Ranma Saotome lived for two things: Martial arts and showing off. The first was really a means through which to employ the second, but he did rather enjoy various aspects of martial arts aside from just how good he was at it. He enjoyed working up a sweat. He enjoyed testing the limits of his body and pushing through them, inch by inch. He enjoyed the tactical aspect. He enjoyed the simple peace that came with a kata and he enjoyed knocking his stupid father flat on his ass.
But enjoyment wasn’t the reason he was in the training hall on this particular morning. Nope. He was here because he was confused. Baffled. Puzzled. And he needed to do something to help himself unwind a bit. Meditate? Pft. Sitting still for hours at a time really wasn’t his style. No, no! Far better for him to do a spot of training, work through a few kata. Let his body go on autopilot while his mind worked through what was bothering him.
Before dealing with those thoughts, it is very much worth examining the style Ranma took as he worked through those kata. He’s usually quite energetic. He leaps around with as much precision and grace as any circus performer - more so! One might imagine that he would be just as fluid, just as quick and sharp in his delivery of a kata… Yet that was far from the case at all. It was not that he was lacking coordination or grace; it was simply a different flavour. His movements were slower. More deliberate. Calculated, yet flowing. He could rush through the process in his sleep and still have it come out flawless, but rushing it wasn’t the purpose of this exercise. For someone like Ranma the purpose was to feel what it was like to move his body just so. It was to visualise the battle, imagine the opponent(s) and maintain perfect control over form. Going through it quickly would defeat the point.
And it would also give him less time to think. Think about his new living situation. Think about his new fiancee. Think about Akane Tendo.
It was his perfectly reasonable opinion that the arranged marriage thing sucked. Especially since he’d just been cursed to turn into a girl. Settling down and getting married was something he always figured he would do off his own back way off down the line with someone he liked that particular way, and the curse did seem like it should be far more important right now.
His father disagreed, naturally. Attempts to sneak out during the night were about as successful as his initial attempt to flee. The old man behaved like an idiot, but he did have some intelligence and plenty of skill that made up for shortcomings. He was probably lurking around somewhere, watching carefully at a distance in case Ranma made another attempt to make a break for it. Fine then. If he was going to be forced to live here for a little while, he’d just have to make the most of it. If he was lucky someone local might know something he could use to cure the curse.
If he was lucky. Look at his last month and tell him he was lucky. Go on. Just try it.
And then there was Akane. His fiancee. A real tomboy. Martial artist. A fighting style that seemed to be a juxtaposition to his own, complimenting it yet also serving as a counter. Where he soared through the air she stood her ground. Where his movements flowed around his opponent’s she struck clean through. This was doubtless a product of who had trained them both to begin with: Their respective (for lack of a better word) fathers. Old training buddies like that probably had to work together and spar together frequently enough that it made a lot of sense.
An image of her in the bathroom yesterday flashed through Ranma’s mind, and he very nearly lost his footing. Not that most could tell by looking, but he certainly noticed. Damn. That just kept on happening! He’d be in the middle of something else when all of a sudden that image would flash in his mind and all he could think about was the figure barely concealed behind a towel. The slightest peek of her breasts, the alluring sheen of her skin, the peculiar look in her eye as she stared at him… Ranma caught himself again before he misstepped, and internally scolded himself. No! Don’t let a woman distract you. Not when you become an even hotter chick with a splash of cold water. Besides which, that tomboy has a vicious temper. It would never work out. Never ever ever.
“Buh…” someone very unintelligibly said by the door. Ranma turned his head and looked without breaking the flow. His fiancee was standing in the doorway in what appeared to be jogging gear. “I mean… Good morning!” she said, very deliberately looking away in a strangely adorable flustered manner. “Working on your rippling, chiseled physique? I mean, uh… P-Put a shirt on!”
Weird how it sounded like she was forcing herself to say that last part, but Ranma could at least oblige that much. He turned around, scooped his shirt off the floor, then scowled and snapped his fingers in front of Akane’s face.
“Hey, tomboy!” he said. “Anyone home today?”
“Y-you! Stop that!” she said. “I just got a little bit distracted is all.”
“Distracted?” Ranma said, flexing a muscle and smirking as Akane stared at it like she’d just found a steak dinner after being in the desert for a month. “By my rippling, chiseled physique, you mean?”
“Shut up! I didn’t mean it like that! I was - I was making fun of you!”
“Sure you were,” Ranma replied. Maybe he’d put off putting this shirt back on. It was kinda fun toying with her like this. “You’re drooling a bit.”
The look she gave him indicated that she wasn’t falling for his bluff, or at least wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of wiping it away until he wasn’t looking. Shame, that!
“Oh, please,” she said. “You’re not that hot.”
“So you admit that I’m hot?” he cheekily responded.
Ooh, damn! If looks could kill he’d be on fire right about now. It was kind of funny, really. All it would take was for either one of them to move just a dozen or so centimeters, and their lips -
“I don’t have time for this!” Akane yelled, spinning on her heel. “Oh! By the way? I overheard our fathers talking just now. You’re going to be attending the same school as I am. You’d better be on your best behaviour, buster! I’ll be showing you the way, and don’t you dare bring up this stupid engagement thing. Got it?”
And off she stomped, like some rampaging dinosaur. Ranma returned to his kata, but for some reason that currently escaped him he just couldn’t stop smiling if his life depended on it.
<hr>
Did you ever have a thought that seemed completely impossible, dismiss it, then start seeing evidence supporting the thought at almost every opportunity? Nabiki felt like that just now. A nagging feeling that a completely impossible thought was entirely one hundred and ten percent accurate.
Her little sister quite clearly didn’t like boys. She’d never shown the slightest hint of interest, and yet -
“Mister Saotome! Ranma! Breakfast is ready!”
The breakfast call by Kasumi was shortly thereafter followed by a splash, as the two houseguests collided with one another. They landed in the pond and shifted into their alternative forms. A panda and a girl. Both adorable for completely different reasons.
Shortly thereafter, Akane came downstairs in her school uniform. It was a funny thing to see. You could almost hear the “pa-dumb” of their hearts without even needing to look at them. The complete transformative effect the uniform had on Akane, the wet shirt sticking to Ranma’s braless chest - “If only I had my camera,” she mumbled to herself. Trying to ignore the way her father elbowed the panda in a conspiratorial manner as she did so.
Nabiki had spent the night performing all manner of calculations. Money opportunities crept out of every corner she looked in, and there were probably more that would become obvious later on. Oh, yes! Today would be a very interesting day at school. No question of it. She could hardly wait.
<hr>
Akane stared at the hunk in mild disbelief and a smattering of barely restrained lust. “What are you doing up there?” she asked, already suspecting the likely answer.
“Balance training,” Ranma replied. Smug little bastard, so he was. Difficult to begrudge him the opportunity to be proud when he was skilled enough to stand on a chain-link fence as though it were solid ground. Or when he was that handsome and rugged and had a smile that could melt steel…
“Is that so!” Akane said, tapping her foot on the ground with a small amount of impatience. Okay. Deep breath, minor calculation, send the tension into the legs, bend the knees just so - And she leaped into the air, managing to land right on the very edge of the fence. “Whoa!” she yelped, flailing her arms around in an effort to keep the balance. Luckily Ranma was there to catch her, turning a moment of pain into a moment of <i>thank you, gods of fortune, thank you so much!</i>
“Easy there,” Ranma said, taking her by the hands and gently guiding her on the fence step by step. “Didn’t think you could jump like that.”
“I don’t make a habit of it,” Akane sniffed. “I prefer to keep my feet on the ground. That way I maintain better control over the fight -”
“Quite familiar with the theory,” Ranma interrupted. “I tend to find it makes me too rigid.”
“You’d be surprised how flexible I can be!” Akane scowled, mentally smacking herself for making a comment like that. Especially in front of him. Look at him. Guiding her forward on the top of the gate step by step, her hands held gently, firmly by his large powerful, enticing hands that she wanted to hold forever and ever. “I’m tougher than I look!”
“Oh, I can believe that!” Ranma replied. “I mean, you don’t get to be such an uncute tomboy by being a big old softie!”
“What did you just call me?”
“An uncute tomboy. No figure to speak of, wicked temper. Bit deaf too, apparently!”
The next two minutes were spent engaged in a high-speed chase, with Akane running at full pelt while Ranma backpedaled with his tongue out and his finger pulling his lower eyelid down. That insensitive, irresistible jerk! Ooh! He was gonna get it now! She was going to tackle his sexy body to the ground and just - Screw him silly. That’s what she was going to do if she caught up with him. Let’s be realistic here, this boy was exciting her in ways she’d never dreamed possible, every moment with him was like little electric sparks all over her body and by this point she was completely addicted. She wanted more and even if she didn’t, she needed more! More! More!
Suddenly, without the remotest bit of warning Ranma hopped off the fence to the ground and Akane pounced. Under normal circumstances a pounce of this nature from Akane would have been enough to flatten a building, but Ranma just seemed to catch her out of the air and spun her around on her feet and all of a sudden she was looking at the entrance to the school grounds.
“See? There’s your problem!” Ranma said. “You were overthinking it. Same deal with the spar yesterday. If you weren’t thinking so hard about where you wanted to attack, you could’ve maybe nailed me a couple of times.”
She’d run across the fence that easily? Akane swallowed nervously. Had he just insulted her to get her to run like that? Maybe that’s another reason to give in to her feelings. Maybe, just maybe…
“How did you - How did you know where we were going?”
“I could see Nabiki from the fence. Wasn’t hard to tell where she was heading from there.”
Akane nodded, and suddenly realised something else. She was standing in the front door to the school, and had spent the entire time crossing the yard staring at Ranma in rapt attention while he stared up at the clouds with his hands behind his head. Akane twitched. Then turned around. Right behind her were several very confused-looking boys and an irate kendoist that was - for just this once - speechless. With a slightly cruel internal smirk, Akane decided to indulge in a minor impulse and seized upon Ranma’s arm. He froze for a second, then tried to pretend he hadn’t. So adorable.
Let the gossip say what it will! If her feelings had their way (and it very much looked like they would) then they’d probably all be true within a month. If not a week.
- During the course of the day, Ranma changes and Akane finds the rumours are a little more embarrassing than she’d initially expected.
- Kuno challenges Ranma. In the process, we learn other ways by which things are different.
- Akane tries to subtly ask her friends about seducing a man without making it seem like she wants to jump Ranma. Her success is not quite as high as she might have intended.
- Ranma gets grilled by the boys in class, further confusing his feelings over Akane in the process.
- Something else
No comments:
Post a Comment