanically through the air as their electrical thrusters oriented them to aim at Shampoo, before they accelerated at her like missiles.
"What the…?!" Shampoo quickly ducked over the first Flying Scissor, the blade passing low under her. The second came from a higher angle, and she dove forward from barely landing on the ground.
When the second scissor hit the ground, there was the sound, like an asphalt grinder going on overdrive, and Shampoo looked back to see the second scissor eating through the street at high speed, before it simply pulled up and out of the ground, stopped, flipped over along with its brother, and then shot right back at her.
There was a single thought in Shampoo's head at that very moment.
Run.
Shampoo dove out of the way of one of the scissors, and then leaped straight from her tumble to avoid the second. The second one barreled on towards a building, but rather than hit it stopped for all of a half second to reorient itself and go straight up. It changed direction with the same jarring quickness and came down at Shampoo as she scanned the sky for it and the other one.
Turning at the last second she swung the dao to cut the scissor in half, but it simply clamped down on the sword and with a shearing of metal bisected it while barely missing her.
"Xian Pu!" Ryoga yelled as he tackled her clear of the second scissor, which had closed in on her while she gaped at her destroyed dao for that brief instant.
The second scissor pulled out of its dive and ascended as the couple both tumbled across the ground.
As they came to a stop, Shampoo looked up at her husband in relief. "Airen!"
Her relief turned into fright, before she turned over, throwing herself and Ryoga out the path of Misao's thunderous diving punch that smashed the street and kicked up a cloud of dust.
"What that thing?" Shampoo hollered, the din of the impact still rumbling.
"I don't know, some kind of military mecha? Whatever it is, keep aw-" Ryoga started, before he was cut off by Misao suddenly coming out of the dust cloud like a very angry Terminator with a jet pack, aiming straight for Shampoo. "Shit, Xian Pu!"
"Hiya!" Shampoo screamed as she narrowly avoided the artless punch. There was zero martial arts behind it but thanks to technology it had power unmatched by any human. The air rippled violently and the Amazon still found herself tumbling away just from the air pressure wave that happened just from the miss. "Aiya!"
"If something like that lands," Ryoga thought, realizing he couldn't expect to body block more than one or two of those before he was down. Then there were the scissors, which came the way Misao went, homing in on Shampoo again. "Xian Pu, look out!"
"Be quiet!" Misao snapped, backhanding a wave of air pressure that knocked Ryoga back several feet. "If you're going to scream anything, it should be goodbye!"
"Think Hibiki think! Now is not the time for fancy." Ryoga needed an idea of how to fight this thing and fast. He wasn't capable of Ranma's battle innovation, but he was a strong motherfucker who hit like a ton of bricks. But was that ton enough?
He didn't have time to worry about it as Misao was after her quarry again, moving faster than Ryoga could believe possible as the mech suit closed in on Shampoo yet again.
"Shit!" He cursed aloud, charging after the monster trying to make him a widower.
It was gonna be a close thing, as he ran as hard as he could. He once again cursed his lack of speed but he could make it, he could! He did make it but the shoulder check failed to budge Misao at all and only bounced him off.
"Ah?!" It was way stronger than him?!
Misao didn't give him the relief of a pithy rejoinder as she slapped the air into him and sent him tumbling away. Distraction gone, she turned her sights on Shampoo again, ready for brasstacks.
"I may have bitten off more than I can chew." This was the thought looping through Shampoo's brain. This was even worse than Red and it really looked bad for her. But she was an Amazon, a Champion, a hero for all women!
So she dug in her heels to fight, knowing that the girl inside the beast wasn't a fighter. Use that to your advantage and tear it apart. It was a simple thought, one that didn't match the insurmountable wall before her.
Misao's punch was read but not even the power of a counter could dent the armor. Meanwhile, the grass behind Shampoo was ripped up and scattered just from the puff of air pressure passing over it. Shampoo hit the armor again but nothing happened.
Was it invincible? No, that was impossible. Just sheer lu-
"Come on bitch, put your back into it!" Misao snapped, stomping a foot and shattering the ground beneath the girl's feet.
"What do I do?" Shampoo thought as she scrambled away from the collapsing ground. "What can I do?"
Even as she wondered this, those damnable scissors returned, joining Misao's flanks and snapping their jaws at Shampoo like starving dogs looking for a bite. After their intimidating display, they propelled themselves forward to take those bites.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Shampoo screamed, ducking and darting away from the snapping jaws, but it was a close thing each time.
It could be said that a full body punch from Ryoga Hibiki was nothing to laugh at. Indeed, on most human opponents, such a thing would result in grievous injuries. But what he faced wasn't a human opponent but something created to dominate things beyond human.
Misao didn't even feel the impact, the armor absorbed it quite readily. Still, a bug getting on you needed to be swatted at to remind them who was the greater being. Without staying her scissors, she turned ever so slightly and flicked a finger at the boy.
The tuft of air pressure hit Ryoga in the face like a kick from Ranma, sending him to his ass and dazing him for a moment.
Satisfied he was down for the moment, Misao turned back to watch and observe the cornered Amazon.
"How do I win? How do I win?" Shampoo hadn't given up, for she still had her mind. The cunning that marked her the greatest of her generation and made her so very deadly. Indeed, she could think and formulate a plan for anything, even something short of a god.
But time was a precious resource she was being denied as her desperate dodging continued to rob her of the space to breath and allow a plan to live. She still had throwing knives but if the dao got obliterated by those demonic things, then her knives were worthless. What else could she bring to bear? Her melon hammer? She had discarded it already after losing its paired mate.
Forward she pitched herself over a particularly close snap of the scissors, one that surely would have shorn her in twain. What was she supposed to do against this anime bullshit?! Still, despite her frustration, she rolled to her feet and sprinted away once more.
Misao retracted her lovely little pups, satisfied with watching Shampoo squirm. With her cute little pets hovering obediently at her side, she took aim and flicked a finger at Shampoo much like she had Ryoga. The tuft of air pressure hit down at the Amazon's feet, sending her into the air.
If she were interested in ending it, she could easily send her scissors up and tear the helpless girl apart. But Shampoo had humiliated her and the favor would be returned in kind. She'd make the bitch piss herself in frustrated terror, her helplessness all too much of a forgone conclusion.
Then and only then would she deign it necessary to wipe the cunt out.
When you get down to it, the reason Misao loved video games, more than their capacity for fun and making money, was that it allowed her to make other people happy. She was probably the nicest person you could meet, honest and gentle to a fault. She tried to keep the peace and do her best to keep a smile on her face. If she could help other people be happy by telling dirty jokes and running around without a top, then she'd do it.
But that had been taken from her, that connection to people who needed her had been severed by this stupid bitch. The money, their happiness, her happiness from being able to do something for people. It was all gone for now and it was going to be hard to get back to where she was before thanks to this shitpile that thought that everyone would roll over for her.
However, at the very core of it all, the key part to Misao's rage is that the danger to Ranma's life wasn't something held at bay by her castle's wall. The enemy had invaded her sanctum and came for this sweet boy who while making mistakes was honestly, earnestly living to make up for them. The thought that she could really lose him had spurred her forward to this end.
"No more worries Ranma," she thought, as she rocketed towards where the Amazon was trying to recoup after being sent flying. "Misao's gonna make it all better again."
Shampoo lolled her head over just in time to see that armored demon approaching again. Her reaction time was slowed but still enough to evade the punch that slammed into the Earth and sent dirt and Amazon both into the air. As she tumbled into the air again, she realized she was being toyed with.
By this useless lump of meat. Well, she certainly was of use now wasn't she? What could she do, what would work?
"Xian Pu!" Ryoga called as he managed to run under her and catch her from her fall. It was almost obvious to him they couldn't win like this but how could they flee? Where could they flee? All they had were questions when they needed answers. Still, they had to find some small purchase of time to plan and come up with some way of attack.
"Airen..." Shampoo murmured, feeling safe for the moment.
"I'm sure you were wondering," Katie said to Ranma as they watched well away from the hazard zone Misao had created. "Why, beyond anger, I'm not the one in the suit."
"It had crossed my mind." Ranma admitted.
"It's kind of how Misao is." Katie said, sighing a little. "You really don't try to get her pissed because the more pissed she gets the more she feels she needs to do to calm down. She's nice and can laugh off a lot of things but once you've stepped over the line, she goes off."
She paused, thinking of a way to describe it.
"You know how the Golden Pair got wiped out? Well, during a Christmas Party at this pretty swanky place, that was my first job with her, we crossed paths with them."
Ranma nodded. "What happened?"
"Well, the guy of the duo, Mikado Sanzenin, had this thing where he had to kiss every pretty girl he met, and the elusive Misao was his Christmas Gift to himself. He eventually got that kiss though, but he did it while she was on camera and chatting with her subs, and it caused this huge shitstorm in seconds."
Ranma cringed. "That dick!"
"Yeah, ended up giving him a good slap across the face, and some unkind words were said, with him deciding that 'Kissing such a fat girl' was a mistake." Katie shook her head. "He said that on camera, too… and that just made the people raging at her even worse."
Kissed her without her permission, got her subscribers in a tizzy, and then called her fat. "What did she do?"
Katie huffed. "She called me over, and told me to beat the shit out of his skating partner. Just destroy her so she couldn't skate again. She her own issues that crossed a line with me already that night, I did so with gusto."
She then let out a dark laugh. "I snapped all her ribs, crushed her legs, and nearly broke her back right over my knee before I tossed her into a swimming pool from 20 stories up." All at Misao's instruction, and it was at that moment that she realized that she was in love with the palmtop tiger.
Ranma gaped at her. "You did what?"
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "It's not like she didn't make a fight of it. Like I said, the little gremlin had her own issues that crossed a few lines. She was a klepto with a penchant for using her cuteness to get away with stealing people's stuff. Factor that in and I was already burning mad at her."
Ranma looked at her for a long second. "That doesn't fit though."
"Oh I was a lot more anti-social when I first got here so I was a lot less restrained in expressing my anger." Katie looked back towards the fight. "Misao doesn't have any restraint at all. Not when she's been slighted. You take something from her, you break something, you threaten her or the people she loves… and she will end you."
Ranma shuddered. "It's almost like the Joketsuzoku…"
Katie gave him a sidelong look and smirked . "Then, can you imagine anything more poetic? Shampoo's picked a fight with her own dark reflection, and it aims to kill her."
|Watch the Queen Conquer|
With a clack, Misao's armored boots touched down onto the ground, a few errant arcs of electricity rising to meet her before they connected. With a final backflip, the two scissors returned to their hardpoints. In front of her, Ryoga set Shampoo back down and stared intensely at the armored fiend, before he looked past her at the damage caused all over the street, and even further beyond where Ranma and Katie watched.
He focused back on her, when her visor came up, revealing the upper half of her face and her cold stone-gray eyes.
"What was that you said?" She asked Shampoo. "That slaughtering me would be a warm-up?"
Her eyes rolled to her left, then right, as if she were trying to recall those words exactly. They then fell back on Shampoo, as a single bolt of electricity jumped the gap between her visor and her facemask. "Tell me, are you feeling the heat yet?"
The annoyed tone in her voice told the battle couple that they were boring her. That they couldn't put up a sufficient enough fight against this monster she had brought to the battlefield. It was absurd for her to get annoyed when her very misses sent them tumbling away.
Or that's how Ryoga saw it anyways. "If you're that bored, why don't you go away then?"
"Is she going to leave RicePony alone and apologize for all the shit she's destroyed?" Misao asked in that same deadened tone.
It was an idea but there was no way to even bluff it. Before he could stop her, Shampoo was already shouting her answer.
"Shampoo never stop until Red dead!" It was admirable in some respects but sticking to your guns when outmuscled and outgunned was just damn moronic.
"And that's why I'm still here." Misao said, before looking at Ryoga. "Sure you got the guts to watch me rip hers out?"
Ryoga gritted his teeth. "Just what do you want out of this fight?"
"Your little slut trashed my home, insulted me to my face and is a constant threat against someone I care a great deal for." Misao replied. "If you were in my shoes, would you stop fighting because you got bored?"
She had him there, but he had to try. "Then you can understand why I can't sit by and watch you try to hurt her."
"Oh silly boy, I'm not trying to hurt her." Misao said to reassure him. "I'm going to hurt her. And you if you keep this up."
It was no use, words couldn't reach her. If that was the case... "Xian Pu, we can't fight separately like we have been. We have to coordinate our attacks, all right?" He sounded so brave and sure, but it could easily be bravado.
But Shampoo wanted to believe in him, this young man she gave her heart to. Even now as her confidence dwindled, he was still there with her. To the end, whatever it may be. What had she done to deserve such a wonderful man? It troubled her she couldn't answer that right away.
"Yes!" Shampoo went the easy route and said what made it easiest to reply with. "Shampoo fight with Airen to victory!"
"You will, but it won't be yours," Misao said right before her visor snapped back into place.
Ryoga looked ahead, and quickly got ready. "Here she co-!"
Misao thrust her right arm out, and the scissors on her forearm ignited and accelerated off her arm, a long waving cable trailing behind it as it accelerated to a speed well in excess of Ryoga's own fastest strikes. Before Ryoga could react, the scissors opened wide, like a shackle that slammed into and locked around his neck.
Shampoo, alarmed, quickly drew a knife to cut it, but in that same instant Ryoga accelerated forward, recalled towards Misao. "Airen!"
When Ryoga reached Misao, the shackle let go and he was left stumbling forward, gagging from the impact to his neck, right into a high kick that connected with Ryoga's chin and launched him straight into the air, condensation rings trailing behind his body.
"Hey, Shampoo… remember when you broke my stuff, threatened me, mocked me while I was helpless to do anything, and tried to kill someone I cared about?" Misao asked calmly. "Watch this."
And then Misao was the rocket, accelerating straight towards the dazed Ryoga as he reached the apex of his punt-induced flight.
"She… she hit me… so hard…!" Ryoga thought as his head swam in the pain. His eyes then widened when he saw her coming at him, the eyes of her visor gleaming a terrifying red.
She shot straight up past him, before turning and firing her left arm's shackle down at him, catching him by the leg with it. Winching him up, she let him go and punched him with a haymaker right, firing him back towards the ground.
As he descended, she held out her arms, and the scissors on her shoulders and her thighs lit up before flying off the rails. Instead of assuming their normal pattern of flight, they began to spin at high speed, until they became discus that swirled around her.
"Releasing the Hounds!" She called out, and the four weapons took off down while she went up and away.
Ryoga was a durable dude, he'd tanked plenty hard hits, but that was a level on par with an angry Ranma. Before he could think of recovering and reorienting himself to land, he was clocked hard across the face by a powerful force. Then another one hit him, clipping his right side. A third hit, launching him up and into another that launched him laterally.
On the ground, Shampoo could only watch as the Hounds, as Misao called them, converged upon her husband as their namesake implied, and began battering him left and right, up and down through the sky, keeping him well above the rooftops, and out of range of any meaningful rescue attempt.
Then the shackle came down, catching Ryoga around the right arm and yanking him through the air horizontally. As Misao swung him around, each of the four Hounds struck him on the flypast, before she plowed him through a billboard and then beyond that into the side of a water tower, shattering it.
In the building beyond that there was a tremendous thud, and the sound of crumbling brick. Deeply embedded in the side of the building wall, but not completely through it, was the majestic wolf that was Ryoga's cursed form, unconscious and twitching.
Misao stared at the fallen wolf, as the shackle returned to its place, and the Hounds reattached to her armor.
She then turned and looked down at Shampoo, the visor coming up again so she could see her with her own eyes. "I wanted to do more, but after a while you're just smacking around a slab of useless meat, and I've already had my warm-up."
It was impossible, everything since this monster appeared just couldn't be real. It had to be a nightmare, a nightmare! Shampoo fought down her terror and focused on the faint fan of flames that was her remaining rage. She needed to avenge her husband, this was no longer about Red anymore.
"About time fat pig." It wasn't a smart thing to say and at this point, she should just be surrendering. But she held onto her pride like a certain prince might.
A sound left Misao's throat, a soft, easy-sounding laugh. She then descended from on high, landing in front of Shampoo, but not too close.
"I'm sorry leaving your husband a beaten mess took so long, but now that we don't have distractions I can get to the…" She stopped herself from making another meat pun. "… Point."
She stared at Shampoo. "You can't hurt me. You can't touch me. When you attack me, all you'll do is flail uselessly until I slap you down."
One by one, the Hounds detached and appeared to float up into the air above her, like balloons.
"But until I finally get around to that slap, you're going to try. You're going to fight me with all of your might, and you're going to lose. Then when you're done, you're done." She held out her arms as the visor shut again. "Now come at me, with everything you've got. I won't even defend myself. I won't need to."
Shampoo turned her senses inward, closing her eyes and gathering everything she had. All she had to do was pummel that armor until that fat pig came spilling out and then kill her. She had enough left for that, there was still that last glimmer of victory. Time for revenge then…
"Haaauuuu…" Her breathing slowed as her body began to hold in this last rush of destructive power. It had to end with this, it had to! Her eyes opened and she was ready.
"I'm waaaaiting~" Misao taunted.
She didn't have to wait much longer as Shampoo's first punch, a right cross, landed. The bang was rather loud but the suit didn't budge even a micro-fraction of an inch. A left followed but it did nothing as well. She came with a beautiful spinning right roundhouse kick that yet again did nothing. Three left middle kicks banged on in but all they did was make noise.
There was no time to worry, just swing and swing and swing. Don't think this one attack would settle it, wear it down for the next one and the next one after that. She began to apply the principles of all the varying kempo collected under the Amazonian tree of martial arts. Snake strikes, crane strikes, tiger smashing paws and more. Her attacks still did nothing more than make noise.
It wasn't enough but she had to press on. For her Airen who fought so bravely beside her, for her people back home. She was of the pinnacle, of the Elite! She would not fall here, she would win! For her future!
Lightning fast kicks began to batter Misao next, who took it all without care. The attacks were fierce but her armor was more than capable of withstanding it. Shampoo switched legs once, twice, three times before she switched back to punches. There was still gas left, still hope left.
Always hope, always…
A tear fell down her cheek, mixing with her pouring sweat as reality cruelly set in. She was deluding herself and doing exactly as the fat pig wanted. Just a puppet on a string but she had her pride damn it!
From the depths of her belly came a berserker yell as she redoubled her efforts, pounding away even as her fists ached and her shoulders burned from the exertion. Just a little more, just one hit more… one lucky hit…
Her arms dropped dead from exhaustion. Had she ran out of gas already? Were the embers of fight that weak? Where was her pride, her skills? Where was anything that could bring this bitch down?
Shampoo threw a truly pathetic kick that didn't even make a sound after it connected. There was nothing left it seemed. Nothing, but failure and defeat again. Some champion she was.
"All done? That was shorter than I expected." Misao taunted, before she just so casually bopped Shampoo across the chin with a dainty backhand left.
It was more than enough as Shampoo collapsed to the ground, still conscious but helpless. The bitch wasn't even going to give her the satisfaction of a worthy defeat. Bitter tears poured down her face as she realized just how miserably she failed.
"Welp, time to get to work." Misao said, reaching down and taking a handful of that purple hair and hauled her up by it. "You asked for this, just remember." She marched Shampoo over to the nearest building and leaned her against it.
"Just end Shampoo." The Amazon wasn't pleading, she was still prideful enough to be put out of her misery.
"Tempting but no." Misao said, summoning one of the Hounds close. "Your hair is such a mess darling, let me clean it up for you." She held up the hair for the Hound to greedily bite through, shortening Shampoo's hair even shorter than Nabiki's bowl 'do.
Holding out her hand, Misao placed it on her now shortened hair. A gentle electric hum sounded and the not so gentle smell of burnt hair filled the air as she rubbed her metallic hand back and forth over Shampoo's head, cutting down what is left until there is nothing but a violet fuzz atop her head barely a half inch in length.
"Much better darling." Misao purred, the facemask parting so Shampoo can see the wicked grin on the face of the woman who beat her. "But this isn't enough."
Two more Hounds then slammed into the wall, trapping her outstretched arms between their jaws. Shampoo didn't even react, she let herself hang limply in their embrace, her gaze lowered to Misao's feet. She knew what was coming: those teeth would rev up, and there would go her arms and the only hope she'd ever have of being a warrior.
It didn't quite happen like that. Instead there was the crunch and searing agony of the Hounds' jaws crushing Shampoo's arms just below the shoulder. The other two Hounds went in for her elbows, grabbing them and crushing them with tremendous PSI but no teeth. Then they twisted, breaking her bones further before they released her and let her fall to her knees.
A lesser woman would've gone insane or fainted from the agony. Shampoo silently endured it, with tears running down her face.
"You're no warrior," Misao then said. "For all your fancy martial arts you get destroyed by a fat girl in power armor that did all the fighting for her. How many of your proud warriors can claim that? How many of your village would like to find that out?"
Shampoo stared down at the ground, now trying to avoid even looking at Misao's feet. "Shampoo… never tell. Shampoo… die first."
Misao let out a light laugh. "Well, it's a good thing I filmed it then."
Shampoo's breathing got caught in her lungs. It wasn't, no, not that… Her face lost color and she recoiled, finally bringing her head up to look at this demon who destroyed her in abject horror.
"So here's my advice on how to make sure no one important to your little traditions see it: Take your big wolf stud home, have yourself a litter of puppies, and forget about fighting ever again. Because if you were beaten by me, then you've been doing it wrong all your life." Misao said in a matter of fact tone. "You're no warrior, you're just some dude's Chinese bride."
That tone then darkened. "And that's more than you deserve."
The atmosphere brightened again as she clapped her hands. "Okay, that was fun and all but let's never do it again. I'm very much a lover and not a fighter."
She turned and with a quick boost alighted herself into the air to coast slowly over towards Katie and Ranma. Setting down, she looked back and forth between both of them, looking weary for a girl who'd gotten her well deserved revenge.
"I'd say let's go home," she said, "But… you know how that is."
Katie nodded, before she stepped forward and embraced Misao tightly. "We can go to your Auntie's place, or get a hotel…"
"I don't know where I want to go," Misao said. "I want to go back to my not destroyed apartment and my not destroyed stuff and just veg out and play video games…"
Ranma hugged her as well, catching her bit by surprise. "Ah?"
"Yeah… I know," Ranma said.
Misao sighed, and hugged both of them tightly back. "I'll call my Mom. She'll hook us up."
"Sounds good," Ranma replied.
Katie kissed Misao on the cheek. "I love you, bae."
Misao returned the smile and pulled Katie down for a much more intimate kiss on the lips, right before Ranma's stunned eyes. After Katie returned it for a moment, they pulled away, and Misao stepped back, a small giggle coming from her lips.
They both looked over at Ranma, and before either could say anything. "We should get Akane and that Mousse guy to uh… Dr. Tofu's! Yes!"
He turned to find that Mousse had already gathered up Akane, who now had a bandage around her head and looked at least consciousness.
"Akane! Are you okay?" Ranma asked, coming over to her.
"As much as anyone who gets knocked out like I did." Akane said, looking contrite. "I was so focused on Shampoo I never saw Ryoga, not even when it was too late. Mu-san was kind enough to tell me what happened."
Mousse looked kind of chagrined at attention turned on him. "Well I needed to bandage her head but she was still trying to fight."
"Well, either way you did a good thing." Katie said, knowing exactly what Akane was talking about. "Don't let it eat at you Akaneko, trying a new thing is always hard."
"I had her, I was so exhilarated that I was winning I lost sight of everything and blam." Akane said, fighting off tears. "I had her… I had her."
"Peace girl, you won as far as I'm concerned." Katie whispered. "Just let us get you to the doctor's all right?"
"Yeah, okayl Senpai." Akane said, still looking a little bitter.
"For what it's worth, Akane, you were amazing." Ranma said, giving her a small smile.
"Thank you Ranma." Akane said, smiling despite the pain.
"It's over." Mousse mumbled looking over the devastation. "What a night this turned out to be."
"Yeah," Katie agreed, looking back towards Misao and giving her a smile. "But that'll make sunrise all the better."
"You said it," Ranma said, looking out over the devastated landscape and finding it hard not to feel responsible.
|You are so beautiful... to me....|
Sometime later, Shampoo awoke in the room she shared with Ryoga in the Hibiki home. Her arms were in both casts and splints, the rest of her body aching from exhaustion and damage from the fight. Off to the side, she heard Shirokuro bark before the dog came over to lick her face.
"Aiya." She could barely bring herself to voice the complaint.
"So you're awake." Ryoga said, from a chair in the opposite direction. He was being quiet out of respect for her injuries.
"A…" Shampoo started to use her familiar name for him but stopped short. Her hair was lost and she felt so very hideous after being ruined like that.
"Right, you're not really a warrior anymore and your village marriages aren't recognized here." He said gravelly, before his tone brightened. "So I'll just have to marry you by Japanese law then when you're better. It's not much but I still love you."
"But Shampoo hair…" She felt so embarrassed and small because of it.
"You're still beautiful to me, even if your hair never grows back." He said, smiling in the face of her tears of joy. "So if you'll have me, I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
Her cheeks burned, her eyes were wet and her heart thumped with the emotion. She managed a nod, relieved that he wasn't going to abandon her.
"Come on Shirokuro, we need to get some food going so the other lady of the House can start to recover." Ryoga said as he got up, nodding at her happy bark. "I'll whip something up real fast and send Shirokuro back along with the food. Don't wanna do too much more.
She watched him leave, a hollow pit in her stomach that contrasted the warmth of emotion in her heart. There was no redemption for her, she wasn't going to raise herself up from this pit of despair and get revenge. It was over, she and her stupid pride had been defeated and humbled.
This was no happy ending for her, but for him. She couldn't go back ever which meant their argument over where to live ended in his victory. She was no longer fit to be a warrior or walk on that path ever again.
Xian Pu the Amazon Champion was gone, soon to be replaced by Hibiki Xian Pu, just a Japanese boy's Chinese bride.
Chapter 10/?
And this makes ten!
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 10/?
The Kingdom of Kodachi did not demand perfection, but it did strive for a standard that many would mistake for it. Such was the drive of a Rhythmic Gymnastic Martial Artist, and of a girl whose madness aligned with the desires of her subjects rather than intersected them like a bus with a pedestrian at 80 kilometers an hour. With this in consideration, Ranma, Akane, and Katie were in the office of the student council, facing a Kodachi who'd just finished practicing a floor routine in the middle of the large room.
"Tendo Nabiki-san has finished an assessment of the student body," Kodachi said as she draped a cool, damp towel over her shoulders, "And while there is proficient growth in all areas, not everything is going well for everyone."
"Someone's lagging behind?" Ranma, who was standing to Akane's left asked, finding this a bit surprising.
Nabiki nodded. "Quite a number of students, academically and in club activities. While there's only so much the Student Council can do about teachers, the status of our clubs is something we can entirely intervene upon."
Katie, who stood to the right of Akane, folded her arms. "Who, why, and what do we have to do?"
"To my relief it's only two areas, and only one is an actual threat to our war potential," Kodachi revealed. She then looked to Ranma. "The Boxing Club, Saotome-san. The Captain we chose for it is having difficulty acclimating to his role."
She shook her head. "I should've expected that one of the Captains wouldn't be exact leadership material despite their performance, but I didn't expect it would be this dramatic."
Ranma frowned. From what he himself saw of the boxing club, they seemed like a tight ship. Was there something he missed? "I'll get right on investigating it, shouldn't take too much work. If the Captain ain't Captain material, I'll find a new guy to replace him."
Kodachi nodded. "I have no doubt that you will." She then turned to Akane. "The second matter involves a non-combat club, and specifically one side of it."
"What is it?" Akane asked.
"The Girls' Swimming Club."
Both Ranma and Katie noticed Akane go ramrod straight at the mention of swimming… and they were further surprised to see her begin to sweat a bit.
"Er…" Akane said. "I've um… been a bit behind on them, haven't I?"
"You haven't even chosen a Captain, Tendo Akane-san," Kodachi pointed out.
Ranma turned to face Akane. "What? It's been weeks."
Katie's hands came to rest on her hips. "Ne, Akaneko, do you not like swimming or something?"
Her tone seemed a bit rough as she asked this, like she sounded a bit offended.
Akane frowned. "Look, I'll find someone to Captain the team, I've just been busy with the other clubs…"
"That is no excuse," Kodachi called her out. "Time that you spend idling could be used elsewhere, and when the girls club is out wading in the pool, you're finding distractions for yourself."
Akane recoiled backwards. "H-have you been spying on me?!" She looked to Katie, accusingly. "S-Senpai!"
Katie raised an eyebrow, finding Akane's defensiveness to be confusing. "Hey, don't look at me like that. This is your problem."
"Hey guys, lay off her," Nabiki said from the doorway. "She just can't swim."
Akane flushed and whirled on Nabiki. "You…!"
Ranma correctly supposed that this was something of an embarrassment to Akane.
Katie stopped, and let out a bemused huff. "That's it?"
"Sinks like a rock the moment you drop her into any body of water deeper than she's tall," Nabiki went on.
Kodachi was astounded. "So that is the cause of this deficiency. Well, then it's a simple matter of teaching her to swim."
Akane lowered her head. "It's not that easy…"
"Nope," Nabiki agreed.
"When I was younger, I never went swimming without my inner tube."
"It was a gift from Mom," Nabiki said.
"We didn't go to the beach or the pool often," Akane continued.
"Daddy was a bit stingy on family vacations unless he could turn them into training trips," Nabiki piped in.
"And then there was that one camping trip we went on, where I was attacked by a Platypus…"
"It's more terrifying than you think," Nabiki added with a sage nod.
Ranma and Katie looked shared a skeptical look with one-another.
"The fact is," Akane said, "I… just don't really like the water."
Katie clapped a hand on her shoulder, and smiled an uncharacteristically large one. "Well, that's going to change, because I happen to love the water, and I love to swim."
"Do you, now?" Nabiki asked, interested.
Katie nodded. "Yeah, in fact… I'm an unofficial world record holder for Constant Weight Without Fins Freediving. 300 meters."
Nabiki paled a bit. "Wait, what?"
Katie folded her arms, looking rather proud of herself. "Yeah, it's unofficial because I was like thirteen when I did it and no official body would recognize it." She then scowled a bit. "In fact, when my Uncle Nick tried to have it recognized, Child Protective Services started paying my parents visits…"
During the third such visit her father had her show the nice CPS lady that she could field-strip, reassemble, and load a Type 81 in 30 seconds. They stopped coming by after that, impressed by such responsible and disciplined parents.
Akane was more impressed. "Wow, that far underwater?"
Katie beamed. "Yep! Any issue you have with water, I'll put an end to it."
Ranma found himself a bit skeptical, but he swam from Japan to China on his fateful training trip and back, so someone swimming that far underwater probably wasn't such an unbelievable thing.
Kodachi nodded. "So it's agreed, then? Saotome-san, deal with the Boxing Club. Izurando-san, I leave Tendo Akane-san's swimming lessons in your care."
Katie gave Kodachi a very American thumb's up. "You can count on me."
"The three of you are dismissed," Kodachi then said "Tendo Nabiki-san, I wish to discuss the matter of a few acquisitions I've made."
Nabiki raised an eyebrow. What kind of acquisitions?"
Maybe she was finally getting that Goku Uniform.
"I have taken in the young man who came to grace your company during that debacle with the Amazon, Mu Tsu. His skills and insight may prove fruitful in the future, given that the Amazon woman took us all by surprise."
Huh, that was unexpected. "You think we might get visits from more of their kind?"
"Xian Pu was one of their village's more prideful warriors as he's told me, she's made her fair share of enemies. Worse still the fact she lost so thoroughly may be casus belli for more of her ilk to resolve the matter of lost pride."
Nabiki soured a tad. "That's good to know. Anything less ominous?"
Kodachi chuckled. "When we raid Tomobiki High School, we may be coming back with more than merely victory. I have received signals that one of the staff is interested in a position at a better school. I need you to make good of your gossip skills to confirm this is true."
"Ah, so Kodachi wants some good ol' fashioned social engineering from yours truly?" Nabiki was down to ride. "Shoot, if what you're offering faculty is better than what you've offered me, I'll pull the whole faculty out from under their noses."
"Ohoho…" Kodachi chuckled. "That will be unnecessary. I only want their absolute best, an irreplaceable asset to their school and morale."
She steepled her fingers and stared pointedly at Nabiki with dark eyes filled with malice.
"Give me that, and I will grind Tomobiki even deeper into the dirt."
From 11 am to 2pm, Furinkan's gymnasium belonged to the boys combat clubs that didn't wield weapons. Judo, Karate, Sumo, and of course Boxing. Of these four clubs, three were a hive of activity, with students clashing in the rings and on the mats, or running through the drills in unison, their kiai momentarily drowning out the din of self-improvement. The fourth however wasn't gathered around the ring, which stood empty, but instead around a weight scale and the Chairman of the Boys Athletic Committee.
"Fifty-eight kilograms," Ranma said as he stared at the scale stood upon. "Fifty-eight… that's Featherweight."
Kosaku, a moderately handsome young man wearing only a pair of boxing shorts for the sake of the weigh in, put on a weak, hopeless smile. "Technically Super Featherweight…"
Ranma folded his arms and looked at the young man, who aside from a bit of padding around his stomach and sides that would go unnoticed by the uninitiated appeared to be in good physical shape. "What class are you best in, Hatanaka?"
"Flyweight, hands down," Kosaku replied proudly, not realizing the huge mistake he'd just made.
"Then why are you six kilograms above it?" Ranma said after chopping him on the forehead and sending him spilling onto his back on the mat.
Kosaku sat up, rubbing his forehead. "Ah, ow…" He then looked up at Ranma. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, Chairman. I've been working hard to get back into shape, honest!"
Ranma had his doubts. "What's your training look like?"
"I do it just like the pros. I jog every day, jump rope, hit the bags, lift, all of it. I'm definitely on top of the training." To demonstrate, Kosaku hopped onto his feet and threw a few lightning fast jabs that even impressed Ranma. Or would, if he couldn't see how slow they were.
Ranma caught the last punch Kosaku threw by the wrist and looked at the other young and impressionable boxers of the club. "Is this true?"
One of the boxers, a first year with curly hair, shifty eyes, and thin lips named Shunpei spoke up. "Yeah, Kosaku works harder than any of us combined, and he hits like a truck in the ring! In every spar since we started up, none of us can take a solid hit from him."
A third year named Ishida, whose strictness and professionalism made him ideal for the role of vice captain then spoke up. "He's right. Far as fundamentals are concerned, no one knows or follows them better than the Captain. He's a natural at this boxing thing."
Letting go of Kosaku's fist, Ranma sighed. Something was missing from the equation that eluded him. "Then why is he six kilos too heavy for the weight class he's meant for?"
Kosaku shrugged his shoulders. "I guess I've always just been a little over the limit, right? But hey it's no big deal, right? I should be fine in Featherweight…"
Ranma shook his head. "Nah, you'll be eaten alive by any Featherweight built for it. On you it's just extra fat that's holding your full power back."
Kosaku shrugged his shoulders. "We'll just have to find out then? With enough training I can overcome the extra."
Again, Ranma shook his head. "Look, how about this? I'm built for Featherweight Class in Boxing and I got two kilos over you. Let's take it to the ring and I'll show you."
Kosaku was surprised, Ranma was toeing the border of Feather and Lightweight. "You'll box? No kicking or anything like that?"
"I know how to box, so yeah," Ranma said as he got into the ring after kicking his shoes off and grabbing a pair of gloves. "Get up here, Hatanaka."
Kosaku obeyed, lacing up his own gloves and hauling himself in to square off against Ranma. Outside of the ring, Ishida, Shunpei, and the other members of the boxing club watched with no small amount of worry. They all knew how fantastically strong and fast their Chairman was, and even with the God in Kosaku's fists, there was doubt that he would be able land even a glancing blow.
"So how do we do this, Chairman?" Kosaku asked before he slipped a mouthpiece on.
"Don't hesitate to come at me with full power," Ranma advised him, "And keep going until I decide that it's enough, or I knock you down."
Kosaku smiled a bit. "And if I knock you down?"
Ranma gave him a dispassionate look back. "You won't. Ring the bell."
Ishida did as commanded, and to the sharp ding that caught the attention of the rest of the gymnasium Ranma and Kosaku began to circle around the ring in towards one-another.
Kosaku, spirited and filled with determination, lowered his stance and got loose, ready to tighten up and fire punches like rifle shots. While a difference in weight as small as theirs seemed negligible, every milligram counted in the realm of speed, and while he wasn't technically "built" for Featherweight, he was still lighter, and thus faster, than Ranma on the draw handily.
Ranma's own gloves came up, his stance defensive and his eyes darting everywhere, scanning Kosaku like an automaton of war reading its targets weaknesses. Any second now the first punch would come and–there!
Kosaku snapped out a left cross, nice and clean. It was so fast that the boxers outside barely processed it. He had hoped to get Ranma to defend with a raised glove or back up so he could move in and follow up with a deluge of blows–but instead the punch hit air as Ranma weaved laterally, throwing off the rhythm Kosaku hoped to start.
"Don't be discouraged, he's got good footwork," Kosaku told himself as he decided to keep him from firing back. He advanced, throwing more jabs, a few hooks, and another cross… but Ranma was still quicker, ducking and dodging the strikes with a combination of footwork and headwork that'd have Ali looking down from heaven and saying "Damn son, now that's pretty."
"Just as I thought," Ranma lamented as Kosaku's heavy punches did nothing more than drain his stamina and work up a sweat while he flowed around them easily. "He can't touch me."
He could see that, and the gathering crowd of spectators could see it as the two danced around the ring, Kosaku growing more and more desperate to catch him off his guard or corner him with a hit he couldn't avoid.
Kosaku, however, was the only one with a lack of vision.
"That's it, closer!" He thought triumphantly as his fist came a half-centimeter closer to Ranma if anywhere but in his own mind. "Just a little bit more and I can hit him!"
He grinned. "He's really making me work for it! Just one solid hit will show him how good I am!"
It would be a right uppercut, driving into his jaw as he drifted from his feinted left hook. He got his floating pattern down, there was no escape! He launched his feint, and sure enough his target floated up and out of the way, right into the path of his hook.
"After this, I'm going to have the biggest, juiciest steak-!" His right uppercut, and hit nothing but air. "Huh?"
He saw something out the lower edge of his vision, and glanced down just slightly to see Ranma's own come up his chest, straight for his chin. It was like a wall of red by the time he realized it was a punch, an unstoppable force closing in to do its duty and put him flat on his back.
And then it stopped, barely two centimeters from his chin, the displaced air hitting him like a stinging slap that forced him to close one eye as he winced. "Ah… what?"
"We're done," Ranma said flatly.
Kosaku stepped back. "What? We've just gotten started!"
"Nah man, we're done, you can't do it," Ranma insisted.
Kosaku couldn't believe it. He was getting so close to landing that hit! "How can you say that? I almost had you!"
"You did not," Ranma replied.
"It was over before the first punch," Ishida said with a grim shake of his head.
Kosaku whirled towards the spectators. "What?!"
"Yeah, Captain… you… you weren't even close to hitting him," Shunpei added.
"He had you dancing to his tune from the first punch," another boxer called out.
"Two steps behind him, at every turn," a judoka said.
"SHAMEFUL DISPLAY!" A Sumo wrestler roared.
Kosaku looked at the crowd jeering him, before he turned towards Ranma, who had taken off his boxing gloves. "But… hey… he's way faster than me!"
"I was holding myself back for your sake and you still couldn't do it," Ranma immediately replied, to Kosaku's shattering heart, "The problem ain't me, it's you. You're overweight and it saps your power and your speed."
He then brightened up. "On the bright side, all you need to do is burn off the fat with some additional intensity to your workout and a short diet. It's no big deal."
Ranma's smile vanished when he saw that Kosaku seemed to have had an allergic reaction to what he'd just said. The prodigal boxer stood stone still, as if stricken by a lightning bolt of fear. His face paled, a colder sweat swathed his body, and a shade of blue descended down his face.
What triggered this? Ranma wondered. "Uh… Hatanaka?"
"Y-yeah Chairman?" Kosaku managed to sputter.
"You… can do that… right? I ain't askin' a bunch of you, it's just some simple weight control. A guy like you can burn off six kilos in a week."
Kosaku stiffened again, but this time he seemed to be in a little more control, glancing around the crowd in the ring as a weak smile formed on his face. He placed his gaze back on Ranma. "Y-yeah, I can do that, chairman, no problem!"
Ranma found Kosaku's reaction weird, but shrugged it off. It wasn't that big a deal, the guy probably just had trouble with Weight Control, nothing that he couldn't fix once he got his metabolism really going. "Cool, now get back to training. I'm going to sit back and observe so come tomorrow we can get a proper regimen down for you. You got it, Club Captain?"
"Y-yeah, sure," Kosaku said quickly, relief washing over him now that he was off the hook for the moment.
It was hot and sunny outside at the Furinkan High School's swimming pool, which benefitted from a high, wooden-slatted fence to keep the prying eyes of young men away from the young women who performed better in the pool when they weren't being ogled in their swimsuits. A considerable number of girls taking part in their usual swim class were being joined by two who normally didn't swim at this time of day–Akane, who stood with uncertainty at the edge of the pool in her standard issue school swimsuit, and Katie, who was wearing a black and electric green wetsuit that covered her entire body from her neck to her wrists and ankles.
The swimming pool itself was met Olympic standards, fifty meters long and twenty-five meters wide, with a minimum depth of three meters. It was a wide, long, and deep pool… perfect for training would-be Olympians, and an absolute nightmare for Akane as she stared at it.
"The pool wasn't this big," she said in a shaky voice. "Or deep."
"Yeah, they swapped it out while they were rebuilding the school," Katie said. "I personally have been loving it, it's the perfect size and depth."
And Katie was a girl who had exact standards when it came to size and depth.
She began to stretch, twisting her body one way or the other, lifting her limbs above her head, and bending forward and back to loosen her muscles and pop her joints. "The last thing you want to be is intimidated, Akaneko. This is going to be your training ground until you're swimming like a fish."
Behind Akane, a few girls began murmuring amongst one another at Katie's declaration. They tried to be a bit hush-hush about it, but Katie was able to pick most of it out, hushed whispers of skepticism and outright derision. One word came up often in the comments: Hammer.
Ergo, teaching Akane to swim was akin to teaching a hammer to float.
A hammer would have better odds of swimming than Akane.
All Katie knew is that these bitches kept up their snide commentary, she would be beating them with a sack of hammers. "I would like for the girls taking swimming class to go to their half of the pool and not stand around unless they have something constructive for me to overhear!"
Akane sighed in relief, as the girls dispersed except for her two friends, Sayuri and Yuka, who she admittedly hadn't seen much of in the past few days… weeks…
Sayuri, a pretty girl with dark brown her hair done up in a ponytail with a red ribbon, and Yuka, who had long straight light brown hair, looked rather relieved that the other girls had tottered off to leave Akane alone.
"Akane-chan!" Sayuri said. "We're here to cheer you on!"
"Yeah," Yuka said. "You're in good hands with Izurando-senpai."
Katie glanced back at the two girls and smirked. "Oh yeah, you two can stay."
Akane looked over at them. "Sayuri-chan, Yuka-chan, what are you…?"
"We're members of the female swimming club!" Yuka said. "We've been kinda worried about the lack of attention."
Sayuri nodded assent. "We kind of figured it was because you didn't like the water much, since you never went swimming in Junior High, but it's okay if you can't swim."
"We've seen Izurando-san swim, she's amazing!" Yuka said.
"Dang right I am," Katie said before she edged closer to the water and gestured for Akane to follow. "Come on and sit on the edge, get your feet wet, Akaneko."
Hesitantly, fearing that Katie might shove her in (she never forgot that her senpai described herself as the meanest person she'd know), Akane sat down by the pool and dipped her feet in. It was much warmer than she thought it'd be, but still comfortably cool enough to make her forget about the late spring sun beating on her back.
"I'm gonna start slow with you, cause I think I know what your problem is already," Katie said as she stood next to her.
Akane looked up at her. "What is it?"
"You can't float," Katie replied simply. "Human bodies have a slightly lower density than water so under ideal conditions a human body will float on its own. Some of us though are a bit more dense so we're neutral buoyant or worse–drop like a stone."
Akane nodded, finding that reasonable, and a little down at that. "So I can never swim?"
Katie then flashed her a smile. "Don't feel bad. I sink like a stone, too."
She gestured to her lithe, powerful body. "More muscle and thick bone than fat, and even before then I tended to drop like a rock." Turning to the water, she got ready. "With that being said…!"
With the grace of a bird on the wing, Katie pitched herself off the pool edge and into a graceful dive. She splashed in and shot through the water, a trail of bubbles following behind her until with a powerful kick she left them behind and raced towards the middle of the pool like a torpedo.
"Whoa!" Akane gaped in amazement at Katie's speed through the water.
Three meters down, Katie touched the concrete bottom and turned herself around, before kicking off towards the surface, her arms stretching ahead of her and coming down to her sides, pushing herself through the water even faster than on her way in, until she surfaced just short of the pool's edge and began to tread on the surface like she belonged in the water all her life.
"Not bad for a girl who drops like a rock, huh?" She asked the three girls.
Yuka turned to Akane. "I told you she's awesome in the water."
"You're so graceful…" Akane said, just floored at her prowess.
Katie chuckled and pushed herself to the left, and to the right. "The trick is–and this should be easy to fix–is to overcome your fear of the water. Do that, and you'll be like a fish in no time."
"To be honest," Akane said as she gripped the side of the pool, "I'm feeling a little bit confident right now!"
Before Katie could stop her, Akane shoved off into the water, splashing in… and panicking the moment she was totally immersed.
As it turned out, she wasn't ready at all, and Katie had to fish her out of the pool… getting kicked and punched by the thrashing Akane several times in the process.
This was going to be harder than she thought.
This was going to be harder than he thought.
Exactly one week had gone by since Ranma had left Kosaku to the diet and training regimen. He was relatively hands off about it, only popping in during the day to check in on his training, and he found that everything looked pretty good. Kosaku was tearing up the gym with his training, and even the other clubs the boxing club shared the gym with noticed that he was putting in more effort.
So that just made it confusing that Kosaku lost no weight at all when the weigh-in came at the end of the week.
"Something's not right here." Ranma said after deliberating for a few seconds.
"Chairman?" Kosaku asked, somewhat nervous.
"Hatanaka," Ranma said, giving him a visual once over. "You've not gained a single bit of muscle."
"Eh?" The confused boxer asked. "How can you tell?"
"You're not getting any more defined." Ranma pointed out. "If anything, you're getting flabbier. That tells me you're not following the diet I laid out."
"Captain..." several of the other members murmured, with Ishida looking especially betrayed.
"Of course I am, I'm just a little bit bigger is all. A growth spurt!" Kosaku tried to deflect the ire of his teammates.
"Your midsection doesn't grow like that." Ranma snapped, pinching one of the flabbier bits.
"Owowowowowowowowowowoww!" Kosaku chattered in pain.
"Sorry, but I gave you a chance to turn this around on your own and you repaid me by failing at an easy task." Ranma said, shaking his head. "I can see everyone else wants to be part of this club and wants to box. I'm not entirely convinced you do."
"Boxing is the only thing I've ever wanted to do in my life!" Kosaku stood up for himself.
"Then lose the weight Hatanaka! I'm not going to keep gifting you chances." Ranma said, narrowing his eyes. "If this trend continues, you can count losing your captaincy as the least of your worries, you won't even be in this club anymore!"
"C-Chairman..." Kosaku turned white with fear.
"Nobody in this club wants to see you thrown out." Ranma said, trying to appeal to the guts within the boxer before him. "And if you want to be a pro boxer? You can't be failing to make your weight as a high schooler. The path you're on needs real dedication, so either give it what it needs or get off the path."
He then took Kosaku's hand and held it up. "You've got potential, you've got power. You just need guts." He balled it into a fist with his other hand, Kosaku keeping it held up after. "Guts! That fire in your belly! Use that to fight through this, and you'll be fine!"
Kosaku stared back at Ranma, seeing the fire in his own determination, and nodded. "R-right, Chairman!"
Practice proceeded after that at double-time, spurred on by Ranma's fiery words. Ishida and the rest certainly seemed to step up and push Kosaku forward, working their endangered captain beyond what seemed normal. At the end of the day, though, the Captain of the Boxing Club was tired, agitated, and above all hungry.
And so it was he left the school in something of a mood. He shadow boxed along his route to try and keep his ire down but it did no good. He knew he had to lose weight, especially if it was commanded by the guy in charge of all clubs for the guys. He knew these things and yet...
"Old man, one taiyaki, extra red bean jelly!" Kosaku ordered at a taiyaki stall not far from Furinkan.
The taiyaki chef looked over and grinned. "Damn Kosaku, back at it again with the taiyaki!"
Kosaku slapped some money down on the counter. "I had a huge day, so I think I'll take two!"
Ah, the light pastry did wonders for his mood, and he tucked it away in record time, almost not even realizing he had brought the thing in the first place. The rush of sweet bean paste and flaky pastry ebbed quickly, however and as he resumed his shadow boxing he was thinking hard again. How was he going to lose weight? He had tried so hard last week and…
"Excuse me! Can I get a curry bread?" Kosaku ordered from another food stall.
Mmmm... the warmth of the bread and the curry just seemed to lift his cares away. His weight was no big deal, all he'd have to do is just work harder, and it'd all come off. No sense in-
"Oh! My favorite rice crackers are on sale! Lucky!" Kosaku cheered as he walked past a convenience store.
He continued his march home, munching on the crackers without a single care now. In fact, he was looking forward to the next few stops now. What was there ever for him to worry about? He just had to punch his way out of a bad situation.
"One jumbo pork ramen with an egg!" Kosaku ordered at the ramen stand just blocks from his house.
That sure hit the spot, extra protein meant extra power for fighting the weight. Maybe a bit more protein wouldn't hurt, he decided as he left the ramen stand, the bowl polished. And so…
"One Oyakodon and one Gyudon please!" Kosaku said, stopping at the don shop not too far from the ramen place.
He was almost full, for now anyways, but he couldn't imagine finishing his meal-run home until he got some… wait… where was it?
"Wait, wasn't it around here?' Kosaku asked, looking around for a particular stand. It was just the greatest thing ever! Did she move…?
His answer was yes, but he needn't despair, because there it was in all its glory right outside the apartment building he called home: Ukyo's Okonomiyaki Yattai and it was right outside his house.
"Hey there champ!" Its proprietor, young woman named Ukyo Kuonji, greeted him. "I figured I'd save you a lot of trouble of finding my cart every afternoon and just set up out here!"
Ukyo was a handsome young woman, her long brown hair was done up in a nice ponytail, her jacket was tight around her rather ample chest. She wore an all-too short skirt with leggings that would seemed to adhere to some "golden ratio". On her own she was a dynamite package, throw in her incredible cooking skills and it was easy to understand why there was a sign requesting no marriage proposals.
"K-Kuonji-san! I thought I was going to have to go a day without your okonomiyaki!" Kosaku wailed with tears in the corners of his eyes.
"That'd be hell wouldn't it?" Ukyo asked with a snicker. "What'll be? I'll make it fresh."
"Shrimp, pork belly and octopus, plus extra sauce." Kosaku ordered his favorite, er, well one of his favorites. She could probably just fry the batter without anything else and he'd eat a hundred of them.
"Coming right up," she replied, getting to work as fast as she usually did. It was amazing the speed with which she could work, but Kosaku had long since given up figuring it out. It only took a minute for her to have the batter and all the fixings ready and soon the okonomiyaki was sizzling away on the hot plate of the yattai.
"Smells good." He was understating his reaction a bit, what with the drool pouring out of his mouth.
"Well smelling is free, eating is another matter," Ukyo said with a bit of a cheeky smirk on her face.
"I always make sure I have enough for everything on my way home, that goes double for you." Kosaku was quick to reassure her.
"I know how you get around food Hacchan," she replied. "I don't want to beat up my number one customer because he ate first and immediately got amnesia."
"Fine fine, I get it." He complained but complied, putting the required 310 yen on the counter.
She took the money and flipped the okonomiyaki. She grabbed the squirt bottle of sauce she used and gave it a shake, getting ready to finish it up. Within the next minute, a flurry of movement almost obscured the finishing touches before she knocked it up into the air to perfectly catch it on a plate. Okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise and a few bonito flakes were added before she put it down in front of him.
"Oooooh!" Kosaku was amazed no matter how many times he had seen it. Another sniff confirmed that it was positively divine smelling. He couldn't wait anymore! "Thanks for the food!"
As he began to tear into it, Ukyo folded her arms. "You're extra ravenous today, huh champ? That slave-driver of a chairman picking on you?"
"Like you wouldn't believe!" Kosaku replied. "He's actually doubled my training. I'm barely going to be able to walk home… this time next week."
Ukyo gave him a reassuring smile. "You'll have one heck of an appetite worked up though, right?"
Kosaku, stuffing his face, found himself looking forward to being that hungry, if only to satisfy it. "Sure will, I'm definitely working on making weight."
Hearing that, Ukyo frowned. "Hey, if you're trying to make weight, shouldn't you not be eatin' like you do?"
Upon hearing that, Kosaku looked like he was having trouble swallowing. He managed to recover, however, and coughed a bit. He smiled weakly.
"I haven't eaten all day!" He immediately replied. "Like I said, that Chairman of mine is a slave driver! I'm probably going to skip dinner tonight, too."
That appeared to flatter Ukyo, who smiled cutely. "Aw geez, you're making it sound like I'm the only meal you need there, champ!"
"Would it be wrong if you were?" Kosaku asked.
Ukyo laughed. "Not at all! I'll be happy to support you from here in!" Her look became slightly chiding. "You'd just better make that weight, you hear?"
Kosaku nodded and headed for the door to his apartment. He looked back and waved to Ukyo "You can trust me, Ucchan. I'm going to beat that weigh-in with flying colors!"
"I'm cheering you on, Hachan!" Ukyo called back.
As he turned and headed through the door, Kosaku wiped the sweat from his brow and swallowed anxiously. He didn't want to lie to Ukyo like that… but… he was hungry! As long as he passed the weigh-in next week, he was going to be just fine. He was going to lighten up his food intake, triple his routine, and do everything he could to avoid Ranma until he was at Flyweight.
With that resolve in mind, he went into the elevator to ride up to his apartment. He was already looking forward to what his Mom had ready for dinner.
This was going to be easy, he thought. Seven days was enough to do this.
If there was one thing Katie learned from her uncle, it was taking the good with the bad and finding a way to eliminate the bad. While not exactly an easy task in most regards, the danger in this line of thinking was that you had to have a lot more good than bad. And sometimes, when you struggled to find the good…
Well, to call her frustrated was to call a nuclear detonation a minor disaster; rather, a massive understatement bordering on sheer dogged denial of reality. Akane was fine… as long as you didn't ask her to actually get her to float in open water. Have her stand in shallow water, or hold onto the pool's edge, or even stand on a platform to keep her above the deep water and she was fine. Problem was, the instant her feet left the bottom, she became a whirlwind of flailing limbs and panic that hit a hell of a lot harder when panicked than when she was actually trying to hit hard.
The First time, she tried to get Akane to swim with a body board. In the ensuing panic attack, she took the board to the solar plexus and had the wind knocked right out of her. Sayuri and Yuka had to fish her out of the water and nearly got dragged in when they saved Akane with a life ring.
Second time, she put Akane in a life vest. Despite the fact that she had floated, she still lost all control, and ended up destroying the life vest, prompting another rescue that got Katie punched in the eye.
Finally, on the verge of giving up, she put Akane in water wings and an inner tube… and she was literally kicked from the pool, along with a lot of water when Akane somehow capsized. It was for that reason Katie was actually sitting on the edge of the pool, her right hand resting over her right eye as she stared at the sloshing water out her left.
Patience was not something Katie had a large supply of, especially in the face of something so simple. If she could just get the girl to stop freaking out, then she'd be swimming in no time. Easier said than done, since it seemed all tips and pointers went out the window even though no one was going to let her drown.
How could this be going so poorly?
Akane was, to be certain, embarrassed beyond belief even as she sat a short distance away with a quiet Sayuri and Yuka standing over her. She had made a fool of herself in front of Senpai and now everything stank like unwashed booty. By all accounts she should be getting this but…
Honestly, she knew all the mechanics for every swimstroke. She had studied them rigorously even though she was a hammer. Just the possibility she could overcome her handicap and swim was a dream but…
Why was it such a nightmare?
"Akane-chan." Yuka finally said. "I don't think you need to learn how to swim to assess a captain for us."
"What?" Akane asked, flabbergasted by this sudden betrayal.
"It's been four days and you're nowhere near being elementary school level." Sayuri said with a gentle tone. "You just seem like you don't want to swim and if you don't want to then no one can teach you."
"You're wrong!" Akane said, bangs covering her eyes as she tried to hide her shame. "I do want to, it's just…"
"You're too scared," Katie said from her seat near the pool. She was still packing the ghost of the shiner Akane gave her the other day. That said, from hanging out at the pool for so long she was also sporting a tan most fans of the Ganguro trend would die for.
"I'm not afraid!" Akane snapped back hotly. She wasn't going to take that without retaliation.
"Are you shitting me?" Katie replied, incredulous to the bone. "Don't even say that, Akaneko. Even with three really good swimmers right there, you completely forget how to function and start attacking everything around you. It's amazing that I'm the only one who's gotten beaten up!"
Akane's face was burning up. "It's not that easy!"
"Of course it is!" Katie answered right back, frustration overflowing.
"You can swim, you're not a hammer-" Akane started to shout down her idol.
"Excuse me?! Why do you think I volunteered?!" Katie interrupted, shouting now. "I have the same problem as you, I just learned to compensate for it. Something you refuse to listen to and learn!"
"You… you think I don't want to learn? That I'm just playing one big stupid joke on everybody!" Akane shouted back.
"Hey hey, calm down both of you!" Yuka tried to cut in.
"Well I ain't seeing anything that tells me I'm wrong!" Katie ignored her, now focused on venting her frustration. "We should be done with this shit already!"
"Akane-chan!" Sayuri tried this time. "Katie-senpai that's enough! Cut it out!"
Akane stood up and stormed over to her. "Forget this and forget you too then! Why don't you just deal with the club then Miss Perfect?!"
Katie rose up in challenge. "Least they'll have a club president since the Chairwoman doesn't have the guts for her job!"
That was the breaking point, finally, as Akane saw red. "Senpai, you… you idiot!"
"Whatever Hammer-chan." Katie snapped. "You should have just told me not to waste my time on you if all you wanted to do was sink."
"You guys!" Both Yuka and Sayuri screamed, trying to break through the wall of belligerence the two had built.
Akane marched right up to Katie and threw a slap, in her anger forgetting how good Katie was.
Senpai reminded her, blocking the slap and returning one faster than Akane could comprehend. The stinging report echoed throughout the area, Akane rocked back on her heels from the force. No one made a sound, as the two were frozen in their position.
Akane stared, wide-eyed at Katie. With that stinging blow, everything had come right back to level… and she realized just how badly she screwed up.
"Consider that your discipline." Katie said coldly, before she turned to leave. "Now go fuck off."
Akane's mouth moved, but no words came out as the harsh words stabbed her right in the chest.
"Don't bother showing back up here for training anymore" Katie finished, her tone pure crass, before she addressed Yuka and Sayuri. "Since your Chairwoman is unreliable, I'll come by practice tomorrow and sort you guys out."
"Y-yes," Sayuri quickly said, while Yuka looked back and forth between the two friends, still aghast.
Akane said nothing, just fought back her tears as Katie stormed off.
Where did it all go wrong?
"Hatanaka." Ranma said, his voice eerily calm.
"Yeah Chairman?" Kosaku said all hopeful like.
"You gained another three kilos." Ranma said simply.
"I knew I… wait what?!" Kosaku sounded surprised by this. "But I trained three times harder than before!"
"I was with him for his sessions, Chairman." Ishida vouched for his Captain. "I don't understand!"
"There's not much to understand, he's working hard but he's obviously not completing the other portion of this." Ranma said, shaking his head. "He can't follow a diet. After two weeks of strict training and dieting, he's gained weight and not muscle."
"No, Captain…" Shunpei mumbled in despair.
"It gets worse. Your first meet as a club for regionals will be in another two weeks." Ranma informed them. "Because of this, Hatanaka is being removed as Captain. Ishida, you're Captain now, Shunpei you're Vice."
"No." Ishida shook his head. "Hatanaka is much better than me."
"It won't matter, you're not going to knock out, you're going for points. Sakigachi High from is full of speedy boxers, which means Hatanaka needs to be slim enough to handle the speed... if they have any Middleweight boxers at all." Ranma said, looking at the despairing Kosaku. "You won't even make weight enough to be allowed to be a reserve."
"No, no, no," Kosaku shook his head briskly, tears in his eyes. "I worked so much harder, I did! I… I can't… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Ranma sighed. "I feel for you man, but you can't do what is needed for the club or yourself. I'm not going to tell you to give up but you need to face reality. Something is off about you and it's ruining your dream."
"But I can't just give up!" Kosaku pleaded. "One more chance, I'll lose the weight!"
"I'm not wasting another week on you." Ranma said with a fierce tone. "You've burned the goodwill entirely. You have until tomorrow morning to lose at least half of what you gained. If you fail, you're benched. If you dare come in overweight tomorrow, you're out of the club." He looked at Ishida. "You're acting Captain for now and if you don't like it, take it out on the guy who should be in your spot."
The boxers all gulped at the aura of irritation rolling off Ranma.
"Understood Chairman." Ishida said, feeling the pressure.
"All right, you guys get to your practice and put Hatanaka through hell." Ranma said. "Sumo club has a meet in two days against Sakimake High and they're going to secure their first win in seven years." He bowed his head. "If you'll excuse me."
Shunpei watched Ranma stalk off towards the Sumos. "Way to go Hatanaka."
"But I worked so hard, I should have lost weight!" Kosaku defended himself.
"I know you did," Ishida said with a sad sigh. "You're sparring with everyone today, no real breaks. You have to lose weight Hatanaka! You're our best chance to win the team regionals!"
Shunpei nodded. "We want to see you back in your rightful seat man."
"You guys…" Kosaku fought back tears. "I won't let you down!"
It was after school now and Ranma already knew not to give Kosaku anymore space. He had been burned twice on trusting the boxer and he needed to find out why the hell he was gaining weight after two weeks of heavy training. But he couldn't do it as himself, it might make Hatanaka paranoid or scare him off working at all because the Chairman was being a creepy bastard.
What a handy thing this curse was, especially combined with his charming good looks and popularity with the girls. RicePony was still a big hit and telling them she had heard how good their costume department was made this disguise super easy to obtain. He almost felt bad but it was for a good cause…
And she had to admit, the purple dress and pink hat looked fabulous on her, thought the purse was overkill even if it did allow her to keep her money and phone handy.
Luckily, she spotted Kosaku before any kind of bad thoughts could pop into her head.
"So this is the way he takes ho–wait, what?" Ranma muttered to herself, as she saw Kosaku stop at a Taiyaki stand. "Well, I can't blame him a snack." She whipped her phone out and took pictures of him in the stand.
But that was singular, and Kosaku had bought three taiyaki. She snapped several pictures of him eating.
"Okay, keep calm. As long as that's it he's-" She tried to keep her temper in check but Kosaku stopped at a bakery and bought a curry bread. "-not fine at all. I'm beginning to get why he can't lose weight."
In Kosaku's favor, he did skip the convenience store, his favorite rice crackers had gone back up in price.
"Just how much does this guy eat?" Ranma asked herself when Kosaku immediately stopped at a ramen stand and ate a jumbo sized serving with extra eggs. She was reminded way too much of her old man.
Turns out the answer was quite a lot, because he then ate three donburi.
"I'm going to kill him." Ranma muttered, this isn't what she had wanted to see. He was turning his back on the club, on the goodwill Ranma had given him and he was turning his back on his word to the President. "I can't believe this!"
"Hiya Champ!" A very familiar voice rang out from the okonomiyaki yattai right outside Kosaku's apartment building.
"Ukyo?!" Ranma thought to herself.
"I'm in such dire straights, Kuonji-san!" Kosaku wailed. "I hardly lost any weight and he blew his stack!"
"Why you lying little shit!" Ranma wanted to run over there and beat him down for that but that'd blow her cover.
"Gee Hacchan, you're supposed to lose weight." Ukyo admonished him.
"I can't help it, if I couldn't have your okonomiyaki I'd die!" He was obviously buttering her up.
"I'm flattered you'd say that Hacchan but no freebies." Ukyo replied flatly.
"Aww... but I got 'til the morning to lose some weight! At least before I throw myself into hell have a taste of heaven." Kosaku pleaded.
"You know the prices." Ukyo was a hardcore capitalist, she wasn't moved at all.
"Excuse me!" Ranma approached the cart just then. "I want to order for a friend of mine."
"Sure thing Missy." Ukyo said, looking at the redhead. "Somebody's going to find herself needing a stick to beat off the fellas."
"Oh gosh, you'll make me blush!" Ranma giggled. "But anyways, he says he wanted a Mapo Tofu and a Dongo Pork okonomiyaki. As for myself, I want the crab, chinese sausage and crispy pork belly cutlet okonomiyaki."
Ukyo's eyes widened at the orders. "Well well, your friend sounds like they got tastes similar to my best friend." She grinned in a less than wholesome manner. "Sure a slim thing like you can handle all that meat?"
"Maybe, maybe not." Ranma said, pulling out a 1000 yen note, alongside a hundred fifty in coins. "This is enough right?"
"On the nose hon." Ukyo said, taking the money. "Your order will be coming up shortly."
"Stupid line cutters." Kosaku muttered without much heat. In fact, he was blushing mighty fiercely now.
"Hatanaka Kosaku-kun." Ranma whispered, Ukyo's hearing being blocked by all the cooking and prep work.
"Do I know you?" Kosaku asked, before he realized she already knew his name. "How do you know my name?"
"The Chairman sends his regards." Her words sent ice shooting through his veins. "I'm a friend of his, but you won't need to learn my name."
"Why?" Kosaku sounded confused. And depressed he might have struck out with such a hottie.
"Because I've been following you from your school." Ranma retorted. "I saw the taiyaki, the curry bread, the ramen and the dons. You're a glutton and not just for punishment."
"I… I…" Kosaku's brain crashed in terror. If this girl was related in some way to the Chairman.
"Please, eat all the okonomiyaki you want. Your diet has been rescinded." Ranma said, shaking her head. "I texted him before I ordered and you're expelled from the Boxing club. Savor his mercy in not expelling you from the school entirely."
"W-w-w-wait a second! Expelled?!" Kosaku gasped.
Ranma pulled up a picture of Kosaku eating a taiyaki. "Is this behavior conducive to losing weight?"
Kosaku stared uncomprehendingly at the screen. "Is… is that me?"
"Yes." She flipped to him eating a pork cutlet don. "So is this."
"No…" Kosaku slumped forward in his stool, looking like a certain boxing Joe.
"Rejoice, you can pig out all you want. No more mean Chairman." She smiled sunnily, but her tone was winter cold. "No more boxing, no more exercise and no more dreams of being World Champ. Just retire to eat since that's all you seem to want."
"Hey, you're not picking on Hacchan are you?" Ukyo called, putting the finishing touches on all three okonomiyaki.
"No, I'm just conducting business for a friend." Ranma said, turning her bright smile on Ukyo. Her tone was borderline flirtatious as she continued. "Here, to make up for depressing him, give him the Lobster special." She paid out the 325 yen price tag as she took the three, two in take-out boxes and a paper plate with her third, okonomiyaki. "Have a nice day."
Ranma took the food and left, her face grim with anger. "Hatanaka Kosaku... I misjudged you terribly. I'll have to apologize to Kodachi-san tomorrow."
"There there Hacchan." Ukyo said as she collected the money. "Even if she was being mean she bought you a Special."
"Ah, so she did." Kosaku regained some color, but he still looked like he straddled the line of death.
He received the Lobster special a few minutes later and found the flavor wasn't diminished even by his tears.
Misao was relaxing with a cup of green tea when Katie came storming into the apartment, mad as a hornet. The chubby internet goddess said nothing, having taken the way the Bae had come rampaging in that she didn't desire any back sass. Which was fine, as Misao had a Debrief to do soon so she was saving her voice.
"Ugh, what is wrong with her?!" Katie ranted, throwing her bag down. "All i do is spend my time teaching her to swim and she has the audacity to act like that!"
Over her ragged breathing, only the sound of Misao's replacement equipment humming along was heard.
"I mean, I get it! It's embarrassing!" Katie looked at Misao, gesticulating wildly. "Nick humiliated the fuck out of me before he tried to teach me. You try being in public as a grown man laughs mockingly at you, serenading everyone within earshot of how you sink like an anchor! At least I was nice about it!"
Misao arched an eyebrow and sipped her tea.
"Don't look at me like that!" Katie snarled, before she blew out a sigh. "So yeah, I fucked up okay? But it's not like she didn't either! All she had to do was listen and not freak out like a five year old tangled up in her blanket!"
Misao examined the cup for a second before she craned her head at Katie.
"Hey, don't take her side damn it!" Katie said, feeling a little nervous now. "Okay, so maybe I didn't think about it well enough, I thought she'd listen to me without issue, yeah? It's just she flails around like she's… afraid of the…"
Misao looked interested in what Katie's revelation was, but not enough to speak. She did sip the tea however.
"OH MY GOD!" Katie screamed in English. "I'm so fucking dumb! That's it, that's it! I got it I got it! Thanks so much, really! You're such an amazing amount of help on top of being drop dead sexy."
Misao smiled brightly, before she gave Katie a look that conveyed something.
"Oh yeah, I do have to apologize…" Oh that was gonna be awkward. "But I got it and she'll be swimming in no time!" Katie hugged her plump little Bae, kissed her on the cheek, and went skipping off to the bedroom
Misao looked happy, before she counted down silently for the door to pop open again.
"The nerve of that asshole." Ranma, still a girl and carrying two okonomiyaki boxes. "He's all, 'Shucks Chairman, how am I gaining weight while eating like a fuckin' pig!'?!" She stomped to the kitchen to put them up.
Misao hummed and waited, she had enough tea to get through this without a word.
"Give him two weeks and he's still fucking off like he doesn't want to be a boxer." Ranma ranted, still rather pissed about being chucked under the bus by Kosaku, "All his fake ass tears and shit, pulling down the Boxing club for what? Just some food?!"
Misao pursed her lips and looked at the redhead expectantly.
The glare worked and Ranma stopped running around in an angry circle. "Okay, okay, so I took too much of a hands off approach but he seemed like someone to rely. LIke a stand-up guy! I just… I just wanted to believe in someone for once you know? Is that so wrong?"
She pulled out her phone and pulled up a picture of Kosaku eating a taiyaki. "But look at him doing this!"
Misao took the phone and looked at the picture, noticing something that might have bypassed Ranma's notice. Zooming the photo in, she handed the phone back.
"What…?" Ranma asked in confusion. She looked at the picture and gasped at what she saw that Misao had zoomed in on Kosaku's face, revealing dark circles around his eyes. "Those bags! But… that doesn't make any sense. If he's just goofing off, he should be plenty rested."
But he wasn't. Kosaku looked exhausted, which matched up perfectly to how hard the others said he'd been working, and even with what Ranma had seen. He was a hard worker, just one with no impulse control when it came to food!
Misao just sipped her tea, nodding sagely.
"Okay, so his appetite is so out of control he isn't even aware of it." Ranma was thinking hard about what to do. "So what do I do to get him to stop that?"
Misao put her teacup down and made a pantomime of using a wok.
"I can't just be his personal chef to cater to his needs. I can't hire one for him either, if that happens then everyone else will want one, and that's just asking for trouble. No, it has to be someone who he knows and would be willing to…" Ranma brightened as she realized something. "That's it! I know someone who can do it!"
Misao found herself lifted off her seat and pulled into a bearhug.
"Thanks Misao-chan! You helped me figure this one out." Ranma smiled and for a moment, looked to be the sun. "I gotta practice! And get in contact with Ukyo, she's the key!"
She kissed her on the cheek before he bounded off to get some hot water.
Misao finished the last of her tea and sighed in relief. She solved everyone's problems and didn't need to say a word.
Though, she was now kind of curious about who Ukyo was.
When Akane came home from school, she didn't even announce her return, prompting a curious Kasumi to actually come out from the living room. She hadn't even gotten a chance to offer a greeting, when she caught a glimpse of Akane's sadness as she slowly made her way up the stairs.
That was worrying; for the past week Akane had come home frustrated and angry, not sad. She turned and looked over to Nabiki, who was in the middle of doing homework. "I think something happened with Akane-chan at her swimming lessons."
"Something good?" Nabiki asked without looking up from her homework.
"No," Kasumi said, putting emphasis on her worried tone.
Nabiki set down her pencil and heaved a sigh. "Oh God damn it, Katie."
Overhearing the exchange, an especially petulant Genma seethed a bit and folded his arms as he stared down at the shogi board. "Trouble in paradise, I see?"
Nabiki turned a dry look onto Genma, but actually refrained from responding to his snipe with the artillery barrage she wanted to unload on him.
Kasumi was not nearly as merciful. "Saotome-san, if you would please mind your business?"
Soun, who had been studying his next three moves (he would win in the next move) glanced up from the board, an eyebrow arched, as he watched his long time friend and rival recoil from Kasumi's stern words.
He then looked over to the elder two of his daughters. "Why don't you two go speak with her?"
Nabiki was already getting up on her feet to just that, but was grateful for her Dad to be so understanding. To Kasumi, she gestured towards the stairs with a nod. "Let's go, Kasumi."
"Right," Kasumi replied before both made their way upstairs.
As they left the room, Genma gave Soun a sour look. "You should be more involved with their social lives, Tendo."
"As much as you were with Ranma's?" Soun answered as he moved his piece into a position Genma could not escape.
Genma stopped, and lowered his head as a bitter snarl left his lips.
"That's what I thought," Soun calmly said.
Genma flipped the shogi board into Soun's face.
Upstairs, Kasumi cracked open Akane's door without announcement, and then stepped in to find her curled up on her bed, facing the wall. With Nabiki right behind her, the eldest of the three sisters approached Akane, who curled up in a tighter ball and shuffled closer to the door without looking back at either of them.
"Akane-chan," Kasumi said as she sat down next to her. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"I messed up," Akane said quietly.
"Swimming lessons finally stopped being fun, huh?" Nabiki asked.
"They were never fun," Akane said. "They never worked. It kept getting worse and worse until we just… we blew up at each other and had a fight."
Kasumi was about to ask just how bad the fight was, when she heard Akane sniffle. Leaning over a bit, she could see Akane's pillow was damp where she had cried into it quite a bit.
Nabiki surprised both of her sisters by letting out a gentle little laugh. "Well, I guess it had to happen eventually. The two of you can't always be in 100% agreement all the time." She moved past Kasumi and kneeled by Akane's head. "But you know, it doesn't really matter who's at fault for this little row right?"
"Huh?" Akane didn't quite get it yet. Mainly because this was the point Nabiki started making fun of her.
"It was going to happen, whenever you run into a wall you crash and explode," Nabiki pointed out. "Then you stomp off and pretend it never happened until you get it into your head that you want to run headlong into that wall again."
Kasumi found herself agreeing. "Like all of the times you wanted to learn to cook… and it never worked out."
That was a low blow, and Akane let out a harumph.
Nabiki then shone some light on that. "But you've been getting better at cooking since Ranma started releasing those videos right?"
Akane nodded slightly. "Yeah."
Nabiki grinned at her little sister. "So isn't it only natural for you to realize you can get better at swimming too?"
Akane turned over and stared at Nabiki for a second before she blew out a sigh. "I guess you're right. but it's hard. She tried so hard to help but I mess up and she keeps getting hurt and angry and… I didn't want to do it anymore and have her hate me."
Kasumi, who had been watching quietly, took that moment to interject. "Come now, Katie-chan wouldn't be that cruel. She may have a lot in common with Nabiki-chan but she wouldn't hate you."
"Hey, that's fine you know?" Nabiki said, looking up at the ceiling. "You don't want to look stupid in front of your hero right? If someone I admired was being made privy to one of my embarrassing secrets, I'd just about die."
Akane laughed a little, already feeling a little better. "You're right. It was dumb of me to think I could only share with Katie-senpai my good qualities."
"I'm sure Katie-chan would want to know more than that about you." Kasumi pointed out. "She doesn't seem to be the kind to leave a mystery unsolved if she could help it."
Nabiki stood up and stretched. "In any event, don't you think that quitting would be worse than you constantly hitting her?"
Akane sat up, as that revelation put the fight into proper perspective. For all of their back and forth during it, the absolute worst thing that Akane did was give up. She told Katie that this was a waste of her time, and that all her help wasn't worth it.
"Neechan," she murmured, reaching over and pulling Nabiki into a firm hug. "Thank you."
"It's a little early for that, but if you really wanna thank me." Nabiki said, after she pulled back. "Don't just apologize and don't be a passive aggressive bitch. That's my thing and I'll charge you for stealing it. You're old enough to be mature and admit your fault in this."
"That's right." Kasumi said, smiling at Akane. "When it's all over, you'll realize that this little tiff is nothing at all."
"You're her precious kouhai after all." Nabiki said, ruffling Akane's hair. "Just don't give up, and you'll both be fine."
It was in that moment of sisterly affection that Akane realized two important things. One, both of her sisters were actually supporting her in their own ways about this matter and neither put the blame squarely on her. And secondly, was that both Nabiki and Kasumi really cared about her friendship with Katie–not just that they were worried about the boat being rocked by the senpai/kouhai dynamic falling apart.
Akane smiled, it helped her so much to know that. "I'll give her a call right now."
Right as she said that, her phone rang, and when she pulled it from her pocket, she found that it was Katie. "Oh!"
When she answered it, Katie was uncharacteristically excited. "Akaneko! I'm sorry for flipping out at you, but I figured it out! I know how I can get you to swim! Come to the pool tonight after sundown!"
Hearing that, Akane beamed. In relief and excitement. "O-okay! I'll be there!"
It was after sundown and Akane was running as if the most important thing in her life was about to happen. Sure, she wanted to swim and conquering the kitchen was something she was in the middle of, but the song in her heart wasn't about either of those. It was because Katie didn't mind her blowing up earlier. They fought and Senpai still wanted her around, still felt like helping her. She had her bathing suit on underneath the shirt and shorts combo she wore, not exactly fashionable but she was in a hurry.
They could fight and laugh it off later, ignoring whatever went wrong. Her lungs burned but she didn't care. Katie was waiting for her, Katie was still there for her. That girl, her hero was there for her and she wasn't going to keep being an uncool dork about feeling embarrassed.
She was gonna learn to swim damnit!
As she reached the pool, its waters illuminated by the fluorescent lights that ran along its sides, she heard a strange sound, like heavy waves rolling driven onto shore by a powerful storm… that ended with a dull but loud bang. Her run petered to a jog, and then to a slow stride as she heard the sound again, the shockwave loud enough that she wondered if she had felt the ground beneath her feet move.
"What the…?" Akane walked slowly towards the pool's edge at the relatively shallow end, only to stop when she heard the rumble, before a great wall of foaming water sprayed up. The churned water fell like rain upon Akane, and she stared down in amazement at the completely white water of the shallow end.
She then looked towards the deep end, and her eyes widened.
Katie, wearing her wet suit, was standing at the bottom of the deep end of the pool, furiously punching into the water, shadow-boxing against the resistance offered by the weight of the pool upon her body.
Her blows were machine gun quick, and even though she was far underwater, Akane could see trails of bubbles form around her fists, scattering away and drifting upward with her movements. She was moving so fast, it was almost as if she were boxing in the air itself.
Then, Katie's barrage of punches ended with a mighty straight punch, a huge bubble appeared, becoming a tunnel that advanced through the deep water up towards the surface and to the shallow end of the pool. Then it reached the surface, and with a roar the water of the pool parted, the waves crashing to the sides and front of the pool. The bang that Akane had heard sounded, the bubble crashing into the wall of the pool.
Through the curtain of water that came up, Akane stared in awe of Katie, now standing between the walls of water with her outstretched fist. As the walls began to collapse, she looked up and saw Akane standing there with a look of amazement. Smiling back, Katie took a deep breath as the water came crashing back into her with the roar of thunder.
Akane nearly fell backward, just amazed at what she'd seen, but stood still long enough for Katie to make her way up to the shallow end of the pool and surface.
"Akaneko!" Katie waved her over once she arrived. "Good timing!"
"What was that?" Akane asked.
Katie grinned. "Something you've seen before, and what I'm going to teach you to do."
"Something I've seen…?" Akane searched her memory. When did she see this before?
Katie decided to let her off easy. "Back when I beat Ranma, do you remember?"
It snapped to mind immediately, the floor cracking and splitting between the time Katie had hit Ranma and Ranma actually hitting the floor. "I remember it now!"
Katie nodded. "It's my Uncle's signature move that he passed on to me, and one that I want to pass to you. And to do that, is to learn how to move underwater like you would in the air."
Katie backed up. "For that… I'm not going to teach you how to sink like a stone."
"I can do that."
"Without freaking out," Katie added with a smirk. "So get up on out those clothes and get in the pool, we're doing this now."
"Right..." Akane gathered her breath, even as she stripped off her outer clothes. "I'm ready."
"Gather yourself and then I'll help you in." Katie said, patiently as though she had never lost it. "I'm sorry if I made you feel like shit earlier, I guess I was just so jazzed in being able to share this with you that… I forgot you ain't me."
"It's... fine." Akane said, she had paused to gauge what to say. "I wasn't being helpful and if someone I was training was being bratty I'd blow up at them, too." She smiled for effect.
"Glad we've got that out of the way." Katie said, smiling as well. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be." Akane said, sitting down on the pool's edge.
"Just relax," Katie advised as she took her kouhai's hands in her own. "I'm here for you. Even when I let you go, I'm going to be right here to help you. I'm not going to let you get hurt again."
The determination in Katie's voice made Akane's heart lurch. "Senpai…"
"I shouldn't have lost my cool like that." Katie said, squeezing Akane's hands. "You're doing your best, and from now on I'll be doing mine."
"I'm sorry for blowing up at you too," Akane said gently as she squeezed Katie's hands back.
"It's nothing to be sorry over." Katie replied. "Now I'm going to make this super easy for you, okay? When you go in the water, don't let go of me no matter what. Don't worry about the water, don't worry about not feeling the floor under your feet, just hold on tight and focus everything on me. Got that?"
Nervous, but every bit as determined, Akane nodded. "Okay."
"Start now," Katie advised her. "Like you did against Shampoo, push away everything else… and just focus on me."
Akane nodded and stared at Katie until slowly, but gradually, the world began to fall away. The world above the level of the pool's fence grew dark and faded to black, before the fence itself was consumed. Then everything else vanished… until there was just Katie floating in a pool of light before her.
"Come on in, the water's nice," Katie assured her with a smile.
"Okay," Akane said, before she shuffled forward.
Katie nodded, and pulled Akane forward. She slipped off the pool's edge and into the water.
Right away, Akane dropped, slipping under her head Immediately the terror and the instinct to fight against this fate flared to life, but before she could thrash or kick she felt Katie's grip clamp down on her hands, and then suddenly she was yanked up to the surface and into a strong embrace, Katie pulling her tight against her while kicking with her feet, treading water in place.
"I told you I got you," Katie whispered gently to Akane as the younger girl kept attempting to thrash in her arms.
Held in place like this, Akane's struggles finally ebbed to squirms, and then ceased as Katie squeezed her a little tighter.
"We're going over to the middle of the pool." Katie said, explaining what they were about to do. "Our first order of business is to get you to stop panicking when you sink. So, you'll get a deep breath, let yourself go to the bottom, and then you're going to spring off the bottom to come back to the surface. Once you realize sinking isn't the end, then we can start training you to swim."
"I'm ready." Akane whispered, unsure if it had escaped over the sound of her heart.
"All right, hang on to me." Katie instructed, as she guided the girl out of the shallow end.
Akane shivered as she felt her feet leave the bottom of the pool, but held back her fear. Senpai was right there, she would be fine. She held tighter to Katie, wary of impeding her movements. She didn't have to worry, as Katie turned and began to side stroke, pulling Akane along.
"Remember, just look at me and nothing else, got it?" Katie said as she looked to her. "I'm your whole world right now."
She was, thanks to Akane's focus.
"R-right…" Akane realized that she didn't even need to kick. Despite having to hold up her weight, Katie was swimming just fine–this girl who was just as much of a rock as she was.
When she held Katie tighter, pressing her body fully to hers, Katie let out a soft huff and laughed. "That a girl. We're here in the center of the pool."
She stopped and put her arms around Akane again, looking her straight on. "We're going to sink together, all the way to the bottom of the pool, and then when we touch the bottom we're going to jump back to the surface. We won't even need to kick if we do it together."
And even if they couldn't, Katie was confident she was strong enough to bring them both to the surface.
Akane, having not deviated from Katie's instructions, nodded as she stared at Katie's eyes. "Okay."
"Deep breath now, and hold it." Katie said, quietly as she waited. "Don't panic, don't think about the other times you've sank. If you feel yourself panicking, just relax and remember that I've got you, okay Akaneko?"
Akane nodded, her face feeling so intolerably warm, before taking a deep breath and holding it.
Katie lowered her grip on Akane to tightly hold her sides, before she stopped kicking and the two slipped beneath the water and to the bottom, a little shy of five meters beneath the surface.
"I'm sinking." Akane thought, her mind idling now that she was controlling her fear. "It's so slow now, was it always this speed?" The water usually swallowed her instantly to her old senses.
She touched the bottom, her descent done in a couple seconds. "Stay calm, Senpai is right here. Just focus on keeping calm and remember what to do."
She opened her eyes, and saw that Katie was watching her face carefully for any sign of panic. Blinking a few times, she marveled at how calm she was despite them being so far down, not aware of the fact that she was every bit as calm.
"Just crouch down a little and push off the pool's floor. I will be fine, she is with me." Akane reminded herself, before she saw Katie nod up towards the surface for them to do just that. She crouched with her, waiting three seconds, before she sprang up. With their combined strength, they both easily rocketed to the surface.
"Pah!" Akane gasped as she surfaced and looked around, in amazement. "I… I did it!" She caught her breath, only to run out of it again being excited for her success. "I really did it! I didn't freak out!"
"You're damn right you did," Katie cheered as she hugged and nuzzled Akane. "Your first step towards swimming."
The close nuzzle sent a jolt through Akane, reminding her that she was being held afloat by someone she admired so much. Not just that, but cuddled with, with no small affection.
"Katie-senpai is so strong…" Akane marveled as they floated there like they were the only people in the whole world–let alone the pool. She wanted to cuddle her right back, rest her chin on her shoulder and hug her tightly.
"So, Akaneko…" Katie then asked her, snapping her out of it. "Want to go again?"
Pulling back, Akane smiled and returned a nod, before both took deep breaths and dipped below the water towards the bottom.
Nabiki and Kasumi, who had followed Akane, watched from the door of the wooden-slatted fence that ringed the pool. The middle of the three sisters was looking fantastically smug, while Kasumi was smiling warmly at the closeness shared between the two friends.
"Ne, Kasumi," Nabiki said quietly.
Kasumi glanced over at her. "Yes?"
Nabiki was smirking at Kasumi, suggestively. "How long do you think it'll be, before she goes three for three?"
Kasumi hummed, before she closed her eyes and decided. "I'd say give it another week, or however long it takes for Akane-chan to learn to swim all her own."
Watching the two friends come back up for air, and hearing Akane laugh brightly at her success, Nabiki decided that timetable worked.
"What a greedy girl," she mock lamented.
It was well past dark by the time Kosaku finally ran out of money for Okonomiyaki. He sat on a bench in front of Ukyo's Okonomiyaki Yattai, paper plates stacked next to him and his expression blank. He'd eaten himself damn near sick, and despite the handsome amount of money she'd made off it, Ukyo was worried about her best customer to date.
"Hacchan, you're a hard guy to understand," she said as she stacked and put away her equipment.
Kosaku, halfway between a depressed stupor and a food coma, focused his gaze on Ukyo and just let out a heavy sigh.
"You're literally the having your cake and eating it too kind of guy. You want to be a boxer, but you ain't got no drive or discipline."
He looked aside, sighing again. "It's just… so good…"
"Hm?" Ukyo hummed back.
"Food… I just… love to eat," he admitted.
"Well, food is pretty good, I'd say it's vital to survival even. But, the thing is Hacchan, you got two irreconcilable loves here," Ukyo went on. "You want to box, but you wanna eat all you want, too. You can't have both, one's gonna make the other difficult."
"Can't I just be a fat boxer, like Butterbean?"
"Sugar, even Butterbean fought to his weight. You'd just be a fat, slow punching bag that'd never go anywhere in the pros," Ukyo revealed, driving an arrow into his heart.
"Oh."
"Besides, you'd have to go to America to even have a chance to make it, and that would mean you'd never have my delicious okonomiyaki ever again."
That arrow hit him in the stomach. "Ohh… God is cruel."
"God is anything but," Ukyo corrected him, "He gives you the strength to continue, you just gotta have the determination to use it."
"I didn't figure someone like you for a Christian," Kosaku said after staring at Ukyo uncomprehending for a moment.
Ukyo shrugged her shoulders. "I picked up a good book worth readin'. Maybe you oughta do the same?"
Kosaku looked down at his stomach. "Are you saying God's the only one who can help me?"
"He can if you accept the offer," Ukyo said as she finally finished closing up her shop. "Well, I'm all closed up and I got stuff to do in the mornin'. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here."
Kosaku acquiesced and rose from his seat. "Are you going to stick around, or are you done with me too?"
"The decent person in me says I ought to not tempt you, while the businessman in me says wring you dry, Hacchan," she warned him. "But I like to think I'm a little bit of both, so I'm going to stick around and see if I can try to help you out in my own way."
She just needed to figure out how that would be.
Kosaku managed to smile at Ukyo, and nodded. "You're a good friend, Ucchan." He then put on a bigger smile. "You'd make a great girlfriend, too."
Ukyo gave him a dry look. "Probably not for you though."
Kosaku dimmed again and sighed. "Yeah, probably…" He turned and trudged over to his apartment, waving back at her without looking. "Later."
"G'night, Hacchan," she called back as she watched him close the door behind him.
Once she was alone, she picked up and stowed the cart's bench, and knelt down to lock it up. The poor guy, he really was torn between his dreams and his desires, but he didn't have the self-control to overcome the latter. There was only so much she could do to help him, but he needed more than that.He needed a plan, he needed someone who could understand, he needed-
"Aw man, you're closed? I was hoping to get a freebie."
Ukyo stopped when she heard the voice of a young man. "Huh? I don't do freebies."
"Funny, you used to all the time for me," the young man said as he walked up to the cart.
Ukyo froze for a second once she saw his face, but it didn't last before a smirk split her face. "Well well, today was supposed to be a good day and up walks trouble." She recognized him immediately as her old friend and number one troublemaker. "So what do you want… Saotome Ranma?"
"I got a business proposition for you," Ranma said, a serious look on his face. "I've heard it through the grapevine you got a customer with a bit of a problem."
Ukyo was unmoved, she just wanted to close up for the night. "You have huh?"
"Let's just say I've come up with an idea that can allow him to feel like he's eating all the food he wants without jeopardizing his dreams." Ranma said, glad she had thrown him out. "But you're the key for this to work."
"Too busy to do your own dirty work?" Ukyo teased, relaxing when it looked like there was business instead of displeasure.
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 10/?
|Assessment|
The Kingdom of Kodachi did not demand perfection, but it did strive for a standard that many would mistake for it. Such was the drive of a Rhythmic Gymnastic Martial Artist, and of a girl whose madness aligned with the desires of her subjects rather than intersected them like a bus with a pedestrian at 80 kilometers an hour. With this in consideration, Ranma, Akane, and Katie were in the office of the student council, facing a Kodachi who'd just finished practicing a floor routine in the middle of the large room.
"Tendo Nabiki-san has finished an assessment of the student body," Kodachi said as she draped a cool, damp towel over her shoulders, "And while there is proficient growth in all areas, not everything is going well for everyone."
"Someone's lagging behind?" Ranma, who was standing to Akane's left asked, finding this a bit surprising.
Nabiki nodded. "Quite a number of students, academically and in club activities. While there's only so much the Student Council can do about teachers, the status of our clubs is something we can entirely intervene upon."
Katie, who stood to the right of Akane, folded her arms. "Who, why, and what do we have to do?"
"To my relief it's only two areas, and only one is an actual threat to our war potential," Kodachi revealed. She then looked to Ranma. "The Boxing Club, Saotome-san. The Captain we chose for it is having difficulty acclimating to his role."
She shook her head. "I should've expected that one of the Captains wouldn't be exact leadership material despite their performance, but I didn't expect it would be this dramatic."
Ranma frowned. From what he himself saw of the boxing club, they seemed like a tight ship. Was there something he missed? "I'll get right on investigating it, shouldn't take too much work. If the Captain ain't Captain material, I'll find a new guy to replace him."
Kodachi nodded. "I have no doubt that you will." She then turned to Akane. "The second matter involves a non-combat club, and specifically one side of it."
"What is it?" Akane asked.
"The Girls' Swimming Club."
Both Ranma and Katie noticed Akane go ramrod straight at the mention of swimming… and they were further surprised to see her begin to sweat a bit.
"Er…" Akane said. "I've um… been a bit behind on them, haven't I?"
"You haven't even chosen a Captain, Tendo Akane-san," Kodachi pointed out.
Ranma turned to face Akane. "What? It's been weeks."
Katie's hands came to rest on her hips. "Ne, Akaneko, do you not like swimming or something?"
Her tone seemed a bit rough as she asked this, like she sounded a bit offended.
Akane frowned. "Look, I'll find someone to Captain the team, I've just been busy with the other clubs…"
"That is no excuse," Kodachi called her out. "Time that you spend idling could be used elsewhere, and when the girls club is out wading in the pool, you're finding distractions for yourself."
Akane recoiled backwards. "H-have you been spying on me?!" She looked to Katie, accusingly. "S-Senpai!"
Katie raised an eyebrow, finding Akane's defensiveness to be confusing. "Hey, don't look at me like that. This is your problem."
"Hey guys, lay off her," Nabiki said from the doorway. "She just can't swim."
Akane flushed and whirled on Nabiki. "You…!"
Ranma correctly supposed that this was something of an embarrassment to Akane.
Katie stopped, and let out a bemused huff. "That's it?"
"Sinks like a rock the moment you drop her into any body of water deeper than she's tall," Nabiki went on.
Kodachi was astounded. "So that is the cause of this deficiency. Well, then it's a simple matter of teaching her to swim."
Akane lowered her head. "It's not that easy…"
"Nope," Nabiki agreed.
"When I was younger, I never went swimming without my inner tube."
"It was a gift from Mom," Nabiki said.
"We didn't go to the beach or the pool often," Akane continued.
"Daddy was a bit stingy on family vacations unless he could turn them into training trips," Nabiki piped in.
"And then there was that one camping trip we went on, where I was attacked by a Platypus…"
"It's more terrifying than you think," Nabiki added with a sage nod.
Ranma and Katie looked shared a skeptical look with one-another.
"The fact is," Akane said, "I… just don't really like the water."
Katie clapped a hand on her shoulder, and smiled an uncharacteristically large one. "Well, that's going to change, because I happen to love the water, and I love to swim."
"Do you, now?" Nabiki asked, interested.
Katie nodded. "Yeah, in fact… I'm an unofficial world record holder for Constant Weight Without Fins Freediving. 300 meters."
Nabiki paled a bit. "Wait, what?"
Katie folded her arms, looking rather proud of herself. "Yeah, it's unofficial because I was like thirteen when I did it and no official body would recognize it." She then scowled a bit. "In fact, when my Uncle Nick tried to have it recognized, Child Protective Services started paying my parents visits…"
During the third such visit her father had her show the nice CPS lady that she could field-strip, reassemble, and load a Type 81 in 30 seconds. They stopped coming by after that, impressed by such responsible and disciplined parents.
Akane was more impressed. "Wow, that far underwater?"
Katie beamed. "Yep! Any issue you have with water, I'll put an end to it."
Ranma found himself a bit skeptical, but he swam from Japan to China on his fateful training trip and back, so someone swimming that far underwater probably wasn't such an unbelievable thing.
Kodachi nodded. "So it's agreed, then? Saotome-san, deal with the Boxing Club. Izurando-san, I leave Tendo Akane-san's swimming lessons in your care."
Katie gave Kodachi a very American thumb's up. "You can count on me."
"The three of you are dismissed," Kodachi then said "Tendo Nabiki-san, I wish to discuss the matter of a few acquisitions I've made."
Nabiki raised an eyebrow. What kind of acquisitions?"
Maybe she was finally getting that Goku Uniform.
"I have taken in the young man who came to grace your company during that debacle with the Amazon, Mu Tsu. His skills and insight may prove fruitful in the future, given that the Amazon woman took us all by surprise."
Huh, that was unexpected. "You think we might get visits from more of their kind?"
"Xian Pu was one of their village's more prideful warriors as he's told me, she's made her fair share of enemies. Worse still the fact she lost so thoroughly may be casus belli for more of her ilk to resolve the matter of lost pride."
Nabiki soured a tad. "That's good to know. Anything less ominous?"
Kodachi chuckled. "When we raid Tomobiki High School, we may be coming back with more than merely victory. I have received signals that one of the staff is interested in a position at a better school. I need you to make good of your gossip skills to confirm this is true."
"Ah, so Kodachi wants some good ol' fashioned social engineering from yours truly?" Nabiki was down to ride. "Shoot, if what you're offering faculty is better than what you've offered me, I'll pull the whole faculty out from under their noses."
"Ohoho…" Kodachi chuckled. "That will be unnecessary. I only want their absolute best, an irreplaceable asset to their school and morale."
She steepled her fingers and stared pointedly at Nabiki with dark eyes filled with malice.
"Give me that, and I will grind Tomobiki even deeper into the dirt."
|The Boxer|
From 11 am to 2pm, Furinkan's gymnasium belonged to the boys combat clubs that didn't wield weapons. Judo, Karate, Sumo, and of course Boxing. Of these four clubs, three were a hive of activity, with students clashing in the rings and on the mats, or running through the drills in unison, their kiai momentarily drowning out the din of self-improvement. The fourth however wasn't gathered around the ring, which stood empty, but instead around a weight scale and the Chairman of the Boys Athletic Committee.
"Fifty-eight kilograms," Ranma said as he stared at the scale stood upon. "Fifty-eight… that's Featherweight."
Kosaku, a moderately handsome young man wearing only a pair of boxing shorts for the sake of the weigh in, put on a weak, hopeless smile. "Technically Super Featherweight…"
Ranma folded his arms and looked at the young man, who aside from a bit of padding around his stomach and sides that would go unnoticed by the uninitiated appeared to be in good physical shape. "What class are you best in, Hatanaka?"
"Flyweight, hands down," Kosaku replied proudly, not realizing the huge mistake he'd just made.
"Then why are you six kilograms above it?" Ranma said after chopping him on the forehead and sending him spilling onto his back on the mat.
Kosaku sat up, rubbing his forehead. "Ah, ow…" He then looked up at Ranma. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, Chairman. I've been working hard to get back into shape, honest!"
Ranma had his doubts. "What's your training look like?"
"I do it just like the pros. I jog every day, jump rope, hit the bags, lift, all of it. I'm definitely on top of the training." To demonstrate, Kosaku hopped onto his feet and threw a few lightning fast jabs that even impressed Ranma. Or would, if he couldn't see how slow they were.
Ranma caught the last punch Kosaku threw by the wrist and looked at the other young and impressionable boxers of the club. "Is this true?"
One of the boxers, a first year with curly hair, shifty eyes, and thin lips named Shunpei spoke up. "Yeah, Kosaku works harder than any of us combined, and he hits like a truck in the ring! In every spar since we started up, none of us can take a solid hit from him."
A third year named Ishida, whose strictness and professionalism made him ideal for the role of vice captain then spoke up. "He's right. Far as fundamentals are concerned, no one knows or follows them better than the Captain. He's a natural at this boxing thing."
Letting go of Kosaku's fist, Ranma sighed. Something was missing from the equation that eluded him. "Then why is he six kilos too heavy for the weight class he's meant for?"
Kosaku shrugged his shoulders. "I guess I've always just been a little over the limit, right? But hey it's no big deal, right? I should be fine in Featherweight…"
Ranma shook his head. "Nah, you'll be eaten alive by any Featherweight built for it. On you it's just extra fat that's holding your full power back."
Kosaku shrugged his shoulders. "We'll just have to find out then? With enough training I can overcome the extra."
Again, Ranma shook his head. "Look, how about this? I'm built for Featherweight Class in Boxing and I got two kilos over you. Let's take it to the ring and I'll show you."
Kosaku was surprised, Ranma was toeing the border of Feather and Lightweight. "You'll box? No kicking or anything like that?"
"I know how to box, so yeah," Ranma said as he got into the ring after kicking his shoes off and grabbing a pair of gloves. "Get up here, Hatanaka."
Kosaku obeyed, lacing up his own gloves and hauling himself in to square off against Ranma. Outside of the ring, Ishida, Shunpei, and the other members of the boxing club watched with no small amount of worry. They all knew how fantastically strong and fast their Chairman was, and even with the God in Kosaku's fists, there was doubt that he would be able land even a glancing blow.
"So how do we do this, Chairman?" Kosaku asked before he slipped a mouthpiece on.
"Don't hesitate to come at me with full power," Ranma advised him, "And keep going until I decide that it's enough, or I knock you down."
Kosaku smiled a bit. "And if I knock you down?"
Ranma gave him a dispassionate look back. "You won't. Ring the bell."
Ishida did as commanded, and to the sharp ding that caught the attention of the rest of the gymnasium Ranma and Kosaku began to circle around the ring in towards one-another.
Kosaku, spirited and filled with determination, lowered his stance and got loose, ready to tighten up and fire punches like rifle shots. While a difference in weight as small as theirs seemed negligible, every milligram counted in the realm of speed, and while he wasn't technically "built" for Featherweight, he was still lighter, and thus faster, than Ranma on the draw handily.
Ranma's own gloves came up, his stance defensive and his eyes darting everywhere, scanning Kosaku like an automaton of war reading its targets weaknesses. Any second now the first punch would come and–there!
Kosaku snapped out a left cross, nice and clean. It was so fast that the boxers outside barely processed it. He had hoped to get Ranma to defend with a raised glove or back up so he could move in and follow up with a deluge of blows–but instead the punch hit air as Ranma weaved laterally, throwing off the rhythm Kosaku hoped to start.
"Don't be discouraged, he's got good footwork," Kosaku told himself as he decided to keep him from firing back. He advanced, throwing more jabs, a few hooks, and another cross… but Ranma was still quicker, ducking and dodging the strikes with a combination of footwork and headwork that'd have Ali looking down from heaven and saying "Damn son, now that's pretty."
"Just as I thought," Ranma lamented as Kosaku's heavy punches did nothing more than drain his stamina and work up a sweat while he flowed around them easily. "He can't touch me."
He could see that, and the gathering crowd of spectators could see it as the two danced around the ring, Kosaku growing more and more desperate to catch him off his guard or corner him with a hit he couldn't avoid.
Kosaku, however, was the only one with a lack of vision.
"That's it, closer!" He thought triumphantly as his fist came a half-centimeter closer to Ranma if anywhere but in his own mind. "Just a little bit more and I can hit him!"
He grinned. "He's really making me work for it! Just one solid hit will show him how good I am!"
It would be a right uppercut, driving into his jaw as he drifted from his feinted left hook. He got his floating pattern down, there was no escape! He launched his feint, and sure enough his target floated up and out of the way, right into the path of his hook.
"After this, I'm going to have the biggest, juiciest steak-!" His right uppercut, and hit nothing but air. "Huh?"
He saw something out the lower edge of his vision, and glanced down just slightly to see Ranma's own come up his chest, straight for his chin. It was like a wall of red by the time he realized it was a punch, an unstoppable force closing in to do its duty and put him flat on his back.
And then it stopped, barely two centimeters from his chin, the displaced air hitting him like a stinging slap that forced him to close one eye as he winced. "Ah… what?"
"We're done," Ranma said flatly.
Kosaku stepped back. "What? We've just gotten started!"
"Nah man, we're done, you can't do it," Ranma insisted.
Kosaku couldn't believe it. He was getting so close to landing that hit! "How can you say that? I almost had you!"
"You did not," Ranma replied.
"It was over before the first punch," Ishida said with a grim shake of his head.
Kosaku whirled towards the spectators. "What?!"
"Yeah, Captain… you… you weren't even close to hitting him," Shunpei added.
"He had you dancing to his tune from the first punch," another boxer called out.
"Two steps behind him, at every turn," a judoka said.
"SHAMEFUL DISPLAY!" A Sumo wrestler roared.
Kosaku looked at the crowd jeering him, before he turned towards Ranma, who had taken off his boxing gloves. "But… hey… he's way faster than me!"
"I was holding myself back for your sake and you still couldn't do it," Ranma immediately replied, to Kosaku's shattering heart, "The problem ain't me, it's you. You're overweight and it saps your power and your speed."
He then brightened up. "On the bright side, all you need to do is burn off the fat with some additional intensity to your workout and a short diet. It's no big deal."
Ranma's smile vanished when he saw that Kosaku seemed to have had an allergic reaction to what he'd just said. The prodigal boxer stood stone still, as if stricken by a lightning bolt of fear. His face paled, a colder sweat swathed his body, and a shade of blue descended down his face.
What triggered this? Ranma wondered. "Uh… Hatanaka?"
"Y-yeah Chairman?" Kosaku managed to sputter.
"You… can do that… right? I ain't askin' a bunch of you, it's just some simple weight control. A guy like you can burn off six kilos in a week."
Kosaku stiffened again, but this time he seemed to be in a little more control, glancing around the crowd in the ring as a weak smile formed on his face. He placed his gaze back on Ranma. "Y-yeah, I can do that, chairman, no problem!"
Ranma found Kosaku's reaction weird, but shrugged it off. It wasn't that big a deal, the guy probably just had trouble with Weight Control, nothing that he couldn't fix once he got his metabolism really going. "Cool, now get back to training. I'm going to sit back and observe so come tomorrow we can get a proper regimen down for you. You got it, Club Captain?"
"Y-yeah, sure," Kosaku said quickly, relief washing over him now that he was off the hook for the moment.
|Waiting for the Hammer to Swim|
It was hot and sunny outside at the Furinkan High School's swimming pool, which benefitted from a high, wooden-slatted fence to keep the prying eyes of young men away from the young women who performed better in the pool when they weren't being ogled in their swimsuits. A considerable number of girls taking part in their usual swim class were being joined by two who normally didn't swim at this time of day–Akane, who stood with uncertainty at the edge of the pool in her standard issue school swimsuit, and Katie, who was wearing a black and electric green wetsuit that covered her entire body from her neck to her wrists and ankles.
The swimming pool itself was met Olympic standards, fifty meters long and twenty-five meters wide, with a minimum depth of three meters. It was a wide, long, and deep pool… perfect for training would-be Olympians, and an absolute nightmare for Akane as she stared at it.
"The pool wasn't this big," she said in a shaky voice. "Or deep."
"Yeah, they swapped it out while they were rebuilding the school," Katie said. "I personally have been loving it, it's the perfect size and depth."
And Katie was a girl who had exact standards when it came to size and depth.
She began to stretch, twisting her body one way or the other, lifting her limbs above her head, and bending forward and back to loosen her muscles and pop her joints. "The last thing you want to be is intimidated, Akaneko. This is going to be your training ground until you're swimming like a fish."
Behind Akane, a few girls began murmuring amongst one another at Katie's declaration. They tried to be a bit hush-hush about it, but Katie was able to pick most of it out, hushed whispers of skepticism and outright derision. One word came up often in the comments: Hammer.
Ergo, teaching Akane to swim was akin to teaching a hammer to float.
A hammer would have better odds of swimming than Akane.
All Katie knew is that these bitches kept up their snide commentary, she would be beating them with a sack of hammers. "I would like for the girls taking swimming class to go to their half of the pool and not stand around unless they have something constructive for me to overhear!"
Akane sighed in relief, as the girls dispersed except for her two friends, Sayuri and Yuka, who she admittedly hadn't seen much of in the past few days… weeks…
Sayuri, a pretty girl with dark brown her hair done up in a ponytail with a red ribbon, and Yuka, who had long straight light brown hair, looked rather relieved that the other girls had tottered off to leave Akane alone.
"Akane-chan!" Sayuri said. "We're here to cheer you on!"
"Yeah," Yuka said. "You're in good hands with Izurando-senpai."
Katie glanced back at the two girls and smirked. "Oh yeah, you two can stay."
Akane looked over at them. "Sayuri-chan, Yuka-chan, what are you…?"
"We're members of the female swimming club!" Yuka said. "We've been kinda worried about the lack of attention."
Sayuri nodded assent. "We kind of figured it was because you didn't like the water much, since you never went swimming in Junior High, but it's okay if you can't swim."
"We've seen Izurando-san swim, she's amazing!" Yuka said.
"Dang right I am," Katie said before she edged closer to the water and gestured for Akane to follow. "Come on and sit on the edge, get your feet wet, Akaneko."
Hesitantly, fearing that Katie might shove her in (she never forgot that her senpai described herself as the meanest person she'd know), Akane sat down by the pool and dipped her feet in. It was much warmer than she thought it'd be, but still comfortably cool enough to make her forget about the late spring sun beating on her back.
"I'm gonna start slow with you, cause I think I know what your problem is already," Katie said as she stood next to her.
Akane looked up at her. "What is it?"
"You can't float," Katie replied simply. "Human bodies have a slightly lower density than water so under ideal conditions a human body will float on its own. Some of us though are a bit more dense so we're neutral buoyant or worse–drop like a stone."
Akane nodded, finding that reasonable, and a little down at that. "So I can never swim?"
Katie then flashed her a smile. "Don't feel bad. I sink like a stone, too."
She gestured to her lithe, powerful body. "More muscle and thick bone than fat, and even before then I tended to drop like a rock." Turning to the water, she got ready. "With that being said…!"
With the grace of a bird on the wing, Katie pitched herself off the pool edge and into a graceful dive. She splashed in and shot through the water, a trail of bubbles following behind her until with a powerful kick she left them behind and raced towards the middle of the pool like a torpedo.
"Whoa!" Akane gaped in amazement at Katie's speed through the water.
Three meters down, Katie touched the concrete bottom and turned herself around, before kicking off towards the surface, her arms stretching ahead of her and coming down to her sides, pushing herself through the water even faster than on her way in, until she surfaced just short of the pool's edge and began to tread on the surface like she belonged in the water all her life.
"Not bad for a girl who drops like a rock, huh?" She asked the three girls.
Yuka turned to Akane. "I told you she's awesome in the water."
"You're so graceful…" Akane said, just floored at her prowess.
Katie chuckled and pushed herself to the left, and to the right. "The trick is–and this should be easy to fix–is to overcome your fear of the water. Do that, and you'll be like a fish in no time."
"To be honest," Akane said as she gripped the side of the pool, "I'm feeling a little bit confident right now!"
Before Katie could stop her, Akane shoved off into the water, splashing in… and panicking the moment she was totally immersed.
As it turned out, she wasn't ready at all, and Katie had to fish her out of the pool… getting kicked and punched by the thrashing Akane several times in the process.
This was going to be harder than she thought.
|Making Weight|
This was going to be harder than he thought.
Exactly one week had gone by since Ranma had left Kosaku to the diet and training regimen. He was relatively hands off about it, only popping in during the day to check in on his training, and he found that everything looked pretty good. Kosaku was tearing up the gym with his training, and even the other clubs the boxing club shared the gym with noticed that he was putting in more effort.
So that just made it confusing that Kosaku lost no weight at all when the weigh-in came at the end of the week.
"Something's not right here." Ranma said after deliberating for a few seconds.
"Chairman?" Kosaku asked, somewhat nervous.
"Hatanaka," Ranma said, giving him a visual once over. "You've not gained a single bit of muscle."
"Eh?" The confused boxer asked. "How can you tell?"
"You're not getting any more defined." Ranma pointed out. "If anything, you're getting flabbier. That tells me you're not following the diet I laid out."
"Captain..." several of the other members murmured, with Ishida looking especially betrayed.
"Of course I am, I'm just a little bit bigger is all. A growth spurt!" Kosaku tried to deflect the ire of his teammates.
"Your midsection doesn't grow like that." Ranma snapped, pinching one of the flabbier bits.
"Owowowowowowowowowowoww!" Kosaku chattered in pain.
"Sorry, but I gave you a chance to turn this around on your own and you repaid me by failing at an easy task." Ranma said, shaking his head. "I can see everyone else wants to be part of this club and wants to box. I'm not entirely convinced you do."
"Boxing is the only thing I've ever wanted to do in my life!" Kosaku stood up for himself.
"Then lose the weight Hatanaka! I'm not going to keep gifting you chances." Ranma said, narrowing his eyes. "If this trend continues, you can count losing your captaincy as the least of your worries, you won't even be in this club anymore!"
"C-Chairman..." Kosaku turned white with fear.
"Nobody in this club wants to see you thrown out." Ranma said, trying to appeal to the guts within the boxer before him. "And if you want to be a pro boxer? You can't be failing to make your weight as a high schooler. The path you're on needs real dedication, so either give it what it needs or get off the path."
He then took Kosaku's hand and held it up. "You've got potential, you've got power. You just need guts." He balled it into a fist with his other hand, Kosaku keeping it held up after. "Guts! That fire in your belly! Use that to fight through this, and you'll be fine!"
Kosaku stared back at Ranma, seeing the fire in his own determination, and nodded. "R-right, Chairman!"
Practice proceeded after that at double-time, spurred on by Ranma's fiery words. Ishida and the rest certainly seemed to step up and push Kosaku forward, working their endangered captain beyond what seemed normal. At the end of the day, though, the Captain of the Boxing Club was tired, agitated, and above all hungry.
And so it was he left the school in something of a mood. He shadow boxed along his route to try and keep his ire down but it did no good. He knew he had to lose weight, especially if it was commanded by the guy in charge of all clubs for the guys. He knew these things and yet...
"Old man, one taiyaki, extra red bean jelly!" Kosaku ordered at a taiyaki stall not far from Furinkan.
The taiyaki chef looked over and grinned. "Damn Kosaku, back at it again with the taiyaki!"
Kosaku slapped some money down on the counter. "I had a huge day, so I think I'll take two!"
Ah, the light pastry did wonders for his mood, and he tucked it away in record time, almost not even realizing he had brought the thing in the first place. The rush of sweet bean paste and flaky pastry ebbed quickly, however and as he resumed his shadow boxing he was thinking hard again. How was he going to lose weight? He had tried so hard last week and…
"Excuse me! Can I get a curry bread?" Kosaku ordered from another food stall.
Mmmm... the warmth of the bread and the curry just seemed to lift his cares away. His weight was no big deal, all he'd have to do is just work harder, and it'd all come off. No sense in-
"Oh! My favorite rice crackers are on sale! Lucky!" Kosaku cheered as he walked past a convenience store.
He continued his march home, munching on the crackers without a single care now. In fact, he was looking forward to the next few stops now. What was there ever for him to worry about? He just had to punch his way out of a bad situation.
"One jumbo pork ramen with an egg!" Kosaku ordered at the ramen stand just blocks from his house.
That sure hit the spot, extra protein meant extra power for fighting the weight. Maybe a bit more protein wouldn't hurt, he decided as he left the ramen stand, the bowl polished. And so…
"One Oyakodon and one Gyudon please!" Kosaku said, stopping at the don shop not too far from the ramen place.
He was almost full, for now anyways, but he couldn't imagine finishing his meal-run home until he got some… wait… where was it?
"Wait, wasn't it around here?' Kosaku asked, looking around for a particular stand. It was just the greatest thing ever! Did she move…?
His answer was yes, but he needn't despair, because there it was in all its glory right outside the apartment building he called home: Ukyo's Okonomiyaki Yattai and it was right outside his house.
"Hey there champ!" Its proprietor, young woman named Ukyo Kuonji, greeted him. "I figured I'd save you a lot of trouble of finding my cart every afternoon and just set up out here!"
Ukyo was a handsome young woman, her long brown hair was done up in a nice ponytail, her jacket was tight around her rather ample chest. She wore an all-too short skirt with leggings that would seemed to adhere to some "golden ratio". On her own she was a dynamite package, throw in her incredible cooking skills and it was easy to understand why there was a sign requesting no marriage proposals.
"K-Kuonji-san! I thought I was going to have to go a day without your okonomiyaki!" Kosaku wailed with tears in the corners of his eyes.
"That'd be hell wouldn't it?" Ukyo asked with a snicker. "What'll be? I'll make it fresh."
"Shrimp, pork belly and octopus, plus extra sauce." Kosaku ordered his favorite, er, well one of his favorites. She could probably just fry the batter without anything else and he'd eat a hundred of them.
"Coming right up," she replied, getting to work as fast as she usually did. It was amazing the speed with which she could work, but Kosaku had long since given up figuring it out. It only took a minute for her to have the batter and all the fixings ready and soon the okonomiyaki was sizzling away on the hot plate of the yattai.
"Smells good." He was understating his reaction a bit, what with the drool pouring out of his mouth.
"Well smelling is free, eating is another matter," Ukyo said with a bit of a cheeky smirk on her face.
"I always make sure I have enough for everything on my way home, that goes double for you." Kosaku was quick to reassure her.
"I know how you get around food Hacchan," she replied. "I don't want to beat up my number one customer because he ate first and immediately got amnesia."
"Fine fine, I get it." He complained but complied, putting the required 310 yen on the counter.
She took the money and flipped the okonomiyaki. She grabbed the squirt bottle of sauce she used and gave it a shake, getting ready to finish it up. Within the next minute, a flurry of movement almost obscured the finishing touches before she knocked it up into the air to perfectly catch it on a plate. Okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise and a few bonito flakes were added before she put it down in front of him.
"Oooooh!" Kosaku was amazed no matter how many times he had seen it. Another sniff confirmed that it was positively divine smelling. He couldn't wait anymore! "Thanks for the food!"
As he began to tear into it, Ukyo folded her arms. "You're extra ravenous today, huh champ? That slave-driver of a chairman picking on you?"
"Like you wouldn't believe!" Kosaku replied. "He's actually doubled my training. I'm barely going to be able to walk home… this time next week."
Ukyo gave him a reassuring smile. "You'll have one heck of an appetite worked up though, right?"
Kosaku, stuffing his face, found himself looking forward to being that hungry, if only to satisfy it. "Sure will, I'm definitely working on making weight."
Hearing that, Ukyo frowned. "Hey, if you're trying to make weight, shouldn't you not be eatin' like you do?"
Upon hearing that, Kosaku looked like he was having trouble swallowing. He managed to recover, however, and coughed a bit. He smiled weakly.
"I haven't eaten all day!" He immediately replied. "Like I said, that Chairman of mine is a slave driver! I'm probably going to skip dinner tonight, too."
That appeared to flatter Ukyo, who smiled cutely. "Aw geez, you're making it sound like I'm the only meal you need there, champ!"
"Would it be wrong if you were?" Kosaku asked.
Ukyo laughed. "Not at all! I'll be happy to support you from here in!" Her look became slightly chiding. "You'd just better make that weight, you hear?"
Kosaku nodded and headed for the door to his apartment. He looked back and waved to Ukyo "You can trust me, Ucchan. I'm going to beat that weigh-in with flying colors!"
"I'm cheering you on, Hachan!" Ukyo called back.
As he turned and headed through the door, Kosaku wiped the sweat from his brow and swallowed anxiously. He didn't want to lie to Ukyo like that… but… he was hungry! As long as he passed the weigh-in next week, he was going to be just fine. He was going to lighten up his food intake, triple his routine, and do everything he could to avoid Ranma until he was at Flyweight.
With that resolve in mind, he went into the elevator to ride up to his apartment. He was already looking forward to what his Mom had ready for dinner.
This was going to be easy, he thought. Seven days was enough to do this.
|Only Saints Have Patience|
If there was one thing Katie learned from her uncle, it was taking the good with the bad and finding a way to eliminate the bad. While not exactly an easy task in most regards, the danger in this line of thinking was that you had to have a lot more good than bad. And sometimes, when you struggled to find the good…
Well, to call her frustrated was to call a nuclear detonation a minor disaster; rather, a massive understatement bordering on sheer dogged denial of reality. Akane was fine… as long as you didn't ask her to actually get her to float in open water. Have her stand in shallow water, or hold onto the pool's edge, or even stand on a platform to keep her above the deep water and she was fine. Problem was, the instant her feet left the bottom, she became a whirlwind of flailing limbs and panic that hit a hell of a lot harder when panicked than when she was actually trying to hit hard.
The First time, she tried to get Akane to swim with a body board. In the ensuing panic attack, she took the board to the solar plexus and had the wind knocked right out of her. Sayuri and Yuka had to fish her out of the water and nearly got dragged in when they saved Akane with a life ring.
Second time, she put Akane in a life vest. Despite the fact that she had floated, she still lost all control, and ended up destroying the life vest, prompting another rescue that got Katie punched in the eye.
Finally, on the verge of giving up, she put Akane in water wings and an inner tube… and she was literally kicked from the pool, along with a lot of water when Akane somehow capsized. It was for that reason Katie was actually sitting on the edge of the pool, her right hand resting over her right eye as she stared at the sloshing water out her left.
Patience was not something Katie had a large supply of, especially in the face of something so simple. If she could just get the girl to stop freaking out, then she'd be swimming in no time. Easier said than done, since it seemed all tips and pointers went out the window even though no one was going to let her drown.
How could this be going so poorly?
Akane was, to be certain, embarrassed beyond belief even as she sat a short distance away with a quiet Sayuri and Yuka standing over her. She had made a fool of herself in front of Senpai and now everything stank like unwashed booty. By all accounts she should be getting this but…
Honestly, she knew all the mechanics for every swimstroke. She had studied them rigorously even though she was a hammer. Just the possibility she could overcome her handicap and swim was a dream but…
Why was it such a nightmare?
"Akane-chan." Yuka finally said. "I don't think you need to learn how to swim to assess a captain for us."
"What?" Akane asked, flabbergasted by this sudden betrayal.
"It's been four days and you're nowhere near being elementary school level." Sayuri said with a gentle tone. "You just seem like you don't want to swim and if you don't want to then no one can teach you."
"You're wrong!" Akane said, bangs covering her eyes as she tried to hide her shame. "I do want to, it's just…"
"You're too scared," Katie said from her seat near the pool. She was still packing the ghost of the shiner Akane gave her the other day. That said, from hanging out at the pool for so long she was also sporting a tan most fans of the Ganguro trend would die for.
"I'm not afraid!" Akane snapped back hotly. She wasn't going to take that without retaliation.
"Are you shitting me?" Katie replied, incredulous to the bone. "Don't even say that, Akaneko. Even with three really good swimmers right there, you completely forget how to function and start attacking everything around you. It's amazing that I'm the only one who's gotten beaten up!"
Akane's face was burning up. "It's not that easy!"
"Of course it is!" Katie answered right back, frustration overflowing.
"You can swim, you're not a hammer-" Akane started to shout down her idol.
"Excuse me?! Why do you think I volunteered?!" Katie interrupted, shouting now. "I have the same problem as you, I just learned to compensate for it. Something you refuse to listen to and learn!"
"You… you think I don't want to learn? That I'm just playing one big stupid joke on everybody!" Akane shouted back.
"Hey hey, calm down both of you!" Yuka tried to cut in.
"Well I ain't seeing anything that tells me I'm wrong!" Katie ignored her, now focused on venting her frustration. "We should be done with this shit already!"
"Akane-chan!" Sayuri tried this time. "Katie-senpai that's enough! Cut it out!"
Akane stood up and stormed over to her. "Forget this and forget you too then! Why don't you just deal with the club then Miss Perfect?!"
Katie rose up in challenge. "Least they'll have a club president since the Chairwoman doesn't have the guts for her job!"
That was the breaking point, finally, as Akane saw red. "Senpai, you… you idiot!"
"Whatever Hammer-chan." Katie snapped. "You should have just told me not to waste my time on you if all you wanted to do was sink."
"You guys!" Both Yuka and Sayuri screamed, trying to break through the wall of belligerence the two had built.
Akane marched right up to Katie and threw a slap, in her anger forgetting how good Katie was.
Senpai reminded her, blocking the slap and returning one faster than Akane could comprehend. The stinging report echoed throughout the area, Akane rocked back on her heels from the force. No one made a sound, as the two were frozen in their position.
Akane stared, wide-eyed at Katie. With that stinging blow, everything had come right back to level… and she realized just how badly she screwed up.
"Consider that your discipline." Katie said coldly, before she turned to leave. "Now go fuck off."
Akane's mouth moved, but no words came out as the harsh words stabbed her right in the chest.
"Don't bother showing back up here for training anymore" Katie finished, her tone pure crass, before she addressed Yuka and Sayuri. "Since your Chairwoman is unreliable, I'll come by practice tomorrow and sort you guys out."
"Y-yes," Sayuri quickly said, while Yuka looked back and forth between the two friends, still aghast.
Akane said nothing, just fought back her tears as Katie stormed off.
Where did it all go wrong?
|Failure|
"Hatanaka." Ranma said, his voice eerily calm.
"Yeah Chairman?" Kosaku said all hopeful like.
"You gained another three kilos." Ranma said simply.
"I knew I… wait what?!" Kosaku sounded surprised by this. "But I trained three times harder than before!"
"I was with him for his sessions, Chairman." Ishida vouched for his Captain. "I don't understand!"
"There's not much to understand, he's working hard but he's obviously not completing the other portion of this." Ranma said, shaking his head. "He can't follow a diet. After two weeks of strict training and dieting, he's gained weight and not muscle."
"No, Captain…" Shunpei mumbled in despair.
"It gets worse. Your first meet as a club for regionals will be in another two weeks." Ranma informed them. "Because of this, Hatanaka is being removed as Captain. Ishida, you're Captain now, Shunpei you're Vice."
"No." Ishida shook his head. "Hatanaka is much better than me."
"It won't matter, you're not going to knock out, you're going for points. Sakigachi High from is full of speedy boxers, which means Hatanaka needs to be slim enough to handle the speed... if they have any Middleweight boxers at all." Ranma said, looking at the despairing Kosaku. "You won't even make weight enough to be allowed to be a reserve."
"No, no, no," Kosaku shook his head briskly, tears in his eyes. "I worked so much harder, I did! I… I can't… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Ranma sighed. "I feel for you man, but you can't do what is needed for the club or yourself. I'm not going to tell you to give up but you need to face reality. Something is off about you and it's ruining your dream."
"But I can't just give up!" Kosaku pleaded. "One more chance, I'll lose the weight!"
"I'm not wasting another week on you." Ranma said with a fierce tone. "You've burned the goodwill entirely. You have until tomorrow morning to lose at least half of what you gained. If you fail, you're benched. If you dare come in overweight tomorrow, you're out of the club." He looked at Ishida. "You're acting Captain for now and if you don't like it, take it out on the guy who should be in your spot."
The boxers all gulped at the aura of irritation rolling off Ranma.
"Understood Chairman." Ishida said, feeling the pressure.
"All right, you guys get to your practice and put Hatanaka through hell." Ranma said. "Sumo club has a meet in two days against Sakimake High and they're going to secure their first win in seven years." He bowed his head. "If you'll excuse me."
Shunpei watched Ranma stalk off towards the Sumos. "Way to go Hatanaka."
"But I worked so hard, I should have lost weight!" Kosaku defended himself.
"I know you did," Ishida said with a sad sigh. "You're sparring with everyone today, no real breaks. You have to lose weight Hatanaka! You're our best chance to win the team regionals!"
Shunpei nodded. "We want to see you back in your rightful seat man."
"You guys…" Kosaku fought back tears. "I won't let you down!"
It was after school now and Ranma already knew not to give Kosaku anymore space. He had been burned twice on trusting the boxer and he needed to find out why the hell he was gaining weight after two weeks of heavy training. But he couldn't do it as himself, it might make Hatanaka paranoid or scare him off working at all because the Chairman was being a creepy bastard.
What a handy thing this curse was, especially combined with his charming good looks and popularity with the girls. RicePony was still a big hit and telling them she had heard how good their costume department was made this disguise super easy to obtain. He almost felt bad but it was for a good cause…
And she had to admit, the purple dress and pink hat looked fabulous on her, thought the purse was overkill even if it did allow her to keep her money and phone handy.
Luckily, she spotted Kosaku before any kind of bad thoughts could pop into her head.
"So this is the way he takes ho–wait, what?" Ranma muttered to herself, as she saw Kosaku stop at a Taiyaki stand. "Well, I can't blame him a snack." She whipped her phone out and took pictures of him in the stand.
But that was singular, and Kosaku had bought three taiyaki. She snapped several pictures of him eating.
"Okay, keep calm. As long as that's it he's-" She tried to keep her temper in check but Kosaku stopped at a bakery and bought a curry bread. "-not fine at all. I'm beginning to get why he can't lose weight."
In Kosaku's favor, he did skip the convenience store, his favorite rice crackers had gone back up in price.
"Just how much does this guy eat?" Ranma asked herself when Kosaku immediately stopped at a ramen stand and ate a jumbo sized serving with extra eggs. She was reminded way too much of her old man.
Turns out the answer was quite a lot, because he then ate three donburi.
"I'm going to kill him." Ranma muttered, this isn't what she had wanted to see. He was turning his back on the club, on the goodwill Ranma had given him and he was turning his back on his word to the President. "I can't believe this!"
"Hiya Champ!" A very familiar voice rang out from the okonomiyaki yattai right outside Kosaku's apartment building.
"Ukyo?!" Ranma thought to herself.
"I'm in such dire straights, Kuonji-san!" Kosaku wailed. "I hardly lost any weight and he blew his stack!"
"Why you lying little shit!" Ranma wanted to run over there and beat him down for that but that'd blow her cover.
"Gee Hacchan, you're supposed to lose weight." Ukyo admonished him.
"I can't help it, if I couldn't have your okonomiyaki I'd die!" He was obviously buttering her up.
"I'm flattered you'd say that Hacchan but no freebies." Ukyo replied flatly.
"Aww... but I got 'til the morning to lose some weight! At least before I throw myself into hell have a taste of heaven." Kosaku pleaded.
"You know the prices." Ukyo was a hardcore capitalist, she wasn't moved at all.
"Excuse me!" Ranma approached the cart just then. "I want to order for a friend of mine."
"Sure thing Missy." Ukyo said, looking at the redhead. "Somebody's going to find herself needing a stick to beat off the fellas."
"Oh gosh, you'll make me blush!" Ranma giggled. "But anyways, he says he wanted a Mapo Tofu and a Dongo Pork okonomiyaki. As for myself, I want the crab, chinese sausage and crispy pork belly cutlet okonomiyaki."
Ukyo's eyes widened at the orders. "Well well, your friend sounds like they got tastes similar to my best friend." She grinned in a less than wholesome manner. "Sure a slim thing like you can handle all that meat?"
"Maybe, maybe not." Ranma said, pulling out a 1000 yen note, alongside a hundred fifty in coins. "This is enough right?"
"On the nose hon." Ukyo said, taking the money. "Your order will be coming up shortly."
"Stupid line cutters." Kosaku muttered without much heat. In fact, he was blushing mighty fiercely now.
"Hatanaka Kosaku-kun." Ranma whispered, Ukyo's hearing being blocked by all the cooking and prep work.
"Do I know you?" Kosaku asked, before he realized she already knew his name. "How do you know my name?"
"The Chairman sends his regards." Her words sent ice shooting through his veins. "I'm a friend of his, but you won't need to learn my name."
"Why?" Kosaku sounded confused. And depressed he might have struck out with such a hottie.
"Because I've been following you from your school." Ranma retorted. "I saw the taiyaki, the curry bread, the ramen and the dons. You're a glutton and not just for punishment."
"I… I…" Kosaku's brain crashed in terror. If this girl was related in some way to the Chairman.
"Please, eat all the okonomiyaki you want. Your diet has been rescinded." Ranma said, shaking her head. "I texted him before I ordered and you're expelled from the Boxing club. Savor his mercy in not expelling you from the school entirely."
"W-w-w-wait a second! Expelled?!" Kosaku gasped.
Ranma pulled up a picture of Kosaku eating a taiyaki. "Is this behavior conducive to losing weight?"
Kosaku stared uncomprehendingly at the screen. "Is… is that me?"
"Yes." She flipped to him eating a pork cutlet don. "So is this."
"No…" Kosaku slumped forward in his stool, looking like a certain boxing Joe.
"Rejoice, you can pig out all you want. No more mean Chairman." She smiled sunnily, but her tone was winter cold. "No more boxing, no more exercise and no more dreams of being World Champ. Just retire to eat since that's all you seem to want."
"Hey, you're not picking on Hacchan are you?" Ukyo called, putting the finishing touches on all three okonomiyaki.
"No, I'm just conducting business for a friend." Ranma said, turning her bright smile on Ukyo. Her tone was borderline flirtatious as she continued. "Here, to make up for depressing him, give him the Lobster special." She paid out the 325 yen price tag as she took the three, two in take-out boxes and a paper plate with her third, okonomiyaki. "Have a nice day."
Ranma took the food and left, her face grim with anger. "Hatanaka Kosaku... I misjudged you terribly. I'll have to apologize to Kodachi-san tomorrow."
"There there Hacchan." Ukyo said as she collected the money. "Even if she was being mean she bought you a Special."
"Ah, so she did." Kosaku regained some color, but he still looked like he straddled the line of death.
He received the Lobster special a few minutes later and found the flavor wasn't diminished even by his tears.
|Let the World Come Crashing Down|
Misao was relaxing with a cup of green tea when Katie came storming into the apartment, mad as a hornet. The chubby internet goddess said nothing, having taken the way the Bae had come rampaging in that she didn't desire any back sass. Which was fine, as Misao had a Debrief to do soon so she was saving her voice.
"Ugh, what is wrong with her?!" Katie ranted, throwing her bag down. "All i do is spend my time teaching her to swim and she has the audacity to act like that!"
Over her ragged breathing, only the sound of Misao's replacement equipment humming along was heard.
"I mean, I get it! It's embarrassing!" Katie looked at Misao, gesticulating wildly. "Nick humiliated the fuck out of me before he tried to teach me. You try being in public as a grown man laughs mockingly at you, serenading everyone within earshot of how you sink like an anchor! At least I was nice about it!"
Misao arched an eyebrow and sipped her tea.
"Don't look at me like that!" Katie snarled, before she blew out a sigh. "So yeah, I fucked up okay? But it's not like she didn't either! All she had to do was listen and not freak out like a five year old tangled up in her blanket!"
Misao examined the cup for a second before she craned her head at Katie.
"Hey, don't take her side damn it!" Katie said, feeling a little nervous now. "Okay, so maybe I didn't think about it well enough, I thought she'd listen to me without issue, yeah? It's just she flails around like she's… afraid of the…"
Misao looked interested in what Katie's revelation was, but not enough to speak. She did sip the tea however.
"OH MY GOD!" Katie screamed in English. "I'm so fucking dumb! That's it, that's it! I got it I got it! Thanks so much, really! You're such an amazing amount of help on top of being drop dead sexy."
Misao smiled brightly, before she gave Katie a look that conveyed something.
"Oh yeah, I do have to apologize…" Oh that was gonna be awkward. "But I got it and she'll be swimming in no time!" Katie hugged her plump little Bae, kissed her on the cheek, and went skipping off to the bedroom
Misao looked happy, before she counted down silently for the door to pop open again.
"The nerve of that asshole." Ranma, still a girl and carrying two okonomiyaki boxes. "He's all, 'Shucks Chairman, how am I gaining weight while eating like a fuckin' pig!'?!" She stomped to the kitchen to put them up.
Misao hummed and waited, she had enough tea to get through this without a word.
"Give him two weeks and he's still fucking off like he doesn't want to be a boxer." Ranma ranted, still rather pissed about being chucked under the bus by Kosaku, "All his fake ass tears and shit, pulling down the Boxing club for what? Just some food?!"
Misao pursed her lips and looked at the redhead expectantly.
The glare worked and Ranma stopped running around in an angry circle. "Okay, okay, so I took too much of a hands off approach but he seemed like someone to rely. LIke a stand-up guy! I just… I just wanted to believe in someone for once you know? Is that so wrong?"
She pulled out her phone and pulled up a picture of Kosaku eating a taiyaki. "But look at him doing this!"
Misao took the phone and looked at the picture, noticing something that might have bypassed Ranma's notice. Zooming the photo in, she handed the phone back.
"What…?" Ranma asked in confusion. She looked at the picture and gasped at what she saw that Misao had zoomed in on Kosaku's face, revealing dark circles around his eyes. "Those bags! But… that doesn't make any sense. If he's just goofing off, he should be plenty rested."
But he wasn't. Kosaku looked exhausted, which matched up perfectly to how hard the others said he'd been working, and even with what Ranma had seen. He was a hard worker, just one with no impulse control when it came to food!
Misao just sipped her tea, nodding sagely.
"Okay, so his appetite is so out of control he isn't even aware of it." Ranma was thinking hard about what to do. "So what do I do to get him to stop that?"
Misao put her teacup down and made a pantomime of using a wok.
"I can't just be his personal chef to cater to his needs. I can't hire one for him either, if that happens then everyone else will want one, and that's just asking for trouble. No, it has to be someone who he knows and would be willing to…" Ranma brightened as she realized something. "That's it! I know someone who can do it!"
Misao found herself lifted off her seat and pulled into a bearhug.
"Thanks Misao-chan! You helped me figure this one out." Ranma smiled and for a moment, looked to be the sun. "I gotta practice! And get in contact with Ukyo, she's the key!"
She kissed her on the cheek before he bounded off to get some hot water.
Misao finished the last of her tea and sighed in relief. She solved everyone's problems and didn't need to say a word.
Though, she was now kind of curious about who Ukyo was.
|Sister, Sister|
When Akane came home from school, she didn't even announce her return, prompting a curious Kasumi to actually come out from the living room. She hadn't even gotten a chance to offer a greeting, when she caught a glimpse of Akane's sadness as she slowly made her way up the stairs.
That was worrying; for the past week Akane had come home frustrated and angry, not sad. She turned and looked over to Nabiki, who was in the middle of doing homework. "I think something happened with Akane-chan at her swimming lessons."
"Something good?" Nabiki asked without looking up from her homework.
"No," Kasumi said, putting emphasis on her worried tone.
Nabiki set down her pencil and heaved a sigh. "Oh God damn it, Katie."
Overhearing the exchange, an especially petulant Genma seethed a bit and folded his arms as he stared down at the shogi board. "Trouble in paradise, I see?"
Nabiki turned a dry look onto Genma, but actually refrained from responding to his snipe with the artillery barrage she wanted to unload on him.
Kasumi was not nearly as merciful. "Saotome-san, if you would please mind your business?"
Soun, who had been studying his next three moves (he would win in the next move) glanced up from the board, an eyebrow arched, as he watched his long time friend and rival recoil from Kasumi's stern words.
He then looked over to the elder two of his daughters. "Why don't you two go speak with her?"
Nabiki was already getting up on her feet to just that, but was grateful for her Dad to be so understanding. To Kasumi, she gestured towards the stairs with a nod. "Let's go, Kasumi."
"Right," Kasumi replied before both made their way upstairs.
As they left the room, Genma gave Soun a sour look. "You should be more involved with their social lives, Tendo."
"As much as you were with Ranma's?" Soun answered as he moved his piece into a position Genma could not escape.
Genma stopped, and lowered his head as a bitter snarl left his lips.
"That's what I thought," Soun calmly said.
Genma flipped the shogi board into Soun's face.
Upstairs, Kasumi cracked open Akane's door without announcement, and then stepped in to find her curled up on her bed, facing the wall. With Nabiki right behind her, the eldest of the three sisters approached Akane, who curled up in a tighter ball and shuffled closer to the door without looking back at either of them.
"Akane-chan," Kasumi said as she sat down next to her. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"I messed up," Akane said quietly.
"Swimming lessons finally stopped being fun, huh?" Nabiki asked.
"They were never fun," Akane said. "They never worked. It kept getting worse and worse until we just… we blew up at each other and had a fight."
Kasumi was about to ask just how bad the fight was, when she heard Akane sniffle. Leaning over a bit, she could see Akane's pillow was damp where she had cried into it quite a bit.
Nabiki surprised both of her sisters by letting out a gentle little laugh. "Well, I guess it had to happen eventually. The two of you can't always be in 100% agreement all the time." She moved past Kasumi and kneeled by Akane's head. "But you know, it doesn't really matter who's at fault for this little row right?"
"Huh?" Akane didn't quite get it yet. Mainly because this was the point Nabiki started making fun of her.
"It was going to happen, whenever you run into a wall you crash and explode," Nabiki pointed out. "Then you stomp off and pretend it never happened until you get it into your head that you want to run headlong into that wall again."
Kasumi found herself agreeing. "Like all of the times you wanted to learn to cook… and it never worked out."
That was a low blow, and Akane let out a harumph.
Nabiki then shone some light on that. "But you've been getting better at cooking since Ranma started releasing those videos right?"
Akane nodded slightly. "Yeah."
Nabiki grinned at her little sister. "So isn't it only natural for you to realize you can get better at swimming too?"
Akane turned over and stared at Nabiki for a second before she blew out a sigh. "I guess you're right. but it's hard. She tried so hard to help but I mess up and she keeps getting hurt and angry and… I didn't want to do it anymore and have her hate me."
Kasumi, who had been watching quietly, took that moment to interject. "Come now, Katie-chan wouldn't be that cruel. She may have a lot in common with Nabiki-chan but she wouldn't hate you."
"Hey, that's fine you know?" Nabiki said, looking up at the ceiling. "You don't want to look stupid in front of your hero right? If someone I admired was being made privy to one of my embarrassing secrets, I'd just about die."
Akane laughed a little, already feeling a little better. "You're right. It was dumb of me to think I could only share with Katie-senpai my good qualities."
"I'm sure Katie-chan would want to know more than that about you." Kasumi pointed out. "She doesn't seem to be the kind to leave a mystery unsolved if she could help it."
Nabiki stood up and stretched. "In any event, don't you think that quitting would be worse than you constantly hitting her?"
Akane sat up, as that revelation put the fight into proper perspective. For all of their back and forth during it, the absolute worst thing that Akane did was give up. She told Katie that this was a waste of her time, and that all her help wasn't worth it.
"Neechan," she murmured, reaching over and pulling Nabiki into a firm hug. "Thank you."
"It's a little early for that, but if you really wanna thank me." Nabiki said, after she pulled back. "Don't just apologize and don't be a passive aggressive bitch. That's my thing and I'll charge you for stealing it. You're old enough to be mature and admit your fault in this."
"That's right." Kasumi said, smiling at Akane. "When it's all over, you'll realize that this little tiff is nothing at all."
"You're her precious kouhai after all." Nabiki said, ruffling Akane's hair. "Just don't give up, and you'll both be fine."
It was in that moment of sisterly affection that Akane realized two important things. One, both of her sisters were actually supporting her in their own ways about this matter and neither put the blame squarely on her. And secondly, was that both Nabiki and Kasumi really cared about her friendship with Katie–not just that they were worried about the boat being rocked by the senpai/kouhai dynamic falling apart.
Akane smiled, it helped her so much to know that. "I'll give her a call right now."
Right as she said that, her phone rang, and when she pulled it from her pocket, she found that it was Katie. "Oh!"
When she answered it, Katie was uncharacteristically excited. "Akaneko! I'm sorry for flipping out at you, but I figured it out! I know how I can get you to swim! Come to the pool tonight after sundown!"
Hearing that, Akane beamed. In relief and excitement. "O-okay! I'll be there!"
|No Fear When You're With Me|
It was after sundown and Akane was running as if the most important thing in her life was about to happen. Sure, she wanted to swim and conquering the kitchen was something she was in the middle of, but the song in her heart wasn't about either of those. It was because Katie didn't mind her blowing up earlier. They fought and Senpai still wanted her around, still felt like helping her. She had her bathing suit on underneath the shirt and shorts combo she wore, not exactly fashionable but she was in a hurry.
They could fight and laugh it off later, ignoring whatever went wrong. Her lungs burned but she didn't care. Katie was waiting for her, Katie was still there for her. That girl, her hero was there for her and she wasn't going to keep being an uncool dork about feeling embarrassed.
She was gonna learn to swim damnit!
As she reached the pool, its waters illuminated by the fluorescent lights that ran along its sides, she heard a strange sound, like heavy waves rolling driven onto shore by a powerful storm… that ended with a dull but loud bang. Her run petered to a jog, and then to a slow stride as she heard the sound again, the shockwave loud enough that she wondered if she had felt the ground beneath her feet move.
"What the…?" Akane walked slowly towards the pool's edge at the relatively shallow end, only to stop when she heard the rumble, before a great wall of foaming water sprayed up. The churned water fell like rain upon Akane, and she stared down in amazement at the completely white water of the shallow end.
She then looked towards the deep end, and her eyes widened.
Katie, wearing her wet suit, was standing at the bottom of the deep end of the pool, furiously punching into the water, shadow-boxing against the resistance offered by the weight of the pool upon her body.
Her blows were machine gun quick, and even though she was far underwater, Akane could see trails of bubbles form around her fists, scattering away and drifting upward with her movements. She was moving so fast, it was almost as if she were boxing in the air itself.
Then, Katie's barrage of punches ended with a mighty straight punch, a huge bubble appeared, becoming a tunnel that advanced through the deep water up towards the surface and to the shallow end of the pool. Then it reached the surface, and with a roar the water of the pool parted, the waves crashing to the sides and front of the pool. The bang that Akane had heard sounded, the bubble crashing into the wall of the pool.
Through the curtain of water that came up, Akane stared in awe of Katie, now standing between the walls of water with her outstretched fist. As the walls began to collapse, she looked up and saw Akane standing there with a look of amazement. Smiling back, Katie took a deep breath as the water came crashing back into her with the roar of thunder.
Akane nearly fell backward, just amazed at what she'd seen, but stood still long enough for Katie to make her way up to the shallow end of the pool and surface.
"Akaneko!" Katie waved her over once she arrived. "Good timing!"
"What was that?" Akane asked.
Katie grinned. "Something you've seen before, and what I'm going to teach you to do."
"Something I've seen…?" Akane searched her memory. When did she see this before?
Katie decided to let her off easy. "Back when I beat Ranma, do you remember?"
It snapped to mind immediately, the floor cracking and splitting between the time Katie had hit Ranma and Ranma actually hitting the floor. "I remember it now!"
Katie nodded. "It's my Uncle's signature move that he passed on to me, and one that I want to pass to you. And to do that, is to learn how to move underwater like you would in the air."
Katie backed up. "For that… I'm not going to teach you how to sink like a stone."
"I can do that."
"Without freaking out," Katie added with a smirk. "So get up on out those clothes and get in the pool, we're doing this now."
"Right..." Akane gathered her breath, even as she stripped off her outer clothes. "I'm ready."
"Gather yourself and then I'll help you in." Katie said, patiently as though she had never lost it. "I'm sorry if I made you feel like shit earlier, I guess I was just so jazzed in being able to share this with you that… I forgot you ain't me."
"It's... fine." Akane said, she had paused to gauge what to say. "I wasn't being helpful and if someone I was training was being bratty I'd blow up at them, too." She smiled for effect.
"Glad we've got that out of the way." Katie said, smiling as well. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be." Akane said, sitting down on the pool's edge.
"Just relax," Katie advised as she took her kouhai's hands in her own. "I'm here for you. Even when I let you go, I'm going to be right here to help you. I'm not going to let you get hurt again."
The determination in Katie's voice made Akane's heart lurch. "Senpai…"
"I shouldn't have lost my cool like that." Katie said, squeezing Akane's hands. "You're doing your best, and from now on I'll be doing mine."
"I'm sorry for blowing up at you too," Akane said gently as she squeezed Katie's hands back.
"It's nothing to be sorry over." Katie replied. "Now I'm going to make this super easy for you, okay? When you go in the water, don't let go of me no matter what. Don't worry about the water, don't worry about not feeling the floor under your feet, just hold on tight and focus everything on me. Got that?"
Nervous, but every bit as determined, Akane nodded. "Okay."
"Start now," Katie advised her. "Like you did against Shampoo, push away everything else… and just focus on me."
Akane nodded and stared at Katie until slowly, but gradually, the world began to fall away. The world above the level of the pool's fence grew dark and faded to black, before the fence itself was consumed. Then everything else vanished… until there was just Katie floating in a pool of light before her.
"Come on in, the water's nice," Katie assured her with a smile.
"Okay," Akane said, before she shuffled forward.
Katie nodded, and pulled Akane forward. She slipped off the pool's edge and into the water.
Right away, Akane dropped, slipping under her head Immediately the terror and the instinct to fight against this fate flared to life, but before she could thrash or kick she felt Katie's grip clamp down on her hands, and then suddenly she was yanked up to the surface and into a strong embrace, Katie pulling her tight against her while kicking with her feet, treading water in place.
"I told you I got you," Katie whispered gently to Akane as the younger girl kept attempting to thrash in her arms.
Held in place like this, Akane's struggles finally ebbed to squirms, and then ceased as Katie squeezed her a little tighter.
"We're going over to the middle of the pool." Katie said, explaining what they were about to do. "Our first order of business is to get you to stop panicking when you sink. So, you'll get a deep breath, let yourself go to the bottom, and then you're going to spring off the bottom to come back to the surface. Once you realize sinking isn't the end, then we can start training you to swim."
"I'm ready." Akane whispered, unsure if it had escaped over the sound of her heart.
"All right, hang on to me." Katie instructed, as she guided the girl out of the shallow end.
Akane shivered as she felt her feet leave the bottom of the pool, but held back her fear. Senpai was right there, she would be fine. She held tighter to Katie, wary of impeding her movements. She didn't have to worry, as Katie turned and began to side stroke, pulling Akane along.
"Remember, just look at me and nothing else, got it?" Katie said as she looked to her. "I'm your whole world right now."
She was, thanks to Akane's focus.
"R-right…" Akane realized that she didn't even need to kick. Despite having to hold up her weight, Katie was swimming just fine–this girl who was just as much of a rock as she was.
When she held Katie tighter, pressing her body fully to hers, Katie let out a soft huff and laughed. "That a girl. We're here in the center of the pool."
She stopped and put her arms around Akane again, looking her straight on. "We're going to sink together, all the way to the bottom of the pool, and then when we touch the bottom we're going to jump back to the surface. We won't even need to kick if we do it together."
And even if they couldn't, Katie was confident she was strong enough to bring them both to the surface.
Akane, having not deviated from Katie's instructions, nodded as she stared at Katie's eyes. "Okay."
"Deep breath now, and hold it." Katie said, quietly as she waited. "Don't panic, don't think about the other times you've sank. If you feel yourself panicking, just relax and remember that I've got you, okay Akaneko?"
Akane nodded, her face feeling so intolerably warm, before taking a deep breath and holding it.
Katie lowered her grip on Akane to tightly hold her sides, before she stopped kicking and the two slipped beneath the water and to the bottom, a little shy of five meters beneath the surface.
"I'm sinking." Akane thought, her mind idling now that she was controlling her fear. "It's so slow now, was it always this speed?" The water usually swallowed her instantly to her old senses.
She touched the bottom, her descent done in a couple seconds. "Stay calm, Senpai is right here. Just focus on keeping calm and remember what to do."
She opened her eyes, and saw that Katie was watching her face carefully for any sign of panic. Blinking a few times, she marveled at how calm she was despite them being so far down, not aware of the fact that she was every bit as calm.
"Just crouch down a little and push off the pool's floor. I will be fine, she is with me." Akane reminded herself, before she saw Katie nod up towards the surface for them to do just that. She crouched with her, waiting three seconds, before she sprang up. With their combined strength, they both easily rocketed to the surface.
"Pah!" Akane gasped as she surfaced and looked around, in amazement. "I… I did it!" She caught her breath, only to run out of it again being excited for her success. "I really did it! I didn't freak out!"
"You're damn right you did," Katie cheered as she hugged and nuzzled Akane. "Your first step towards swimming."
The close nuzzle sent a jolt through Akane, reminding her that she was being held afloat by someone she admired so much. Not just that, but cuddled with, with no small affection.
"Katie-senpai is so strong…" Akane marveled as they floated there like they were the only people in the whole world–let alone the pool. She wanted to cuddle her right back, rest her chin on her shoulder and hug her tightly.
"So, Akaneko…" Katie then asked her, snapping her out of it. "Want to go again?"
Pulling back, Akane smiled and returned a nod, before both took deep breaths and dipped below the water towards the bottom.
Nabiki and Kasumi, who had followed Akane, watched from the door of the wooden-slatted fence that ringed the pool. The middle of the three sisters was looking fantastically smug, while Kasumi was smiling warmly at the closeness shared between the two friends.
"Ne, Kasumi," Nabiki said quietly.
Kasumi glanced over at her. "Yes?"
Nabiki was smirking at Kasumi, suggestively. "How long do you think it'll be, before she goes three for three?"
Kasumi hummed, before she closed her eyes and decided. "I'd say give it another week, or however long it takes for Akane-chan to learn to swim all her own."
Watching the two friends come back up for air, and hearing Akane laugh brightly at her success, Nabiki decided that timetable worked.
"What a greedy girl," she mock lamented.
|Rematch|
It was well past dark by the time Kosaku finally ran out of money for Okonomiyaki. He sat on a bench in front of Ukyo's Okonomiyaki Yattai, paper plates stacked next to him and his expression blank. He'd eaten himself damn near sick, and despite the handsome amount of money she'd made off it, Ukyo was worried about her best customer to date.
"Hacchan, you're a hard guy to understand," she said as she stacked and put away her equipment.
Kosaku, halfway between a depressed stupor and a food coma, focused his gaze on Ukyo and just let out a heavy sigh.
"You're literally the having your cake and eating it too kind of guy. You want to be a boxer, but you ain't got no drive or discipline."
He looked aside, sighing again. "It's just… so good…"
"Hm?" Ukyo hummed back.
"Food… I just… love to eat," he admitted.
"Well, food is pretty good, I'd say it's vital to survival even. But, the thing is Hacchan, you got two irreconcilable loves here," Ukyo went on. "You want to box, but you wanna eat all you want, too. You can't have both, one's gonna make the other difficult."
"Can't I just be a fat boxer, like Butterbean?"
"Sugar, even Butterbean fought to his weight. You'd just be a fat, slow punching bag that'd never go anywhere in the pros," Ukyo revealed, driving an arrow into his heart.
"Oh."
"Besides, you'd have to go to America to even have a chance to make it, and that would mean you'd never have my delicious okonomiyaki ever again."
That arrow hit him in the stomach. "Ohh… God is cruel."
"God is anything but," Ukyo corrected him, "He gives you the strength to continue, you just gotta have the determination to use it."
"I didn't figure someone like you for a Christian," Kosaku said after staring at Ukyo uncomprehending for a moment.
Ukyo shrugged her shoulders. "I picked up a good book worth readin'. Maybe you oughta do the same?"
Kosaku looked down at his stomach. "Are you saying God's the only one who can help me?"
"He can if you accept the offer," Ukyo said as she finally finished closing up her shop. "Well, I'm all closed up and I got stuff to do in the mornin'. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here."
Kosaku acquiesced and rose from his seat. "Are you going to stick around, or are you done with me too?"
"The decent person in me says I ought to not tempt you, while the businessman in me says wring you dry, Hacchan," she warned him. "But I like to think I'm a little bit of both, so I'm going to stick around and see if I can try to help you out in my own way."
She just needed to figure out how that would be.
Kosaku managed to smile at Ukyo, and nodded. "You're a good friend, Ucchan." He then put on a bigger smile. "You'd make a great girlfriend, too."
Ukyo gave him a dry look. "Probably not for you though."
Kosaku dimmed again and sighed. "Yeah, probably…" He turned and trudged over to his apartment, waving back at her without looking. "Later."
"G'night, Hacchan," she called back as she watched him close the door behind him.
Once she was alone, she picked up and stowed the cart's bench, and knelt down to lock it up. The poor guy, he really was torn between his dreams and his desires, but he didn't have the self-control to overcome the latter. There was only so much she could do to help him, but he needed more than that.He needed a plan, he needed someone who could understand, he needed-
"Aw man, you're closed? I was hoping to get a freebie."
Ukyo stopped when she heard the voice of a young man. "Huh? I don't do freebies."
"Funny, you used to all the time for me," the young man said as he walked up to the cart.
Ukyo froze for a second once she saw his face, but it didn't last before a smirk split her face. "Well well, today was supposed to be a good day and up walks trouble." She recognized him immediately as her old friend and number one troublemaker. "So what do you want… Saotome Ranma?"
"I got a business proposition for you," Ranma said, a serious look on his face. "I've heard it through the grapevine you got a customer with a bit of a problem."
Ukyo was unmoved, she just wanted to close up for the night. "You have huh?"
"Let's just say I've come up with an idea that can allow him to feel like he's eating all the food he wants without jeopardizing his dreams." Ranma said, glad she had thrown him out. "But you're the key for this to work."
"Too busy to do your own dirty work?" Ukyo teased, relaxing when it looked like there was business instead of displeasure.
Hmm... This is up to date with the latest story post on SB, as far as I can tell, correct?
Anyways, this is a fairly unique take on Ranma (the series, not the character, and yes, I'm sure someone's done similar before, but I haven't seen it); mixed with your usual style, and I feel it's an enjoyable read. Not too sure about the Kill La Kill elements later on, but they don't seem to have caused any issues so far.
Keep it up, oh master of serious crack.
Anyways, this is a fairly unique take on Ranma (the series, not the character, and yes, I'm sure someone's done similar before, but I haven't seen it); mixed with your usual style, and I feel it's an enjoyable read. Not too sure about the Kill La Kill elements later on, but they don't seem to have caused any issues so far.
Keep it up, oh master of serious crack.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
Hah, I actually got here before the Mary-Sue Hunters could bring their torches and pitchforks! Even with how long it took me to read it all. Good Ranma story, and I haven't seen too many of those lately.
In defense of your power levels -- what average people can do has really no significance to a story -- especially one set in Nerima with native Nerimians.
In defense of your power levels -- what average people can do has really no significance to a story -- especially one set in Nerima with native Nerimians.
Chapter 11/?
Yay, Chapter 11. The one where I become bankrupt.
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 11/?
Kosaku almost decided on skipping school the next morning. There was no way he could walk through that gate and face his classmates, especially the members of the club he'd formerly been Captain of. The idea, the fear of having to carry the stigma of being the first Captain to lose his position for such a humiliating reason should've tipped him towards just laying in bed and not bothering to get up.
He didn't want to miss the usual breakfast deals offered by the shops along the way though, so it was a simple matter of cajoling a bit of money from his mother, slipping on his uniform and heading out the door.
"At least there's the food, I can't be banned from eating," he said as he reached the bottom of the stairs of his apartment–expecting to find Ukyo's cart waiting outside with griddle sizzling.
Instead he found an empty spot that Ukyo had occupied for days on end.
"Huh? What…?" He looked around, confused. There was no sign of her anywhere.
His heart fell, he'd been hoping to just pig out today. It wasn't like there was anything left for him to do.
"Was it something I said?" He asked before he began up the street towards the school.
Or did she pity him? He really hoped it wasn't that… he didn't need her pity, just something to eat.
Shaking his head, he began jogging up the street, a habit ingrained in him by boxing and made moot by his voracious eating. He would just head up to the Donburi shop and have a little extra of a tasty breakfast bowl. Or rather he would if the sign on the door didn't say it was closed.
"What?!" Pulling a phone out of his pocket, Kosaku checked the time, and realized the place should've been open an hour ago. "Why the heck…?"
He turned and jogged faster up the road. The ramen cart! He could grab something to eat there, and–it was closed too. The cart wasn't set up and the owner was completely absent.
As it turned out, the convenience store was closed, too, as was the bakery. The Taiyaki stand being shut down was the final straw, and Kosaku was soon charging towards the school, his stomach growling and his vision red. All of his favorite places to stop and eat closed? Even if it meant hurting their business by turning away other customers? Hatanaka Kosaku may be a glutton, but he wasn't an idiot! He knew that someone powerful was manipulating things!
It was bad enough that he was being thrown out of boxing, but to punish him like this?! Now he was furious!
"WHERE IS HE?!" Kosaku shouted as he reached the schoolyard. "WHERE'S SAOTOME?!"
Behind him the gates of the school slammed shut, startling him, and Kosaku realized that nearly every student in the school was standing in a broad circle around the path leading to the building's steps–the ring bordered by the school's male students, who all stood at-ease with their arms folded behind their backs and their feet spaced. On the other side of the circle, Ranma stood waiting, holding up a large cast-iron tower shield at his side.
"I'm right here," Ranma said. Behind him, up on the steps, Nabiki, Akane, and Katie stood with Kodachi, who was wearing a look of pure scorn that she leveled directly upon Kosaku.
Seeing Kodachi's harsh glare, Kosaku paled and tensed up. He was glad that, far as he knew, looks couldn't kill–he'd be dead where he stood, burned to ash, if they could.
If her look was dangerous, her words were near fatal.
"Hatanaka Kosaku! You stand before I, the Black Rose Kuno Kodachi, accused of failing to live up to the expectations set when you were chosen as Captain of the Boxing Club. You are also being charged with fraud, misappropriation of Student Council assets, and embarrassing the name of my Furinkan High School through the sin of your filthy gluttony!"
Kosaku's mouth fell open, as the frustration that brought him here became horror as Kodachi exposed him properly.
"Only by the miracle of your overeating habit being detected, has this establishment been spared the humiliation of what your vice would bring to the school. Had it not, however, we would've had to bear the shame of a boxer who cannot make weight!" Kodachi thundered on, her vehemence carrying across the field.
She focused all of that ire upon the target of her contempt. "What do you say, in your defense, Hatanaka Kosaku?! Are you not the glutton who cannot control his desires?! Are you more a pig than pigs themselves?! Do you have the courage to lie before the truth that has been laid bare?!"
Kosaku, his body tense, tried to look away from his peers, but he couldn't. Wherever he turned, he was met by disapproving looks, disbelieving eyes, and vicious words muttered about him… at him…
"I… I…" He began.
"I took the liberty of closing every restaurant, cart, stand, and market within two kilometers of this school to prove a point," she went on, "That you would come here. Frustrated, furious! Was I not correct? For what reason did you demand Saotome Ranma? To beg for your post back, for a final chance to live your dream? Or was it the food you wanted?"
Kosaku stopped again, any words he'd been trying to say as she spoke withering away. He tried to look away from her again, but this time when he did he saw Ishida just behind Ranma, his face stony and eyes brimming with contempt. Next to him, Shunpei looked about ready to cry, the first year witnessing the humiliation and fall of the person he once called Captain.
"It doesn't matter what you say, for I have made your answer for you. The only reason you are here, Hatanaka Kosaku, is to reclaim your position as Captain of the Boxing Club. I will allow this, only on the condition that you conquer the beast that is your gluttony. For a man enslaved by his vice is no man, he is the vice incarnate."
She brought up her hand to toss back her long side-tail. "To that, what do you say? Will you accept my unwarranted generosity?"
Kosaku couldn't believe it, was… was he really being given another chance? In spite of what Saotome said? It was too good to be true… he couldn't just expect to have it all just like that?
"Y-yes! Of course!" He shouted back. "I want to! I will! I promise I won't let you down, I swear it on my-"
"Silence," Kodachi cut him off. "Do not merely tell me that you will do what I ask of you, any worthless filth can say sweet words. A man shows his resolve in his action."
She gestured down to Ranma. "Punch Saotome with all of your might, with every ounce of your resolve, and I will measure it from here."
At that Ranma smirked and readied the tower shield he had with him. Kosaku looked from her to Ranma, a bit disbelieving. This was his trial? One punch?
"You want me… to punch him?" He asked after looking back up at her.
"Can you?" Kodachi asked.
Kosaku looked at his fist, and then at Ranma, who just smirked and gestured for Kosaku to come at him. "Come on, Hatanaka, show me what you've got under all of that flab! This is the only chance you've got, and if you don't show me something worth working with, you don't have to worry about coming back to school, either!"
"That's correct, if I cannot see an ounce of resolve from you," Kodachi declared, "I will see to it that you are banned from every boxing ring and every restaurant in Tokyo. They will know your face as that of failure, an untouchable beast. From here on, your fate is in your own fist!"
Hearing that, Kosaku clenched his hand into a fist. His fate… in his fist?
Ranma got ready. "I'm waiting, Hatanaka!"
Kosaku looked straight ahead, at Ranma, and tightened his fist further. "My fate… it's all mine. I can't blame anyone if I lose here, just me…"
He immediately thought of what happened yesterday, and the week before. "I'll only have myself to blame. And there's no going back after this. If I fail here, I won't be able to eat at my favorite restaurants-"
Kosaku squashed that train of thought. "No… I won't be able to box! Ever again!"
He then dug his feet into the sidewalk, and shot forward, accelerating straight towards Ranma with both fists coming to his chest and then rising up to guard like a boxer charging his opponent.
"If I can't box… then what will I be…?!"
Fire began to burn in his eyes, as he closed the distance.
"A loser…? A guy who eats a lot…?!"
He moved faster, as he drew his right to launch it.
"I won't…!"
Upon reaching Ranma, he fired his punch, aiming straight for Ranma's face like he was going to punch through his head.
"I WANT TO BE A BOXER!" He yelled as his fist traveled to connect with its target.
A tremendous clang sounded instead, as Kosaku's fist plunged into the face of the tower shield Ranma had carried, the metal vibrating at high frequency from the force of the impact. An instant later, there was a tremendous gust of wind as the shockwave blasted off the shield in every direction, blowing back against Kosaku as well, the abrupt wind sweeping his short bangs up into sharp spikes without the need of any hair gel. The same wind buffeted the other students, and kicked up a great cloud of dust behind and to Kosaku's side, causing the other students to cover their faces and turn their heads to shield their eyes.
When the wind died down, the stunned Kosaku was even more shocked to see a large, deep crack appear in the iron shield, before it fell away in two halves that then crumbled to the ground, revealing Ranma standing behind it, clapping his hands.
"Did… did I just do that…?" Kosaku wondered to himself, as he looked at his still outstretched fist. It tingled, but it didn't hurt at all!
"Then a boxer you will be," Kodachi decreed. "Your resolve has moved me, Hatanaka Kosaku, I will sit no more on this matter, I look forward to the success and accolades you bring to Furinkan High School."
She turned away, and looked back towards Ranma. "Saotome, see to absolving him of his sin."
"Will do," Ranma said as the crowd of yammering onlookers began to disperse as well. "Hatanaka, let's get going!"
"To train?" Kosaku asked as he shook his hand.
"Training the usual way is impossible," Ranma said. "Nope, I'm going to show you how you're going to beat this eating problem of yours."
He gestured to him. "We're going to the kitchen, get going."
Kosaku gaped in confusion.
The kitchen?
Ranma walked ahead of Kosaku, keeping the pace brisk enough so the boy wouldn't lose interest and wander off. It was certain to be a bafflement, how cooking was going to fix Kosaku's problem with food. Ranma could tell the boy was dreading being fed until he would get sick at the idea of being fed, but that was far too mundane.
Still, he could alleviate a few of the boxer's concern. "See Hatanaka, the problem is that the stuff you eat is passable but unremarkable. Because of that, you just stuff your face out of habit. So you, with your amnesia of the event, thusly eat again because you don't remember. And hey, maybe deep down you just like to eat and eat, but you have to sacrifice something to get anywhere."
"I'm ready, I just don't-" Kosaku tried to speak up and reassure the Chairman. He was for real now, he was going to be a man. The man now, just show him the way.
"-Understand how this will help. Well, we just need to do more than closing places close to you in order to get you to stop!" Ranma finished for him. "You need to eat something that will keep you honest on your diet."
He opened the door, being dutifully followed by Kosaku.
"How are you Hatchan?" Ukyo asked, standing by one of the stern looking cook ladies.
"U-Ukyo-san?! But-" Kosaku sputtered.
"I got paid to close up for today." Ukyo revealed, cutting off the boxer before he could do something to raise the ire of everyone else. "Plus I got a nice little bonus for helping you keep your diet."
"Huh?" Kosaku's brain broke at the idea of her helping him.
"The President took care of talking it over with your folks, so you're not going to be eating your mom's probably fantastic cooking until we can balance out your weight and nutrition." Ranma said, "Instead, you're going to be eating a special okonomiyaki for breakfast and dinner, plus a new bento that only you'll get."
"And I'm getting paid rather amazingly for this so don't screw this up for me Hachan. I want my own brick and mortar shop." Ukyo added, giving him a glare.
"I wouldn't dream of it! Not now not ever!" Kosaku replied. "If I did that, I would have to slit my belly to recover from the shame."
"That's sweet of you," Ranma said with an amused expression. "And that's why I'm here. Your belly stays intact and gets to sample some good stuff." He cracked his knuckles. "Wait here, I'll make your breakfast."
Off Ranma went amongst the various burners and equipment.
"Does he know what he's doing?" Kosaku felt he needed to ask.
"Sure does; when it comes to food he cooks like he fights. Which is to say better than ninety-five percent of the world." Ukyo said, shrugging.
"Really?" Kosaku asked.
Ukyo nodded. "Yeah. We grew up together, and I'd make him Okonomiyaki he used to go crazy for before he left. That rubbed off on him, because when we met again about four years ago he had started cooking and was amazing at it."
She then smirked. "He thinks of a dish like an opponent, and the prep how to beat it. The result is food that doesn't just taste good, you feel good after eating it."
"What a talented guy." Kosaku found his respect for the Chairman deepening by the second.
It looked like he was sauteing ground pork now, the smell of spices beginning to fill the air.
"Is… is this mapo tofu?" Kosaku asked, he wasn't much for Chinese but he learned the names of all foods just in case.
"When it's my turn you'll understand everything, Hachan." Ukyo reassured him. "If not for me, your dreams would truly be dead."
"Really?" Kosaku was kind of surprised.
"Ranma's dead set on helping you out but he doesn't have time to babysit you. That's part of where I come in, because I can help deliver your 'medicine' to you." Ukyo explained, cracking her knuckles. "Looks like it's about time."
"Ukyo, you're up!" Ranma called, as he dished up the Mapo Tofu into a holding container.
"Hell yeah!" Ukyo took Ranma's spot, beginning to make an okonomiyaki.
"Chairman." Kosaku said it with full respect. "Mapo tofu?"
"Listen, Hatanaka, when it comes to cooking, the only thing that separates truly great cooking and the merely good is the impact it leaves. You consume good food en masse because it fills you up and leaves you feeling comfortable even after you've almost eaten yourself sick, because you want to feel good and feel the things good food makes you feel."
Kosaku nodded. "Yeah, I've been there."
"But what was the last great thing you ate? The thing that sticks out in your memory because it hit you so hard with flavor that you remember the day, time, what you were wearing and the song on the radio?" Ranma explained in a lecturing tone.
"The first time I had an okonomiyaki from Ukyo." Kosaku didn't even need to think about it. He had been out jogging for a while, trying to feel like a boxer when he saw the yattai and smelled the food. Oh it smelled like heaven on earth and tasted even better.
"How she gets you, you're still chasing that taste." Ranma confirmed with a snicker. "Which proves the point, you eat a lot because it doesn't hit you like it should."
Kosaku seemed doubtful when the completed Mapo Tofu okonomiyaki was held out to him. He swallowed a sudden mouthful of drool.
"This will knock your appetite right out," Ranma reassured him.
"You'll understand once you taste it." Ukyo assured him. "I had my doubts but I tried it and it took me by surprise too."
"Eat up, this is all you get for breakfast." Ranma ordered.
Kosaku licked his lips in anticipation and took that first bite. Immediately, he was hit by a fierce bolt of spice and flavor. It almost staggered him as he chewed the food, pulses of numbing and heat causing his face to flush. He had to take a breather after that first bite, trying to cool down. "It's soooo hot but it's too delicious to stop!"
He attacked the okonomiyaki with abandon, as the heat of the food made his eyes water as well as his nose. He occasionally complained, but he just could not put it down. He had to eat more more more! And indeed it burned and burned!
"It was so good!" Kosaku announced after he finished, his lips stained red with sauce. "Oh my… oh my!"
"How do you feel?" Ranma asked with a slight smirk.
"Like I lit my face on fire yet I loved every second of it." Kosaku was cleaning up the remains that he could see or feel on him.
"How about something else? A lobster special?" Ukyo offered, presenting an already prepared example before him.
On sight, Kosaku's face twisted in pain, as if he was being stabbed some invisible knife. "No… no that's fine. I'm... I'm not…"
He stopped, his eyes widening. "I'm not… hungry?"
He wasn't. He didn't have any appetite at all for seconds!
"And you won't be for a while, at least until lunch." Ranma said
Kosaku looked up at Ukyo, then at Ranma, disbelieving. "W-what did you do?!"
"A combination of medicinal Chinese and Sichuan cooking, this Mapo Tofu Hatanaka Special works in two fold," Ranma explained. "First, you'll note that the thought of eating something else now repulses you. That's because the herbs in the okonomiyaki batter are the same concoction put into porridge to help people with stomach problems keep it down as well as them wanting more of the porridge only. Add in the spice work used in the mapo tofu to create an addicting quality that makes you keep eating it even as you cry in pain and agony."
"Which," Ukyo continued, "basically means you'll only want to eat that again right now. Of course, we won't make it for you meaning you can keep your diet."
A lot of this was going over Kosaku's head, but the fact that he didn't want to eat made it pretty obvious that it was working.
"Right now, we're removing old lingering pockets of bad juju that are floating in your system as well as the lingering traces of other nasties," Ukyo went on, "As you progress this diet menu, you'll go on to revitalize, reinvigorate and reinforce, allowing you to get back into shape."
"The goal is that you'll eventually learn to curb your appetite on your own." Ranma said, nodding his head. "At that point, you should be ready to retake your previous seat as captain."
Kosaku, though he didn't get most of the talk, got the most important part: follow the diet, conquer his eating problem. "I understand, but Chairman, you did miscalculate one thing: I'm still hungry."
Ranma and Ukyo both looked at him in surprise.
"… For training that is! I have to get in shape!" Kosaku said with a smirk. "I wanna box!"
Ranma laughed at the joke, once he realized that Kosaku was only meaning he wanted to work out. "Okay, we'll spend a little more on going over the menu with you before you start training."
Kosaku nodded, a fire burning deep in his soul. Today was his first step!
"Three hundred meters, or nine hundred eighty-four feet."
Thirteen year old Katie, wearing a wetsuit, stared down at the cold, dark blue waters of the Bay of Biscay, and the buoy that bobbed in the water in front of the yacht she stood at the bow of. She looked back at her Uncle, who was reading a handheld depth meter. Nick held it away from him, and then turned to look at her with a grin. "Water's pretty frigid, a balmy fifteen degrees celsius, and about five celsius at the bottom."
Katie didn't react to her Uncle's taunting, she remained focused on the water, her green eyed gaze following the rope that led from the buoy down into the waters until she just couldn't see it anymore. Three hundred meters. Nine-hundred eighty-four feet. A third of a kilometer. Almost a fifth of a mile.
Then another voice spoke. "If the cold doesn't kill you at the surface, it will at the bottom. But that shouldn't bother you, should it, mi perrita?"
Katie did react this time, looking towards an older teenaged girl wearing a black and white one piece bathing suit and holding above her head a dark parasol. A girl as pale as her, with black hair braided into a ponytail over her shoulder. Her hair and her eyes were her most distinguishing feature–a dog-like merle pattern of white and gray splotches decorated her ink-colored hair, while her the irises of her eyes were a vivid titanium white.
The girl strode over to the edge of the boat, Katie watching her every move, before she joined her and looked down at the water with her. "It's only three hundred meters, it shouldn't take you more than fifteen minutes."
Katie looked back down at the water.
"You sound like you've been further," Nick said, his tone inferring that he knew full well she had.
"Further, deeper. The bottom of the sea is a playground in the dark that all can frolic in… they just need to let go of the fragility of their humanity."
Katie nodded in agreement, before the other girl looped her arm around hers and leaned closer to her, resting the side of her head against hers. "Are you ready?"
Katie drew in a breath, and nodded slowly as she took the girl's hand in her own..
The other girl, their guide and Katie's instructor for this summer–a brilliant underwater combat expert named Lida Ysidro–smiled. "Then let's go play in the dark."
Their fingers interlacing, both girls leaped from the boat and crashed into the cold water below.
It was the shock of much warmer water that snapped Katie out of her daze, as she found herself amidst the swirling foam of bubbles her jumping into the pool created. Through the cloud of rapidly ascending air pockets, she could see Akane touch her feet down on the bottom of the pool, her long dark-blue hair trailing up behind her on a cloud of bubbles that had yet to escape to the surface. She was looking at her, and only her, no sign of panic to be seen as she stood on the bottom.
With an encouraging nod from her senpai, Akane crouched and jumped for the surface, using the strength of her legs to propel her to the surface. Katie was right behind her, accelerating with arms outstretched to catch her as she surfaced, to be the life preserver that kept her stable and afloat.
"I did it… I did by myself!" Akane exclaimed. "Down and back up!"
"Congrats." Katie said, with a laugh and a smile. "You're getting better!"
Akane decided to luxuriate in the feeling of her success and of Katie's arms around her. It wasn't something she was normally used to, feeling this close with another girl. But that feeling of safety and warmth made it all okay.
"Ne, Akaneko, are you going to cuddle me all afternoon or are we going to keep training?" Katie teasingly whispered to her.
"Oh... uh, sorry." Akane blushed a little, feeling only slightly embarrassed. "I just need to cool down a bit."
That's what she said anyways.
"Hey don't mind it." Katie said, sporting an amused smile. "But we are here to learn you to sink and swim."
Akane nodded. "Yeah, I know."
"Good to go again?" She asked as she pulled back a bit.
Akane nodded, and took a deep breath before Katie let go of her and both girls descended to the bottom of the pool like stones, this time with much fewer bubbles obscuring their view of one another.
It was honestly a wonder to see the world underwater and look right at Katie, that was how Akane's mind filtered it all. Even as they began to piston up and down, all without creating a froth so they could enjoy this sight over and over. There were fewer breaks once they really got going, as if they were challenging each other to some kind of competition based on underwater squat thrusts.
What was this blissful feeling, the winding caress of the water as she plunged and ascended, and why had she been so afraid of it? Akane Tendo, the girl who launched people through the air like paper dolls, had allowed herself to be suckered by the talk of impossible. Her own mind had weighed her down and given rise to the fear that had prevented her from experiencing this bliss.
No longer, that was the conclusion she had come to after all this.
"Whew." Katie said when she and Akane had finished a long routine of plunges. "I think you're getting it down. All we need to do now is get you ready to actually move in the horizontal part of the water."
"Just as long as I remember that up and down are still a thing." Akane said with a shrug. "And that you're still with me."
"I won't let you down as long as you don't make me." Katie said, adding a quick hug to her hold to remind Akane not to take offense.
"Right." Akane allowed herself to be dragged back to the edge, where she was able to climb out. Surprisingly, Yuka and Sayuri were waiting outside the pool.
"Akane-chan, I see you're making progress." Sayuri said, being the more polite of the pair. They had arrived about five minutes ago to find Katie-senpai and Akane locked in some kind elaborate water based dance routine and they were still a bit off guard.
"Just a bit." Akane said, with a smile. "I'm almost ready to start swimming around."
"That's awesome." Yuka said, almost meaning it. She was watching Katie in the background and how the girl was taking the opportunity to cut loose since Akane was no longer in the immediate area. She was going back and forth underwater at high speed without breaking the water tension. "You're almost out of your anchor prison."
"I'm still going to sink." Akane admitted, shrugging a little. "I just don't have to panic as much."
The sound of Katie breaking the water's surface in a graceful leap that defied physics so much that seven professors tendered their resignations in disgust caught all three girls' attention. As amazing as all three agreed the girl was, she was just so casually superhuman in the water that it bordered on the ridiculous. She landed back in the water and barely made a ripple, as the water was actually gelatin to her.
"Wow…" Akane stared, eyes sparkling, and for a second she forgot about her friends.
"So, uh," Yuka said, trying to think of how to say this. "Ok, I can't be totally polite about this but when the hell did you jump to the side of lilies and unrequited love?"
Akane turned an uncomprehending look on Yuka. "Eh?"
"She means when did you go from girls who are friends with Katie-senpai to wanting to be her girlfriend." Sayuri clarified.
"I'm… what?" Akane looked confused, before she tried to laugh it off. But the notion stayed there even in the face of disbelief and dismissal. "No no, guys, it's just in your heads."
Sayuri and Yuka looked skeptical at that, but it was apparently not the time to talk about it as Katie launched herself from the pool and landed–completely dry–right by both of them.
"So what's up? You guys don't have a meet for another month so you don't need a captain yet." Katie said, before she leaned in. "Or are you upset that I'm 'monopolizing' all the available Akane time. Because I assure you, all you needed to do is call her to make an appointment."
There was a thick pause following that as the two girls got the idea that she had heard everything.
"Now! If there is anything else you need, feel free to ask." Katie said, standing back up right. "If you'll excuse me, it's lunch time. C'mon Akaneko, Kasumi-senpai said she was going to put something nice together for us, didn't she?" She sauntered away, unmindful of anything else.
Akane nodded and jogged off after her. "She sure did." She looked back and waved at her friends. "See you guys!"
"Told you to call her." Sayuri whispered once they were left alone by the pool.
"Shut up." Yuka snapped as she buried her face in the palm of one of her hands.
A few minutes later Akane stepped into a shower stall in the girl's locker room and started it up, lost in thought. It was pretty clear that something deeper was there to her friendship with the American girl but she wasn't quite sure if it was romantic in nature. She was definitely sure it wasn't like her sisters, but the idea Yuka planted had yet to be uprooted.
"It's only been a day and we're making more progress than in a week." Katie said as she stepped into the stall next to hers.
"Thanks." Akane said with a happy little smile. "I almost can't wait to be able to swim for real and not just in my dreams."
"Almost is right, impatience leads to death." Katie said with a nod as she began to lather up her hair with shampoo. "So what did the gossip girls want?"
"Oh, they're bugging me about my love life." Akane admitted. "They always have overactive imaginations when it comes to me."
"Do they now?" Katie asked.
"Well it's not really strange that they'd fuss over me; what with all the problems I've had with boys, my engagement, and well…"
"Me?" Katie asked with a bit of a grin.
"Yeah," Akane said with a mild flush across her cheeks.
Katie laughed. "Are they shipping us? Who'd have thought girls with boys on the brain like them would be appreciative of that sort of thing?"
Akane flushed a bit brighter, this time at Katie's carefree reply. "Can you blame them? I mean, with all the time we spend together it's not hard for people to believe that there's something going on."
Katie nodded in agreement. "Despite the fact that you are arguably the second straightest girl I've ever met even after your noted attitude towards boys."
"Second?" Akane asked. "I didn't know there could be girls more heterosexual than I."
"She was my very first unrequited love, a girl too good for me." Katie smiled wryly. "She helped me master my swimming too, and taught me Cavitation."
Cavitation, the powerful punching ability Katie demonstrated to Akane the day they began their plunge training, and would teach her when she overcame her swimming deficiency once and for all.
Akane was impressed. "She must really be amazing."
"She is," Katie said, "I've been thinking about her quite a bit since we started training. She was the one who helped me overcome the worst part about swimming for me."
"What was that?"
"Deep water," Katie replied. "I'd been terrified of it from when I was little, after I first saw Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio, and learned how deep and huge the ocean could get. A dense girl like me who can only sink? I was scared for a long time, until she helped me get over it."
"So, kind of like you and me," Akane asked.
Katie closed her eyes and pouted. "Yeah, except I'm not being crushed upon by my determined and lovestruck student."
"Wouldn't it be nice if you were?" She wanted to say it aloud, but Akane bit down on it, her face coloring some. Instead, she opted for something else. "How did she help you overcome it?"
Katie stood under the spray of the shower, her eyes closed, her thoughts going back to the cold waters of the Bay of Biscay, and the descent towards darkness far below.
"Fear is irrational, even when it makes perfect sense to be afraid. She taught me that most of the time when we panic, when we give in to fear, it isn't even because of the thing we fear, but of being unable to do anything about whatever we're afraid of."
The shock of the cold wore off quickly as Katie focused on more important things. Staying close to the cable that led to seafloor. Staying close to Lida. Failure to do either meant certain death.
"Believing that fear lets it win."
Fifty meters, well past what recreational divers considered safe, the point where any help was possible in an emergency had been long passed. A hundred meters, the world record for constant weight without fins… deeper they went, and darker it became, the sun's rays struggling to pierce the water further down.
"The key to overcoming the fear is telling it that it's wrong, and that it's nothing but a remnant of when you didn't know what you could do. It's simple confidence, but that can only come from putting in the work to back it up."
One hundred-fifty meters, the operating depth of most Allied Submarines in World War II. Two hundred, where the Germans could go. Here, the light was almost entirely gone, a faint glow from above. At this depth, the rope had to be illuminated–slow-flashing strobes guiding both girls towards the bottom.
"When you can do it though…" Katie smiled before she washed the soap from her hair.
Three hundred meters. Nine-hundred eighty-four feet. A third of a kilometer. Almost a fifth of a mile. Greater men had died striving for less than what a pair of teenaged girls had achieved. Setting foot down on the cold, silty seafloor, Katie spared a moment to peer in the darkness that surrounded her, illuminated only by the gradual flickers of the lights mounted on the ropes.
And then by something else, a gentle white light that began to spread across the seafloor. Turning around, she looked up and found Lida floating above her, smiling as the gentle white light shined forth from her irises and the white splotches of her otherwise jet black hair.
Katie pulled her head out from under the spray and spat out some of the water that attempted to get into her mouth. "… You'll live a life unlike any other."
In her stall, Akane finished washing her own hair and hummed. "So basically, believe in myself, and I can do anything?"
"Pretty much, I mean… look at all the stuff you can already do. Any part of you that tries to hold you back? It's wrong by default, you're stronger than you think."
Katie finished rinsing off and shut off the shower before running her fingers through her wet hair to make sure she got all of the shampoo. As she stepped out, she turned to see Akane emerge from her stall, wringing the last bit of water from her own damp hair.
Akane looked back up at her, and let out a small laugh. "When you put it like that, what do I have to be afraid of?"
"I don't know, do you?" Katie asked.
Akane's gaze only became more focused. "You know what I'm talking about, senpai."
Taken aback by Akane's tone, Katie closed her eyes and let out a soft laugh. "Yeah, I do."
When she opened her eyes, Akane narrowed the distance between them, but the taller Katie still needed to lean down to erase it completely.
In the gym of Furinkan High School, Ranma had just finished putting Kosaku through a heavy workout that had gotten the boxer hopeful out of his morning classes. Much of it was focused on both burning calories and shedding weight, as it was reclaiming the snap and crispness to the punches Hatanaka had risen to the top of the Boxing Club with. Still, man cannot live on guts alone and soon Kosaku's was rumbling.
"Ah, I'm hungry." Kosaku said it so matter of factly that it seemed like part of an unseen comedy routine.
"That's fine, the okonomiyaki was to last you until lunch." Ranma said, cracking his knuckles. "Come on, I'll fix you the revised athlete's bento."
"Right away Chairman." Kosaku wasn't about to argue.
Ranma had Kosaku jog, just to burn that little extra bit of calories. Still, they made it to the kitchen and the section reserved from the unofficial Head Chef of Furinkan High. The latter waited in anticipation as the former began to get to work.
"Now, before I start cooking, I'll let you know that even though this is a bento, this will actually be made with French techniques." Ranma said, making sure he had everything ready. "Because I don't really want you to just rely on Sichuan and I'd rather you think of lunch as a reward. You'll still be eating an okonomiyaki off the training menu for dinner tonight, but you have something 'fattening' for right now. But it'll be anything but..."
"Sounds great but… you can cook French food?" Kosaku was amazed. This guy was younger than him but he was so talented.
"Turns out my aptitude for learning techniques expanded outside martial arts." Ranma answered as he began cooking. "Took a little bit of reading plus sitting in on lunch prep here before I got it down. Don't worry though, it won't be exactly butter and beef fat for days. You're going to be burning this off anyways."
"Right." Kosaku said, deciding to shadow box a little as he waited.
It didn't take comparatively long for Ranma to finish the dishes involved in the French Bento for Kosaku. Not that time was an issue, Ranma had all day to put Kosaku's face to the grindstone anyways. Still, the food was done and the boxer was one lecture away from eating.
"Now, French food is pretty novel and yet, still well entrenched from the post-war recovery. Because of how it's cooked, French food comes off as more filling and thus it was more desirable to those starving after the war." Ranma explained, before he gestured to the Bento.
"A few quick French items: A Croque Monsieur sandwich, some sauteed white asparagus, and salmon salade nicoise. The first is a ham and cheese sandwich topped with bechamel sauce and then more cheese to make it crunchy, and the last is a salad prepared with salmon, green beans, potatoes and some hard boiled eggs. All in all, the point is to hit your stomach with some dense and rich flavors to contrast the lightness of the breakfast and dinner."
"Got it." Kosaku was trying not to drool, a hard thing when it smelled so good.
"Just a reminder you will get these 'delicious' bento only if you follow the diet perfectly." Ranma said, holding it back. "If you cheat, and I'm watching you heavily now, you'll get gruel. Flavorless, soul destroying gruel."
His expression and tone then became quite severe. "For. All. Of. Your. Meals."
"You can break my fists if I betray you like that again Chairman." Kosaku said, extending out his right hand in oath. "I will lead Furinkan to its first glory in boxing and then I will conquer the world and bring a world championship to Japan!"
"Thatta boy." Ranma said, passing him the bento. "Now eat up, you have a long day of further training to do before club."
Kosaku didn't need to be told twice, as he attacked the bento with abandon. The flavor hit so hard it was like he was sparring, each bite sending a jolt of deliciousness up his spine. It was almost enough to make him take a knee and surrender but her needed the energy, he need to fuel himself up for what was to come.
A single tear slipped down his cheek, emotions running wild as he realized he didn't deserve the kindness they had offered him. He didn't deserve this. He had been such a heel about it, whining and cursing the guy who wanted him to succeed.
"I've been so stupid." Kosaku said, just barely loud enough to be heard by Ranma. "Even after I wasted your time, and betrayed you… you gave me another chance."
"Well, yeah," Ranma said. "You got something worth believing in there in that fist of yours. What self-respecting martial artist would want to see that go to waste?"
Kosaku looked down at the bento. "Kuno."
The elder of the siblings, naturally.
"After Kuno came here and made this whole school all about him, nobody cared about the other clubs, we fended for ourselves… or we just took the free time for granted." He sighed. "For the first time, there's someone who believes in us. Even a gross overeater like me."
He smiled big then. "I don't want to let you guys down."
Ranma returned the smile. "You won't, trust me. Now let's get your lunch digestin', Hatanaka."
With that, they exited the kitchen for the gym once more, Kosaku jogging the whole way. It was a weird scene, to be sure, with Kosaku laughing as he ran with Ranma keeping up with a serious expression on his face. But there they went, master and disciple, pushing on to take that all important first step to glory.
After several laps around the school, they were back in the gym, where the boxing club had gathered. Even though Hatanaka was still in his redemption tour, he was still regarded as the captain and thus had a duty to those who looked up to him during the time he had been in the seat. It was for this reason he stood before them, to speak to them all about what was to happen now.
"Everyone, let me first apologize for being so weak to let you all down." Kosaku said, looking at all the members. "The truth was… for a while there, I loved to eat more than I loved to box. It took me losing everything to realize that I love boxing more. It's been there for me since I was little and it's the only thing I could ever see myself doing. My eyes are clear and my vision is focused."
"Hatanaka." Ishida said, feeling hope again. "I want to believe in you, but it's hard after the last couple times."
"I know, and I will earn that trust again in time Senpai." Kosaku said with a small smile. "But right now, I'm going to get back down to Flyweight and stay there. Sakigachi's captain is a Flyweight and if we're going to win the meet, I need to be the one to face him. And that's why I'm going to work even harder and follow the diet even all the way to hell if it takes me there. I want to see what the summit looks like and I want to share it with you guys."
"Well shoot Hatanaka!" Shunpei yelled, pumping a fist. "If you're going to talk like that then we're going to make sure you make weight!" The rest of the club made a rousing cheer at that.
"Everyone, thank you." Kosaku said with a smile as he curled his right hand into a fist. "I finally realized it when I hit that shield today, that the weight and all the food ended up dulling my senses. That punch was godawful and not fit to be thrown by even the worst amateur. That's what I allowed myself to become, despite of the power still living in these fists. I refuse to go back to that again, I am Hatanaka Kosaku, the man who will conquer the world of Boxing!."
That brought cheers from everyone in the gym, those who were supposed to be working but were listening in.
"That's right! Why stop with high school?" The Sumo Captain yelled. "Let's all aim for the heights together as men!"
"I'm gonna win olympic gold!" A judoka cried.
"I'm gonna win the world championship in karate!" A karateka followed up.
"Yokozuna!" Several sumos chanted together.
"Ooooh!" The whole gym chorused.
"Well then." Ranma said, clapping his hands. "We got a lot to do then if we're making these dreams come true! Now get to work!"
"YES, CHAIRMAN!" The boys shouted back.
"We were the shameful," Kosaku thought later, as he continued to hit the mitts with Ranma. "We threw in our pride as men and lost our backbones and our guts, because we couldn't believe in ourselves."
His jabs, already starting to look better, met Ranma's mitts with heavy, loud thuds..
"We didn't have the resolve to stand up for ourselves, or for someone who needed us to," Kosaku continued to think, using the emotions swirling inside him to surge along with the demands.
"Come on Kosaku, put your hips into it and actually swing!" Ranma shouted. "Give me an upper worthy of a future world champion!"
"God, I don't know if you're out there or if you can even hear me." Kosaku thought as he curled up. "But if you are, listen up! If I can erase that shame with this fist, then you can have everything else. Take the food, take my looks, take everything… just as long as I still have this fist to defeat the past and win the future!"
The young boxer uncorked himself, delivering an uppercut that thrust itself at the Heavens as if demanding an answer. The bang of his glove colliding with the mitt caused everyone else to stop and gawk. Ranma was left on his tippy toes to keep from being flung away with such a tremendous blow.
"That's what I want out of you, Future World Champ!" Ranma said with a giant grin. "Your body is already starting to recover the shape it needs. Take a breather, I need to put Ishida through his paces, then you're sparring with Shunpei."
"Thank you very much!" Kosaku said, breathing heavily as he exited the ring. "More… I need to do more!"
When Kosaku arrived home later, there waiting on the stoop of his apartment building was what appeared to be an angel relaying a gift from the Gods. Okay, it was just Ukyo but she was a sight for sore eyes. He stopped and appreciated the sight, knowing she was only here because of the business deal she had struck with Ranma and Kodachi, but it was hard to care.
"Good evening, Kuonji-san." Kosaku said respectfully. "I hope today has been profitable."
"Oh it has, it has Hacchan." Ukyo said with a smile, looking down at the okonomiyaki for a second. "But this is important. You're my friend and I want you to live up to your dream so even if I lost a lot of money I wouldn't care right now."
"I'm glad." Kosaku smiled. "So what's tonight menu?"
"Twice cooked pork okonomiyaki. The spice is of course through the roof but the herbs I put in it will help you sleep and calm your stomach down for the night." Ukyo announced, holding it out to him before adding. "It's made by me, so it'll be the best you've ever had."
With restraint, for him anyways, Kosaku carefully took the okonomiyaki and savored the aroma. "Ahh, smells divine." He took a bite and was punched in the face with the spice. "Sooo hot, but delicious!" He worked his way through it, managing to finish it without crying despite the higher heat.
Ukyo applauded him. "Good job, Hacchan. You're well on your way to getting passed this hurdle."
It took a few gulps of air before his tongue stopped sizzling. Then, Kosaku said, "Thanks, I've got you to help keep me on the road. When I am world champ and people ask for the secret to my punching power, I'll plug you okay?"
"You better, or I'll knock you out myself!" Ukyo gave him a playful swat on the arm. "I'm sure the thought had crossed your mind, about why Ranma didn't just force you to cut the weight."
"It had," Kosaku said, considering that was where his mind went with the whole diet in the first place.
"Well, it's because he grew up travelling the road with his pops." Ukyo said, painting the picture in Kosaku's head. "So he knows the pain of not being able to eat and starving. It's why he stuck to cooking so much, it gave him a way to get food without stealing. He definitely wanted to solve your issue without it, because he knew it'd ruin your body. You're not a pro yet, so you can't be expected to just go full bore like they do. If you think it's hard now, you won't last a day on the Pro's road."
"It wasn't hard at all, I was just weak." Kosaku said with a sigh. "It's regrettable but that's probably my deepest shame. I let myself be defeated by something so easy but now I can finally see what I need." He looked at her for a second, all cute and curvy but also not interested in him. "I need to keep my eyes toward the prize you know? Don't settle for the immediate pleasure, go for the long term success."
"That's how you do it Hacchan." Ukyo said with a grin and a laugh. "I gotta get going, take care now."
Kosaku watched her leave before sighing deep and heavily. "I wonder, did I fall in love with her or her food? Man, it doesn't matter, she's out of my league anyways. Maybe someday I'll meet a girl for me and it won't be a total mess."
With that thought, the young boxer went on home to rest for the evening, the first good sleep he's had in months.
Beneath the late evening night sky, Nabiki and Kasumi sat on the back patio of the Tendo home, enjoying the summer night. Tea and cookies were set on a tray between them, while a laptop computer was in front of Nabiki, who was comfortably cross-legged on a folded blanket. Nabiki was composing an email, yet another shot in a long correspondence she'd been involved in on behalf of Kodachi.
"What a crazy couple of weeks it's been, huh?" Nabiki asked as she finished sending the email. The responses so far had been very favorable.
Nice as summer could be, it was well known for its storms.
Kasumi nodded in agreement. "A lot has happened, yes…"
"It's not going to calm down any, either," Nabiki went on. "It's a long school year ahead of us, our row isn't something that's going to be over before the summer break begins."
Butsumetsu being taken down a peg was easy for sure, but now that she was getting a picture of the scene at Tomobiki via her correspondence, she couldn't shake the feeling that the fights to come wouldn't be as easy as Kodachi was ramping everyone up to believe. The show of force had certainly had its effect, and now everyone was scrambling for whatever power they could have lest they get shown some force, too.
Kasumi sighed a bit wistfully. "I wish my high school days were as exciting."
"Yours were a different kind of exciting," Nabiki teased.
Kasumi giggled before she took a sip of her tea.
Closing her laptop, Nabiki looked back at the partially ajar patio door. Soun and Genma were playing shogi, while watching the news, so they were completely unaware and out of earshot.
"Hey, speaking of excitement, if Katie does manage to win Akane over to the lily side of things… where do you want to go with this?"
"Do you mean with Katie or with…?" Kasumi led.
"With the engagement, and I guess with Katie. I mean, it's not like either of us don't know what's going on, and I guess Ranma's involved now too in this growing pile of bodies."
Kasumi nodded in agreement. It was only a matter of time, naturally, before Ranma became involved with one of those tempting young women, and she was pretty certain that Misao was the one who won him over.
"We should invite them over for dinner," Kasumi suggested. "It seems that whenever we communicate, someone is left out of the chain that has to be told later. It's getting complex, taboo even… there will be so much that needs to be aired out."
Nabiki stared at her sister for a long, silent moment, before she flat out said it. "Are you sure you don't have some kind of lewd ulterior motive?"
"No!" Kasumi exclaimed, before she wore a teasing smile of her own. "But now it's in my head~"
A snort left Nabiki's nostrils, before she looked up at the night sky. "Can we play around a little bit more, before we start having to get serious?"
"Now who's being lewd?" Kasumi asked.
"You are, you know what I meant," Nabiki snapped back at her.
Kasumi giggled once more, before she took a look at her cellphone's display. It was late and Akane wasn't home yet.
"I think I was right, by the way," Kasumi said. "It's been about a week."
Nabiki closed her eyes, and let out a chuckle. "Yeah."
Under the same night sky, but completely oblivious to it, Misao say back and laughed as Ranma flailed while desperately trying to not get shot in a violent game of hide and seek involving props, hunters in HAZMAT uniforms, and banana men.
The buzz of her phone caught her attention, an easy feat given its storage between her breasts. Plucking it from her cleavage, she swiped the screen and found a message from Katie. After reading it, she smiled and glanced in Ranma's direction warmly.
The good news could wait for after the stream. Ranma would be very happy to know they had the whole apartment to themselves for the night.
After hearing of his triumph with Kosaku, Ranma deserved some proper praise.
"Ahh he got me!" Ranma cried out in sudden dismay as her hiding place was literally blown open. "That damn Banana Bastard!"
Misao tossed her head back and laughed.
Lowering her phone, Katie let go a soft chuckle, and looked over to Akane as the two walked down an empty street. The two had spent the entire afternoon and evening to this point just walking around the neighborhood, getting a feel for the new dynamic–the shifted status quo.
"So, feel any different?" She asked her.
Akane, whose cheeks were making her name apt at this moment, looked at Katie then away again. She had a small, but happy smile. "Is different good or bad? I feel… good, but-"
"It's hard to articulate, huh?" Katie asked. "I was the same way when I realized I liked boys."
Akane gave Katie a look when the foreigner laughed again, but resumed smiling. "I don't think I'm going to go crazy for every girl I meet. I mean, the list of ones that do stuff for me is pretty short."
"A list have you, hm?" Katie asked with a smile that now promised vicious teasing.
Seeing that smile, and ready for her, Akane chose to deny her by owning it. "It's a short one, really short, and you're number two."
Katie gave pause. "Number two?"
"You don't walk around in a leotard all day."
Okay, Katie couldn't argue. "Okay, that's fair. I will take second place to that."
She then smirked. "Or would you prefer I wore less, you pervert?"
"No comment." No need for one, the dark flush on her face spoke volumes.
Katie rounded her, and Akane stopped to look up at her face
"You can get a look now, if you want to," she offered.
Akane's blush only became darker. "I… don't know if I can go there yet. This is still so new to me, just k-kissing is a big deal."
"That's okay," Katie reassured her, "No rush, no fuss. I'll go at your pace. Be the bisexual you want to be." She punctuated her encouraging words by leaning forward and kissing Akane on her forehead. "Still, you have no idea how happy I am, Akaneko."
Akane had an idea, as she cupped Katie's face and pulled her down a little lower to kiss her chastely. Against her lips, Katie let out a laugh, before breaking the kiss and resting her forehead against hers.
"C'mon," she said, "Let's get over to your house, then."
"Sure thing," Akane replied, as they turned and left together, hand in hand.
They were being watched, their walk to the Tendo Dojo seen through a scope. On the other end of the scope, attached to a Gewehr 98 Bolt Action Rifle, the viewer lowered the weapon and smiled warmly before she said in English. "She's grown up so much."
Besides the woman, dressed in a black evening dress and a black sheer veil, was an equally young nun dressed in pure white, a stark contrast to the grim attire of her companion. She was looking through the two with a pair of binoculars, and wearing a shocked expression.
"Two women, doing such things in public…" the nun in white said in an uncertain tone, with Japanese accented English.
"Live and let live," the woman in black said. "Long as they search for the Lord and have goodwill, who should we be to judge?"
"That's an odd thing to say given you're aiming a rifle at their backs."
The woman in black chuckled. "I have no intention of shooting them, Angela."
She raised her rifle against her shoulder and pushed up her shroud so she could watch them from the distance. To the departing couple, she spoke.
"Not before I see you one last time, mi perrita."
Separation anxiety was something normally experienced by children, normally small toddlers who could now recognize that the particular caregiver in their life was absent for longer than it took for them to come rushing to their cries. However, Genma Saotome was a man well in touch with his inner-child, so to be separated from someone who he had spent so much of his continuous time with consistently, even more than his best friend and master, even more than his wife, was finally starting to weigh down on a man in his early 40s–er… mid 30s.
"I'm still a man in my prime," Genma grumbled after glaring off at nothing. He was outside of Dr. Tofu's clinic after acting as Mr. Panda, the helpful assistant to the Doctor that managed to draw in quite a crowd of people. It was not much, but it paid enough for what a roving martial artist like himself needed.
Though the doctor's needling him about Kasumi and any possible interest in Ranma was off-putting. He had to tell him three times over in as many hours that Nabiki seemed more interested in the boy than either of her sisters. How such a well-to-do man just couldn't step up and land an obviously single and desirable woman like Kasumi was beyond him.
Men who neglected their women didn't get to keep them for very long–with him being the obvious exception of course.
All this was beside the point. Since the boy had gone to live with that AV girl and that wild animal, he'd hardly seen hide or hair of him in person. Sure he'd see he was doing fine was on plenty of youtube videos, cooking all kinds of dishes he'd evidently been holding out on him or playing video games in his cursed form–much to his chagrin of course. A stubborn man and filled with pride, Genma Saotome was not one to admit it aloud, but he wanted to see his son again.
"He could at least show some gratitude!" Genma snapped to himself as he trudged to the Tendo Dojo. "Maybe share a little in that wealth of his he's no doubt making."
Honestly, Italy?! That AV Girl took him to Italy! For a cooking show episode!
"I bust my ass for sixteen years training him! Sixteen years! The very least he could do is pay me back for my troubles!" He complained to the heavens.
As it turned out, Ranma was generous when it came to paying what he's owed.
"Hey there, Genma-san."
The voice of the young woman who called out to him, with that thick Osakan accent, caused Genma's blood to curdle. There was only one person with an accent that obvious to be on a first name basis with him. When he whirled around, it was too late, a large okonomiyaki smacked into his face, the freshly fried confection sizzling loudly as it burned against his face.
Genma promptly began screaming from the burn, and struggled to rip off the okonomiyaki… which only caused it to explode, blasting him into a telephone pole.
His face blackened and reddened by the smoke and heat, Genma sat there in a gaze, before looking up and finding Ukyo looming over him, spinning another such okonomiyaki on her fingertip.
Ah, Ukyo Kuonji, the girl whose father he talked into giving him his okonomiyaki cart in exchange for an engagement to Ranma that he promptly fled from honoring. She was certainly up there in people he did not want to see standing over him with weapons in hand.
"Hey there, old man…" She said with a grin better reserved for a Hellsing character. "… I've been lookin' for you for a long time, and I think it's a good opportunity more than ever for me to demonstrate what I've been up to since we last met."
Before Genma could attempt to get a word edgewise, the okonomiyaki spinning on her finger went spinning into his face, and sizzled up again nice and hot before exploding again to the sound of his scream.
… Which was cut off by more explosions that went well into an otherwise peaceful night.
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 11/?
|Back in the Ring|
Kosaku almost decided on skipping school the next morning. There was no way he could walk through that gate and face his classmates, especially the members of the club he'd formerly been Captain of. The idea, the fear of having to carry the stigma of being the first Captain to lose his position for such a humiliating reason should've tipped him towards just laying in bed and not bothering to get up.
He didn't want to miss the usual breakfast deals offered by the shops along the way though, so it was a simple matter of cajoling a bit of money from his mother, slipping on his uniform and heading out the door.
"At least there's the food, I can't be banned from eating," he said as he reached the bottom of the stairs of his apartment–expecting to find Ukyo's cart waiting outside with griddle sizzling.
Instead he found an empty spot that Ukyo had occupied for days on end.
"Huh? What…?" He looked around, confused. There was no sign of her anywhere.
His heart fell, he'd been hoping to just pig out today. It wasn't like there was anything left for him to do.
"Was it something I said?" He asked before he began up the street towards the school.
Or did she pity him? He really hoped it wasn't that… he didn't need her pity, just something to eat.
Shaking his head, he began jogging up the street, a habit ingrained in him by boxing and made moot by his voracious eating. He would just head up to the Donburi shop and have a little extra of a tasty breakfast bowl. Or rather he would if the sign on the door didn't say it was closed.
"What?!" Pulling a phone out of his pocket, Kosaku checked the time, and realized the place should've been open an hour ago. "Why the heck…?"
He turned and jogged faster up the road. The ramen cart! He could grab something to eat there, and–it was closed too. The cart wasn't set up and the owner was completely absent.
As it turned out, the convenience store was closed, too, as was the bakery. The Taiyaki stand being shut down was the final straw, and Kosaku was soon charging towards the school, his stomach growling and his vision red. All of his favorite places to stop and eat closed? Even if it meant hurting their business by turning away other customers? Hatanaka Kosaku may be a glutton, but he wasn't an idiot! He knew that someone powerful was manipulating things!
It was bad enough that he was being thrown out of boxing, but to punish him like this?! Now he was furious!
"WHERE IS HE?!" Kosaku shouted as he reached the schoolyard. "WHERE'S SAOTOME?!"
Behind him the gates of the school slammed shut, startling him, and Kosaku realized that nearly every student in the school was standing in a broad circle around the path leading to the building's steps–the ring bordered by the school's male students, who all stood at-ease with their arms folded behind their backs and their feet spaced. On the other side of the circle, Ranma stood waiting, holding up a large cast-iron tower shield at his side.
"I'm right here," Ranma said. Behind him, up on the steps, Nabiki, Akane, and Katie stood with Kodachi, who was wearing a look of pure scorn that she leveled directly upon Kosaku.
Seeing Kodachi's harsh glare, Kosaku paled and tensed up. He was glad that, far as he knew, looks couldn't kill–he'd be dead where he stood, burned to ash, if they could.
If her look was dangerous, her words were near fatal.
"Hatanaka Kosaku! You stand before I, the Black Rose Kuno Kodachi, accused of failing to live up to the expectations set when you were chosen as Captain of the Boxing Club. You are also being charged with fraud, misappropriation of Student Council assets, and embarrassing the name of my Furinkan High School through the sin of your filthy gluttony!"
Kosaku's mouth fell open, as the frustration that brought him here became horror as Kodachi exposed him properly.
"Only by the miracle of your overeating habit being detected, has this establishment been spared the humiliation of what your vice would bring to the school. Had it not, however, we would've had to bear the shame of a boxer who cannot make weight!" Kodachi thundered on, her vehemence carrying across the field.
She focused all of that ire upon the target of her contempt. "What do you say, in your defense, Hatanaka Kosaku?! Are you not the glutton who cannot control his desires?! Are you more a pig than pigs themselves?! Do you have the courage to lie before the truth that has been laid bare?!"
Kosaku, his body tense, tried to look away from his peers, but he couldn't. Wherever he turned, he was met by disapproving looks, disbelieving eyes, and vicious words muttered about him… at him…
"I… I…" He began.
"I took the liberty of closing every restaurant, cart, stand, and market within two kilometers of this school to prove a point," she went on, "That you would come here. Frustrated, furious! Was I not correct? For what reason did you demand Saotome Ranma? To beg for your post back, for a final chance to live your dream? Or was it the food you wanted?"
Kosaku stopped again, any words he'd been trying to say as she spoke withering away. He tried to look away from her again, but this time when he did he saw Ishida just behind Ranma, his face stony and eyes brimming with contempt. Next to him, Shunpei looked about ready to cry, the first year witnessing the humiliation and fall of the person he once called Captain.
"It doesn't matter what you say, for I have made your answer for you. The only reason you are here, Hatanaka Kosaku, is to reclaim your position as Captain of the Boxing Club. I will allow this, only on the condition that you conquer the beast that is your gluttony. For a man enslaved by his vice is no man, he is the vice incarnate."
She brought up her hand to toss back her long side-tail. "To that, what do you say? Will you accept my unwarranted generosity?"
Kosaku couldn't believe it, was… was he really being given another chance? In spite of what Saotome said? It was too good to be true… he couldn't just expect to have it all just like that?
"Y-yes! Of course!" He shouted back. "I want to! I will! I promise I won't let you down, I swear it on my-"
"Silence," Kodachi cut him off. "Do not merely tell me that you will do what I ask of you, any worthless filth can say sweet words. A man shows his resolve in his action."
She gestured down to Ranma. "Punch Saotome with all of your might, with every ounce of your resolve, and I will measure it from here."
At that Ranma smirked and readied the tower shield he had with him. Kosaku looked from her to Ranma, a bit disbelieving. This was his trial? One punch?
"You want me… to punch him?" He asked after looking back up at her.
"Can you?" Kodachi asked.
Kosaku looked at his fist, and then at Ranma, who just smirked and gestured for Kosaku to come at him. "Come on, Hatanaka, show me what you've got under all of that flab! This is the only chance you've got, and if you don't show me something worth working with, you don't have to worry about coming back to school, either!"
"That's correct, if I cannot see an ounce of resolve from you," Kodachi declared, "I will see to it that you are banned from every boxing ring and every restaurant in Tokyo. They will know your face as that of failure, an untouchable beast. From here on, your fate is in your own fist!"
Hearing that, Kosaku clenched his hand into a fist. His fate… in his fist?
Ranma got ready. "I'm waiting, Hatanaka!"
Kosaku looked straight ahead, at Ranma, and tightened his fist further. "My fate… it's all mine. I can't blame anyone if I lose here, just me…"
He immediately thought of what happened yesterday, and the week before. "I'll only have myself to blame. And there's no going back after this. If I fail here, I won't be able to eat at my favorite restaurants-"
Kosaku squashed that train of thought. "No… I won't be able to box! Ever again!"
He then dug his feet into the sidewalk, and shot forward, accelerating straight towards Ranma with both fists coming to his chest and then rising up to guard like a boxer charging his opponent.
"If I can't box… then what will I be…?!"
Fire began to burn in his eyes, as he closed the distance.
"A loser…? A guy who eats a lot…?!"
He moved faster, as he drew his right to launch it.
"I won't…!"
Upon reaching Ranma, he fired his punch, aiming straight for Ranma's face like he was going to punch through his head.
"I WANT TO BE A BOXER!" He yelled as his fist traveled to connect with its target.
A tremendous clang sounded instead, as Kosaku's fist plunged into the face of the tower shield Ranma had carried, the metal vibrating at high frequency from the force of the impact. An instant later, there was a tremendous gust of wind as the shockwave blasted off the shield in every direction, blowing back against Kosaku as well, the abrupt wind sweeping his short bangs up into sharp spikes without the need of any hair gel. The same wind buffeted the other students, and kicked up a great cloud of dust behind and to Kosaku's side, causing the other students to cover their faces and turn their heads to shield their eyes.
When the wind died down, the stunned Kosaku was even more shocked to see a large, deep crack appear in the iron shield, before it fell away in two halves that then crumbled to the ground, revealing Ranma standing behind it, clapping his hands.
"Did… did I just do that…?" Kosaku wondered to himself, as he looked at his still outstretched fist. It tingled, but it didn't hurt at all!
"Then a boxer you will be," Kodachi decreed. "Your resolve has moved me, Hatanaka Kosaku, I will sit no more on this matter, I look forward to the success and accolades you bring to Furinkan High School."
She turned away, and looked back towards Ranma. "Saotome, see to absolving him of his sin."
"Will do," Ranma said as the crowd of yammering onlookers began to disperse as well. "Hatanaka, let's get going!"
"To train?" Kosaku asked as he shook his hand.
"Training the usual way is impossible," Ranma said. "Nope, I'm going to show you how you're going to beat this eating problem of yours."
He gestured to him. "We're going to the kitchen, get going."
Kosaku gaped in confusion.
The kitchen?
|Don't Fear the (Carolina) Reaper|
Ranma walked ahead of Kosaku, keeping the pace brisk enough so the boy wouldn't lose interest and wander off. It was certain to be a bafflement, how cooking was going to fix Kosaku's problem with food. Ranma could tell the boy was dreading being fed until he would get sick at the idea of being fed, but that was far too mundane.
Still, he could alleviate a few of the boxer's concern. "See Hatanaka, the problem is that the stuff you eat is passable but unremarkable. Because of that, you just stuff your face out of habit. So you, with your amnesia of the event, thusly eat again because you don't remember. And hey, maybe deep down you just like to eat and eat, but you have to sacrifice something to get anywhere."
"I'm ready, I just don't-" Kosaku tried to speak up and reassure the Chairman. He was for real now, he was going to be a man. The man now, just show him the way.
"-Understand how this will help. Well, we just need to do more than closing places close to you in order to get you to stop!" Ranma finished for him. "You need to eat something that will keep you honest on your diet."
He opened the door, being dutifully followed by Kosaku.
"How are you Hatchan?" Ukyo asked, standing by one of the stern looking cook ladies.
"U-Ukyo-san?! But-" Kosaku sputtered.
"I got paid to close up for today." Ukyo revealed, cutting off the boxer before he could do something to raise the ire of everyone else. "Plus I got a nice little bonus for helping you keep your diet."
"Huh?" Kosaku's brain broke at the idea of her helping him.
"The President took care of talking it over with your folks, so you're not going to be eating your mom's probably fantastic cooking until we can balance out your weight and nutrition." Ranma said, "Instead, you're going to be eating a special okonomiyaki for breakfast and dinner, plus a new bento that only you'll get."
"And I'm getting paid rather amazingly for this so don't screw this up for me Hachan. I want my own brick and mortar shop." Ukyo added, giving him a glare.
"I wouldn't dream of it! Not now not ever!" Kosaku replied. "If I did that, I would have to slit my belly to recover from the shame."
"That's sweet of you," Ranma said with an amused expression. "And that's why I'm here. Your belly stays intact and gets to sample some good stuff." He cracked his knuckles. "Wait here, I'll make your breakfast."
Off Ranma went amongst the various burners and equipment.
"Does he know what he's doing?" Kosaku felt he needed to ask.
"Sure does; when it comes to food he cooks like he fights. Which is to say better than ninety-five percent of the world." Ukyo said, shrugging.
"Really?" Kosaku asked.
Ukyo nodded. "Yeah. We grew up together, and I'd make him Okonomiyaki he used to go crazy for before he left. That rubbed off on him, because when we met again about four years ago he had started cooking and was amazing at it."
She then smirked. "He thinks of a dish like an opponent, and the prep how to beat it. The result is food that doesn't just taste good, you feel good after eating it."
"What a talented guy." Kosaku found his respect for the Chairman deepening by the second.
It looked like he was sauteing ground pork now, the smell of spices beginning to fill the air.
"Is… is this mapo tofu?" Kosaku asked, he wasn't much for Chinese but he learned the names of all foods just in case.
"When it's my turn you'll understand everything, Hachan." Ukyo reassured him. "If not for me, your dreams would truly be dead."
"Really?" Kosaku was kind of surprised.
"Ranma's dead set on helping you out but he doesn't have time to babysit you. That's part of where I come in, because I can help deliver your 'medicine' to you." Ukyo explained, cracking her knuckles. "Looks like it's about time."
"Ukyo, you're up!" Ranma called, as he dished up the Mapo Tofu into a holding container.
"Hell yeah!" Ukyo took Ranma's spot, beginning to make an okonomiyaki.
"Chairman." Kosaku said it with full respect. "Mapo tofu?"
"Listen, Hatanaka, when it comes to cooking, the only thing that separates truly great cooking and the merely good is the impact it leaves. You consume good food en masse because it fills you up and leaves you feeling comfortable even after you've almost eaten yourself sick, because you want to feel good and feel the things good food makes you feel."
Kosaku nodded. "Yeah, I've been there."
"But what was the last great thing you ate? The thing that sticks out in your memory because it hit you so hard with flavor that you remember the day, time, what you were wearing and the song on the radio?" Ranma explained in a lecturing tone.
"The first time I had an okonomiyaki from Ukyo." Kosaku didn't even need to think about it. He had been out jogging for a while, trying to feel like a boxer when he saw the yattai and smelled the food. Oh it smelled like heaven on earth and tasted even better.
"How she gets you, you're still chasing that taste." Ranma confirmed with a snicker. "Which proves the point, you eat a lot because it doesn't hit you like it should."
Kosaku seemed doubtful when the completed Mapo Tofu okonomiyaki was held out to him. He swallowed a sudden mouthful of drool.
"This will knock your appetite right out," Ranma reassured him.
"You'll understand once you taste it." Ukyo assured him. "I had my doubts but I tried it and it took me by surprise too."
"Eat up, this is all you get for breakfast." Ranma ordered.
Kosaku licked his lips in anticipation and took that first bite. Immediately, he was hit by a fierce bolt of spice and flavor. It almost staggered him as he chewed the food, pulses of numbing and heat causing his face to flush. He had to take a breather after that first bite, trying to cool down. "It's soooo hot but it's too delicious to stop!"
He attacked the okonomiyaki with abandon, as the heat of the food made his eyes water as well as his nose. He occasionally complained, but he just could not put it down. He had to eat more more more! And indeed it burned and burned!
"It was so good!" Kosaku announced after he finished, his lips stained red with sauce. "Oh my… oh my!"
"How do you feel?" Ranma asked with a slight smirk.
"Like I lit my face on fire yet I loved every second of it." Kosaku was cleaning up the remains that he could see or feel on him.
"How about something else? A lobster special?" Ukyo offered, presenting an already prepared example before him.
On sight, Kosaku's face twisted in pain, as if he was being stabbed some invisible knife. "No… no that's fine. I'm... I'm not…"
He stopped, his eyes widening. "I'm not… hungry?"
He wasn't. He didn't have any appetite at all for seconds!
"And you won't be for a while, at least until lunch." Ranma said
Kosaku looked up at Ukyo, then at Ranma, disbelieving. "W-what did you do?!"
"A combination of medicinal Chinese and Sichuan cooking, this Mapo Tofu Hatanaka Special works in two fold," Ranma explained. "First, you'll note that the thought of eating something else now repulses you. That's because the herbs in the okonomiyaki batter are the same concoction put into porridge to help people with stomach problems keep it down as well as them wanting more of the porridge only. Add in the spice work used in the mapo tofu to create an addicting quality that makes you keep eating it even as you cry in pain and agony."
"Which," Ukyo continued, "basically means you'll only want to eat that again right now. Of course, we won't make it for you meaning you can keep your diet."
A lot of this was going over Kosaku's head, but the fact that he didn't want to eat made it pretty obvious that it was working.
"Right now, we're removing old lingering pockets of bad juju that are floating in your system as well as the lingering traces of other nasties," Ukyo went on, "As you progress this diet menu, you'll go on to revitalize, reinvigorate and reinforce, allowing you to get back into shape."
"The goal is that you'll eventually learn to curb your appetite on your own." Ranma said, nodding his head. "At that point, you should be ready to retake your previous seat as captain."
Kosaku, though he didn't get most of the talk, got the most important part: follow the diet, conquer his eating problem. "I understand, but Chairman, you did miscalculate one thing: I'm still hungry."
Ranma and Ukyo both looked at him in surprise.
"… For training that is! I have to get in shape!" Kosaku said with a smirk. "I wanna box!"
Ranma laughed at the joke, once he realized that Kosaku was only meaning he wanted to work out. "Okay, we'll spend a little more on going over the menu with you before you start training."
Kosaku nodded, a fire burning deep in his soul. Today was his first step!
|Discarding what breaks us|
"Three hundred meters, or nine hundred eighty-four feet."
Thirteen year old Katie, wearing a wetsuit, stared down at the cold, dark blue waters of the Bay of Biscay, and the buoy that bobbed in the water in front of the yacht she stood at the bow of. She looked back at her Uncle, who was reading a handheld depth meter. Nick held it away from him, and then turned to look at her with a grin. "Water's pretty frigid, a balmy fifteen degrees celsius, and about five celsius at the bottom."
Katie didn't react to her Uncle's taunting, she remained focused on the water, her green eyed gaze following the rope that led from the buoy down into the waters until she just couldn't see it anymore. Three hundred meters. Nine-hundred eighty-four feet. A third of a kilometer. Almost a fifth of a mile.
Then another voice spoke. "If the cold doesn't kill you at the surface, it will at the bottom. But that shouldn't bother you, should it, mi perrita?"
Katie did react this time, looking towards an older teenaged girl wearing a black and white one piece bathing suit and holding above her head a dark parasol. A girl as pale as her, with black hair braided into a ponytail over her shoulder. Her hair and her eyes were her most distinguishing feature–a dog-like merle pattern of white and gray splotches decorated her ink-colored hair, while her the irises of her eyes were a vivid titanium white.
The girl strode over to the edge of the boat, Katie watching her every move, before she joined her and looked down at the water with her. "It's only three hundred meters, it shouldn't take you more than fifteen minutes."
Katie looked back down at the water.
"You sound like you've been further," Nick said, his tone inferring that he knew full well she had.
"Further, deeper. The bottom of the sea is a playground in the dark that all can frolic in… they just need to let go of the fragility of their humanity."
Katie nodded in agreement, before the other girl looped her arm around hers and leaned closer to her, resting the side of her head against hers. "Are you ready?"
Katie drew in a breath, and nodded slowly as she took the girl's hand in her own..
The other girl, their guide and Katie's instructor for this summer–a brilliant underwater combat expert named Lida Ysidro–smiled. "Then let's go play in the dark."
Their fingers interlacing, both girls leaped from the boat and crashed into the cold water below.
It was the shock of much warmer water that snapped Katie out of her daze, as she found herself amidst the swirling foam of bubbles her jumping into the pool created. Through the cloud of rapidly ascending air pockets, she could see Akane touch her feet down on the bottom of the pool, her long dark-blue hair trailing up behind her on a cloud of bubbles that had yet to escape to the surface. She was looking at her, and only her, no sign of panic to be seen as she stood on the bottom.
With an encouraging nod from her senpai, Akane crouched and jumped for the surface, using the strength of her legs to propel her to the surface. Katie was right behind her, accelerating with arms outstretched to catch her as she surfaced, to be the life preserver that kept her stable and afloat.
"I did it… I did by myself!" Akane exclaimed. "Down and back up!"
"Congrats." Katie said, with a laugh and a smile. "You're getting better!"
Akane decided to luxuriate in the feeling of her success and of Katie's arms around her. It wasn't something she was normally used to, feeling this close with another girl. But that feeling of safety and warmth made it all okay.
"Ne, Akaneko, are you going to cuddle me all afternoon or are we going to keep training?" Katie teasingly whispered to her.
"Oh... uh, sorry." Akane blushed a little, feeling only slightly embarrassed. "I just need to cool down a bit."
That's what she said anyways.
"Hey don't mind it." Katie said, sporting an amused smile. "But we are here to learn you to sink and swim."
Akane nodded. "Yeah, I know."
"Good to go again?" She asked as she pulled back a bit.
Akane nodded, and took a deep breath before Katie let go of her and both girls descended to the bottom of the pool like stones, this time with much fewer bubbles obscuring their view of one another.
It was honestly a wonder to see the world underwater and look right at Katie, that was how Akane's mind filtered it all. Even as they began to piston up and down, all without creating a froth so they could enjoy this sight over and over. There were fewer breaks once they really got going, as if they were challenging each other to some kind of competition based on underwater squat thrusts.
What was this blissful feeling, the winding caress of the water as she plunged and ascended, and why had she been so afraid of it? Akane Tendo, the girl who launched people through the air like paper dolls, had allowed herself to be suckered by the talk of impossible. Her own mind had weighed her down and given rise to the fear that had prevented her from experiencing this bliss.
No longer, that was the conclusion she had come to after all this.
"Whew." Katie said when she and Akane had finished a long routine of plunges. "I think you're getting it down. All we need to do now is get you ready to actually move in the horizontal part of the water."
"Just as long as I remember that up and down are still a thing." Akane said with a shrug. "And that you're still with me."
"I won't let you down as long as you don't make me." Katie said, adding a quick hug to her hold to remind Akane not to take offense.
"Right." Akane allowed herself to be dragged back to the edge, where she was able to climb out. Surprisingly, Yuka and Sayuri were waiting outside the pool.
"Akane-chan, I see you're making progress." Sayuri said, being the more polite of the pair. They had arrived about five minutes ago to find Katie-senpai and Akane locked in some kind elaborate water based dance routine and they were still a bit off guard.
"Just a bit." Akane said, with a smile. "I'm almost ready to start swimming around."
"That's awesome." Yuka said, almost meaning it. She was watching Katie in the background and how the girl was taking the opportunity to cut loose since Akane was no longer in the immediate area. She was going back and forth underwater at high speed without breaking the water tension. "You're almost out of your anchor prison."
"I'm still going to sink." Akane admitted, shrugging a little. "I just don't have to panic as much."
The sound of Katie breaking the water's surface in a graceful leap that defied physics so much that seven professors tendered their resignations in disgust caught all three girls' attention. As amazing as all three agreed the girl was, she was just so casually superhuman in the water that it bordered on the ridiculous. She landed back in the water and barely made a ripple, as the water was actually gelatin to her.
"Wow…" Akane stared, eyes sparkling, and for a second she forgot about her friends.
"So, uh," Yuka said, trying to think of how to say this. "Ok, I can't be totally polite about this but when the hell did you jump to the side of lilies and unrequited love?"
Akane turned an uncomprehending look on Yuka. "Eh?"
"She means when did you go from girls who are friends with Katie-senpai to wanting to be her girlfriend." Sayuri clarified.
"I'm… what?" Akane looked confused, before she tried to laugh it off. But the notion stayed there even in the face of disbelief and dismissal. "No no, guys, it's just in your heads."
Sayuri and Yuka looked skeptical at that, but it was apparently not the time to talk about it as Katie launched herself from the pool and landed–completely dry–right by both of them.
"So what's up? You guys don't have a meet for another month so you don't need a captain yet." Katie said, before she leaned in. "Or are you upset that I'm 'monopolizing' all the available Akane time. Because I assure you, all you needed to do is call her to make an appointment."
There was a thick pause following that as the two girls got the idea that she had heard everything.
"Now! If there is anything else you need, feel free to ask." Katie said, standing back up right. "If you'll excuse me, it's lunch time. C'mon Akaneko, Kasumi-senpai said she was going to put something nice together for us, didn't she?" She sauntered away, unmindful of anything else.
Akane nodded and jogged off after her. "She sure did." She looked back and waved at her friends. "See you guys!"
"Told you to call her." Sayuri whispered once they were left alone by the pool.
"Shut up." Yuka snapped as she buried her face in the palm of one of her hands.
A few minutes later Akane stepped into a shower stall in the girl's locker room and started it up, lost in thought. It was pretty clear that something deeper was there to her friendship with the American girl but she wasn't quite sure if it was romantic in nature. She was definitely sure it wasn't like her sisters, but the idea Yuka planted had yet to be uprooted.
"It's only been a day and we're making more progress than in a week." Katie said as she stepped into the stall next to hers.
"Thanks." Akane said with a happy little smile. "I almost can't wait to be able to swim for real and not just in my dreams."
"Almost is right, impatience leads to death." Katie said with a nod as she began to lather up her hair with shampoo. "So what did the gossip girls want?"
"Oh, they're bugging me about my love life." Akane admitted. "They always have overactive imaginations when it comes to me."
"Do they now?" Katie asked.
"Well it's not really strange that they'd fuss over me; what with all the problems I've had with boys, my engagement, and well…"
"Me?" Katie asked with a bit of a grin.
"Yeah," Akane said with a mild flush across her cheeks.
Katie laughed. "Are they shipping us? Who'd have thought girls with boys on the brain like them would be appreciative of that sort of thing?"
Akane flushed a bit brighter, this time at Katie's carefree reply. "Can you blame them? I mean, with all the time we spend together it's not hard for people to believe that there's something going on."
Katie nodded in agreement. "Despite the fact that you are arguably the second straightest girl I've ever met even after your noted attitude towards boys."
"Second?" Akane asked. "I didn't know there could be girls more heterosexual than I."
"She was my very first unrequited love, a girl too good for me." Katie smiled wryly. "She helped me master my swimming too, and taught me Cavitation."
Cavitation, the powerful punching ability Katie demonstrated to Akane the day they began their plunge training, and would teach her when she overcame her swimming deficiency once and for all.
Akane was impressed. "She must really be amazing."
"She is," Katie said, "I've been thinking about her quite a bit since we started training. She was the one who helped me overcome the worst part about swimming for me."
"What was that?"
"Deep water," Katie replied. "I'd been terrified of it from when I was little, after I first saw Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio, and learned how deep and huge the ocean could get. A dense girl like me who can only sink? I was scared for a long time, until she helped me get over it."
"So, kind of like you and me," Akane asked.
Katie closed her eyes and pouted. "Yeah, except I'm not being crushed upon by my determined and lovestruck student."
"Wouldn't it be nice if you were?" She wanted to say it aloud, but Akane bit down on it, her face coloring some. Instead, she opted for something else. "How did she help you overcome it?"
Katie stood under the spray of the shower, her eyes closed, her thoughts going back to the cold waters of the Bay of Biscay, and the descent towards darkness far below.
"Fear is irrational, even when it makes perfect sense to be afraid. She taught me that most of the time when we panic, when we give in to fear, it isn't even because of the thing we fear, but of being unable to do anything about whatever we're afraid of."
The shock of the cold wore off quickly as Katie focused on more important things. Staying close to the cable that led to seafloor. Staying close to Lida. Failure to do either meant certain death.
"Believing that fear lets it win."
Fifty meters, well past what recreational divers considered safe, the point where any help was possible in an emergency had been long passed. A hundred meters, the world record for constant weight without fins… deeper they went, and darker it became, the sun's rays struggling to pierce the water further down.
"The key to overcoming the fear is telling it that it's wrong, and that it's nothing but a remnant of when you didn't know what you could do. It's simple confidence, but that can only come from putting in the work to back it up."
One hundred-fifty meters, the operating depth of most Allied Submarines in World War II. Two hundred, where the Germans could go. Here, the light was almost entirely gone, a faint glow from above. At this depth, the rope had to be illuminated–slow-flashing strobes guiding both girls towards the bottom.
"When you can do it though…" Katie smiled before she washed the soap from her hair.
Three hundred meters. Nine-hundred eighty-four feet. A third of a kilometer. Almost a fifth of a mile. Greater men had died striving for less than what a pair of teenaged girls had achieved. Setting foot down on the cold, silty seafloor, Katie spared a moment to peer in the darkness that surrounded her, illuminated only by the gradual flickers of the lights mounted on the ropes.
And then by something else, a gentle white light that began to spread across the seafloor. Turning around, she looked up and found Lida floating above her, smiling as the gentle white light shined forth from her irises and the white splotches of her otherwise jet black hair.
Katie pulled her head out from under the spray and spat out some of the water that attempted to get into her mouth. "… You'll live a life unlike any other."
In her stall, Akane finished washing her own hair and hummed. "So basically, believe in myself, and I can do anything?"
"Pretty much, I mean… look at all the stuff you can already do. Any part of you that tries to hold you back? It's wrong by default, you're stronger than you think."
Katie finished rinsing off and shut off the shower before running her fingers through her wet hair to make sure she got all of the shampoo. As she stepped out, she turned to see Akane emerge from her stall, wringing the last bit of water from her own damp hair.
Akane looked back up at her, and let out a small laugh. "When you put it like that, what do I have to be afraid of?"
"I don't know, do you?" Katie asked.
Akane's gaze only became more focused. "You know what I'm talking about, senpai."
Taken aback by Akane's tone, Katie closed her eyes and let out a soft laugh. "Yeah, I do."
When she opened her eyes, Akane narrowed the distance between them, but the taller Katie still needed to lean down to erase it completely.
|Hungry for Success|
In the gym of Furinkan High School, Ranma had just finished putting Kosaku through a heavy workout that had gotten the boxer hopeful out of his morning classes. Much of it was focused on both burning calories and shedding weight, as it was reclaiming the snap and crispness to the punches Hatanaka had risen to the top of the Boxing Club with. Still, man cannot live on guts alone and soon Kosaku's was rumbling.
"Ah, I'm hungry." Kosaku said it so matter of factly that it seemed like part of an unseen comedy routine.
"That's fine, the okonomiyaki was to last you until lunch." Ranma said, cracking his knuckles. "Come on, I'll fix you the revised athlete's bento."
"Right away Chairman." Kosaku wasn't about to argue.
Ranma had Kosaku jog, just to burn that little extra bit of calories. Still, they made it to the kitchen and the section reserved from the unofficial Head Chef of Furinkan High. The latter waited in anticipation as the former began to get to work.
"Now, before I start cooking, I'll let you know that even though this is a bento, this will actually be made with French techniques." Ranma said, making sure he had everything ready. "Because I don't really want you to just rely on Sichuan and I'd rather you think of lunch as a reward. You'll still be eating an okonomiyaki off the training menu for dinner tonight, but you have something 'fattening' for right now. But it'll be anything but..."
"Sounds great but… you can cook French food?" Kosaku was amazed. This guy was younger than him but he was so talented.
"Turns out my aptitude for learning techniques expanded outside martial arts." Ranma answered as he began cooking. "Took a little bit of reading plus sitting in on lunch prep here before I got it down. Don't worry though, it won't be exactly butter and beef fat for days. You're going to be burning this off anyways."
"Right." Kosaku said, deciding to shadow box a little as he waited.
It didn't take comparatively long for Ranma to finish the dishes involved in the French Bento for Kosaku. Not that time was an issue, Ranma had all day to put Kosaku's face to the grindstone anyways. Still, the food was done and the boxer was one lecture away from eating.
"Now, French food is pretty novel and yet, still well entrenched from the post-war recovery. Because of how it's cooked, French food comes off as more filling and thus it was more desirable to those starving after the war." Ranma explained, before he gestured to the Bento.
"A few quick French items: A Croque Monsieur sandwich, some sauteed white asparagus, and salmon salade nicoise. The first is a ham and cheese sandwich topped with bechamel sauce and then more cheese to make it crunchy, and the last is a salad prepared with salmon, green beans, potatoes and some hard boiled eggs. All in all, the point is to hit your stomach with some dense and rich flavors to contrast the lightness of the breakfast and dinner."
"Got it." Kosaku was trying not to drool, a hard thing when it smelled so good.
"Just a reminder you will get these 'delicious' bento only if you follow the diet perfectly." Ranma said, holding it back. "If you cheat, and I'm watching you heavily now, you'll get gruel. Flavorless, soul destroying gruel."
His expression and tone then became quite severe. "For. All. Of. Your. Meals."
"You can break my fists if I betray you like that again Chairman." Kosaku said, extending out his right hand in oath. "I will lead Furinkan to its first glory in boxing and then I will conquer the world and bring a world championship to Japan!"
"Thatta boy." Ranma said, passing him the bento. "Now eat up, you have a long day of further training to do before club."
Kosaku didn't need to be told twice, as he attacked the bento with abandon. The flavor hit so hard it was like he was sparring, each bite sending a jolt of deliciousness up his spine. It was almost enough to make him take a knee and surrender but her needed the energy, he need to fuel himself up for what was to come.
A single tear slipped down his cheek, emotions running wild as he realized he didn't deserve the kindness they had offered him. He didn't deserve this. He had been such a heel about it, whining and cursing the guy who wanted him to succeed.
"I've been so stupid." Kosaku said, just barely loud enough to be heard by Ranma. "Even after I wasted your time, and betrayed you… you gave me another chance."
"Well, yeah," Ranma said. "You got something worth believing in there in that fist of yours. What self-respecting martial artist would want to see that go to waste?"
Kosaku looked down at the bento. "Kuno."
The elder of the siblings, naturally.
"After Kuno came here and made this whole school all about him, nobody cared about the other clubs, we fended for ourselves… or we just took the free time for granted." He sighed. "For the first time, there's someone who believes in us. Even a gross overeater like me."
He smiled big then. "I don't want to let you guys down."
Ranma returned the smile. "You won't, trust me. Now let's get your lunch digestin', Hatanaka."
With that, they exited the kitchen for the gym once more, Kosaku jogging the whole way. It was a weird scene, to be sure, with Kosaku laughing as he ran with Ranma keeping up with a serious expression on his face. But there they went, master and disciple, pushing on to take that all important first step to glory.
After several laps around the school, they were back in the gym, where the boxing club had gathered. Even though Hatanaka was still in his redemption tour, he was still regarded as the captain and thus had a duty to those who looked up to him during the time he had been in the seat. It was for this reason he stood before them, to speak to them all about what was to happen now.
"Everyone, let me first apologize for being so weak to let you all down." Kosaku said, looking at all the members. "The truth was… for a while there, I loved to eat more than I loved to box. It took me losing everything to realize that I love boxing more. It's been there for me since I was little and it's the only thing I could ever see myself doing. My eyes are clear and my vision is focused."
"Hatanaka." Ishida said, feeling hope again. "I want to believe in you, but it's hard after the last couple times."
"I know, and I will earn that trust again in time Senpai." Kosaku said with a small smile. "But right now, I'm going to get back down to Flyweight and stay there. Sakigachi's captain is a Flyweight and if we're going to win the meet, I need to be the one to face him. And that's why I'm going to work even harder and follow the diet even all the way to hell if it takes me there. I want to see what the summit looks like and I want to share it with you guys."
"Well shoot Hatanaka!" Shunpei yelled, pumping a fist. "If you're going to talk like that then we're going to make sure you make weight!" The rest of the club made a rousing cheer at that.
"Everyone, thank you." Kosaku said with a smile as he curled his right hand into a fist. "I finally realized it when I hit that shield today, that the weight and all the food ended up dulling my senses. That punch was godawful and not fit to be thrown by even the worst amateur. That's what I allowed myself to become, despite of the power still living in these fists. I refuse to go back to that again, I am Hatanaka Kosaku, the man who will conquer the world of Boxing!."
That brought cheers from everyone in the gym, those who were supposed to be working but were listening in.
"That's right! Why stop with high school?" The Sumo Captain yelled. "Let's all aim for the heights together as men!"
"I'm gonna win olympic gold!" A judoka cried.
"I'm gonna win the world championship in karate!" A karateka followed up.
"Yokozuna!" Several sumos chanted together.
"Ooooh!" The whole gym chorused.
"Well then." Ranma said, clapping his hands. "We got a lot to do then if we're making these dreams come true! Now get to work!"
"YES, CHAIRMAN!" The boys shouted back.
"We were the shameful," Kosaku thought later, as he continued to hit the mitts with Ranma. "We threw in our pride as men and lost our backbones and our guts, because we couldn't believe in ourselves."
His jabs, already starting to look better, met Ranma's mitts with heavy, loud thuds..
"We didn't have the resolve to stand up for ourselves, or for someone who needed us to," Kosaku continued to think, using the emotions swirling inside him to surge along with the demands.
"Come on Kosaku, put your hips into it and actually swing!" Ranma shouted. "Give me an upper worthy of a future world champion!"
"God, I don't know if you're out there or if you can even hear me." Kosaku thought as he curled up. "But if you are, listen up! If I can erase that shame with this fist, then you can have everything else. Take the food, take my looks, take everything… just as long as I still have this fist to defeat the past and win the future!"
The young boxer uncorked himself, delivering an uppercut that thrust itself at the Heavens as if demanding an answer. The bang of his glove colliding with the mitt caused everyone else to stop and gawk. Ranma was left on his tippy toes to keep from being flung away with such a tremendous blow.
"That's what I want out of you, Future World Champ!" Ranma said with a giant grin. "Your body is already starting to recover the shape it needs. Take a breather, I need to put Ishida through his paces, then you're sparring with Shunpei."
"Thank you very much!" Kosaku said, breathing heavily as he exited the ring. "More… I need to do more!"
When Kosaku arrived home later, there waiting on the stoop of his apartment building was what appeared to be an angel relaying a gift from the Gods. Okay, it was just Ukyo but she was a sight for sore eyes. He stopped and appreciated the sight, knowing she was only here because of the business deal she had struck with Ranma and Kodachi, but it was hard to care.
"Good evening, Kuonji-san." Kosaku said respectfully. "I hope today has been profitable."
"Oh it has, it has Hacchan." Ukyo said with a smile, looking down at the okonomiyaki for a second. "But this is important. You're my friend and I want you to live up to your dream so even if I lost a lot of money I wouldn't care right now."
"I'm glad." Kosaku smiled. "So what's tonight menu?"
"Twice cooked pork okonomiyaki. The spice is of course through the roof but the herbs I put in it will help you sleep and calm your stomach down for the night." Ukyo announced, holding it out to him before adding. "It's made by me, so it'll be the best you've ever had."
With restraint, for him anyways, Kosaku carefully took the okonomiyaki and savored the aroma. "Ahh, smells divine." He took a bite and was punched in the face with the spice. "Sooo hot, but delicious!" He worked his way through it, managing to finish it without crying despite the higher heat.
Ukyo applauded him. "Good job, Hacchan. You're well on your way to getting passed this hurdle."
It took a few gulps of air before his tongue stopped sizzling. Then, Kosaku said, "Thanks, I've got you to help keep me on the road. When I am world champ and people ask for the secret to my punching power, I'll plug you okay?"
"You better, or I'll knock you out myself!" Ukyo gave him a playful swat on the arm. "I'm sure the thought had crossed your mind, about why Ranma didn't just force you to cut the weight."
"It had," Kosaku said, considering that was where his mind went with the whole diet in the first place.
"Well, it's because he grew up travelling the road with his pops." Ukyo said, painting the picture in Kosaku's head. "So he knows the pain of not being able to eat and starving. It's why he stuck to cooking so much, it gave him a way to get food without stealing. He definitely wanted to solve your issue without it, because he knew it'd ruin your body. You're not a pro yet, so you can't be expected to just go full bore like they do. If you think it's hard now, you won't last a day on the Pro's road."
"It wasn't hard at all, I was just weak." Kosaku said with a sigh. "It's regrettable but that's probably my deepest shame. I let myself be defeated by something so easy but now I can finally see what I need." He looked at her for a second, all cute and curvy but also not interested in him. "I need to keep my eyes toward the prize you know? Don't settle for the immediate pleasure, go for the long term success."
"That's how you do it Hacchan." Ukyo said with a grin and a laugh. "I gotta get going, take care now."
Kosaku watched her leave before sighing deep and heavily. "I wonder, did I fall in love with her or her food? Man, it doesn't matter, she's out of my league anyways. Maybe someday I'll meet a girl for me and it won't be a total mess."
With that thought, the young boxer went on home to rest for the evening, the first good sleep he's had in months.
|It's All Good|
Beneath the late evening night sky, Nabiki and Kasumi sat on the back patio of the Tendo home, enjoying the summer night. Tea and cookies were set on a tray between them, while a laptop computer was in front of Nabiki, who was comfortably cross-legged on a folded blanket. Nabiki was composing an email, yet another shot in a long correspondence she'd been involved in on behalf of Kodachi.
"What a crazy couple of weeks it's been, huh?" Nabiki asked as she finished sending the email. The responses so far had been very favorable.
Nice as summer could be, it was well known for its storms.
Kasumi nodded in agreement. "A lot has happened, yes…"
"It's not going to calm down any, either," Nabiki went on. "It's a long school year ahead of us, our row isn't something that's going to be over before the summer break begins."
Butsumetsu being taken down a peg was easy for sure, but now that she was getting a picture of the scene at Tomobiki via her correspondence, she couldn't shake the feeling that the fights to come wouldn't be as easy as Kodachi was ramping everyone up to believe. The show of force had certainly had its effect, and now everyone was scrambling for whatever power they could have lest they get shown some force, too.
Kasumi sighed a bit wistfully. "I wish my high school days were as exciting."
"Yours were a different kind of exciting," Nabiki teased.
Kasumi giggled before she took a sip of her tea.
Closing her laptop, Nabiki looked back at the partially ajar patio door. Soun and Genma were playing shogi, while watching the news, so they were completely unaware and out of earshot.
"Hey, speaking of excitement, if Katie does manage to win Akane over to the lily side of things… where do you want to go with this?"
"Do you mean with Katie or with…?" Kasumi led.
"With the engagement, and I guess with Katie. I mean, it's not like either of us don't know what's going on, and I guess Ranma's involved now too in this growing pile of bodies."
Kasumi nodded in agreement. It was only a matter of time, naturally, before Ranma became involved with one of those tempting young women, and she was pretty certain that Misao was the one who won him over.
"We should invite them over for dinner," Kasumi suggested. "It seems that whenever we communicate, someone is left out of the chain that has to be told later. It's getting complex, taboo even… there will be so much that needs to be aired out."
Nabiki stared at her sister for a long, silent moment, before she flat out said it. "Are you sure you don't have some kind of lewd ulterior motive?"
"No!" Kasumi exclaimed, before she wore a teasing smile of her own. "But now it's in my head~"
A snort left Nabiki's nostrils, before she looked up at the night sky. "Can we play around a little bit more, before we start having to get serious?"
"Now who's being lewd?" Kasumi asked.
"You are, you know what I meant," Nabiki snapped back at her.
Kasumi giggled once more, before she took a look at her cellphone's display. It was late and Akane wasn't home yet.
"I think I was right, by the way," Kasumi said. "It's been about a week."
Nabiki closed her eyes, and let out a chuckle. "Yeah."
Under the same night sky, but completely oblivious to it, Misao say back and laughed as Ranma flailed while desperately trying to not get shot in a violent game of hide and seek involving props, hunters in HAZMAT uniforms, and banana men.
The buzz of her phone caught her attention, an easy feat given its storage between her breasts. Plucking it from her cleavage, she swiped the screen and found a message from Katie. After reading it, she smiled and glanced in Ranma's direction warmly.
The good news could wait for after the stream. Ranma would be very happy to know they had the whole apartment to themselves for the night.
After hearing of his triumph with Kosaku, Ranma deserved some proper praise.
"Ahh he got me!" Ranma cried out in sudden dismay as her hiding place was literally blown open. "That damn Banana Bastard!"
Misao tossed her head back and laughed.
Lowering her phone, Katie let go a soft chuckle, and looked over to Akane as the two walked down an empty street. The two had spent the entire afternoon and evening to this point just walking around the neighborhood, getting a feel for the new dynamic–the shifted status quo.
"So, feel any different?" She asked her.
Akane, whose cheeks were making her name apt at this moment, looked at Katie then away again. She had a small, but happy smile. "Is different good or bad? I feel… good, but-"
"It's hard to articulate, huh?" Katie asked. "I was the same way when I realized I liked boys."
Akane gave Katie a look when the foreigner laughed again, but resumed smiling. "I don't think I'm going to go crazy for every girl I meet. I mean, the list of ones that do stuff for me is pretty short."
"A list have you, hm?" Katie asked with a smile that now promised vicious teasing.
Seeing that smile, and ready for her, Akane chose to deny her by owning it. "It's a short one, really short, and you're number two."
Katie gave pause. "Number two?"
"You don't walk around in a leotard all day."
Okay, Katie couldn't argue. "Okay, that's fair. I will take second place to that."
She then smirked. "Or would you prefer I wore less, you pervert?"
"No comment." No need for one, the dark flush on her face spoke volumes.
Katie rounded her, and Akane stopped to look up at her face
"You can get a look now, if you want to," she offered.
Akane's blush only became darker. "I… don't know if I can go there yet. This is still so new to me, just k-kissing is a big deal."
"That's okay," Katie reassured her, "No rush, no fuss. I'll go at your pace. Be the bisexual you want to be." She punctuated her encouraging words by leaning forward and kissing Akane on her forehead. "Still, you have no idea how happy I am, Akaneko."
Akane had an idea, as she cupped Katie's face and pulled her down a little lower to kiss her chastely. Against her lips, Katie let out a laugh, before breaking the kiss and resting her forehead against hers.
"C'mon," she said, "Let's get over to your house, then."
"Sure thing," Akane replied, as they turned and left together, hand in hand.
They were being watched, their walk to the Tendo Dojo seen through a scope. On the other end of the scope, attached to a Gewehr 98 Bolt Action Rifle, the viewer lowered the weapon and smiled warmly before she said in English. "She's grown up so much."
Besides the woman, dressed in a black evening dress and a black sheer veil, was an equally young nun dressed in pure white, a stark contrast to the grim attire of her companion. She was looking through the two with a pair of binoculars, and wearing a shocked expression.
"Two women, doing such things in public…" the nun in white said in an uncertain tone, with Japanese accented English.
"Live and let live," the woman in black said. "Long as they search for the Lord and have goodwill, who should we be to judge?"
"That's an odd thing to say given you're aiming a rifle at their backs."
The woman in black chuckled. "I have no intention of shooting them, Angela."
She raised her rifle against her shoulder and pushed up her shroud so she could watch them from the distance. To the departing couple, she spoke.
"Not before I see you one last time, mi perrita."
|For Services Rendered|
Separation anxiety was something normally experienced by children, normally small toddlers who could now recognize that the particular caregiver in their life was absent for longer than it took for them to come rushing to their cries. However, Genma Saotome was a man well in touch with his inner-child, so to be separated from someone who he had spent so much of his continuous time with consistently, even more than his best friend and master, even more than his wife, was finally starting to weigh down on a man in his early 40s–er… mid 30s.
"I'm still a man in my prime," Genma grumbled after glaring off at nothing. He was outside of Dr. Tofu's clinic after acting as Mr. Panda, the helpful assistant to the Doctor that managed to draw in quite a crowd of people. It was not much, but it paid enough for what a roving martial artist like himself needed.
Though the doctor's needling him about Kasumi and any possible interest in Ranma was off-putting. He had to tell him three times over in as many hours that Nabiki seemed more interested in the boy than either of her sisters. How such a well-to-do man just couldn't step up and land an obviously single and desirable woman like Kasumi was beyond him.
Men who neglected their women didn't get to keep them for very long–with him being the obvious exception of course.
All this was beside the point. Since the boy had gone to live with that AV girl and that wild animal, he'd hardly seen hide or hair of him in person. Sure he'd see he was doing fine was on plenty of youtube videos, cooking all kinds of dishes he'd evidently been holding out on him or playing video games in his cursed form–much to his chagrin of course. A stubborn man and filled with pride, Genma Saotome was not one to admit it aloud, but he wanted to see his son again.
"He could at least show some gratitude!" Genma snapped to himself as he trudged to the Tendo Dojo. "Maybe share a little in that wealth of his he's no doubt making."
Honestly, Italy?! That AV Girl took him to Italy! For a cooking show episode!
"I bust my ass for sixteen years training him! Sixteen years! The very least he could do is pay me back for my troubles!" He complained to the heavens.
As it turned out, Ranma was generous when it came to paying what he's owed.
"Hey there, Genma-san."
The voice of the young woman who called out to him, with that thick Osakan accent, caused Genma's blood to curdle. There was only one person with an accent that obvious to be on a first name basis with him. When he whirled around, it was too late, a large okonomiyaki smacked into his face, the freshly fried confection sizzling loudly as it burned against his face.
Genma promptly began screaming from the burn, and struggled to rip off the okonomiyaki… which only caused it to explode, blasting him into a telephone pole.
His face blackened and reddened by the smoke and heat, Genma sat there in a gaze, before looking up and finding Ukyo looming over him, spinning another such okonomiyaki on her fingertip.
Ah, Ukyo Kuonji, the girl whose father he talked into giving him his okonomiyaki cart in exchange for an engagement to Ranma that he promptly fled from honoring. She was certainly up there in people he did not want to see standing over him with weapons in hand.
"Hey there, old man…" She said with a grin better reserved for a Hellsing character. "… I've been lookin' for you for a long time, and I think it's a good opportunity more than ever for me to demonstrate what I've been up to since we last met."
Before Genma could attempt to get a word edgewise, the okonomiyaki spinning on her finger went spinning into his face, and sizzled up again nice and hot before exploding again to the sound of his scream.
… Which was cut off by more explosions that went well into an otherwise peaceful night.
Chapter 12/?
And now we go on with the next, take a breather... you're going to need it.
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 12/?
The Kuno estate had been empty since Tatewaki had gone to be treated for his injuries. When he would return it was not known, but for now the seat of the Kuno clan was Kodachi's dominion. In her solitude, Kodachi had taken to redecorating the house in her image as she had done to the school, black and deep purples and reds being the overwhelming colors of the house's interior.
Walking down the long hallway from her bath to the sitting room of the house, wrapped in a bathrobe and holding a smartphone in her right hand and the towel she dried her hair with in the other. After such a long and eventful day–as every day seemed to be for her lately–Kodachi was quite keen to lounge around in her big empty house and relax until it was time for sleep.
Tonight would be no different in her routine, were it not for the ringing of her doorbell. Odd, to have visitors at so late an hour, but she wasn't the sort to release Mr. Green Turtle without entertaining them first. So she trotted over to front door and opened it.
"Yes?" She asked before she recognized the seven young women standing outside her door. "Oh, well this is unexpected."
"Hello, Kodachi-senpai!" The young women in front of her were in fact the members of her old school's Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Club. The dark-haired Tomoe, her former vice captain who ascended to the captaincy and was the closest to Kodachi's equal, Rin, the red-haired new vice captain, the pink-haired Asuna, the floor exercise specialist with clubs, Iwa, the blue-haired master of the flag, Tamaki, who was exceptional with hoops, Otsune, a twin-tailed girl who mained the ball, and Ryoko, a tomboyish blonde who was a ribbon expert.
"What brings you all here?" Kodachi asked, looking among the other young women.
Tomoe stepped up. "There's an important matter to discuss, Senpai. We've heard rumors that you're building up for war against Saginomiya of Kolkhoz."
Kodachi's eyebrows rose. "I see. And you have come to lend your support?"
"We want to help out," Ryoko said roughly. "The girls of St. Hebereke aren't fragile."
There was a chorus of affirmations from the other girls, as Tomoe nodded. "However we can, Kodachi-senpai, we want to fight alongside you."
Kodachi looked among the girls, before she closed her eyes and nodded. "Please, come in then. Make yourself comfortable so we may discuss matters more freely."
She opened her door wider for them, and turned to lead them into the house. "I didn't think that you would want to take part. I had left St. Hebereke specifically to spare it being pulled into my conflict with Saginomiya."
The seven girls followed Kodachi inside, Tomoe leading them. "I appreciate your wanting to preserve St. Hebereke's peaceful beauty, senpai, but after all our time spent together the fact that you would go off without us almost feels like an insult."
Kodachi walked from the doorway and across the foyer, passing close to the stairs leading up to the second floor and towards her living room entrance. "I apologize for that, Tomoe-san. Furinkan High School needed much work after the damage done by my family. Someone with a firm hand and a brilliant vision was necessary to guide it, so I took the first opportunity to do so almost without thinking of the consequences."
Tomoe hummed in agreement. She then looked to her left and right, at the other girls as they began to spread out behind her.
Kodachi continued speaking. "There is one thing you are mistaken about, though."
"What is that?" Tomoe asked as she stopped walking.
"I left St. Hebereke in peace, because as far as I care…" Kodachi slowly looked back at her former classmates, seeing all of them now with weapons in hand. "… You're all so insufferably inept that you would be more hinder than help. You did not even attack the moment my back was turned."
Rin, Asuna, and Iwa fell upon her, wielding a baton, a pair of clubs, and a quarter-staff respectively to bring them down upon her head. All three weapons smashed into the polished marble floor, cracking it, before Kodachi landed neatly upon Rin's head and then leaped again, spinning over the other girls and landing behind them.
"Slow, as well," Kodachi added as Tomoe whirled around to face her. "Did I teach you nothing?"
Tomoe's face twisted into a snarl, as she immediately produced a riding crop and pointed it at her former captain. "You taught us teamwork!"
Otsune was next, whipping a ball at Kodachi that the Black Rose narrowly avoided with a quick sidestep, the ball leaving a large crater where it bounced off the wall. As she moved, a pair of hoops thrown by Tamaki narrowly missed her, embedding themselves in the wall as she reached the stairs and jumped up onto the banister.
Setting her feet on the inclined railing, Kodachi maintained her footing as she ducked under a club thrown at her, the maneuver allowing Iwa to vault onto the banister a few steps above Kodachi. Twirling the staff in her hands she swung at Kodachi and stabbed at her with the weapon, forcing the Black Rose to evade the strikes and parry them with her hands away from her center mass.
Behind her, Ryoko landed atop the podium at the very end of the railing, a ribbon trailing behind her that she whipped around then swung for Kodachi's back. She jumped over the lashing ribbon, side-flipping over the stairs to land on the opposite railing.
Taking the staff and adjusting her grip, Iwa thrust the staff with such force that when it impacted where Kodachi was, it left a jagged hole like it were hit with a high-caliber bullet.
"Your form is too aggressive! It takes too long to pull your weapon back!" Kodachi warned, as she avoided the second stab, and then jumped straight up over the ribbon slash that cut a gash in the wall and sliced through the railing. At the top of her jump, she kicked off the wall, avoiding Otsune's ball twice–first the actual through and second the rebound.
Twisting herself into a backflip, she landed atop the decorative archway above the entry to her living room and huffed as she adjusted her bathrobe.
Tamaki, with hoop in hand, looked aside to Asuna, who nodded in agreement. When Tamaki threw a single hoop at Kodachi, and the Black Rose avoided it by leaping towards the end of the hallway, Asuna was already there on an intercept course, swinging one of the clubs for her head.
It is caught in Kodachi's hand, the second club suffers the same fate as they land on the carpet. "How predictable."
"We couldn't agree more," Asuna said with a smirk, before a bright yellow cloud of mist ejected from the clubs and into Kodachi's face, causing her to stumble back, coughing as the fast-acting toxin took hold. A paralysis agent!
"You taught us very well, Kodachi-senpai!" Asuna taunted.
Tomoe saw this, and cracked the riding crop against the floor. "Quickly!"
Iwa quickly ran up the railing overhead and jumped down, slamming her quarterstaff into the block Kodachi as Asuna brought her clubs down. As the two drew back, Ryoko's ribbon caught around Kodachi's left arm and allowed Iwa to clock her across the face with the end of the staff. Staggered, she was left wide open by a downward swing from Asuna, that forced her head down. Rin's baton caught her forehead, forcing her head back up, and she staggered back.
Otsune's ball hit next, striking her in the stomach and pushing her back, leaving her open for Tamako to run up and–rather than use her rings, turn around and spin kick Kodachi straight in the chest, slamming her up against the corner. The beating didn't stop then, with each girl laying into Kodachi with their weapons, keeping her pinned in the corner with their strikes as Tomoe walked over, dragging her riding crop along the floor.
"Forgive us, Kodachi-senpai," Tomoe said, "But after you forsook us to go to that commoner school… we were offered an opportunity to transfer to the ranks of the elite. You chased your ambitions without a single word of warning to us, and you expect us to not feel sore about that?"
Under the hail of blows, Kodachi responded. "You think… I can forgive… treachery…?"
"You gave us no choice-" Tomoe began.
"I can," Kodachi cut her off. "But I will never forgive…!"
She then caught one of Asuna's clubs with far greater dexterity than she should have been capable of, and disarmed her of it. An instant later, the six girls were flung back, hitting the floor and walls after a sweeping blow from Kodachi, who wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth.
"… Is anyone besmirching Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics by striking me with a barehanded blow!" She said in a voice tinged with fury.
The other girls quickly got back up to her feet, with Rin advancing forth slowly. "Don't let up for a second!"
Asuna agreed with the vice-captain. "She should be slowed down because of the toxin!"
Otsune readied her ball. "Forgive us, senpai, but you're only one person against all of us!"
Kodachi smirked. "Ohohoho… these are the fairest odds you're going to get."
Rin and Iwa were the first to strike, the longer reach of Iwa's weapon reaching Kodachi before Rin's own shorter, sword like baton. Jumping onto the extended pole, Kodachi vaulted over Iwa, landing behind her and clubbing her across the back of her head, dropping her in a single blow.
Rin saw this, and swung with the baton. "Bitch!"
Kodachi parried the weapon with one blow, and then with the second disarmed Rin upward before she realized what happened.
"Wha…?!" Rin began before Kodachi caught the baton in her free hand and jabbed her in the Solar Plexus, throwing her onto her back with the wind dislodged from her lungs. "Ugh!"
Asuna attacked with another pair of clubs, Kodachi blocking with her two weapons and, with greater speed, striking her in the chest and stomach, launching her back and into Tamaki. Both girls crashed into the banister, and crumpled, as above them Mousse walked down the stairs, casually observing the throwdown. Beside them, Otsune attacked decisively, throwing her ball with all her might at Kodachi.
Raising her rod, Kodachi struck the ball and directed it right into Ryoko, who was slashing at her with the ribbon, the ribbon sliced the ball into two halves, each tagging Otsune and Ryoko in the face and knocking them flat out as well.
Tomoe looked around at the best of St. Hebereke's Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Club, all fallen like freshly reaped wheat, and then back at Kodachi with eyes now filled with fear. "… I-Impossible…! The toxin…!"
"That I have perfected in the use of since my childhood?" Kodachi asked, prompting Tomoe to blanch with fear.
Of course she would be immune to such things…
Kodachi lowered both her weapons, before tossing them to the floor so she could readjust her bathrobe. "Tomoe-san."
Tomoe went rigid where she stood.
"When Saginomiya offered you a place at Kolkhoz, was it dependant on you defeating me?"
Tomoe's eyes grew larger, before she slowly nodded.
"Ohohoho…" Kodachi laughed. "Well then, it would appear you will have to shamefully return to St. Hebereke's as backstabbing traitors and idiots on top of being weaklings who smear the name of the sport they claim to perform!"
She folded her arms. "Contemplate that during your brush with oblivion."
It was then that Tomoe sensed someone behind her, but it was too late, and with a mighty, ringing blow the current captain of St. Hebereke's Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics team collapsed to the floor–bashed over the head by a goose-shaped training potty wielded by Mousse.
Not that Kodachi saw it, in the speed with which he struck.
"Thank you, Mu Tsu," Kodachi said as she walked past him.
"You're injured," Mousse said as he observed her.
"Hmph! A light evening workout, nothing to be concerned about," Kodachi stopped and looked back at the girls strewn about the floor. "I'm more concerned with the fact they came to send my rival her regards."
"Ah, your school war," Mousse observed. Frankly such things didn't interest him, though he respected and regarded it as a conflict between villages.
"It seems that I will have to punish Saginomiya much sooner than I had planned on," Kodachi lamented. "Ah well."
As calm and confident as she appeared upon the surface, underneath she was fury incarnate, bristling at the idea that her own former classmates, her own team could be so easily turned against her. For what? A chance to go to an overrated school full of subpar students who by no account should even be allowed to consider attending on academic merit alone?!
She stopped in the entryway to the living room, and narrowed her eyes. No, for this she wasn't just going to humiliate Kolkhoz. She was going to bury them, and she had an idea of how.
"If you would be a dear, Mu Tsu, dispose of this embarrassment?"
Mousse looked back at her and extended a long knife from his robe. "Permanently?"
Kodachi was aghast at the very idea. "No, I want my enemies to suffer their humiliation. Besides, I'd rather not have a foot massage with blood splattered hands."
At that Mousse returned the knife up his sleeve and set out to drag the first of the unconscious girls out and toss them over the mansion's wall.
If there was one thing Asuka Saginomiya couldn't stand, it was someone else having even a fraction more popularity than her. A few weeks ago she could post a picture of a blank wall and get a firestorm of likes and comments. Now? Now all she saw when she browsed Instagram were people commenting on some common Furinkan student's photo sets, a sloppy mess of amateur work, and her own lovingly done and artfully rendered shots getting absolutely zero love.
However, what she hated even more than any old random peasant stealing her thunder, was that her rival, Kodachi Kuno. The student council president and undisputed master of Furinkan High School had gone to her Instagram account and posted security footage of her being cornered by, and then destroying the very best of the traitorous St. Hebereke School's Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics team.
"Submitted for your approval, the fate of TRAITORS," the video's caption read.
"How can you be so strong, Kuno Kodachi…?!" Asuka seethed angrily after watching the video for the fifth time.
She was loath to admit it, but her mortal rival's transformation of her buffoon brother's fiefdom into something worthy of attention had been a success. What had been just another school for delinquents and perverts in Nerima was suddenly clawing its way to prestige so fast that the surrounding property values shot up ten percent in just a week!
Worse yet, it wasn't mere style, as the destruction of Butsumetsu High School's fighting strength showed that the school had deadly substance–power that was deliberately left to go untapped. Kolkhoz High School's own combatants could offer no challenge either. The Kendo Club's best champion dispatched to send a message brought a chilling reply from Furinkan, leaving him so humbled and destitute that he withdrew from school days later, demanding that none come looking for him.
Kodachi's swift dispatch of her own former classmates from St. Hebereke, her own former comrades, was only another debilitating setback for the White Lily that seemed to cost the Black Rose nothing. Soon Furinkan High School would move, and all rivalries with the Kuno family would be put to a sudden and devastating end.
By contrast, her school seemed to have little motivation to build its steam, and Tomobiki High School, their nominal rivals, were mired in some sort of dysfunction that made finding out what was going on there difficult. She hadn't heard from Mendou in weeks.
"Is it hopeless?" She asked no one in particular, as she was alone in her sanctum slash office at Kolkhoz High School. "Has The Black Rose truly surpassed me? Will this be how our rivalry ends…? With the triumph of her little 'garden' relegating me to a distant nuisance? A lowly creature not even fit to cower in her shadow?"
She dropped down, dramatically, laying her arms onto the table and letting her white-blonde hair fan out across the oaken surface of the desk. With a deep breath, she raised a fist and dropped it onto the table.
"No… I refuse…" She pushed herself upright. "I refuse! I defy thee, Kuno Kodachi! For you are the darkness that threatens our realm, and I am the brilliant radiance that shall be its savior! Ohohohohoho!"
She stopped when she realized that her dramatic speech had an audience. Standing in front of her, with a timid look on her face, was an exceptionally pretty young woman, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, dressed in a pure white version of a Catholic Nun's habit. Puzzled, Asuka stared at the Nun, who stared back at her.
"A-are you… Saginomiya Asuka-san?" The nun asked, nervously, as though she were sincerely hoping that the seemingly demented person she was speaking to was not her.
Asuka continued to stare. "Yes, I am Saginomiya Asuka, the White Lily of Kolkhoz High School."
The Nun's face fell immediately. With a sigh of resignation, she introduced herself. "I am Sister Angela of St. Mary's Convent, I am the translator for your new self-defense instructor."
At that, Asuka huffed. "Another one? Outrageous, I thought Daddy got the message when I dismissed the first two. I have no need for self-defense lessons, my time is extremely precious and my skills in combat are more than adequate."
It was at this point Asuka felt something poke her in the back of the head, causing her to freeze where she stood. It was round and had a hard metallic feel, yet it wasn't sharp at all. Was… was that a gun?
"Eres pendejo, o que?"a woman with a husky voice spoke in a language that was definitely foreign. It sounded like Spanish, but the dialect was a little off.
How did she get into the room? When? She never saw anyone until she noticed that Nun. The nun! She looked to Angela. "What did she just say?"
"That you spoke too soon about your training being adequate," Angela replied.
"Un niño de cinco años podría apuñalarte en la espalda, y ni te darías cuenta cabron" the foreign-speaking woman then said.
"You don't look out for yourself very well, for someone with so many enemies," Angela translated after a moment's hesitation.
Asuka turned around and came face to face with a bizarre woman. She was dressed in the style of a gothic lolita, wore a black short-sleeve ballroom dress sans petticoat over a black lace body stocking, as evident by the lace patterns going down her arms and ending at rings that fit over her middle fingers that matched the patterns going down her legs to her Mary Jane shoes. She was aiming a bolt action rifle at her face.
Her most startling–and disturbing–feature however, was her long braided black hair, speckled with splotches of white that varied in size, and her titanium white eyes.
"And this… person… is…?" Asuka asked.
"This is your instructor, Ysidro Lida-san," Angela introduced, as the woman lowered her rifle and and chuckled.
"Does she understand Japanese?" Asuka asked.
Angela shook her head. "No."
"Well tell this foreigner that I have no need of her services and she can leave. The other two were complete wastes of my time and I don't want another distraction," she said with an upturned nose.
"Ella no quiere que le enseñes nada, dice que ya es suficientemente buena," Sister Angela said gently to Lida.
Lida laughed at that, before she cheerily replied. "No me importa lo que esta perra pendeja quiera, me están pagando por resultados, asi que va a aprender algo aun que no quiera."
This was going over Asuka's head. "What, what did she say?"
Sister Angela, a bit flushed, looked from Lida to Asuka. "She… she says that she is only getting paid if she teaches you something. So, it is in your best interest to learn."
Asuka huffed in annoyance. "Is that a fact? Well what can she teach me? How to dress like a creepy prostitute?"
Angela winced, and simply asked Lida what Asuka could teach her.
Lida, her brows raising, let out a smooth laugh. "Ohohoho…"
Asuka stopped at that and narrowed her eyes at Lida, was she mocking her?
"Tu eres un inútil pedazo de mierda en una pelea. Tu entrenas por qué quieres que te cojan, pero en este pueblo te van a violar como la perra que eres! Si tuvieras que pelear con cualquier persona en este momento, te descuartizaron en pedazos. Y creeme, ellos lo disfrutarian. La una oportunidad que tienes…"
She then lifted up her rifle, indicating it. "Es aprender a dispararles antes de que te pongan las manos encima."
Asuka looked at the rifle, then at her, disbelieving. "You're saying I should shoot them?!"
Angela was surprised she got the gist of that. "Actually, yes… that's basically what she's saying."
"Nonsense, I can go to jail for that!"
Angela quickly translated what Asuka said, to which Lida only chuckled again.
"Tu y tu familia tambien pueden ir a la carcel for todo el fraude.."
Angela did a double-take. "Wait, what?"
Asuka whipped her head over to Angela. "What did she say?!"
"Porcierto, ni te atrevas a decirle sobre eso," Lida then said to Angela quickly.
"She… er… she says that it's absolutely imperative that you do something to bridge the gap between your strength and your enemy's. Th-they have all trained for years as martial artists, so in that sense you don't have a chance to fight them if you had to now. Learning to shoot will make up for that difference easily."
Asuka frowned. "I don't know what you people do in the west, but here in Japan we aren't allowed to even own guns without heavy regulation."
Angela sighed and spoke Asuka's concerns to Lida, who just rolled her eyes at the idea.
"Las armas de fuego son permitidas en este pueblo para que la gente pueda matar a los extraterrestres. No es una ley escrita, pero a nadie le importa," Lida explained.
Angela recoiled, before she nodded slowly. "You needn't worry about that, Saginomiya-san. The legal repercussions of owning and using a firearm are no issue."
Asuka huffed. "Then in that case, why not just be my bodyguard?"
"We were not hired to do that," Angela quickly replied.
Asuka turned her nose up. "I'm sorry, but did I ask you that specifically, Kirishitan?"
Angela recoiled, the implication that came with Asuka's words biting deeply into the young nun. She frowned at the girl, how shameful! How rude! She turned to Lida, and translated her request.
Lida wore a momentary scowl, before she answered. "Si me vuelvo tu guarura nunca vas a aprender nada, perra malcriada."
"You won't learn anything, if all she does is protect you," Angela warned.
"Whatever my father is paying you to be my instructor, I'll pay you double to be my bodyguard. No! I'll triple it!" Asuka quickly offered.
Angela's frown deepened, but it looked like this headstrong girl was not going to listen. She turned to Lida, and translated the offer to her Spanish. When she got it, Lida let out a chuckle that turned into a deep and throaty laugh.
"Esta bien, voy a ser tu guarura," she replied, "Pero te vas a arrepentir."
Angela grimaced. Of course she would.
"What, what did she say?" Asuka demanded.
"She… she said she'll be your bodyguard," Sister Angela revealed. "And she'll take double what your father pays her."
Asuka smirked. "You didn't tell her about the triple part?"
"I would rather you not spoil her," Angela revealed, before glancing towards the woman. "Ysidro Lida-san… she is a woman of God, like myself."
Her? A woman of God? Asuka gave her a confused look, an eyebrow raised upward at the very idea. She was dressed like she wanted to be in some dark anime about witches or something.
"Well, it doesn't matter. All that does is that now I have something to stand between myself and Kuno," Asuka said with a dramatic flair as she turned and walked towards the windows of her office, to gaze out it contemptuously onto the schoolyard of Kolkhoz below.
"As a member of my security detail, the first thing I order you to do is to make sure this school is secure." She looked back at the two. "I'm sure that a reprisal will be coming from my enemies, and I want to be ready for them!"
She then looked ahead. "And when they come… I will gaze upon Kodachi and laugh as all she's built is shattered like cheap glass! OHHHHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
With a resigned sigh, Angela turned and asked. "Ella quiere que te encargues de la seguridad estudiantil."
"Ella quiere que pongas a su pequeño ejercito en forma. Eso esta bien, pero no tengo la intención de hacer nada de esa mierda." Lida replied.
Angela nodded slowly. "Entiendo eso.. pero si cualquier cosa le pasa a ella…"
"Ella va a regresar arrastrándose. Me va a suplicar que la ayude a hacerse mas fuerte." Lida reasoned. "Dios ayuda a quienes se ayudan a sí mismos."
She looked over at Asuka, who was laughing at her own sense of superiority over her enemies. Angela shook her head, how embarrassing. She hoped her enemies would go easy on her.
They wouldn't.
Kuno Kodachi was insane, to put it in simple to understand terms. She's mad, nutty, off her rock, twigged out and whatever pleasant euphemisms you want to use to describe the fact that she was fuckin' batty. But to simply call her mad was to do a disservice to both the girl and yourself because there was so much more.
Underneath the madness, the laughter and kooky behavior, was a certified genius. A mad genius yes but a genius for sure. She was a fusion of this two extremes; intelligence and insanity, toned into a package to conquer whatever was put in front of her.
When you toss in the fact she was rich you now had something truly dangerous on your hands.
In the most basic sense possible, no one but Kuno Kodachi could turn an ordinary High School into a high fashion crystalline citadel filled to the brim with aspiring Men and Women ready to burn a path to a better future. One reason was the funds and the other was that no one could ever conceive of an idea. But that again spoke to her genius and spoke even better on the influence of her new inner circle.
Down to brass tacks, since making friends with Akane and Katie, Kodachi got shit done. She removed her brother's old fan club and fashioned them into the dream of every high school girl reading manga or playing Prince games in the space of a week. Overnight she built a fortress to shelter her forces and foster inside them the sense of worth and self respect they had never had before.
Yet all that still wouldn't be enough for Mousse to want to follow her.
It was, to his eyes, how those friends of hers reacted to her appearance after the fight with Shampoo had finished. He had watched Akane, a nice if naive outsider girl, outskill Shampoo with her bamboo stick like the Champion of the Amazons was an amateur. That girl who was a timely intervention from her opponent's husband away from putting Shampoo down for the count.
And yet that same girl blushed and fawned at the mere sight of Kodachi. She stumbled for words and tried to offer excuses for her loss even though it was almost surely a quirk of timing Ryoga had managed to interfere. He looked at Katie, a strong woman who burst with violent energy and thought, surely a demon given human form.
She too reacted in much the same way, guffawing like an idiot in the face of this girl Kuno Kodachi.
He had to know what was the truth of it. Were they flattering her because of money? Or was Kuno Kodachi someone to throw your lot in with? In truth, before he could even ask her to take him in she simply told him that he would come with her in a tone that told him death awaited a refusal.
The tribe had tried to instill a sense of pride in clinging to their traditions. Which meant that the outside world was treated with scorn and derision even as evidence of their advancements and betterments trickled back. His eyes, long a thorn in his side, were simple things to fix for her.
Verily, she had given him the ability to see clearly that Kuno Kodachi was no mere girl.
Only the word empress could suffice to describe her, a font of destiny and dominance bringing to order from the chaos that humans naturally wrought. The fact she had dispatched those seven girls with such insulting ease did not surprise him. Nor was her refusal to kill them, not out of misplaced morality but a simple understanding of making her enemies suffer.
Before his thoughts could go further, Kodachi emerged from her bedroom dressed below her status but still nevertheless elegant. A pair of tight pants, a loose black violet long sleeved shirt that hung over her shoulder with a gold-loop belt that hung off her left hip, and a large matching hat hat that hid her long hair. She had places to go incognito.
"So what has become of those girls?" He asked.
"They are persona non grata at St. Hebereke. My influence has seen to properly punish them for their treachery," Kodachi said as she stopped to take one more look in an adjacent mirror and adjust her hat.
"Are you planning on going out?" He asked in a clipped tone, one he quickly learned she liked.
"Yes, I will be out for a few hours at the least." Kodachi replied after she finished adjusting her hat. "I may need you for later tonight, depending on how things go."
"Tell me what you need and it will be done." He answered, nodding his head as she detested seeing him bow.
"Simply be up until I return or call otherwise." She explained, pulling out a smartphone and handing it to him. "For you, by the way, ."
He walked over and took it from her. "Very well. Where are you going?"
"Oh, out for a jaunt," she answered with a sinister smile. "My investigation into clan Saginomiya family's many sins has barely even begun and I've already found a starting point where they often overlook: in the so called gutters of humanity."
"Understood." He answered. "Remember to film anyone stupid enough to attack you."
She simply smiled and left, a parting laugh echoing off the walls. "OHHHHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
Ah yes, another reason to follow her was that she had an amazing ass.
To put it bluntly, ramen was not a dish familiar to Kodachi. Indeed, it was Tendo Nabiki who introduced her to the delight as well as inspired her first move; a little shop just on this side of the border with the neighborhood of Taian–a wealthier part of Nerima where a lot of tourists and foreigners liked to spend their money for more local fare. This place, with its high quality ramen and low price alcohol, was a popular stop for such individuals, as well as two teachers from Kolkhoz Academy who Kodachi had been directed to.
Hello Black Rose-sama, we are like-minded individuals inside of Kolkhoz Academy's inner circle. We have heard of your interest in taking down the school's Queen from a mutual association, and we would like to pass a few bits of intelligence that will help you on your way. Before you meet us, however, we insist that you check out this ramen shop we like…
The message she had received had not deceived. Kodachi arrived exactly on time, before they had even finished their first bowl. It was a simple thing: order a bowl, take a table close enough to eavesdrop but not so close the people you were snooping on could tell and put up walls.
Yes, a classic fly on the wall maneuver, as shown to her some weeks ago by Nabiki.
"Regulars are easy to spy on at restaurants. They have a routine they zero in on so much that they forget everything else. They'll sit in the same spot and not think of anywhere else. So you can be as close as a table away from where your mark's sitting and he won't even care you're there" Nabiki had explained.
"Is it really so simple?" Kodachi asked, clearly puzzled by the world of intrigue and scandal Nabiki preferred to reside in.
"Creatures of habit are the most careless lot, I mean… a predictable martial artist is easy to defeat, right?" Nabiki asked, putting advice into the younger Kuno's brain that would last her years.
And from there to here and now, where Kodachi found herself ordering.
"Ah, lovely customer-san." The friendly shopkeeper greeted her. "What brings such an elegant young woman to my humble shop?"
"I was in the neighborhood and decided it had been too long since I had something truly enjoyable. An extra spicy beef ramen with a side of gyoza please." Kodachi returned it and ordered at the same time to save on chit chat. "And a pineapple juice to drink."
From there, the money was exchanged and soon Kodachi had her food and drink and her seat in that sweet spot close to her target. Now to listen in and see if there was anything to learn. The two men seemed to be in especially high spirits, laughing among themselves like they'd been telling jokes all night.
As it turned out, what they had to say was hilarious.
"Ah a long day of babysitting out of the way, eh Goto-senpai?" One of the men said to the other as he leaned back from eating. He was a younger guy, who had spiky brown hair and glasses. "To think we're getting paid so much for this, and bonuses on top of that!"
"Of course Makabe-kun but you have to be careful with those words." Goto, a balding man with a ponytail and a shitty beard, said. "We're not supposed to get bonuses."
"Ah, sorry, sorry." Makabe replied. "I'm just so excited about this job I keep forgetting."
"It's not what you expect for teaching though right?" Goto replied with a chuckle.
"If this job was any easier I would literally be stealing candy from babies," Makabe said with a boisterous laugh of his own.
Kodachi's eyes narrowed for a long second. There was no way Kolkhoz's teaching could be easy, they had the best students with the best grades in Nerima since their inception. Something was rotten here.
"It pretty much is," Goto went on, taking a sip from what was clearly alcohol of some kind. "Hell, a kid like you who went to teaching school is overqualified for this."
"Overqualified?" Kodachi repeated in her mind.
Makabe looked surprised. "You never went?"
"I'm not even licensed, man." Goto said with a laugh.
This came as a shock to Kodachi as well. "Unlicensed?!"
Makabe nodded, understanding. "Well, to be honest I never graduated. I actually washed out at the end of my first semester. That's fine though some of these kids are too dumb to eat miso soup without supervision, let alone tell if their teachers are full of it."
"Makabe-kun!" Goto admonished with mock scandal. "Those are the, heh, future leaders of Japan you speak so ill of! Have some respect."
"I apologize, senpai!" Makabe snickered as he failed to contain his amusement.
"You know half of them would have to ask their butlers to tell them what miso soup even is!" Goto continued, setting off a boisterous round of guffawing from the pair of buffoons.
It didn't add up in Kodachi's twisted, brilliant mind. Why were these "teachers" disparaging their students despite their cushy and decidedly undeserved positions? The High Schools of Furinkan, Tomobiki, and Butsumetsu neighborhoods were well familiar with cruel teachers. Given the delinquency of their respective student bodies, the faculty was adversarial–if not outright antagonistic–to even the most behaved students.
No such atmosphere existed at St. Hebereke, due in part for the fact that it was a wealthy Catholic Private School with extremely difficult standards for its students. Kodachi had assumed that Taian Neighborhood's other prestigious school would have a similar environment.
More concerning… if the academic standards were in fact so low, why was someone as intelligent as Tendo Nabiki not attending Kolkhoz? Or her little sister Akane? Both girls were far too brilliant for her father's vanity project. A boxer with Hatanaka's punch should have the best Academies the nation over vying to have him. Why was he at Furinkan? It just didn't make sense. Something was rotten and even someone without a nose could smell it.
No matter, she would finish her food and make some calls, and maybe she would close in on her first chance to tighten the noose around Asuka's throat.
Finishing her food and drink as the two men continued to boast about their good fortune, Kodachi rose from her chair and coasted past. She made to produce a small bottle of aerosol on her way, and gently spritzed a bit over their shoulders. A gentle fragrance easily overpowered by the aroma of street level food… and a potent diuretic and laxative with a slow release. Come the next day, their charmed lives would be miserable.
Once you've had some dinner, come meet with us at the karaoke bar down the street to talk all about it. Our mutual friend has some pretty good taste in music, so we hope you pick a good song when you show up, on their behalf.
The karaoke bar in question was a rather nice and upscale place, like just about everything else in Taian, ideal for anywhere from teenagers to salarymen to come and sing away their troubles while enjoying snacks and drinks provided by the staff. With her entry, she was quickly told she was expected in the room furthest down the hall, near the emergency exit.
Going down the hall, she reached a partially open door where she could hear the sound of laughing and bickering over music selection. Opening the door, she found a small group of three boys and two girls. The boys were wearing the uniforms of Kolkhoz, while the girls were dressed in Tomobiki's.
The boy closest to the karaoke machine, a tall, gangly young man with blonde hair held back by a headband, stood upright and gave her a friendly smile. "Yo! Uh… can I help you?"
"Hello," one of the Tomobiki girls said with a friendly wave.
Kodachi was surprised. "Ah… I came here on behalf of Tendo Nabiki. She said that the next song you pick should be by Akino."
The other students quickly shared looks, before the boy at the machine smiled and gestured for her to close the door. "You got good taste in music, I'm Sousuke."
Kodachi stepped in and shut the door behind her. "I am understanding that you are all close to the White Lily's inner circle?"
One of the boys sitting on the couch between two of the Tomobiki girls put on a grin, he was a foreigner with reddish brown hair and a face full of freckles. "We're part of the Student Council, yo! I'm Paul. And these cute gals are Ichiko and Eimi."
The second of the two seated gave a thumb's up. "And I'm her last 'boyfriend', Soichiro."
Kodachi blinked several times, and then pointed at him. "Ah yes, I remember you from my last meeting with Saginomiya. How did things work out?"
"Ah, you know, soon as she was declared the winner I got kicked upstairs to the Student Council and ordered to never speak with her highness ever again unless requested," Soichiro replied. "What happened to your guy?"
"We parted on amicable terms," Kodachi said with a perfectly straight face. "My condolences for your breakup."
"Eh, I'm on the student council," Soichiro said. "So what's up."
"Following your boss's advice, I was able to overhear a pair of teachers relaxing after their day at work. Their incriminating and less than flattering statements about themselves and their students has left me curious about the actual climate at Kolkhoz High School."
Sousuke, the leader of this cadre of informants patted the top of the karaoke machine and shook his head. "You mean how most of the kids are pretty much rich window lickers or pretty airheads? Well, they ain't wrong."
"You are aware of it?"
"Student council, babe," Paul said in immaculate Japanese. "The only requirement to be on it is that you're not dumb as a brick, or you dated Asuka."
"Hey," Soichiro sharply snapped, to the laughter of the girls.
The two girls from Tomobiki, sitting with the two boys, nodded in agreement. Eimi then spoke up. "Yes, my twin brother is in the Fashion Club goes to Kolkhoz, but I got a better grade on the entry exam."
Kodachi was surprised. "You failed to enter Kolkhoz?"
Ichiko nodded. "Me too, but apparently I bombed the test pretty savage despite studying for weeks beforehand."
Sousuke nodded. "Comparatively speaking, I consistently get some of the lowest grades in school."
Kodachi stared at the odd mismash of students, especially Sousuke. "But you're on the Student Council."
"Well yeah, that's because my parents paid premium for it," Sousuke replied. "Same as with Paul and Soichiro here, and Eimi-chan's brother."
Secondary education in Japan was not free, but "Premium" tripped a flag for Kodachi. "What do you mean… premium?"
Paul offered the answer. "Simple, you pay a little bit extra, and your kid not only gets into Kolkhoz, but they get good grades no matter what. You're on the fast track to graduation and placement in a superb college if you pay a little more on top of that."
Kodachi gaped at the foreign student, then looked back at Soichiro, and then at Sousuke again. "They are… paying to pass?"
"Oh yeah, it's how Kolkhoz Academy has the highest percentile of students in the entire country," Soichiro said. "Pretty crazy, isn't it?"
Kodachi was almost stunned lucid by it. "Those scoundrels, those con men… but wait… such fraud would be easy to detect, would it not?"
"It would, but there's a trick to it," Sousuke said. "I'm not exactly privy to how the trick works, but they can make any grade a great one. Including the students of national exams."
Kodachi recoiled. "Nationals?"
"If you want a free ride to Tokyo U, Kolkhoz is where you go," Paul said.
Sousuke clapped his hands together. "The trick though, and I'm certain of it, is located in the offices of the school! You get in there and find out what they are doing, and you'll blow the whole lid off the biggest scandal in Japanese school system of the 21st Century."
What a tempting opportunity, but Kodachi was crazy, not stupid. "I am curious, what do you have to gain from the shame soon to befall your school?"
Sousuke shrugged his shoulders. "We don't get dragged into your stupid war with Saginomiya for one–no offense."
Soichiro nodded. "No offense, but I've already been in that meat grinder, and I don't want to go again."
"That is fair," Kodachi agreed.
Eimi then spoke up. "Because of Mendou-san, we've been wrapped up in this too, and we want out. Things are already bad enough at Tomobiki because of the Crusaders."
Ichiko then added. "We want this to end, and we're going to do it by supporting you."
"And besides… after what you did to Butsumetsu? Morale's at an all time low because we know how strong you Furinkan monsters are, no one wants to fight you guys except for the stupid diehards for Saginomiya," Sousuke finished.
"More like Try-hards," Paul corrected.
Kodachi nodded. "I see… this information, it's going to be put to good use. However, if I'm going to I will need one final piece."
Sousuke cocked his head slightly. "What?"
"A floorplan of Kolkhoz Academy and any information on the school's defenses," Kodachi replied.
Sousuke smiled. "Oh that's not easy to come by, so that's going to cost you."
Kodachi stared at the young man somewhat dangerously now. "Cost me what?"
At that, Sousuke held aloft the karaoke microphone. "How's your karaoke skills?"
Kodachi's gaze dropped to the microphone, and then rose to Sousuke's face, as if what he was saying was utterly ludicrous.
"You fool," she said, before smirking, "Do you realize that I went to an All Girl's School? Karaoke is not merely a pastime."
In an instant, she had the mic in her hand and she was posed dramatically, ready to sing. "It's a way of life!"
Naturally as expected of a girl of so many talents, Kodachi killed it.
Honestly, Kodachi didn't expect this.
In fact she had hoped for something as mundane as her being a bottle blonde (not true, as Kodachi knew her since she was four and she certainly had a natural blonde to her). Discovering a scandal big enough to topple her and her entire family was more than she could ever want. No, there was no wanting under these circumstances.
This was what Kodachi needed her entire life and did not know until now.
An opportunity to completely destroy her mortal rival didn't come often. With one firmly in her grasp she needed nothing short of perfection to see her victory through, and when it came to perfection she had four people ideally suited for providing as close as one could get to it to pick from.
Naturally, she went for the most attractive one.
"Saotome Ranma-kun, what do you think of ramen?" She had asked him in Furinkan High School's kitchen the very next morning. Ranma was in the midst of writing down a recipe to give to the lunch staff for the rest of the week as he looked through the main icebox of the kitchen.
"As an eater, it can be cheap and filling if you know where to go for it. As a chef, I see a canvas upon which to paint a masterpiece." Ranma answered, chuckling at her confused look.
Kodachi hummed at that. "A canvas, you say?"
"Break it down to brass tacks, it's noodles in flavored water cooked a certain way. Keep that in mind, and you can turn it into literally whatever you want," Ranma said lightly. "Like for instance, I've been thinking about doing soupe de poisson ramen."
A French dish she was familiar with, Kodachi rather enjoyed it. "That sounds like it'd be excellent."
Ranma did a bit of a double take. "You like soup de poisson?"
"Some in my income bracket would consider it commoner fare, and more would enjoy it simply because it is served to them with the French name." Kodachi smiled slightly. "I rather find a charm in its preparation and the flavors there within."
Ranma smirked. "Fancy yourself a bit of a connoisseur?"
"Sasuke, my family's ninja, is actually well-versed in French Cuisine," Kodachi replied. "It's about the only thing he's good for aside from his utter devotion to our family."
Not that she's needed to rely on him since she began training her Gentlemen.
Ranma didn't know the Kunos had a family ninja, or that he could cook French food. He'd have to look into that. "It's kind of funny, I never would've expected you to be into something like that. I think even most average people would cringe at the idea of using the leftovers to make something before they had a chance to try it."
Kodachi nodded. "Yes, and that's a flawed way of thinking, do you not agree? We are conditioned to believe that there are things we should be above. Food, occupations, even people. Once all the desirables are acquired all that is left is refuse that should be cast away."
Ranma found that a little bit poignant coming from her. "Uh… yeah, I guess."
Kodachi rested her hands against the counter that separated her from Ranma, who closed the icebox door and leaned back against it. "You went to Butsumetsu for a time, wouldn't you say that it reflects that attitude? Many of those students, do you see any of them being contributing members of society?"
Ranma let out a quick laugh. "Oh brother, I think those guys may as well stay in High School forever, there's no hope for 'em." He stopped and then frowned. "Well with some exceptions."
"Ohhohoho…" Kodachi's laugh was rather subdued. "It's that narrow thinking, of seeking out the exceptional, that leads people to waste something that is perfectly good–if work is put into it."
She gestured around. "This school wasn't far removed from Butsumetsu High School, or Tomobiki. In fact all three can be considered one and the same, where students who don't make the arbitrary requirements for entrance into the likes of Kolkhoz or St. Hebereke."
Ranma was starting to see where she was going with this. "We're the scraps leftover when all the parts that they wanted got taken by Kolkhoz and St. Hebereke."
"Yet with preparation and creativity you can make something fantastic with them, that which is considered cheap and indolent can one day become the envy and desire of the rich and frivolous." Kodachi declared. "Like a wonderful bowl of soup de poisson."
Ranma folded his arms, weighing heavily on this rather profound discussion. "I gotta say though, there's more here at Furinkan than just fish heads and leftover veggies. At least in this school, there's a lot more going for us."
Kodachi nodded, he had hit the nail on the head. "That is true, you are all of a higher quality than many would be willing to accept. The turnaround of these students to take longer than it has, I expected to be having a conversation like this one closer to the middle of fall instead of before summer break."
"So why are we having it now?" Ranma asked.
"A good question with a disturbing answer. Last night I went out and enjoyed some ramen in Taian," Kodachi revealed. "I ended up there at the instruction of several members of Kolkhoz's Student Council."
Ranma frowned. "Why were you taking orders from them?"
"I was introduced to them via a mutual contact, they told me of a major scandal covered up at their school, one that may have the potential to ruin the name of the Saginomiya family," she revealed. "The quality of the student who goes to Kolkhoz does not matter so much as the amount of money the family is willing to pay."
That was a little heavy, Ranma thought, though he didn't quite appreciate the scope of what she just said. "So what are you going to do about it?"
"I am going to collect proof that such scandal truly exists, and I will need your assistance in that endeavor," Kodachi answered. "I wish to break into the school in the middle of night and steal the evidence."
Ranma stared at Kodachi, before closing his eyes and letting out a laugh. Kodachi found herself rather taken by the sight and sound of it.
"Geez, you're definitely not as above it all as I thought," he admitted.
Kodachi frowned. "Is that a problem?"
"Nah, you're scary, rich, and hot enough to get anyone to do this kind of stuff for you–but you're itchin' to do it yourself. A hands-on girl like that is pretty dang cool," Ranma said, fondly recalling his spars with Katie, watching Akane trash that Kolkhoz kendoist, and of course seeing Misao step up against Shampoo and Ryoga.
Kodachi's frown vanished as she tilted her nose up with a bit of inflated pride at his praise. "I assure you, I'd never dream of sending you into a place I would not go myself."
Ranma laughed again, and there went The Black Rose's heart all atwitter again. "Well, count me in on your raid. Who and what all are we going to need for it?"
"With yours, Mu Tsu's, and mine talents we are fairly potent. However, we need a true master of infiltration and subversion in the team. A true ninja!"
"Ah, your ninja," Ranma said.
Kodachi nodded. "Why yes, of course. We will need to make a quick trip to the medical center where I sent my brother to retrieve him… I banished him there to tend to my brother after he attempted to take revenge on Izurando Katie-san for defeating his master."
So there was a chance at meeting Kodachi's brother, huh? Ranma found that interesting, maybe the dirtbag has learned a lesson after the humbling he got. "So let's go get him, then."
"We shall take the day off immediately then, and head over to the hospital, it is in Minato and I would like to move towards raiding the school as soon as tonight."
Ranma recoiled a bit. "Tonight? That's a bit short notice."
"You should inform your boss that you will be late tonight," Kodachi advised him.
Ranma shrugged his shoulders. "Actually tonight's pretty clear for me, she's doing an R-18 stream so…"
He kind of trailed off at that, and Kodachi could've sworn she saw the beginning of a frown before he quickly squashed it. "… So I'm all yours!"
"If I could only be so lucky," Kodachi said back with a flirtatious lilt to her voice that brought a small flush to his cheeks.
By the afternoon, rain had moved into the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, blanketing the area in clouds and showering the city with curtains of heavy rain. With an umbrella and a raincoat to protect him from his curse being triggered, Ranma stepped out of the limousine that drove him, Kodachi, and Mousse to Tokyo's Hiroo Hospital, the white, angular building looming above them and well lit under the unexpectedly dark clouds.
"So this is where they are keeping him, huh?" Ranma asked. "You'd think they'd keep him somewhere a little more secure."
"Shortly after his misadventure, he was confined to his room under the orders of the doctors who specialize in the trauma he sustained. Sasuke has been there to assist in keeping him in bed, and to this point he has been well behaved, actually," Kodachi explained as they walked up the sidewalk to the large double doors of the main entrance.
Mousse looked up at the daunting face of the hospital, he felt an unease about it, something triggering his fighting instincts. He looked towards Ranma and Kodachi, wondering if they could feel it as well.
"You don't think taking him out of here will give your brother a chance to act out, will it?" Ranma asked.
Kodachi laughed. "No… the damage Izurando Katie-san did to my brother will keep him here for a long time."
What an interesting opportunity to have a look at a real trainwreck, Ranma thought as they entered the hospital's front lobby. As one of the three main hospitals in Minato, and located in one of its busier districts, it was quite busy as they walked in–but the sight of a handsome young man in white Chinese-style robes, a second equally handsome young man in a bright yellow raincoat, hat, and slickers, and a gorgeous young woman wearing naught but a leotard slippers, and a shawl to keep off the rain still turned heads as they went to the elevator to the seventh floor of the hospital.
With intent and poise, Kodachi left the elevator doors on the seventh floor, marched straight to the front desk, and nodded to the nurses behind it. "Greetings, I am here to see Kuno Tatewaki, my brother."
The pretty nurse behind the counter, taken aback by the three teens in front of them, needed a moment before she snapped out of her dazzlement. She quickly got to work on the computer in front of her. "Ah, y-yes. Kuno Tatewaki-san is currently recovering from another round of surgery. He can take visitors, but please take care not to disturb him."
"Oh, I doubt that is possible," Kodachi said as she received her visitors badge.
"Disturbing him or not?" Mousse asked for clarification.
"Not, of course," Kodachi said, "My brother is already quite disturbed."
Ranma folded his hands behind his head. "I bet."
The nurse almost made a face, as if to agree with Kodachi, but refrained. "I'll let Dr. Hyuuga know that you will be coming in."
"There's no need for that," a woman's voice called.
Kodachi and her party turned and found a bespectacled woman wearing a white lab coat over a black long-sleeved dress with a long cut up the sides that went up past the hip, exposing a great deal of the woman's pantyhose-clad legs as she walked. She was a woman of breathtaking elegance, in spite of the pedestrian setting of the hospital.
However, all Ranma really could notice was a more than passing resemblance to Misao– albeit this woman was much taller, and had jet black straight hair that reached past her waist rather than her current myriad of colors that stopped well above it. She was just as heavy around the chest, maybe even more…
"I am Doctor Hyuuga Mizuho, I am Tatewaki-kun's doctor," the woman introduced herself. "You are Kodachi-san, yes?"
Not the least intimidated by the older beauty, Kodachi nodded. "Yes, I've come here to check on him, and recall my family's servant."
Mizuho smiled pleasantly to the girl. "Of course, he's just come from under sedation and he's lively as ever. Please, come this way."
As she turned to lead them, she noticed Ranma's face under the hat of his rain slicker and her eyes enlarged slightly in surprise. "Ah, Ranma-kun?"
Ranma was taken off guard by the elegant woman's recognition. "Uh… yeah? Have we met before?"
"No, but I've heard a lot about you," Mizuho replied, "I'm Misao-chan's aunt."
"Sure you're not her sister?" Ranma meant it more to say that they looked a lot alike, but Mizuho Hyuuga was a single woman in her early forties. As such, she laughed, a sound to the ears what silk was to touch, and brought a hand to her cheek.
"No wonder she's so taken with you!" She said coolly. "You're quick to flatter."
"I'll say!" Kodachi said, rather struck by Ranma's boldness. Truly a man amongst men!
Ranma paused. "Wait, what did I say?"
Mousse wore a wry smirk. "Your confidence is admirable, Saotome."
Ranma processed that and then broke into a blush. "H-hey! I didn't mean it like that!"
"Too late my entire night has been made," Mizuho teased as they passed through the doors to the Post-Op Care unit of the hospital.
Ranma slapped his palm to his face. "Don't tell Misao I said that…"
"Doctor, how is my brother doing?" Kodachi asked as Ranma languished in embarrassment.
"A handful even in his current state," Mizuho revealed. "We've had to do corrective surgery on wounds he keeps reopening with his thrashing about."
"A man with a strong will," Mousse said.
"Quite, he is thoroughly convinced that he will heal better on his own, but the damage done to him was catastrophic at best." Mizuho shook her head. "Being kicked through a clocktower and the mechanism inside at a few hundred miles per hour is not something people get up from easily."
Ranma whistled. "That must've been ugly."
"It's partly why I had the whole thing torn down, they were still picking pieces of my brother from it during the renovation. Mostly teeth and hair, thankfully."
Ranma winced. "Brutal."
"Ah, but he deserved it!" Kodachi reassured him.
"Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, a jerk that big needs it as bad as it can get short of actually killin' the guy."
Mizuho laughed again. "Nicely put, Ranma-kun… because there are things you can do to a person far worse than death."
"After what I saw Misao do to Shampoo, I read you loud and clear on that."
Mizuho's lips tightened at mention of that, and she let out a huff that sounded chagrined. "Yes, quite."
She then swiped a key card attached to her lab coat in front of a reader, and the doors to the actual recovery ward opened… to an unexpected clamor.
"I demand to speak with that enchantress! That succubus! I will not stand for this any longer!" A voice much stronger than it ought to be bellowed.
"Is that him?" Ranma asked.
"That is my dear brother, my he does sound strong!" Kodachi said in surprise.
"Tatewaki-sama, please stop trying to move against your restraints!" Another man said in a much more panicked voice.
When the group reached the bed in question, they of course found the elder of the two Kuno siblings, Tatewaki, strapped down to a reinforced bed and swathed head to toe in bandages and casts. His physical state did not stop him from thrashing around like a mosher with a mummy bondage fetish. Attempting to hold him down was the family ninja, Sarugakure Sasuke, and two nurses and a doctor.
Resting one hand on her hip, Mizuho sighed and strolled over to the bed. "Mou, Tachi-kun, what's wrong now?"
"Do not take such affectionate tones with me, witch!" Tatewaki shouted back. "I was well on the road to recovery when you lashed me down to this bed and carved into me again! What have you taken from me this time? My limbs?! My organs?! My manhood?!"
Mizuho shook her head. "I didn't take anything at all other than bone and concrete fragments, which you still have plenty of embedded in places where they may hurt you."
"Liar! I can feel that you have done something! My strength, my power, it has been sapped!" Tatewaki roared back.
Mizuho shook her head. "If you allow me to work on you, and yourself to recover, then you'll get that strength back and then some."
"Please Tatewaki-sama, listen to her! She has your best interests at heart!" Sasuke pleaded.
"Those injuries were nothing! Nothing!" Tatewaki bellowed.
"Honestly dear brother, you are embarrassing yourself and the family name!" Kodachi then interjected, prompting the elder Kuno to give pause.
"Oh, hello dear sister," Tatewaki greeted as if granting her only the barest formality.
Kodachi huffed and tossed her side-bunched hair over her shoulder. "Tell me you have not been throwing a tantrum all this time. Your care is the best that can be offered, and you are treating these tireless men and women like they are nothing!"
"They bring me no closer to the wellness I must achieve! Time is of the essence! I cannot languish here for months! Not when there is so much at stake!" Tatewaki argued back, causing Sasuke to grimace.
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Geez, what is this guy in such a hurry for?"
Mousse hummed and stroked his chin. That fervency, the wild look of delusion in his eyes. He knew it all too well. "If I had to guess…"
"You there! Commoners! Who are you to speak out of turn?!" Tatewaki bellowed at them.
"Saotome Ranma," Ranma said, "Of the Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling."
"Mu Tsu, formerly of the Joketsuzoku tribe of China," Mousse introduced himself.
Tatewaki stared at Mousse, a tad incredulous. "But you are a man."
"I know," Mousse replied.
"Well, if you must know, I must return to my school post-haste. There is a woman who I must repay for her decisive blow against me," Tatewaki explained.
Mizuho repressed a giggle, while Sasuke outright cringed.
"Tendo Akane is out of your reach, brother," Kodachi advised him.
"Got that right," Ranma muttered.
"I speak not of the fair Akane," Tatewaki said, "I speak of the Goddess who revealed herself to me. A woman of such wild ferocity and violence that surpassed even her fearsome might!"
Ranma's face fell a bit. "Uhh…"
"I speak of the American woman, Izurando," Tatewaki declared passionately. "Never have I known such power… such beauty in violence firsthand!"
"Izurando Katie-san?!" Kodachi exclaimed softly.
"Oh geez," Ranma said flatly.
Tatewaki closed his eyes and chuckled. "Yes, for the longest time I had yearned for the fierce girl who bested me in the realm of kendo. Yet… to meet a woman who held nothing back in the slightest, who came at me with every intent to crush me beneath her feet… I knew that in my heart I must tame her!"
Ranma and Mousse had similar, incredulous looks. "Tame her?"
"Oh my," Mizuho chirped.
Sasuke had his face buried in his palm.
"I knew from the moment I realized what it then it would be my destiny to show her what the love of a civilized and sophisticated nobleman is like! I am her Gilgamesh, and she is my Enkidu!" Tatewaki declared, eyes wide now with a lustful flame.
Ranma then spoke. "Not to make it sound like a detriment to her character, but she is a huge lesbian."
Kodachi looked over to Ranma, intrigued. "Oh she is?"
Tatewaki chuckled. "Hmhmhm… not even the power of lilies can withstand my masculine charisma. When I show her the true breadth of my manliness, she will swoon as a proper heterosexual woman!"
A short stillness followed, Ranma and Mousse visibly cringing at that statement.
He was then thrashing wildly in his bonds. "OR I WOULD IF THIS MADWOMAN DIDN'T CONTINUE TO POKE AROUND INSIDE MY BODY AS THOUGH I WERE A SURGICAL THEMED BOARD GAME!"
"Still haven't found that bucket of water yet," Mizuho murmured under her breath.
Kodachi huffed. "Well fighting her at every turn isn't going to help you recover any sooner. So you will be well to just suck it up and rest well."
Sasuke nodded. "Please, Tatewaki-sama, just let it be for now."
"I cannot! I must see my wild goddess of violence again!" Tatewaki argued back mid-thrash.
Ranma then had an idea. "Hey, Tatewaki or whatever, how about I do you a favor?"
Tatewaki stopped and looked at Ranma. "And what sort of service will you do me, Saotome?"
It was innocent enough, Ranma would feed the elder Kuno sibling a little white lie, and then once he ate it up he wouldn't cause Mizuho anymore trouble. Then that would be the end of it and they'd all be ready to stuff him back into the hospital once he came out.
Unfortunately, Ranma did not know what he was dealing with. Though he would.
"I'm Katie's roommate, I'll put in a good word for you…"
The first three words were the only ones Kuno Tatewaki actually heard. Once he heard them, he found himself first aghast that a young man would be living under the same roof as such a beautiful woman. Then he found himself furious that this stranger, this commoner would be on more intimate terms with her. Sharing meals with her, sleeping within a vague proximity of her, and even… even using the same toilet as her!
"YOU LIVE UNDER THE SAME ROOF AS THE WILD MAIDEN?!" Kuno roared, all of his ire locked directly at Ranma.
"Oops," Mizuho murmured.
"Oh dear," Mousse grumbled.
"Brother, you…" Kodachi began before she sighed in a stark moment of lucidity.
Tatewaki stared at Ranma, his gaze burning with hatred and envy, before he closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. He then relaxed completely, sinking down into the bed, and opened them to look to Mizuho. "Doctor, I entrust myself to the highest standard of your care."
"You do, now?" Mizuho asked, quite pleased to hear that.
"I wish to make the fullest recovery possible. So that when I am fully healed…" He turned his head and stared at Ranma. "… I will destroy this man before me."
Ranma stared at Tatewaki, before he shrugged his shoulders. "You know what? Yeah, that's fine."
He gave the older Kuno a dangerous smile. "I accept your challenge."
Kodachi looked over to Ranma, finding his confidence as enthralling as catnip to a tiger. Mousse found this same confidence impressive, though a tad reckless… after all it was this eagerness that led him to trading blows with Shampoo.
Mizuho and Sasuke were relieved that this meant Tatewaki would at least behave. The former then spoke. "Thank you for deciding to behave, Tatewaki-kun. I hope from here we will have a good time on the road to recovery."
"Every painful moment will be worth it," Tatewaki replied.
"Yeah, whatever," Ranma said. He was going to put him back in here the second he stepped out, so…
"Well, as long as you're going to behave, it means that I can now take Sasuke off your hands," Kodachi said as she stepped forward.
Sasuke turned to Kodachi. "Ah, you need me for something, Kodachi-sama?"
"Yes, a task requiring your skills has come up, I will need to make use of you tonight," Kodachi commanded.
"Ah, at once… well…" Sasuke looked back to his master. "I need to be sure Tatewaki-sama is…"
"Don't worry," Mizuho promised. "He's in good hands, I'm the doctor for him."
She looked around the teens, and finding that her joke went over their heads, shrugged her shoulders in mild resignation.
Sasuke left Tatewaki's side, and bowed deeply to Kodachi. "As you command, Kodachi-sama, I will be at your side. What do you need me fore?"
Kodachi smiled. "I will explain along the way. We must prepare immediately."
She nodded to Mousse and Ranma. "Come along, we must return to the school."
"Right," Mousse said as he followed.
Mizuho waved to them. "Please come by anytime, especially you Ranma-kun."
Ranma flushed and shyly waved back at Mizuho and left after them. On his way out the recovery wing he passed a glance back at Kuno, who was now resting in bed, his gaze locked onto him in turn. Seeing this, Ranma shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment as he followed the group along. Sarcastically, he thought about how wonderful it would be to fight someone as weak as that jerk.
Once the doors closed behind them, Mizuho looked to the well bandaged Kuno and rested a hand on his thigh. "We're going to work together well from now on, Tatewaki-kun."
Tatewaki nodded. "I can only hope for the best recovery."
Mizuho looked down at his bandage wrapped body, and smiled before she let out a silky laugh. "When I'm done with you, you will be a whole new man."
She patted on his thigh, the sound of metal being struck through fabric sounding, prompting Tatewaki to stare at his leg in confusion.
The truck that pulled to the loading dock of Kolkhoz Academy had unloaded pallets upon pallets of crates, forty in total, and in all of them were the same thing: Guns. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, there were enough firearms to arm an Army division in total, and the sight of them brought a gleam to Asuka's eyes and a look of dread to Angela's face.
"W-where did you get all of these?!" Asuka asked Lida as she looked with glee upon the first crate of boxes, seeing nothing but submachine guns packed in straw.
With her role as security advisor, Lida's first request of Asuka was to purchase firearms for the entire student body, since guns were all legal in Nerima. With a nice hefty flood of firearms, even Kolkhoz's weakest students would have a fair chance against the likes of Furinkan, and even Tomobiki.
Finding such measures appealing, Asuka quickly cut a blank check and told Lida to get to work.
"Buenos amigos de mi familia producen armas de airsoft, estos son excedentes de los modelos del año pasado. No tuve que pagar un solo centavo," Lida replied.
"She knows people," Angela translated.
Asuka, still in awe, picked up one of the SMGs. "I didn't think that we would get so many guns. This was money well-spent!"
Angela translated to Lida, who closed her eyes and laughed throatily.
After checking the action, Asuka attempted to extract the magazine. With a pop it slid out, and she was immediately greeted with a shower of small steel bearings that poured from the box. Staring at it uncomprehending, she looked at the stamped letters on the side of the gun, and then looked to her and Angela.
"Hey, this is airsoft," she said with a frown.
Angela didn't catch that. "W-what?"
"This is an Airsoft Gun!" Asuka yelled at her. She pointed at the crate, all of various guns sporting the same labels. "These are all airsoft!"
Angela nearly withered under the verbal assault, before she turned and translated to Lida.
"Pendeja, claro que sé que son. Yo las ordene," she replied.
Angela cringed, before replying. "She knows, she ordered them."
"What are we supposed to do with Airsoft?! I am trying to fight a war against powerful enemies! Those monsters aren't a joke!" Asuka screamed at her, furious over the waste of money.
When Angela translated that, Lida let out a laugh and pulled out an airsoft pistol, modeled after a Glock 17L. "Yo decidí que usar balines es más seguro para que tus escuincles pendejos peleen tu estúpida guerra. Además, todas están modificadas."
Angela sighed wearily, prompting Asuka to brandish the empty airsoft SMG at her. Prompting a sour look from Lida. "Well, what did she say, nun?!"
With a weariness belying her young age, Angela translated. "She said that they are safer for you to use, and are… modified."
"Modified how?!" Asuka said as she pointed it at Lida. "What good are toys going to do against people who can dodge rifle shots?!"
Lida, rather offended that Asuka would point a gun at her, loaded or not, airsoft or otherwise, quickly pointed the airsoft pistol at her stomach and fired a pellet that hit her with enough force to knock the wind out of her.
"OOF!" Asuka exclaimed as she clutched her solar plexus and doubled over.
Lida lowered the gun before she spoke to Asuka. ("You see now how much these fucking toys can hurt?")
She offered the pistol to Angela, who took it without hesitation as Asuka looked up, tears running down her face.
"Airsoft guns are not toys," Angela simply translated without looking at Asuka, "Do you see that now?"
"You… you shot me!" Asuka shouted out.
Lida hummed to Angela, who translated it to her in turn. Hearing it, Lida nodded.
"Te dispare por que eres una marica." Lida retorted with a roll of her eyes. "Si quieres que alguien adore tu flácido culo mientras muere para protegerlo, tu puedes contratar a la policía con tu dinero sucio, quizás hasta algunos mercenarios"
"You were being bratty." Angela translated liberally, more to spare Asuka's feelings than anything else. "As an aside, haven't you considered asking the police for help? Or mercenaries?"
"Those incompetents can't stop a single perverted boy," Asuka growled back. "I… I want quality."
Hearing Angela's conversion, Lida shook her head.
"Ni creas que lo vas a encontrar fácilmente. Realmente esperas alguien capaz de enfrentar un ejército de esos cabrones caiga en tus manos?" She chastised Asuka with a snide snarl. "Si crees eso, eres mas idiota que una chica fresa asfixiándose en vergas para ser mas popular."
Angela's face colored brightly, and she shook her head to fight off the flush. "There is no shortcut for the strength you want."
Lida then grinned. "Cuando las personas con las que estas peleando esta guerra terminen contigo y tu escuela, entonces te esperare con mis brazos abiertos. Entonces no tendrás absolutamente nada, y desde ahí, te convertiré en algo más que una perra en celo."
Angela stared at Lida, who nodded for her to say as she wished, before she took a deep breath. "I-I can make you stronger, but… but you must give this war up first."
Asuka huffed in defiance. "What does a gloomy, sadistic girl like you… know about my 'war'? This is my image at stake, the adoration of my many followers. I will see the Black Rose pruned from the face of the public, and show her her place well beneath me."
She turned for the exit of the loading bay, shuffling for the doors. Without looking back, she called out. "If these guns work, distribute them… and train the low folk to use them properly…"
Angela now reserved her somewhat horrified stare for Asuka, before she turned to Lida. "Ella dice... Ella dice que esta es su pelea para vencer a esa Kodachi. Por qué todo esto, incluyendo a todos estos estudiantes, por algo tan frívolo?"
Lida let out a snort. "Porque es una chica loca atrapada en su pequeño mundo, con el suficiente dinero para hacerlo real. Mendou y Kuno son iguales... per las ilusiones de Kuno son exactamente lo que la gente quiere. Ella está pensando para el futuro, pensando en grande. Estos pendejos solo piensan en satisfacer sus pequeños juegos engreídos."
She turned and looked out the loading dock, and the rain clouds hanging heavily over Nerima. In English she then said.
"When this is over, the winners will be more than ready to face the true world."
= = =
Because this party is about to get crazy.
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 12/?
|Evening Workout|
The Kuno estate had been empty since Tatewaki had gone to be treated for his injuries. When he would return it was not known, but for now the seat of the Kuno clan was Kodachi's dominion. In her solitude, Kodachi had taken to redecorating the house in her image as she had done to the school, black and deep purples and reds being the overwhelming colors of the house's interior.
Walking down the long hallway from her bath to the sitting room of the house, wrapped in a bathrobe and holding a smartphone in her right hand and the towel she dried her hair with in the other. After such a long and eventful day–as every day seemed to be for her lately–Kodachi was quite keen to lounge around in her big empty house and relax until it was time for sleep.
Tonight would be no different in her routine, were it not for the ringing of her doorbell. Odd, to have visitors at so late an hour, but she wasn't the sort to release Mr. Green Turtle without entertaining them first. So she trotted over to front door and opened it.
"Yes?" She asked before she recognized the seven young women standing outside her door. "Oh, well this is unexpected."
"Hello, Kodachi-senpai!" The young women in front of her were in fact the members of her old school's Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Club. The dark-haired Tomoe, her former vice captain who ascended to the captaincy and was the closest to Kodachi's equal, Rin, the red-haired new vice captain, the pink-haired Asuna, the floor exercise specialist with clubs, Iwa, the blue-haired master of the flag, Tamaki, who was exceptional with hoops, Otsune, a twin-tailed girl who mained the ball, and Ryoko, a tomboyish blonde who was a ribbon expert.
"What brings you all here?" Kodachi asked, looking among the other young women.
Tomoe stepped up. "There's an important matter to discuss, Senpai. We've heard rumors that you're building up for war against Saginomiya of Kolkhoz."
Kodachi's eyebrows rose. "I see. And you have come to lend your support?"
"We want to help out," Ryoko said roughly. "The girls of St. Hebereke aren't fragile."
There was a chorus of affirmations from the other girls, as Tomoe nodded. "However we can, Kodachi-senpai, we want to fight alongside you."
Kodachi looked among the girls, before she closed her eyes and nodded. "Please, come in then. Make yourself comfortable so we may discuss matters more freely."
She opened her door wider for them, and turned to lead them into the house. "I didn't think that you would want to take part. I had left St. Hebereke specifically to spare it being pulled into my conflict with Saginomiya."
The seven girls followed Kodachi inside, Tomoe leading them. "I appreciate your wanting to preserve St. Hebereke's peaceful beauty, senpai, but after all our time spent together the fact that you would go off without us almost feels like an insult."
Kodachi walked from the doorway and across the foyer, passing close to the stairs leading up to the second floor and towards her living room entrance. "I apologize for that, Tomoe-san. Furinkan High School needed much work after the damage done by my family. Someone with a firm hand and a brilliant vision was necessary to guide it, so I took the first opportunity to do so almost without thinking of the consequences."
Tomoe hummed in agreement. She then looked to her left and right, at the other girls as they began to spread out behind her.
Kodachi continued speaking. "There is one thing you are mistaken about, though."
"What is that?" Tomoe asked as she stopped walking.
"I left St. Hebereke in peace, because as far as I care…" Kodachi slowly looked back at her former classmates, seeing all of them now with weapons in hand. "… You're all so insufferably inept that you would be more hinder than help. You did not even attack the moment my back was turned."
Rin, Asuna, and Iwa fell upon her, wielding a baton, a pair of clubs, and a quarter-staff respectively to bring them down upon her head. All three weapons smashed into the polished marble floor, cracking it, before Kodachi landed neatly upon Rin's head and then leaped again, spinning over the other girls and landing behind them.
"Slow, as well," Kodachi added as Tomoe whirled around to face her. "Did I teach you nothing?"
Tomoe's face twisted into a snarl, as she immediately produced a riding crop and pointed it at her former captain. "You taught us teamwork!"
Otsune was next, whipping a ball at Kodachi that the Black Rose narrowly avoided with a quick sidestep, the ball leaving a large crater where it bounced off the wall. As she moved, a pair of hoops thrown by Tamaki narrowly missed her, embedding themselves in the wall as she reached the stairs and jumped up onto the banister.
Setting her feet on the inclined railing, Kodachi maintained her footing as she ducked under a club thrown at her, the maneuver allowing Iwa to vault onto the banister a few steps above Kodachi. Twirling the staff in her hands she swung at Kodachi and stabbed at her with the weapon, forcing the Black Rose to evade the strikes and parry them with her hands away from her center mass.
Behind her, Ryoko landed atop the podium at the very end of the railing, a ribbon trailing behind her that she whipped around then swung for Kodachi's back. She jumped over the lashing ribbon, side-flipping over the stairs to land on the opposite railing.
Taking the staff and adjusting her grip, Iwa thrust the staff with such force that when it impacted where Kodachi was, it left a jagged hole like it were hit with a high-caliber bullet.
"Your form is too aggressive! It takes too long to pull your weapon back!" Kodachi warned, as she avoided the second stab, and then jumped straight up over the ribbon slash that cut a gash in the wall and sliced through the railing. At the top of her jump, she kicked off the wall, avoiding Otsune's ball twice–first the actual through and second the rebound.
Twisting herself into a backflip, she landed atop the decorative archway above the entry to her living room and huffed as she adjusted her bathrobe.
Tamaki, with hoop in hand, looked aside to Asuna, who nodded in agreement. When Tamaki threw a single hoop at Kodachi, and the Black Rose avoided it by leaping towards the end of the hallway, Asuna was already there on an intercept course, swinging one of the clubs for her head.
It is caught in Kodachi's hand, the second club suffers the same fate as they land on the carpet. "How predictable."
"We couldn't agree more," Asuna said with a smirk, before a bright yellow cloud of mist ejected from the clubs and into Kodachi's face, causing her to stumble back, coughing as the fast-acting toxin took hold. A paralysis agent!
"You taught us very well, Kodachi-senpai!" Asuna taunted.
Tomoe saw this, and cracked the riding crop against the floor. "Quickly!"
Iwa quickly ran up the railing overhead and jumped down, slamming her quarterstaff into the block Kodachi as Asuna brought her clubs down. As the two drew back, Ryoko's ribbon caught around Kodachi's left arm and allowed Iwa to clock her across the face with the end of the staff. Staggered, she was left wide open by a downward swing from Asuna, that forced her head down. Rin's baton caught her forehead, forcing her head back up, and she staggered back.
Otsune's ball hit next, striking her in the stomach and pushing her back, leaving her open for Tamako to run up and–rather than use her rings, turn around and spin kick Kodachi straight in the chest, slamming her up against the corner. The beating didn't stop then, with each girl laying into Kodachi with their weapons, keeping her pinned in the corner with their strikes as Tomoe walked over, dragging her riding crop along the floor.
"Forgive us, Kodachi-senpai," Tomoe said, "But after you forsook us to go to that commoner school… we were offered an opportunity to transfer to the ranks of the elite. You chased your ambitions without a single word of warning to us, and you expect us to not feel sore about that?"
Under the hail of blows, Kodachi responded. "You think… I can forgive… treachery…?"
"You gave us no choice-" Tomoe began.
"I can," Kodachi cut her off. "But I will never forgive…!"
She then caught one of Asuna's clubs with far greater dexterity than she should have been capable of, and disarmed her of it. An instant later, the six girls were flung back, hitting the floor and walls after a sweeping blow from Kodachi, who wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth.
"… Is anyone besmirching Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics by striking me with a barehanded blow!" She said in a voice tinged with fury.
The other girls quickly got back up to her feet, with Rin advancing forth slowly. "Don't let up for a second!"
Asuna agreed with the vice-captain. "She should be slowed down because of the toxin!"
Otsune readied her ball. "Forgive us, senpai, but you're only one person against all of us!"
Kodachi smirked. "Ohohoho… these are the fairest odds you're going to get."
Rin and Iwa were the first to strike, the longer reach of Iwa's weapon reaching Kodachi before Rin's own shorter, sword like baton. Jumping onto the extended pole, Kodachi vaulted over Iwa, landing behind her and clubbing her across the back of her head, dropping her in a single blow.
Rin saw this, and swung with the baton. "Bitch!"
Kodachi parried the weapon with one blow, and then with the second disarmed Rin upward before she realized what happened.
"Wha…?!" Rin began before Kodachi caught the baton in her free hand and jabbed her in the Solar Plexus, throwing her onto her back with the wind dislodged from her lungs. "Ugh!"
Asuna attacked with another pair of clubs, Kodachi blocking with her two weapons and, with greater speed, striking her in the chest and stomach, launching her back and into Tamaki. Both girls crashed into the banister, and crumpled, as above them Mousse walked down the stairs, casually observing the throwdown. Beside them, Otsune attacked decisively, throwing her ball with all her might at Kodachi.
Raising her rod, Kodachi struck the ball and directed it right into Ryoko, who was slashing at her with the ribbon, the ribbon sliced the ball into two halves, each tagging Otsune and Ryoko in the face and knocking them flat out as well.
Tomoe looked around at the best of St. Hebereke's Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Club, all fallen like freshly reaped wheat, and then back at Kodachi with eyes now filled with fear. "… I-Impossible…! The toxin…!"
"That I have perfected in the use of since my childhood?" Kodachi asked, prompting Tomoe to blanch with fear.
Of course she would be immune to such things…
Kodachi lowered both her weapons, before tossing them to the floor so she could readjust her bathrobe. "Tomoe-san."
Tomoe went rigid where she stood.
"When Saginomiya offered you a place at Kolkhoz, was it dependant on you defeating me?"
Tomoe's eyes grew larger, before she slowly nodded.
"Ohohoho…" Kodachi laughed. "Well then, it would appear you will have to shamefully return to St. Hebereke's as backstabbing traitors and idiots on top of being weaklings who smear the name of the sport they claim to perform!"
She folded her arms. "Contemplate that during your brush with oblivion."
It was then that Tomoe sensed someone behind her, but it was too late, and with a mighty, ringing blow the current captain of St. Hebereke's Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics team collapsed to the floor–bashed over the head by a goose-shaped training potty wielded by Mousse.
Not that Kodachi saw it, in the speed with which he struck.
"Thank you, Mu Tsu," Kodachi said as she walked past him.
"You're injured," Mousse said as he observed her.
"Hmph! A light evening workout, nothing to be concerned about," Kodachi stopped and looked back at the girls strewn about the floor. "I'm more concerned with the fact they came to send my rival her regards."
"Ah, your school war," Mousse observed. Frankly such things didn't interest him, though he respected and regarded it as a conflict between villages.
"It seems that I will have to punish Saginomiya much sooner than I had planned on," Kodachi lamented. "Ah well."
As calm and confident as she appeared upon the surface, underneath she was fury incarnate, bristling at the idea that her own former classmates, her own team could be so easily turned against her. For what? A chance to go to an overrated school full of subpar students who by no account should even be allowed to consider attending on academic merit alone?!
She stopped in the entryway to the living room, and narrowed her eyes. No, for this she wasn't just going to humiliate Kolkhoz. She was going to bury them, and she had an idea of how.
"If you would be a dear, Mu Tsu, dispose of this embarrassment?"
Mousse looked back at her and extended a long knife from his robe. "Permanently?"
Kodachi was aghast at the very idea. "No, I want my enemies to suffer their humiliation. Besides, I'd rather not have a foot massage with blood splattered hands."
At that Mousse returned the knife up his sleeve and set out to drag the first of the unconscious girls out and toss them over the mansion's wall.
|The White Lily's Black Witch|
If there was one thing Asuka Saginomiya couldn't stand, it was someone else having even a fraction more popularity than her. A few weeks ago she could post a picture of a blank wall and get a firestorm of likes and comments. Now? Now all she saw when she browsed Instagram were people commenting on some common Furinkan student's photo sets, a sloppy mess of amateur work, and her own lovingly done and artfully rendered shots getting absolutely zero love.
However, what she hated even more than any old random peasant stealing her thunder, was that her rival, Kodachi Kuno. The student council president and undisputed master of Furinkan High School had gone to her Instagram account and posted security footage of her being cornered by, and then destroying the very best of the traitorous St. Hebereke School's Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics team.
"Submitted for your approval, the fate of TRAITORS," the video's caption read.
"How can you be so strong, Kuno Kodachi…?!" Asuka seethed angrily after watching the video for the fifth time.
She was loath to admit it, but her mortal rival's transformation of her buffoon brother's fiefdom into something worthy of attention had been a success. What had been just another school for delinquents and perverts in Nerima was suddenly clawing its way to prestige so fast that the surrounding property values shot up ten percent in just a week!
Worse yet, it wasn't mere style, as the destruction of Butsumetsu High School's fighting strength showed that the school had deadly substance–power that was deliberately left to go untapped. Kolkhoz High School's own combatants could offer no challenge either. The Kendo Club's best champion dispatched to send a message brought a chilling reply from Furinkan, leaving him so humbled and destitute that he withdrew from school days later, demanding that none come looking for him.
Kodachi's swift dispatch of her own former classmates from St. Hebereke, her own former comrades, was only another debilitating setback for the White Lily that seemed to cost the Black Rose nothing. Soon Furinkan High School would move, and all rivalries with the Kuno family would be put to a sudden and devastating end.
By contrast, her school seemed to have little motivation to build its steam, and Tomobiki High School, their nominal rivals, were mired in some sort of dysfunction that made finding out what was going on there difficult. She hadn't heard from Mendou in weeks.
"Is it hopeless?" She asked no one in particular, as she was alone in her sanctum slash office at Kolkhoz High School. "Has The Black Rose truly surpassed me? Will this be how our rivalry ends…? With the triumph of her little 'garden' relegating me to a distant nuisance? A lowly creature not even fit to cower in her shadow?"
She dropped down, dramatically, laying her arms onto the table and letting her white-blonde hair fan out across the oaken surface of the desk. With a deep breath, she raised a fist and dropped it onto the table.
"No… I refuse…" She pushed herself upright. "I refuse! I defy thee, Kuno Kodachi! For you are the darkness that threatens our realm, and I am the brilliant radiance that shall be its savior! Ohohohohoho!"
She stopped when she realized that her dramatic speech had an audience. Standing in front of her, with a timid look on her face, was an exceptionally pretty young woman, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, dressed in a pure white version of a Catholic Nun's habit. Puzzled, Asuka stared at the Nun, who stared back at her.
"A-are you… Saginomiya Asuka-san?" The nun asked, nervously, as though she were sincerely hoping that the seemingly demented person she was speaking to was not her.
Asuka continued to stare. "Yes, I am Saginomiya Asuka, the White Lily of Kolkhoz High School."
The Nun's face fell immediately. With a sigh of resignation, she introduced herself. "I am Sister Angela of St. Mary's Convent, I am the translator for your new self-defense instructor."
At that, Asuka huffed. "Another one? Outrageous, I thought Daddy got the message when I dismissed the first two. I have no need for self-defense lessons, my time is extremely precious and my skills in combat are more than adequate."
It was at this point Asuka felt something poke her in the back of the head, causing her to freeze where she stood. It was round and had a hard metallic feel, yet it wasn't sharp at all. Was… was that a gun?
"Eres pendejo, o que?"a woman with a husky voice spoke in a language that was definitely foreign. It sounded like Spanish, but the dialect was a little off.
How did she get into the room? When? She never saw anyone until she noticed that Nun. The nun! She looked to Angela. "What did she just say?"
"That you spoke too soon about your training being adequate," Angela replied.
"Un niño de cinco años podría apuñalarte en la espalda, y ni te darías cuenta cabron" the foreign-speaking woman then said.
"You don't look out for yourself very well, for someone with so many enemies," Angela translated after a moment's hesitation.
Asuka turned around and came face to face with a bizarre woman. She was dressed in the style of a gothic lolita, wore a black short-sleeve ballroom dress sans petticoat over a black lace body stocking, as evident by the lace patterns going down her arms and ending at rings that fit over her middle fingers that matched the patterns going down her legs to her Mary Jane shoes. She was aiming a bolt action rifle at her face.
Her most startling–and disturbing–feature however, was her long braided black hair, speckled with splotches of white that varied in size, and her titanium white eyes.
"And this… person… is…?" Asuka asked.
"This is your instructor, Ysidro Lida-san," Angela introduced, as the woman lowered her rifle and and chuckled.
"Does she understand Japanese?" Asuka asked.
Angela shook her head. "No."
"Well tell this foreigner that I have no need of her services and she can leave. The other two were complete wastes of my time and I don't want another distraction," she said with an upturned nose.
"Ella no quiere que le enseñes nada, dice que ya es suficientemente buena," Sister Angela said gently to Lida.
Lida laughed at that, before she cheerily replied. "No me importa lo que esta perra pendeja quiera, me están pagando por resultados, asi que va a aprender algo aun que no quiera."
This was going over Asuka's head. "What, what did she say?"
Sister Angela, a bit flushed, looked from Lida to Asuka. "She… she says that she is only getting paid if she teaches you something. So, it is in your best interest to learn."
Asuka huffed in annoyance. "Is that a fact? Well what can she teach me? How to dress like a creepy prostitute?"
Angela winced, and simply asked Lida what Asuka could teach her.
Lida, her brows raising, let out a smooth laugh. "Ohohoho…"
Asuka stopped at that and narrowed her eyes at Lida, was she mocking her?
"Tu eres un inútil pedazo de mierda en una pelea. Tu entrenas por qué quieres que te cojan, pero en este pueblo te van a violar como la perra que eres! Si tuvieras que pelear con cualquier persona en este momento, te descuartizaron en pedazos. Y creeme, ellos lo disfrutarian. La una oportunidad que tienes…"
She then lifted up her rifle, indicating it. "Es aprender a dispararles antes de que te pongan las manos encima."
Asuka looked at the rifle, then at her, disbelieving. "You're saying I should shoot them?!"
Angela was surprised she got the gist of that. "Actually, yes… that's basically what she's saying."
"Nonsense, I can go to jail for that!"
Angela quickly translated what Asuka said, to which Lida only chuckled again.
"Tu y tu familia tambien pueden ir a la carcel for todo el fraude.."
Angela did a double-take. "Wait, what?"
Asuka whipped her head over to Angela. "What did she say?!"
"Porcierto, ni te atrevas a decirle sobre eso," Lida then said to Angela quickly.
"She… er… she says that it's absolutely imperative that you do something to bridge the gap between your strength and your enemy's. Th-they have all trained for years as martial artists, so in that sense you don't have a chance to fight them if you had to now. Learning to shoot will make up for that difference easily."
Asuka frowned. "I don't know what you people do in the west, but here in Japan we aren't allowed to even own guns without heavy regulation."
Angela sighed and spoke Asuka's concerns to Lida, who just rolled her eyes at the idea.
"Las armas de fuego son permitidas en este pueblo para que la gente pueda matar a los extraterrestres. No es una ley escrita, pero a nadie le importa," Lida explained.
Angela recoiled, before she nodded slowly. "You needn't worry about that, Saginomiya-san. The legal repercussions of owning and using a firearm are no issue."
Asuka huffed. "Then in that case, why not just be my bodyguard?"
"We were not hired to do that," Angela quickly replied.
Asuka turned her nose up. "I'm sorry, but did I ask you that specifically, Kirishitan?"
Angela recoiled, the implication that came with Asuka's words biting deeply into the young nun. She frowned at the girl, how shameful! How rude! She turned to Lida, and translated her request.
Lida wore a momentary scowl, before she answered. "Si me vuelvo tu guarura nunca vas a aprender nada, perra malcriada."
"You won't learn anything, if all she does is protect you," Angela warned.
"Whatever my father is paying you to be my instructor, I'll pay you double to be my bodyguard. No! I'll triple it!" Asuka quickly offered.
Angela's frown deepened, but it looked like this headstrong girl was not going to listen. She turned to Lida, and translated the offer to her Spanish. When she got it, Lida let out a chuckle that turned into a deep and throaty laugh.
"Esta bien, voy a ser tu guarura," she replied, "Pero te vas a arrepentir."
Angela grimaced. Of course she would.
"What, what did she say?" Asuka demanded.
"She… she said she'll be your bodyguard," Sister Angela revealed. "And she'll take double what your father pays her."
Asuka smirked. "You didn't tell her about the triple part?"
"I would rather you not spoil her," Angela revealed, before glancing towards the woman. "Ysidro Lida-san… she is a woman of God, like myself."
Her? A woman of God? Asuka gave her a confused look, an eyebrow raised upward at the very idea. She was dressed like she wanted to be in some dark anime about witches or something.
"Well, it doesn't matter. All that does is that now I have something to stand between myself and Kuno," Asuka said with a dramatic flair as she turned and walked towards the windows of her office, to gaze out it contemptuously onto the schoolyard of Kolkhoz below.
"As a member of my security detail, the first thing I order you to do is to make sure this school is secure." She looked back at the two. "I'm sure that a reprisal will be coming from my enemies, and I want to be ready for them!"
She then looked ahead. "And when they come… I will gaze upon Kodachi and laugh as all she's built is shattered like cheap glass! OHHHHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
With a resigned sigh, Angela turned and asked. "Ella quiere que te encargues de la seguridad estudiantil."
"Ella quiere que pongas a su pequeño ejercito en forma. Eso esta bien, pero no tengo la intención de hacer nada de esa mierda." Lida replied.
Angela nodded slowly. "Entiendo eso.. pero si cualquier cosa le pasa a ella…"
"Ella va a regresar arrastrándose. Me va a suplicar que la ayude a hacerse mas fuerte." Lida reasoned. "Dios ayuda a quienes se ayudan a sí mismos."
She looked over at Asuka, who was laughing at her own sense of superiority over her enemies. Angela shook her head, how embarrassing. She hoped her enemies would go easy on her.
They wouldn't.
|The Empress|
Kuno Kodachi was insane, to put it in simple to understand terms. She's mad, nutty, off her rock, twigged out and whatever pleasant euphemisms you want to use to describe the fact that she was fuckin' batty. But to simply call her mad was to do a disservice to both the girl and yourself because there was so much more.
Underneath the madness, the laughter and kooky behavior, was a certified genius. A mad genius yes but a genius for sure. She was a fusion of this two extremes; intelligence and insanity, toned into a package to conquer whatever was put in front of her.
When you toss in the fact she was rich you now had something truly dangerous on your hands.
In the most basic sense possible, no one but Kuno Kodachi could turn an ordinary High School into a high fashion crystalline citadel filled to the brim with aspiring Men and Women ready to burn a path to a better future. One reason was the funds and the other was that no one could ever conceive of an idea. But that again spoke to her genius and spoke even better on the influence of her new inner circle.
Down to brass tacks, since making friends with Akane and Katie, Kodachi got shit done. She removed her brother's old fan club and fashioned them into the dream of every high school girl reading manga or playing Prince games in the space of a week. Overnight she built a fortress to shelter her forces and foster inside them the sense of worth and self respect they had never had before.
Yet all that still wouldn't be enough for Mousse to want to follow her.
It was, to his eyes, how those friends of hers reacted to her appearance after the fight with Shampoo had finished. He had watched Akane, a nice if naive outsider girl, outskill Shampoo with her bamboo stick like the Champion of the Amazons was an amateur. That girl who was a timely intervention from her opponent's husband away from putting Shampoo down for the count.
And yet that same girl blushed and fawned at the mere sight of Kodachi. She stumbled for words and tried to offer excuses for her loss even though it was almost surely a quirk of timing Ryoga had managed to interfere. He looked at Katie, a strong woman who burst with violent energy and thought, surely a demon given human form.
She too reacted in much the same way, guffawing like an idiot in the face of this girl Kuno Kodachi.
He had to know what was the truth of it. Were they flattering her because of money? Or was Kuno Kodachi someone to throw your lot in with? In truth, before he could even ask her to take him in she simply told him that he would come with her in a tone that told him death awaited a refusal.
The tribe had tried to instill a sense of pride in clinging to their traditions. Which meant that the outside world was treated with scorn and derision even as evidence of their advancements and betterments trickled back. His eyes, long a thorn in his side, were simple things to fix for her.
Verily, she had given him the ability to see clearly that Kuno Kodachi was no mere girl.
Only the word empress could suffice to describe her, a font of destiny and dominance bringing to order from the chaos that humans naturally wrought. The fact she had dispatched those seven girls with such insulting ease did not surprise him. Nor was her refusal to kill them, not out of misplaced morality but a simple understanding of making her enemies suffer.
Before his thoughts could go further, Kodachi emerged from her bedroom dressed below her status but still nevertheless elegant. A pair of tight pants, a loose black violet long sleeved shirt that hung over her shoulder with a gold-loop belt that hung off her left hip, and a large matching hat hat that hid her long hair. She had places to go incognito.
"So what has become of those girls?" He asked.
"They are persona non grata at St. Hebereke. My influence has seen to properly punish them for their treachery," Kodachi said as she stopped to take one more look in an adjacent mirror and adjust her hat.
"Are you planning on going out?" He asked in a clipped tone, one he quickly learned she liked.
"Yes, I will be out for a few hours at the least." Kodachi replied after she finished adjusting her hat. "I may need you for later tonight, depending on how things go."
"Tell me what you need and it will be done." He answered, nodding his head as she detested seeing him bow.
"Simply be up until I return or call otherwise." She explained, pulling out a smartphone and handing it to him. "For you, by the way, ."
He walked over and took it from her. "Very well. Where are you going?"
"Oh, out for a jaunt," she answered with a sinister smile. "My investigation into clan Saginomiya family's many sins has barely even begun and I've already found a starting point where they often overlook: in the so called gutters of humanity."
"Understood." He answered. "Remember to film anyone stupid enough to attack you."
She simply smiled and left, a parting laugh echoing off the walls. "OHHHHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
Ah yes, another reason to follow her was that she had an amazing ass.
To put it bluntly, ramen was not a dish familiar to Kodachi. Indeed, it was Tendo Nabiki who introduced her to the delight as well as inspired her first move; a little shop just on this side of the border with the neighborhood of Taian–a wealthier part of Nerima where a lot of tourists and foreigners liked to spend their money for more local fare. This place, with its high quality ramen and low price alcohol, was a popular stop for such individuals, as well as two teachers from Kolkhoz Academy who Kodachi had been directed to.
Hello Black Rose-sama, we are like-minded individuals inside of Kolkhoz Academy's inner circle. We have heard of your interest in taking down the school's Queen from a mutual association, and we would like to pass a few bits of intelligence that will help you on your way. Before you meet us, however, we insist that you check out this ramen shop we like…
The message she had received had not deceived. Kodachi arrived exactly on time, before they had even finished their first bowl. It was a simple thing: order a bowl, take a table close enough to eavesdrop but not so close the people you were snooping on could tell and put up walls.
Yes, a classic fly on the wall maneuver, as shown to her some weeks ago by Nabiki.
"Regulars are easy to spy on at restaurants. They have a routine they zero in on so much that they forget everything else. They'll sit in the same spot and not think of anywhere else. So you can be as close as a table away from where your mark's sitting and he won't even care you're there" Nabiki had explained.
"Is it really so simple?" Kodachi asked, clearly puzzled by the world of intrigue and scandal Nabiki preferred to reside in.
"Creatures of habit are the most careless lot, I mean… a predictable martial artist is easy to defeat, right?" Nabiki asked, putting advice into the younger Kuno's brain that would last her years.
And from there to here and now, where Kodachi found herself ordering.
"Ah, lovely customer-san." The friendly shopkeeper greeted her. "What brings such an elegant young woman to my humble shop?"
"I was in the neighborhood and decided it had been too long since I had something truly enjoyable. An extra spicy beef ramen with a side of gyoza please." Kodachi returned it and ordered at the same time to save on chit chat. "And a pineapple juice to drink."
From there, the money was exchanged and soon Kodachi had her food and drink and her seat in that sweet spot close to her target. Now to listen in and see if there was anything to learn. The two men seemed to be in especially high spirits, laughing among themselves like they'd been telling jokes all night.
As it turned out, what they had to say was hilarious.
"Ah a long day of babysitting out of the way, eh Goto-senpai?" One of the men said to the other as he leaned back from eating. He was a younger guy, who had spiky brown hair and glasses. "To think we're getting paid so much for this, and bonuses on top of that!"
"Of course Makabe-kun but you have to be careful with those words." Goto, a balding man with a ponytail and a shitty beard, said. "We're not supposed to get bonuses."
"Ah, sorry, sorry." Makabe replied. "I'm just so excited about this job I keep forgetting."
"It's not what you expect for teaching though right?" Goto replied with a chuckle.
"If this job was any easier I would literally be stealing candy from babies," Makabe said with a boisterous laugh of his own.
Kodachi's eyes narrowed for a long second. There was no way Kolkhoz's teaching could be easy, they had the best students with the best grades in Nerima since their inception. Something was rotten here.
"It pretty much is," Goto went on, taking a sip from what was clearly alcohol of some kind. "Hell, a kid like you who went to teaching school is overqualified for this."
"Overqualified?" Kodachi repeated in her mind.
Makabe looked surprised. "You never went?"
"I'm not even licensed, man." Goto said with a laugh.
This came as a shock to Kodachi as well. "Unlicensed?!"
Makabe nodded, understanding. "Well, to be honest I never graduated. I actually washed out at the end of my first semester. That's fine though some of these kids are too dumb to eat miso soup without supervision, let alone tell if their teachers are full of it."
"Makabe-kun!" Goto admonished with mock scandal. "Those are the, heh, future leaders of Japan you speak so ill of! Have some respect."
"I apologize, senpai!" Makabe snickered as he failed to contain his amusement.
"You know half of them would have to ask their butlers to tell them what miso soup even is!" Goto continued, setting off a boisterous round of guffawing from the pair of buffoons.
It didn't add up in Kodachi's twisted, brilliant mind. Why were these "teachers" disparaging their students despite their cushy and decidedly undeserved positions? The High Schools of Furinkan, Tomobiki, and Butsumetsu neighborhoods were well familiar with cruel teachers. Given the delinquency of their respective student bodies, the faculty was adversarial–if not outright antagonistic–to even the most behaved students.
No such atmosphere existed at St. Hebereke, due in part for the fact that it was a wealthy Catholic Private School with extremely difficult standards for its students. Kodachi had assumed that Taian Neighborhood's other prestigious school would have a similar environment.
More concerning… if the academic standards were in fact so low, why was someone as intelligent as Tendo Nabiki not attending Kolkhoz? Or her little sister Akane? Both girls were far too brilliant for her father's vanity project. A boxer with Hatanaka's punch should have the best Academies the nation over vying to have him. Why was he at Furinkan? It just didn't make sense. Something was rotten and even someone without a nose could smell it.
No matter, she would finish her food and make some calls, and maybe she would close in on her first chance to tighten the noose around Asuka's throat.
Finishing her food and drink as the two men continued to boast about their good fortune, Kodachi rose from her chair and coasted past. She made to produce a small bottle of aerosol on her way, and gently spritzed a bit over their shoulders. A gentle fragrance easily overpowered by the aroma of street level food… and a potent diuretic and laxative with a slow release. Come the next day, their charmed lives would be miserable.
Once you've had some dinner, come meet with us at the karaoke bar down the street to talk all about it. Our mutual friend has some pretty good taste in music, so we hope you pick a good song when you show up, on their behalf.
The karaoke bar in question was a rather nice and upscale place, like just about everything else in Taian, ideal for anywhere from teenagers to salarymen to come and sing away their troubles while enjoying snacks and drinks provided by the staff. With her entry, she was quickly told she was expected in the room furthest down the hall, near the emergency exit.
Going down the hall, she reached a partially open door where she could hear the sound of laughing and bickering over music selection. Opening the door, she found a small group of three boys and two girls. The boys were wearing the uniforms of Kolkhoz, while the girls were dressed in Tomobiki's.
The boy closest to the karaoke machine, a tall, gangly young man with blonde hair held back by a headband, stood upright and gave her a friendly smile. "Yo! Uh… can I help you?"
"Hello," one of the Tomobiki girls said with a friendly wave.
Kodachi was surprised. "Ah… I came here on behalf of Tendo Nabiki. She said that the next song you pick should be by Akino."
The other students quickly shared looks, before the boy at the machine smiled and gestured for her to close the door. "You got good taste in music, I'm Sousuke."
Kodachi stepped in and shut the door behind her. "I am understanding that you are all close to the White Lily's inner circle?"
One of the boys sitting on the couch between two of the Tomobiki girls put on a grin, he was a foreigner with reddish brown hair and a face full of freckles. "We're part of the Student Council, yo! I'm Paul. And these cute gals are Ichiko and Eimi."
The second of the two seated gave a thumb's up. "And I'm her last 'boyfriend', Soichiro."
Kodachi blinked several times, and then pointed at him. "Ah yes, I remember you from my last meeting with Saginomiya. How did things work out?"
"Ah, you know, soon as she was declared the winner I got kicked upstairs to the Student Council and ordered to never speak with her highness ever again unless requested," Soichiro replied. "What happened to your guy?"
"We parted on amicable terms," Kodachi said with a perfectly straight face. "My condolences for your breakup."
"Eh, I'm on the student council," Soichiro said. "So what's up."
"Following your boss's advice, I was able to overhear a pair of teachers relaxing after their day at work. Their incriminating and less than flattering statements about themselves and their students has left me curious about the actual climate at Kolkhoz High School."
Sousuke, the leader of this cadre of informants patted the top of the karaoke machine and shook his head. "You mean how most of the kids are pretty much rich window lickers or pretty airheads? Well, they ain't wrong."
"You are aware of it?"
"Student council, babe," Paul said in immaculate Japanese. "The only requirement to be on it is that you're not dumb as a brick, or you dated Asuka."
"Hey," Soichiro sharply snapped, to the laughter of the girls.
The two girls from Tomobiki, sitting with the two boys, nodded in agreement. Eimi then spoke up. "Yes, my twin brother is in the Fashion Club goes to Kolkhoz, but I got a better grade on the entry exam."
Kodachi was surprised. "You failed to enter Kolkhoz?"
Ichiko nodded. "Me too, but apparently I bombed the test pretty savage despite studying for weeks beforehand."
Sousuke nodded. "Comparatively speaking, I consistently get some of the lowest grades in school."
Kodachi stared at the odd mismash of students, especially Sousuke. "But you're on the Student Council."
"Well yeah, that's because my parents paid premium for it," Sousuke replied. "Same as with Paul and Soichiro here, and Eimi-chan's brother."
Secondary education in Japan was not free, but "Premium" tripped a flag for Kodachi. "What do you mean… premium?"
Paul offered the answer. "Simple, you pay a little bit extra, and your kid not only gets into Kolkhoz, but they get good grades no matter what. You're on the fast track to graduation and placement in a superb college if you pay a little more on top of that."
Kodachi gaped at the foreign student, then looked back at Soichiro, and then at Sousuke again. "They are… paying to pass?"
"Oh yeah, it's how Kolkhoz Academy has the highest percentile of students in the entire country," Soichiro said. "Pretty crazy, isn't it?"
Kodachi was almost stunned lucid by it. "Those scoundrels, those con men… but wait… such fraud would be easy to detect, would it not?"
"It would, but there's a trick to it," Sousuke said. "I'm not exactly privy to how the trick works, but they can make any grade a great one. Including the students of national exams."
Kodachi recoiled. "Nationals?"
"If you want a free ride to Tokyo U, Kolkhoz is where you go," Paul said.
Sousuke clapped his hands together. "The trick though, and I'm certain of it, is located in the offices of the school! You get in there and find out what they are doing, and you'll blow the whole lid off the biggest scandal in Japanese school system of the 21st Century."
What a tempting opportunity, but Kodachi was crazy, not stupid. "I am curious, what do you have to gain from the shame soon to befall your school?"
Sousuke shrugged his shoulders. "We don't get dragged into your stupid war with Saginomiya for one–no offense."
Soichiro nodded. "No offense, but I've already been in that meat grinder, and I don't want to go again."
"That is fair," Kodachi agreed.
Eimi then spoke up. "Because of Mendou-san, we've been wrapped up in this too, and we want out. Things are already bad enough at Tomobiki because of the Crusaders."
Ichiko then added. "We want this to end, and we're going to do it by supporting you."
"And besides… after what you did to Butsumetsu? Morale's at an all time low because we know how strong you Furinkan monsters are, no one wants to fight you guys except for the stupid diehards for Saginomiya," Sousuke finished.
"More like Try-hards," Paul corrected.
Kodachi nodded. "I see… this information, it's going to be put to good use. However, if I'm going to I will need one final piece."
Sousuke cocked his head slightly. "What?"
"A floorplan of Kolkhoz Academy and any information on the school's defenses," Kodachi replied.
Sousuke smiled. "Oh that's not easy to come by, so that's going to cost you."
Kodachi stared at the young man somewhat dangerously now. "Cost me what?"
At that, Sousuke held aloft the karaoke microphone. "How's your karaoke skills?"
Kodachi's gaze dropped to the microphone, and then rose to Sousuke's face, as if what he was saying was utterly ludicrous.
"You fool," she said, before smirking, "Do you realize that I went to an All Girl's School? Karaoke is not merely a pastime."
In an instant, she had the mic in her hand and she was posed dramatically, ready to sing. "It's a way of life!"
Naturally as expected of a girl of so many talents, Kodachi killed it.
|Leftovers|
Honestly, Kodachi didn't expect this.
In fact she had hoped for something as mundane as her being a bottle blonde (not true, as Kodachi knew her since she was four and she certainly had a natural blonde to her). Discovering a scandal big enough to topple her and her entire family was more than she could ever want. No, there was no wanting under these circumstances.
This was what Kodachi needed her entire life and did not know until now.
An opportunity to completely destroy her mortal rival didn't come often. With one firmly in her grasp she needed nothing short of perfection to see her victory through, and when it came to perfection she had four people ideally suited for providing as close as one could get to it to pick from.
Naturally, she went for the most attractive one.
"Saotome Ranma-kun, what do you think of ramen?" She had asked him in Furinkan High School's kitchen the very next morning. Ranma was in the midst of writing down a recipe to give to the lunch staff for the rest of the week as he looked through the main icebox of the kitchen.
"As an eater, it can be cheap and filling if you know where to go for it. As a chef, I see a canvas upon which to paint a masterpiece." Ranma answered, chuckling at her confused look.
Kodachi hummed at that. "A canvas, you say?"
"Break it down to brass tacks, it's noodles in flavored water cooked a certain way. Keep that in mind, and you can turn it into literally whatever you want," Ranma said lightly. "Like for instance, I've been thinking about doing soupe de poisson ramen."
A French dish she was familiar with, Kodachi rather enjoyed it. "That sounds like it'd be excellent."
Ranma did a bit of a double take. "You like soup de poisson?"
"Some in my income bracket would consider it commoner fare, and more would enjoy it simply because it is served to them with the French name." Kodachi smiled slightly. "I rather find a charm in its preparation and the flavors there within."
Ranma smirked. "Fancy yourself a bit of a connoisseur?"
"Sasuke, my family's ninja, is actually well-versed in French Cuisine," Kodachi replied. "It's about the only thing he's good for aside from his utter devotion to our family."
Not that she's needed to rely on him since she began training her Gentlemen.
Ranma didn't know the Kunos had a family ninja, or that he could cook French food. He'd have to look into that. "It's kind of funny, I never would've expected you to be into something like that. I think even most average people would cringe at the idea of using the leftovers to make something before they had a chance to try it."
Kodachi nodded. "Yes, and that's a flawed way of thinking, do you not agree? We are conditioned to believe that there are things we should be above. Food, occupations, even people. Once all the desirables are acquired all that is left is refuse that should be cast away."
Ranma found that a little bit poignant coming from her. "Uh… yeah, I guess."
Kodachi rested her hands against the counter that separated her from Ranma, who closed the icebox door and leaned back against it. "You went to Butsumetsu for a time, wouldn't you say that it reflects that attitude? Many of those students, do you see any of them being contributing members of society?"
Ranma let out a quick laugh. "Oh brother, I think those guys may as well stay in High School forever, there's no hope for 'em." He stopped and then frowned. "Well with some exceptions."
"Ohhohoho…" Kodachi's laugh was rather subdued. "It's that narrow thinking, of seeking out the exceptional, that leads people to waste something that is perfectly good–if work is put into it."
She gestured around. "This school wasn't far removed from Butsumetsu High School, or Tomobiki. In fact all three can be considered one and the same, where students who don't make the arbitrary requirements for entrance into the likes of Kolkhoz or St. Hebereke."
Ranma was starting to see where she was going with this. "We're the scraps leftover when all the parts that they wanted got taken by Kolkhoz and St. Hebereke."
"Yet with preparation and creativity you can make something fantastic with them, that which is considered cheap and indolent can one day become the envy and desire of the rich and frivolous." Kodachi declared. "Like a wonderful bowl of soup de poisson."
Ranma folded his arms, weighing heavily on this rather profound discussion. "I gotta say though, there's more here at Furinkan than just fish heads and leftover veggies. At least in this school, there's a lot more going for us."
Kodachi nodded, he had hit the nail on the head. "That is true, you are all of a higher quality than many would be willing to accept. The turnaround of these students to take longer than it has, I expected to be having a conversation like this one closer to the middle of fall instead of before summer break."
"So why are we having it now?" Ranma asked.
"A good question with a disturbing answer. Last night I went out and enjoyed some ramen in Taian," Kodachi revealed. "I ended up there at the instruction of several members of Kolkhoz's Student Council."
Ranma frowned. "Why were you taking orders from them?"
"I was introduced to them via a mutual contact, they told me of a major scandal covered up at their school, one that may have the potential to ruin the name of the Saginomiya family," she revealed. "The quality of the student who goes to Kolkhoz does not matter so much as the amount of money the family is willing to pay."
That was a little heavy, Ranma thought, though he didn't quite appreciate the scope of what she just said. "So what are you going to do about it?"
"I am going to collect proof that such scandal truly exists, and I will need your assistance in that endeavor," Kodachi answered. "I wish to break into the school in the middle of night and steal the evidence."
Ranma stared at Kodachi, before closing his eyes and letting out a laugh. Kodachi found herself rather taken by the sight and sound of it.
"Geez, you're definitely not as above it all as I thought," he admitted.
Kodachi frowned. "Is that a problem?"
"Nah, you're scary, rich, and hot enough to get anyone to do this kind of stuff for you–but you're itchin' to do it yourself. A hands-on girl like that is pretty dang cool," Ranma said, fondly recalling his spars with Katie, watching Akane trash that Kolkhoz kendoist, and of course seeing Misao step up against Shampoo and Ryoga.
Kodachi's frown vanished as she tilted her nose up with a bit of inflated pride at his praise. "I assure you, I'd never dream of sending you into a place I would not go myself."
Ranma laughed again, and there went The Black Rose's heart all atwitter again. "Well, count me in on your raid. Who and what all are we going to need for it?"
"With yours, Mu Tsu's, and mine talents we are fairly potent. However, we need a true master of infiltration and subversion in the team. A true ninja!"
"Ah, your ninja," Ranma said.
Kodachi nodded. "Why yes, of course. We will need to make a quick trip to the medical center where I sent my brother to retrieve him… I banished him there to tend to my brother after he attempted to take revenge on Izurando Katie-san for defeating his master."
So there was a chance at meeting Kodachi's brother, huh? Ranma found that interesting, maybe the dirtbag has learned a lesson after the humbling he got. "So let's go get him, then."
"We shall take the day off immediately then, and head over to the hospital, it is in Minato and I would like to move towards raiding the school as soon as tonight."
Ranma recoiled a bit. "Tonight? That's a bit short notice."
"You should inform your boss that you will be late tonight," Kodachi advised him.
Ranma shrugged his shoulders. "Actually tonight's pretty clear for me, she's doing an R-18 stream so…"
He kind of trailed off at that, and Kodachi could've sworn she saw the beginning of a frown before he quickly squashed it. "… So I'm all yours!"
"If I could only be so lucky," Kodachi said back with a flirtatious lilt to her voice that brought a small flush to his cheeks.
|Sanitorium|
By the afternoon, rain had moved into the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, blanketing the area in clouds and showering the city with curtains of heavy rain. With an umbrella and a raincoat to protect him from his curse being triggered, Ranma stepped out of the limousine that drove him, Kodachi, and Mousse to Tokyo's Hiroo Hospital, the white, angular building looming above them and well lit under the unexpectedly dark clouds.
"So this is where they are keeping him, huh?" Ranma asked. "You'd think they'd keep him somewhere a little more secure."
"Shortly after his misadventure, he was confined to his room under the orders of the doctors who specialize in the trauma he sustained. Sasuke has been there to assist in keeping him in bed, and to this point he has been well behaved, actually," Kodachi explained as they walked up the sidewalk to the large double doors of the main entrance.
Mousse looked up at the daunting face of the hospital, he felt an unease about it, something triggering his fighting instincts. He looked towards Ranma and Kodachi, wondering if they could feel it as well.
"You don't think taking him out of here will give your brother a chance to act out, will it?" Ranma asked.
Kodachi laughed. "No… the damage Izurando Katie-san did to my brother will keep him here for a long time."
What an interesting opportunity to have a look at a real trainwreck, Ranma thought as they entered the hospital's front lobby. As one of the three main hospitals in Minato, and located in one of its busier districts, it was quite busy as they walked in–but the sight of a handsome young man in white Chinese-style robes, a second equally handsome young man in a bright yellow raincoat, hat, and slickers, and a gorgeous young woman wearing naught but a leotard slippers, and a shawl to keep off the rain still turned heads as they went to the elevator to the seventh floor of the hospital.
With intent and poise, Kodachi left the elevator doors on the seventh floor, marched straight to the front desk, and nodded to the nurses behind it. "Greetings, I am here to see Kuno Tatewaki, my brother."
The pretty nurse behind the counter, taken aback by the three teens in front of them, needed a moment before she snapped out of her dazzlement. She quickly got to work on the computer in front of her. "Ah, y-yes. Kuno Tatewaki-san is currently recovering from another round of surgery. He can take visitors, but please take care not to disturb him."
"Oh, I doubt that is possible," Kodachi said as she received her visitors badge.
"Disturbing him or not?" Mousse asked for clarification.
"Not, of course," Kodachi said, "My brother is already quite disturbed."
Ranma folded his hands behind his head. "I bet."
The nurse almost made a face, as if to agree with Kodachi, but refrained. "I'll let Dr. Hyuuga know that you will be coming in."
"There's no need for that," a woman's voice called.
Kodachi and her party turned and found a bespectacled woman wearing a white lab coat over a black long-sleeved dress with a long cut up the sides that went up past the hip, exposing a great deal of the woman's pantyhose-clad legs as she walked. She was a woman of breathtaking elegance, in spite of the pedestrian setting of the hospital.
However, all Ranma really could notice was a more than passing resemblance to Misao– albeit this woman was much taller, and had jet black straight hair that reached past her waist rather than her current myriad of colors that stopped well above it. She was just as heavy around the chest, maybe even more…
"I am Doctor Hyuuga Mizuho, I am Tatewaki-kun's doctor," the woman introduced herself. "You are Kodachi-san, yes?"
Not the least intimidated by the older beauty, Kodachi nodded. "Yes, I've come here to check on him, and recall my family's servant."
Mizuho smiled pleasantly to the girl. "Of course, he's just come from under sedation and he's lively as ever. Please, come this way."
As she turned to lead them, she noticed Ranma's face under the hat of his rain slicker and her eyes enlarged slightly in surprise. "Ah, Ranma-kun?"
Ranma was taken off guard by the elegant woman's recognition. "Uh… yeah? Have we met before?"
"No, but I've heard a lot about you," Mizuho replied, "I'm Misao-chan's aunt."
"Sure you're not her sister?" Ranma meant it more to say that they looked a lot alike, but Mizuho Hyuuga was a single woman in her early forties. As such, she laughed, a sound to the ears what silk was to touch, and brought a hand to her cheek.
"No wonder she's so taken with you!" She said coolly. "You're quick to flatter."
"I'll say!" Kodachi said, rather struck by Ranma's boldness. Truly a man amongst men!
Ranma paused. "Wait, what did I say?"
Mousse wore a wry smirk. "Your confidence is admirable, Saotome."
Ranma processed that and then broke into a blush. "H-hey! I didn't mean it like that!"
"Too late my entire night has been made," Mizuho teased as they passed through the doors to the Post-Op Care unit of the hospital.
Ranma slapped his palm to his face. "Don't tell Misao I said that…"
"Doctor, how is my brother doing?" Kodachi asked as Ranma languished in embarrassment.
"A handful even in his current state," Mizuho revealed. "We've had to do corrective surgery on wounds he keeps reopening with his thrashing about."
"A man with a strong will," Mousse said.
"Quite, he is thoroughly convinced that he will heal better on his own, but the damage done to him was catastrophic at best." Mizuho shook her head. "Being kicked through a clocktower and the mechanism inside at a few hundred miles per hour is not something people get up from easily."
Ranma whistled. "That must've been ugly."
"It's partly why I had the whole thing torn down, they were still picking pieces of my brother from it during the renovation. Mostly teeth and hair, thankfully."
Ranma winced. "Brutal."
"Ah, but he deserved it!" Kodachi reassured him.
"Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, a jerk that big needs it as bad as it can get short of actually killin' the guy."
Mizuho laughed again. "Nicely put, Ranma-kun… because there are things you can do to a person far worse than death."
"After what I saw Misao do to Shampoo, I read you loud and clear on that."
Mizuho's lips tightened at mention of that, and she let out a huff that sounded chagrined. "Yes, quite."
She then swiped a key card attached to her lab coat in front of a reader, and the doors to the actual recovery ward opened… to an unexpected clamor.
"I demand to speak with that enchantress! That succubus! I will not stand for this any longer!" A voice much stronger than it ought to be bellowed.
"Is that him?" Ranma asked.
"That is my dear brother, my he does sound strong!" Kodachi said in surprise.
"Tatewaki-sama, please stop trying to move against your restraints!" Another man said in a much more panicked voice.
When the group reached the bed in question, they of course found the elder of the two Kuno siblings, Tatewaki, strapped down to a reinforced bed and swathed head to toe in bandages and casts. His physical state did not stop him from thrashing around like a mosher with a mummy bondage fetish. Attempting to hold him down was the family ninja, Sarugakure Sasuke, and two nurses and a doctor.
Resting one hand on her hip, Mizuho sighed and strolled over to the bed. "Mou, Tachi-kun, what's wrong now?"
"Do not take such affectionate tones with me, witch!" Tatewaki shouted back. "I was well on the road to recovery when you lashed me down to this bed and carved into me again! What have you taken from me this time? My limbs?! My organs?! My manhood?!"
Mizuho shook her head. "I didn't take anything at all other than bone and concrete fragments, which you still have plenty of embedded in places where they may hurt you."
"Liar! I can feel that you have done something! My strength, my power, it has been sapped!" Tatewaki roared back.
Mizuho shook her head. "If you allow me to work on you, and yourself to recover, then you'll get that strength back and then some."
"Please Tatewaki-sama, listen to her! She has your best interests at heart!" Sasuke pleaded.
"Those injuries were nothing! Nothing!" Tatewaki bellowed.
"Honestly dear brother, you are embarrassing yourself and the family name!" Kodachi then interjected, prompting the elder Kuno to give pause.
"Oh, hello dear sister," Tatewaki greeted as if granting her only the barest formality.
Kodachi huffed and tossed her side-bunched hair over her shoulder. "Tell me you have not been throwing a tantrum all this time. Your care is the best that can be offered, and you are treating these tireless men and women like they are nothing!"
"They bring me no closer to the wellness I must achieve! Time is of the essence! I cannot languish here for months! Not when there is so much at stake!" Tatewaki argued back, causing Sasuke to grimace.
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Geez, what is this guy in such a hurry for?"
Mousse hummed and stroked his chin. That fervency, the wild look of delusion in his eyes. He knew it all too well. "If I had to guess…"
"You there! Commoners! Who are you to speak out of turn?!" Tatewaki bellowed at them.
"Saotome Ranma," Ranma said, "Of the Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling."
"Mu Tsu, formerly of the Joketsuzoku tribe of China," Mousse introduced himself.
Tatewaki stared at Mousse, a tad incredulous. "But you are a man."
"I know," Mousse replied.
"Well, if you must know, I must return to my school post-haste. There is a woman who I must repay for her decisive blow against me," Tatewaki explained.
Mizuho repressed a giggle, while Sasuke outright cringed.
"Tendo Akane is out of your reach, brother," Kodachi advised him.
"Got that right," Ranma muttered.
"I speak not of the fair Akane," Tatewaki said, "I speak of the Goddess who revealed herself to me. A woman of such wild ferocity and violence that surpassed even her fearsome might!"
Ranma's face fell a bit. "Uhh…"
"I speak of the American woman, Izurando," Tatewaki declared passionately. "Never have I known such power… such beauty in violence firsthand!"
"Izurando Katie-san?!" Kodachi exclaimed softly.
"Oh geez," Ranma said flatly.
Tatewaki closed his eyes and chuckled. "Yes, for the longest time I had yearned for the fierce girl who bested me in the realm of kendo. Yet… to meet a woman who held nothing back in the slightest, who came at me with every intent to crush me beneath her feet… I knew that in my heart I must tame her!"
Ranma and Mousse had similar, incredulous looks. "Tame her?"
"Oh my," Mizuho chirped.
Sasuke had his face buried in his palm.
"I knew from the moment I realized what it then it would be my destiny to show her what the love of a civilized and sophisticated nobleman is like! I am her Gilgamesh, and she is my Enkidu!" Tatewaki declared, eyes wide now with a lustful flame.
Ranma then spoke. "Not to make it sound like a detriment to her character, but she is a huge lesbian."
Kodachi looked over to Ranma, intrigued. "Oh she is?"
Tatewaki chuckled. "Hmhmhm… not even the power of lilies can withstand my masculine charisma. When I show her the true breadth of my manliness, she will swoon as a proper heterosexual woman!"
A short stillness followed, Ranma and Mousse visibly cringing at that statement.
He was then thrashing wildly in his bonds. "OR I WOULD IF THIS MADWOMAN DIDN'T CONTINUE TO POKE AROUND INSIDE MY BODY AS THOUGH I WERE A SURGICAL THEMED BOARD GAME!"
"Still haven't found that bucket of water yet," Mizuho murmured under her breath.
Kodachi huffed. "Well fighting her at every turn isn't going to help you recover any sooner. So you will be well to just suck it up and rest well."
Sasuke nodded. "Please, Tatewaki-sama, just let it be for now."
"I cannot! I must see my wild goddess of violence again!" Tatewaki argued back mid-thrash.
Ranma then had an idea. "Hey, Tatewaki or whatever, how about I do you a favor?"
Tatewaki stopped and looked at Ranma. "And what sort of service will you do me, Saotome?"
It was innocent enough, Ranma would feed the elder Kuno sibling a little white lie, and then once he ate it up he wouldn't cause Mizuho anymore trouble. Then that would be the end of it and they'd all be ready to stuff him back into the hospital once he came out.
Unfortunately, Ranma did not know what he was dealing with. Though he would.
"I'm Katie's roommate, I'll put in a good word for you…"
The first three words were the only ones Kuno Tatewaki actually heard. Once he heard them, he found himself first aghast that a young man would be living under the same roof as such a beautiful woman. Then he found himself furious that this stranger, this commoner would be on more intimate terms with her. Sharing meals with her, sleeping within a vague proximity of her, and even… even using the same toilet as her!
"YOU LIVE UNDER THE SAME ROOF AS THE WILD MAIDEN?!" Kuno roared, all of his ire locked directly at Ranma.
"Oops," Mizuho murmured.
"Oh dear," Mousse grumbled.
"Brother, you…" Kodachi began before she sighed in a stark moment of lucidity.
Tatewaki stared at Ranma, his gaze burning with hatred and envy, before he closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. He then relaxed completely, sinking down into the bed, and opened them to look to Mizuho. "Doctor, I entrust myself to the highest standard of your care."
"You do, now?" Mizuho asked, quite pleased to hear that.
"I wish to make the fullest recovery possible. So that when I am fully healed…" He turned his head and stared at Ranma. "… I will destroy this man before me."
Ranma stared at Tatewaki, before he shrugged his shoulders. "You know what? Yeah, that's fine."
He gave the older Kuno a dangerous smile. "I accept your challenge."
Kodachi looked over to Ranma, finding his confidence as enthralling as catnip to a tiger. Mousse found this same confidence impressive, though a tad reckless… after all it was this eagerness that led him to trading blows with Shampoo.
Mizuho and Sasuke were relieved that this meant Tatewaki would at least behave. The former then spoke. "Thank you for deciding to behave, Tatewaki-kun. I hope from here we will have a good time on the road to recovery."
"Every painful moment will be worth it," Tatewaki replied.
"Yeah, whatever," Ranma said. He was going to put him back in here the second he stepped out, so…
"Well, as long as you're going to behave, it means that I can now take Sasuke off your hands," Kodachi said as she stepped forward.
Sasuke turned to Kodachi. "Ah, you need me for something, Kodachi-sama?"
"Yes, a task requiring your skills has come up, I will need to make use of you tonight," Kodachi commanded.
"Ah, at once… well…" Sasuke looked back to his master. "I need to be sure Tatewaki-sama is…"
"Don't worry," Mizuho promised. "He's in good hands, I'm the doctor for him."
She looked around the teens, and finding that her joke went over their heads, shrugged her shoulders in mild resignation.
Sasuke left Tatewaki's side, and bowed deeply to Kodachi. "As you command, Kodachi-sama, I will be at your side. What do you need me fore?"
Kodachi smiled. "I will explain along the way. We must prepare immediately."
She nodded to Mousse and Ranma. "Come along, we must return to the school."
"Right," Mousse said as he followed.
Mizuho waved to them. "Please come by anytime, especially you Ranma-kun."
Ranma flushed and shyly waved back at Mizuho and left after them. On his way out the recovery wing he passed a glance back at Kuno, who was now resting in bed, his gaze locked onto him in turn. Seeing this, Ranma shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment as he followed the group along. Sarcastically, he thought about how wonderful it would be to fight someone as weak as that jerk.
Once the doors closed behind them, Mizuho looked to the well bandaged Kuno and rested a hand on his thigh. "We're going to work together well from now on, Tatewaki-kun."
Tatewaki nodded. "I can only hope for the best recovery."
Mizuho looked down at his bandage wrapped body, and smiled before she let out a silky laugh. "When I'm done with you, you will be a whole new man."
She patted on his thigh, the sound of metal being struck through fabric sounding, prompting Tatewaki to stare at his leg in confusion.
|Kids With Guns|
The truck that pulled to the loading dock of Kolkhoz Academy had unloaded pallets upon pallets of crates, forty in total, and in all of them were the same thing: Guns. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, there were enough firearms to arm an Army division in total, and the sight of them brought a gleam to Asuka's eyes and a look of dread to Angela's face.
"W-where did you get all of these?!" Asuka asked Lida as she looked with glee upon the first crate of boxes, seeing nothing but submachine guns packed in straw.
With her role as security advisor, Lida's first request of Asuka was to purchase firearms for the entire student body, since guns were all legal in Nerima. With a nice hefty flood of firearms, even Kolkhoz's weakest students would have a fair chance against the likes of Furinkan, and even Tomobiki.
Finding such measures appealing, Asuka quickly cut a blank check and told Lida to get to work.
"Buenos amigos de mi familia producen armas de airsoft, estos son excedentes de los modelos del año pasado. No tuve que pagar un solo centavo," Lida replied.
"She knows people," Angela translated.
Asuka, still in awe, picked up one of the SMGs. "I didn't think that we would get so many guns. This was money well-spent!"
Angela translated to Lida, who closed her eyes and laughed throatily.
After checking the action, Asuka attempted to extract the magazine. With a pop it slid out, and she was immediately greeted with a shower of small steel bearings that poured from the box. Staring at it uncomprehending, she looked at the stamped letters on the side of the gun, and then looked to her and Angela.
"Hey, this is airsoft," she said with a frown.
Angela didn't catch that. "W-what?"
"This is an Airsoft Gun!" Asuka yelled at her. She pointed at the crate, all of various guns sporting the same labels. "These are all airsoft!"
Angela nearly withered under the verbal assault, before she turned and translated to Lida.
"Pendeja, claro que sé que son. Yo las ordene," she replied.
Angela cringed, before replying. "She knows, she ordered them."
"What are we supposed to do with Airsoft?! I am trying to fight a war against powerful enemies! Those monsters aren't a joke!" Asuka screamed at her, furious over the waste of money.
When Angela translated that, Lida let out a laugh and pulled out an airsoft pistol, modeled after a Glock 17L. "Yo decidí que usar balines es más seguro para que tus escuincles pendejos peleen tu estúpida guerra. Además, todas están modificadas."
Angela sighed wearily, prompting Asuka to brandish the empty airsoft SMG at her. Prompting a sour look from Lida. "Well, what did she say, nun?!"
With a weariness belying her young age, Angela translated. "She said that they are safer for you to use, and are… modified."
"Modified how?!" Asuka said as she pointed it at Lida. "What good are toys going to do against people who can dodge rifle shots?!"
Lida, rather offended that Asuka would point a gun at her, loaded or not, airsoft or otherwise, quickly pointed the airsoft pistol at her stomach and fired a pellet that hit her with enough force to knock the wind out of her.
"OOF!" Asuka exclaimed as she clutched her solar plexus and doubled over.
Lida lowered the gun before she spoke to Asuka. ("You see now how much these fucking toys can hurt?")
She offered the pistol to Angela, who took it without hesitation as Asuka looked up, tears running down her face.
"Airsoft guns are not toys," Angela simply translated without looking at Asuka, "Do you see that now?"
"You… you shot me!" Asuka shouted out.
Lida hummed to Angela, who translated it to her in turn. Hearing it, Lida nodded.
"Te dispare por que eres una marica." Lida retorted with a roll of her eyes. "Si quieres que alguien adore tu flácido culo mientras muere para protegerlo, tu puedes contratar a la policía con tu dinero sucio, quizás hasta algunos mercenarios"
"You were being bratty." Angela translated liberally, more to spare Asuka's feelings than anything else. "As an aside, haven't you considered asking the police for help? Or mercenaries?"
"Those incompetents can't stop a single perverted boy," Asuka growled back. "I… I want quality."
Hearing Angela's conversion, Lida shook her head.
"Ni creas que lo vas a encontrar fácilmente. Realmente esperas alguien capaz de enfrentar un ejército de esos cabrones caiga en tus manos?" She chastised Asuka with a snide snarl. "Si crees eso, eres mas idiota que una chica fresa asfixiándose en vergas para ser mas popular."
Angela's face colored brightly, and she shook her head to fight off the flush. "There is no shortcut for the strength you want."
Lida then grinned. "Cuando las personas con las que estas peleando esta guerra terminen contigo y tu escuela, entonces te esperare con mis brazos abiertos. Entonces no tendrás absolutamente nada, y desde ahí, te convertiré en algo más que una perra en celo."
Angela stared at Lida, who nodded for her to say as she wished, before she took a deep breath. "I-I can make you stronger, but… but you must give this war up first."
Asuka huffed in defiance. "What does a gloomy, sadistic girl like you… know about my 'war'? This is my image at stake, the adoration of my many followers. I will see the Black Rose pruned from the face of the public, and show her her place well beneath me."
She turned for the exit of the loading bay, shuffling for the doors. Without looking back, she called out. "If these guns work, distribute them… and train the low folk to use them properly…"
Angela now reserved her somewhat horrified stare for Asuka, before she turned to Lida. "Ella dice... Ella dice que esta es su pelea para vencer a esa Kodachi. Por qué todo esto, incluyendo a todos estos estudiantes, por algo tan frívolo?"
Lida let out a snort. "Porque es una chica loca atrapada en su pequeño mundo, con el suficiente dinero para hacerlo real. Mendou y Kuno son iguales... per las ilusiones de Kuno son exactamente lo que la gente quiere. Ella está pensando para el futuro, pensando en grande. Estos pendejos solo piensan en satisfacer sus pequeños juegos engreídos."
She turned and looked out the loading dock, and the rain clouds hanging heavily over Nerima. In English she then said.
"When this is over, the winners will be more than ready to face the true world."
= = =
Because this party is about to get crazy.