Ranma jerked awake to a splash of cold water and an angry shout. He looked up to see the glaring eyes of his fiancee but gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to insult her. So what if she was uncute, if she was incapable of trust, so what if she constantly leapt to conclusions. He had to give her a chance, give them a chance. After all, what if it was love that he felt on Jusendo? Shouldn't he give love a chance?
She growled angrily at his lack of a response and stalked from the room muttering. He rose from his futon with a sigh, grabbed some clothes, and headed for the bath. He wondered for a moment where his idiot father was then dismissed it from his mind.
If it was important, he would find out soon enough.
When he finally made it to the breafast table, cleaned and ready for school, Akane was there already, glaring at him. He glanced a bit fearfully at his plate but thankfully it looked normal. He sat silently and ate quickly, not wanting to give Akane an excuse to hit him.
She did not speak, settling for a hard glare. Soon they were out of the house and on their way to Furinkan High.
"So, who was she?" Akane ground out through clenched teeth.
Ranma looked down from his position on the fence at his angry fiancee. Somehow, he knew, no matter how he responded it would be taken the wrong way and he would get malleted.
"She's just someone I met in the park," Ranma said. He did not like to admit to weakness and he really did not want to admit that he, Saotome Ranma, man among men, had asked for help.
He felt the flaring of Akane's battle aura and did not even hear her response before registering the mallet impact that sent him flying through the air.
"Oh well, at least she sent me towards the school this time," he muttered. He shifted so that he was facing the direction he was moving. Instantly he began adjusting his trajectory. If he could not shift far enough, he would hit the pool. He wondered for a moment, as he worked to alter his path enough to land on the school roof instead, whether Akane had deliberately aimed for the pool.
Thankfully, he discovered that he had recognized the danger with enough time to spare and he was able to make a soft landing on the school roof. He glanced around and then stopped still as he heard Akane's voice below. She was just about to... yep. Ranma grinned and waved as Kuno sailed past him on a high arc, then sat down.
"She sure is mallet happy today," he muttered. Thinking of the reason for his earlier malleting, the green haired friend of Tofu's, led to thoughts of Tofu as he was preparing to leave. That had been some time ago but his memories of Tofu were still clear.
"You really should reconsider allowing Akane to hit you," Tofu had advised. "I've been watching her for some time and I'm afraid you're just feeding her delusion. She has to know, subconsciously, even if she won't admit it, that she can't hit you unless you allow it. I'm afraid that every time you let her hit you she is seeing it as evidence that you are in fact guilty of whatever imagined offense she is angry about."
Ranma had not been willing to follow Tofu's advice then. He had protested and in the end ignored it. He knew that if he avoided Akane's righteous anger, the fathers would be outraged, Ryouga would blow up at him, and things would simply get worse.
Now though, he was less certain. His father had occasionally shown signs of uncertainty, as if he was no longer so sure of being able to handle Ranma. Soun had not changed, but then, he was not a real threat anyway. Ryouga and his other rivals, on the other hand... well, Kuno might still react badly, but Kuno was never a real challenge anyway. Ranma got the feeling that Ryouga's opinion about Akane and Ranma had been changing, though.
Maybe it was time. "Yeah," he said, smacking his fist into his palm. "She's the only one that hasn't grown up after the whole blow up at Jusendo... everyone else will think twice about pushing me once they realize I'm no longer kowtowing to that uncute tomboy."
Jumping to his feet, Ranma flipped off the edge of the roof. As he fell past the building he took note of his classroom window and smiled. Since it was open, he leapt again as soon as he landed, alighting on the windowsill and slipping into his seat just before Akane entered the room, still angry over Kuno's presence.
She gave Ranma a sharp glare before sitting at her desk and turning her attention away from him. Ukyou entered a few moments later and Ranma noticed the sad look she directed towards him as she headed for her seat. Catching that look made him realize that she and Shampoo both seemed to have finally come to the realization that they had gone too far and that he actually loved Akane, that he had already made his choice. It figured that that realization would come to them just when he was beginning to really question his feelings for Akane.
He shivered suddenly as he realized that the cold shoulder he had been giving Shampoo and Ukyou could backfire badly if they decided they had no chance and the fathers learned of it. He and Akane might be married before they knew what was happening and Ranma was beginning to be seriously worried at the prospect of having to spend the rest of his life with someone who so obviously hated him.
It suddenly hit Ranma that that might explain Akane's recent behavior. If she really did dislike him then the increase in her violence and anger could be explained by her not wanting him. If she did not want to get married, then as he acted nicer, she would have to pick up the slack to prevent the marriage. He slumped slightly in his seat. He had not really wanted to believe it but it made sense; more sense than he had ever made of her behavior before, at any rate.
He drifted through the rest of the classes until lunch. He didn't sleep but he wasn't paying much attention either. He simply kept picturing recent incidents and fitting them into the picture of Akane's genuine dislike for him, hoping to find something that didn't fit. When the bell for lunch rang, he had still not found anything.
Ranma slipped out the window carrying his lunch and dropped to his usual spot by a tree. He watched Akane come out in the company of Yuka and Sayuri. Again she directed a venomous glare in his direction. He sighed and focused on his lunch. It was gone in moments and he turned his attention back to the yard.
He saw Kuno approaching Akane from the practice field, then to one side he noticed Ukyou cooking okynomiyaki on her portable griddle. Ranma slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a handful of yen. He had enough.
He stood and made his way quickly to where Ukyou was sitting, hearing Akane yelling at Kuno in the background. He squatted by her, holding out a handful of yen, the full amount she usually charged her lunchtime customers.
"Ranma?" She asked, a bit nervously.
"One shrimp okynomiyaki please, Ucchan," he replied. Her eyes lit up at the name and she immediately poured batter on the griddle, then she looked at the yen in his hand.
"Ranchan, you know," she began.
"No," he replied firmly, "I ain't gonna be like Pops anymore. You're too good a friend to mooch off of."
Not that Ranma had ever really seen the food he got from his fiancees as mooching. After all, they were well aware of the difficulties preventing him from making any real money. He wasn't worried about acting like his father, and didn't really equate his actions with his father's anyway.
It was just the first explanation that popped into his mind, since he could not simply tell her that he was hoping that she would go back to being the friend he had always wanted.
He had not said fiancee, quite deliberately, and he was trying, by changing the way he interacted with Ukyou the chef, to change the way he interacted with Ukyou the girl.
He could not have phrased it so clearly, of course. He simply had the idea that if he treated her the way Hiroshi and Daisuke did, now that she seemed to have accepted that he had not chosen her, even if she might be wrong about his having chosen Akane, she might be willing to be his friend again. Well, a guy could hope, right?
She smiled and sprinkled the ingredients on the okynomiyaki after flipping it then handed it too him.
"Yowch, hot!" He yelped, but ate it quickly. "Mmmm. That was delicious, Ucchan. You really are a great cook."
He saw her eyes widen and felt a strong ki coming towards his rear and grinned inwardly. Time to change the rules of the game . . . "Ranma no Baka!" Akane shouted, swinging her mallet.
A silence fell over the schoolyard, as everyone froze, staring in utter disbelief as Ranma caught Akane's hammer on his palm. He shifted his grip on the head of Akane's hammer slightly and plucked it from her grip. Ranma had stopped Mallet-sama? Ranma had defended himself against Akane?
Ranma closed his fist, crushing the mallet head into splinters. Akane purpled with rage and whipped out an even larger mallet. It met a ki-enhanced fist and exploded into dust.
Still no-one else moved. It just seemed surreal. That could not be Ranma standing there looking at Akane with that silly smirk on his face. Akane seemed at a loss for a response but Ranma let her off the hook by leaping up into the tree and bounding across the yard and back into his classroom.
The unnatural silence and complete stillness lasted until the bell suddenly rang, signaling the end of lunch. Ukyou watched wide-eyed as Akane stormed back into the building. Ranma had defended himself against Akane. He was speaking to her again. She almost drifted off into a fantasy again when her logical mind, having seen a recent return after the events of the wedding finally broke her fantasy for the first time, replayed his words. "You're too good a friend . . ." He had not called her cute, had not called her a fiancee. He had said friend.
For the first time in nearly two years Ukyou's defensiveness of her right to her dreams faltered and for a brief moment she wondered what her Ranchan dreamed of. Why had he paid her for the okynomiyaki, she pondered, as she hurriedly cleaned her griddle and headed back to class. What was he trying to say?
A slow flush crept up her face as she remembered how happy Ranma had seemed when she had first shown up and he had realized who she was. He'd been so happy to see his friend again. She paused in the door to the classroom and took in the looks of disbelief still on most of the students' faces.
Even Akane looked more pensive than angry for once. As Ukyou made her way to her seat, she wondered at that. She had always kind of assumed that if Ranma ever actually failed to defend Akane, it would break her shell and send her fleeing in tears. Why hadn't she run? Why did she look pensive, instead of heartbroken, or angry?
Some distance away in another classroom, two figures sat in brooding thought. Kuno had not actually seen the events, as he had been recovering still from his pummeling at the hands of his fierce tigress. Still the students were saying that Ranma had defended himself against Akane without striking her. He had simply disarmed her and then left. Kuno was currently fighting between two lines of thought. He couldn't decide whether the sorcerous Saotome was upping his control over Akane or releasing her. Should he attack Saotome to punish him, or Akane, now freed of the treacherous Saotome's influence?
Nabiki on the other hand was basically in shock. The only active thought in her mind was a rather strangled "Four... hundred... thousand... yen..."
She had taken a bet just the day before from a student. Four thousand yen placed on Ranma to defend against Akane's mallet instead of merely dodging. She had seen it as easy money, even given the girl 100 to 1 odds. After all, she prided herself on reading people, and she was certain Ranma would never defend himself from Akane. Besides, he had even toned down the insults recently, and avoided doing anything to anger her, so surely he would not suddenly go in the opposite direction. Yet he had, and now she had someone expecting a four hundred thousand yen payout. Nabiki was not having a good day.
She retained enough sense to answer questions when the teacher posed them but aside from that, she remembered little of what happened from lunch to the end of the day. She was still sitting at her desk in a daze when a gentle throat clearing attracted her attention.
She looked up to see the girl who had made the bet. "How?" Nabiki's mind instantly went back to full speed. "How did you know?"
The girl moved slightly and Nabiki's attention was drawn lower, to where the girl was holding out a white envelope. "I didn't," she said. "A lady gave me four thousand yen and told me what bet to make. She said when the bet was won, to give you this. I guess it tells where to send the money, or something."
Nabiki shivered suddenly. Surely . . . surely she had not inadvertently accepted a bet from a cop? Why else would someone have made the bet through a proxy?
She thanked the girl and hurried home, her unease growing. She ignored the situation in the house, though subconsciously the lack of noise raised her feeling of nervousness. She went directly to her room and shut the door behind her. Checking to make certain that there was no-one present, she sat at her desk and looked at the envelope.
A simple white envelope, nothing written on it, no stamps or markings. She verified that it was sealed then slit it open with a letter-opener. Slipping two fingers into the opening, she pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
She unfolded it and began to read. Finishing, she sat still for several long minutes, thinking about what she had read, before cutting the document into small pieces and placing it in a small metal tin. She kept the tin on her desk for a single purpose . . . to dispose of dangerous documents. Nabiki did not trust shredders.
She pulled out a small box of matches and lit the contents of the tin then opened her window. She teased the fire with the metal letter-opener, making sure each bit of paper caught and burned completely, before she cast the crumbled ashes to the wind.
She slid the window shut again and moved back to her desk, where she snagged a pad of paper and a pen. In a precise hand she noted down a list of supplies she would have to obtain. On another sheet, she quickly jotted down a few ideas, to see if any more supplies would be necessary.
Tearing off both sheets, she placed them in her purse and headed downstairs. She poked her head in to the kitchen and saw Kasumi. "I've got to head to a shop and pick up a few things," she advised and at Kasumi's pleasant confirmation, she continued out the door.
As she opened the front gate, she suddenly cursed to herself. Why had she not asked that girl for a description of the woman who had made the bet? Nabiki wondered as she closed the gates behind herself whether the description would have included green hair. "I better ask her tomorrow," she muttered. Could it really be possible for Ranma to have planned this? She would not have believed it of him, he simply did not seem that clever, but then, she had bet at a hundred to one odds that he'd never stop Akane's mallet and she had been wrong about that.
Meanwhile Ranma had discovered just as school let out that word of his actions at lunch had reached the Nekohaunten.
"Nihao, airen!" Shampoo caroled happily as she aimed her bike to land on Ranma. He always made her landings nice and soft. Wham! Ranma cleanly sidestepped the incoming bike and Shampoo hit hard. He was off and running before she or Akane could react and by the time Shampoo recovered from her bruising landing, Ranma was gone from sight.
Once again Ranma had managed to stun just about everyone. Like Akane's mallet, Ranma never seemed to dodge Shampoo's bike. Until now. Of course, Shampoo had not tried to land on him since Jusendo but if he was no longer taking Akane's abuse, then Shampoo was back in the running. Except that she did not seem to be.
Ranma cursed softly as he ran. He had realized for some time that if he started actually avoiding Shampoo's glomps and her bike, she would come to realize that he was avoiding her. He did not want to hurt her and he was afraid of what would happen to her if she gave up. More to the point, he would have expected, before Jusendo, that Cologne would have pushed even harder for stronger methods if Ranma upped his resistance.
Now that Jusendo had happened though, Ranma felt sure that the old ghoul would not want an angry Ranma in the tribe and there was no way he was going to allow his changed attitude to Akane to be interpreted as a license to return to the way things were before Jusendo for the rest of the Nerima crew.
He changed course several times in order to lose pursuit but since he didn't detect anyone following him, he used more speed than he normally permitted himself.
He wanted some time alone to think about how to deal with the repercussions of his act at lunch and so he was headed to the last place he had been able to find some time to sit and think. He found it easily and soon he was again sitting by a tree watching children play.
Unfortunately his mind wasn't cooperating. He wasn't coming up with any good ideas on how to handle the recriminations that would surely follow as soon as he returned to the Tendo home.
After a fruitless quarter of an hour during which he came to no useful conclusions, he decided that he needed to clear his mind. Not really having much experience with meditation, as Genma did not much care for it, Ranma's tool of choice for clearing his mind was kata.
Rising from his spot beneath the tree, he cast about until he found a wide region clear of trees and not currently inhabited by overactive children. He was about to enter into an energetic kata when his mind rebelled. He stopped for a moment. What was wrong? Why shouldn't he do a full out kata here? The answer came to him after a moment's thought. No-one is disturbing you here because no-one knows you. Go all out and they'll make the connection and you'll draw attention.
Satisfied with that logic, Ranma began a ground-based kata.
Punch. Block. Snap kick. Block. Leg sweep and punch combo. Block.
Ranma closed his eyes, allowing the familiar easy motion of his body flowing through the moves to soothe his mind. He lost himself in the pattern of blocks, kicks, punches and combinations.
He focused on his father. His father's arguments were as familiar to him now as were his attacks.
"Boy, how dare you dishonor your fiancee like that!" His father's fists flew in a frontal assault.
"There is no dishonor in self-defence," he protested, batting aside and misdirecting his father's blows.
"You should take your punishment like a man! What are you, a weak girl?" His father taunted him, as he dropped into a low combo ending in a hard, fast sweep that Ranma barely avoided.
"Punishment for what? I haven't done anything wrong!" Ranma objected, narrowly leaping over the leg sweep. He tried to retaliate with a throw but his father deflected it.
"You haven't fulfilled your honor and married her, boy!" He snarled at Ranma.
Ranma banished the mental image of his father. It was pointless, sparring with his father verbally. Genma never responded to direct attack and always evaded responsibility. At the same time he was sneaky and tricky enough that even though Ranma was more than powerful enough to take him out, Ranma still ended up in koi pond as often as not. He fared even less well in their verbal spats.
High kick. Three quick punches. Block. Drop to a squat and throw an upwards kick to the gut. Roll and spring into a high kick to the face with the heel of the right foot.
Ranma didn't even bother trying to think of the others. He had tried but he simply wasn't cut out for this kind of battle. He couldn't beat his own father in a battle of words, even though he knew Genma's every move.
Reversal. Rabbit punches to the kidney. Opponent spins to face. Block high with left arm, block low with right leg. Palm strike.
The image of Nabiki rose up in his mind. How does she do it, he wondered. Even Master Happosai tended to leave her alone. Ranma knew it was because of her blackmail, at least partially. At the same time, she never seemed to actually need to use blackmail to best people with words. You simply couldn't win a confrontation with Nabiki, no matter how skilled you were.
Crane stance into finger strike to the throat. Block and a throw, dropping into a leg sweep as the opponent recovers.
She wasn't the only one, of course. Nodoka seemed to win against Genma every time, even though Ranma was certain that Genma was good enough to escape. He wasn't sure how skilled Nodoka might be with her sword but surely his father's Umi-sen-ken technique would be good enough to allow him to escape?
Strong jump to avoid low kick, leg drop, block strike to groin.
He too tended to give way before her, but he knew that he had reason. He, unlike his father, actually valued his honor. If seppuku was the only honorable thing he could do, he would do it. He had in fact considered it once but it seemed too much like running away. He would not take that path until no other path was left to him. Genma on the other hand seemed to exist to escape responsibility and evade the demands of honor, so why would he fear seppuku? Ranma couldn't figure it out, couldn't see why Genma reacted the way he did to Nodoka and so he set it aside.
Accept a throw, reverse momentum into springing palm strike. Follow up with low kick leading to rising uppercut and a hard elbow to the chest.
There was always Kasumi. Gentle Kasumi, who would never lift a hand against anyone and would certainly never stoop to blackmail, yet when she insisted, everyone obeyed. She too seemed immune to Happosai.
Hook opponent's foot and swing high, releasing but continuing the smooth turn, rotating opponent in the air to bring head into range of full power kick coming off full rotation.
That was not to say there weren't people that he did understand, or at least mostly. He understood why people would give way for Cologne, Happosai, and Hinako-sensei. Sure he stood up to them, at least sometimes, but he understood why others didn't. Fear. Fear was why they backed down, fear of the power the three held, fear of what they could do to someone.
Backward flip to gain distance giving opponent time to rise, following with springing double palm strike and upward flip.
Was it the same with the others? Surely not, surely no one obeyed Kasumi because they were afraid of her. Yet he couldn't get that thought out of his mind. If that was the case, though, then why did he lose to his father? He certainly didn't fear the old man. He knew he could beat him, especially now that he knew the Umi-sen-ken. He wasn't sure he knew all the Yama-sen-ken moves, but he had figured out how to duplicate pretty much everything Kumon Ryu had thrown at him.
Hard punch to the head while inverted, drop hands to back of neck and use momentum to throw.
With Nabiki it was fear, that was clear enough. With Nodoka, well, that too was fear. He wasn't sure what Genma was afraid of but his body language was pretty clear on the fear part. He was definitely afraid of Nodoka. With Ranma, on the other hand, it was not so much fear of Nodoka, nor even really fear of seppuku. There had been a few times when he had actually hoped his mother would insist on it, if only to finally release him from the growing tension he was under. He didn't fear death, at least, he didn't think he did. No, Ranma mused, I don't fear her katana... it's her eyes.
Redirect opponent's momentum during throw with hard shoulder strike lining opponent's chest up with rising foot to slam downward.
He pictured her again in his mind, looking at him with that look of disapproval mingled with disappointment. That was what he feared, that he would be a disappointment to her. He knew that his father was disappointed in him. He had been ever since the whole Neko-ken business, even if it had been the old man's fault.
Dropping neck strike. Endgame. Ranma paused and shuddered as he came back to himself, realizing that somewhere in his thoughts he had drifted from the kata to shadow sparring and just performed a lethal strike.
Am I losing control?
Ranma stood slowly, his breathing still even and steady and relaxed out of his stance. He was startled from his contemplations, eyes snapping open, by the sound of applause from around him.
He saw that in spite of his intention, he had garnered a number of observers, young and old alike, all admiring. He noted that some of the girls' looks were more than admiring; they were hungry and he shivered again.
His eyes caught a look of longing and he was startled by a familiar cut of deep black hair and a sad face.