It was kind of silly, really. Hanging out outside the kitchen, watching Akane bake. It was sorta eerie watching her, humming (off key) to herself, gathering up the ingredients and just setting about making another batch of cookies. But there she was. Akane Tendo, destroyer of the simplest recipes, almost floating around the kitchen like she was in a daze.
So, when did the world suddenly stop making sense all of a sudden? Next thing, Ryoga would become a famed cartographer and Nabiki would start tossing pennies out onto the street. Was this an imposter? One of the other girls pretending to be Akane, perhaps? It was the kind of stunt Shampoo would try to pull, but unless she’d been taking Japanese lessons behind everybody’s back… Not too likely. Not impossible, but not likely.
But the one thing above all others that was throwing Ranma off, the one single fact about this unusual turn of events that set him right on edge, well, that had little to do with the admittedly intoxicating aroma drifting out from the oven. Nor was it the memory of the crumbly cookies melting in his mouth. It was that simple image of Akane all but dancing around the kitchen with a beatific smile upon her face. A smile that widened whenever she looked at him. A smile that made his heart leap into his throat every time she cast it his way.
Ranma was becoming more and more hungry with each passing moment, but not for the cookies nicely browning in that oven….
<hr>
Oh, but life could never quite be so simple for Ranma Saotome! Not when he had four rather inherently jealously violent girls interested in bedding him, wedding him or both. They all showed it in their own little ways, sometimes with a guilt trip, other times with an earful, but most of the time with a pummeling that left even he-of-the-incredible-regenerative-abilities having trouble picking himself up and getting home afterwards.
It transpired that Akane was not the only girl currently baking cookies for Ranma’s intended consumption, and it just so happened that it was the other girl in his life that he’d rather roll around naked in a snake pit than consume her cooking. The difference being in this case that any food poisoning received was purely intentional.
Her kitchen looked like a laboratory. Not a real one, mind. More like the fictional variety, the sort you’d see a mad scientist make use of. Bubbling mixtures in beakers over open flames, electrodes and diodes attached apparently willy nilly. Equipment that seemed almost designed to be wielded for the sole purpose of mocking the gods above, full test tubes in racks on the wall with nearly illegible labels and tiny skulls and, just as an extra insane flourish, black roses in bouquets or growing in pots all around the room.
An oven made a ding, and Kodachi Kuno began her trademark laugh. “Oh ho ho ho!” she cackled, in that way you only ever really hear done in either anime or parodies of them. A thunderbolt crashed in the background as she opened the door and pulled out the tray with heavily gloved hands. “The cookies are finally prepared! Just you wait, Ranma, my darling! Before long you will taste the greatest treat you will ever encounter! You will come back, begging for more… even before the addictive substances I’ve brewed up kick in!”
She tossed aside her apron, stuffed the cookies into a carry bag and leaped out of her home while laughing all the way. Say what you like about Kodachi - and there’s plenty to be said - but nobody can deny that she loves doing what she does.
<hr>
“You know, if you stare at her any harder she might just burst into flames.”
Ranma turned around to scowl at the pest. Just like Nabiki to butt in where she wasn’t wanted, which generally involved whatever he was up to at any given moment.
“You’re not worried about this at all?” he asked, instantly regretting his decision to draw her into conversation.
“’Course I am,” Nabiki replied. “Akane in the kitchen? Unsupervised? I keep waiting for the fireworks and the repair bill.”
“No, that’s not what I mean… I mean, look at her for a moment.”
The two of them did just that, peering inside the kitchen at what should have been a disaster zone. Instead all they saw was, well, a girl cheerily bouncing in place while rolling up dough and then flattening it out with a rolling pin, then cutting out shapes and placing them on a tray for putting in the oven. The obviously fake Akane stopped for a moment to wave at the pair, which got them retreating out of the doorway like they’d never been there at all.
“See what I mean?” Ranma said. “She’s behaving like… Like… Like…”
“Like an ordinary girl baking cookies for the guy she likes? My goodness, Saotome, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you preferred it when my little sister acted like - in your words - an uncute tomboy.”
Whatever point the greedy pest was trying to make was quickly drowned out by a sinister sound that sent chills up Ranma’s spine. He knew that laugh all too well. Dammit, he didn’t have time to deal with -
“Ranma darling! Where are you?”
Kodachi Kuno, wielding a bag full of something that was doubtless laced with all kinds of nasty paralytic concoctions. Lingering around here suddenly seemed quite ill advised. Maybe if he was quick and jumped over the wall -
No such luck there, as something snaked around his legs and dragged him back into the garden even as he raked his hands across the grass in a manner reminiscent of any horror movie victim. The wide-eyed, fearful expression fit all too well. But this was no time to be ruled by terror! Ranma twisted in the ribbon, trapping his legs in a desperate attempt to find any give, only to find himself turning around right into a bouquet of black roses. The now far too familiar feeling of all his limbs relaxing against his will quickly took hold. It was all he could do to lie on the ground surrounded by black petals, trembling beneath where Kodachi stood tall and proud, coyly toying with that little bag.
“Oh ho ho ho! Ranma darling, you do so love playing hard to get! But wouldn’t it be much more thrilling to linger a while and take a taste of this labour of love? I have baked such wonderful-”
“Cookies are ready!” Akane cheerily announced, walking out of the kitchen with the still piping hot tray clasped in thick oven mitts. “Come and - Kodachi?”
With an almost casual, lazy flick of the wrist the insane gymnast sent her ribbon flying out through the air where the end wrapped itself neatly around the middle of the tray. With another she tugged back, jerking it out of the tomboy’s hands and spilling them all to the ground. To Ranma’s surprise, Akane’s only reaction was to stare down at them for a moment while Kodachi triumphantly turned her attention back towards Ranma, opening her bag and drawing out a single cookie of her own by the very ends of her delicate fingertips.
“Interruptions in romance are so rude, don’t you think?” Kodachi asked. “My own batch will be vastly superior to hers in every way!”
… And there it was. A subtle little twitch of the eye and a flare of battle aura that felt just like watching a thunderbolt. The odd thing was that Akane didn’t otherwise seem to physically react. All she did was bend over with her oven mitts still on, pick up the tray, turn around…
Then wheel right back and throw it like a discus.
Kodachi had plenty of awareness of her surroundings, and there was nothing remotely wrong with her peripheral vision. Therefore she had no trouble seeing the fast moving hot metal projectile hurtling in her general direction. One hand tucked away her ribbon onto a belt over her leotard and then she pulled out what was for all intents and purposes a club disguised as a piece of gymnastics equipment. The tray was slammed into the ground, but the interesting thing was that there was a foot resting atop the club’s handle in the very next moment.
Which is how Kodachi found herself staring up into a face. A smiling face with smiling eyes and rosy cheeks in a perfect mask of well-hidden anger and fury. She let go of her previous weapon - even unable to make use of the spikes built into it because putting them in the handle was counterproductive to say the least - and went for an alternative weapon. Which one, Ranma could not say for certain for Akane intercepted that particular hand by the wrist, twisted slightly, and had the arm well placed behind Kodachi’s back while still smiling all the while.
“Unhand me, peasant! Leave me be with my Ranma darling!”
“Speaking of rude,” Akane said, “do you know how barbaric it is to pay someone a visit and make such a dreadful mess in their garden? Do you know how long it takes my older sister to clean up after each time you visit? Those petals don’t just vanish on their own, you know!”
“You uncouth little witch! Is this how you speak to your betters?”
“Betters! That’s pretty rich coming from a girl with a personality so rancid she can only get a man with love potions, blackmail or paralysing them so they can’t run away!”
Kodachi screamed a variety of admittedly creative obscenities as Akane marched her off towards the front gate. Only at the moment the comparison was made between Akane’s mother and the rear end of a flatulent cow did the smile falter and the pace come to a stop.
“That’s enough out of you for now,” Akane hissed. She seized one of Kodachi’s cookies with her free hand, and jammed it into the girl’s mouth as a makeshift temporary gag. “Goodbye for now, don’t call back, it looks rather a lot like Ranma’s quite unwell, so he can’t play today. Goodbye again!”
Out she went, the gate was closed and Akane’s polite smile turned into one of concern. She hurried back over towards where Ranma still lay prone, sank to her knees and stroked his head in a manner he would almost describe as lovingly.
“Paralysed again?” she sighed. “It can’t be comfortable down there… One moment.” She seized one arm and in a feat of strength that might have been impressive for anyone else, pulled him up into a fireman’s carry, allowing her to carry him easily inside the house. “I don’t know what we’re going to do about those Kunos. I don’t really blame you for having trouble with them. Remember, I’ve known them longer, and I can’t get rid of her brother either.”
She set him down on the couch in front of the television, made certain he was comfortable, then pulled out a VCR and put it on. “Why don’t we just relax and watch your favourite movie?” Akane said, taking the seat next to him and - Hey, wait, what did she think she was doing? “I’ll be right here if you need me for anything. Okay?”
Well, now he knew something was up. This kind of behaviour from Akane was just… It was surreal! Sure, it was kind of nice the way she was snuggling up to him like this, resting her head on his chest, letting him breathe in that nice scent in her hair… No, no, stop that! Don’t get distracted! Something was up with her today, and it was obviously up to him to find out what that something was!
That is how things usually worked out for him anyway….
- Next day at school, Akane’s behaviour gets noticed by others.
- Next lesson with Nodoka!
- Next lesson, Ranma’s followed her.
- Kodachi plots revenge.
- Something else
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