Happosai was a pretty easy person to get a handle on at the worst of times. This was fortunate in a sense, because the worst of times basically meant "when Happosai was in your general vicinity." He was a pervert, and not remotely shy about it. The real trick to handling him was the unassailable fact that, if the desire did take him, he could bend you into a pretzel in the time it took for a synapse to fire. Little pervert was a martial arts master.
The result was a man that was used to simply taking what he wanted, or threatening compliance through intimidation gained from his raw level of power. This usually worked out for him because, as previously observed, he was a martial arts master. If a thousand people dogpiled him all at once then maybe they'd be able to slow him down a little. A mob of angry women? Well, honestly they stood a better chance at stopping him provided they were willing to cause a little distraction first, which, let's be frank, they won't if they're pursuing him.
Right now Happosai was meditating. Not something he usually did, but, hell, why not? Over there out of the corner of his eye he was watching the children of his two pupils having a spar. Or to put it another way, Ranma being a cocky bastard while Akane gets more and more annoyed at him not taking her seriously. Those two. Those two had <i>potential</i>. They could be great. Better than him if they put their minds and hearts into it. They had the mind. They had the drive. They had the personality type. Ranma had the skill, and the only reason Happosai could think of why Akane didn't was that her training was way more relaxed than his.
But Happosai knew the real thing holding them back: They were a pair of prudes. Give 'em a chance for a little intimacy, they'd run for the hills. Put them in the middle of a fight where a little flesh might be a bit distracting? Sure! Sort of hypocritical, but that fazed Happosai to the tune of no damns. If anything that kind of ingenuity impressed the hell out of him.
He'd tried. Really. He'd poured his soul into it. Yet he couldn't quite instill in them the effect he had intended. Come to think, neither did they fear him quite so much as their fathers did. His usual tactics had failed. So. While it was fun playing with them, he should really get down to business and figure out what to do next. Because if he didn't get this done soon they'd be too set in their ways and their path to glory would be closed forever!
"Oh! You idiot!" Akane huffed. "Take me seriously next time! Throw a punch. I can take it. How am I supposed to learn to dodge at your level if you won't give me the chance?"
"Like a clumsy tomboy could ever learn to dodge at my level."
Ah. They were done for the day, were they? Young love. In a rare moment, Happosai felt an unnecessary sense of self persuasion: Not only would it help the two of them reach for greater heights in the art, it would also help them get rid of that unhealthy repression. It couldn't possibly be more obvious how much they wanted to bang if some deity actively went about setting it up.
Still. He crept off back into the house to think a little more. The two of them would probably wonder what he was up to. His observations hadn't gotten him anywhere at all. How completely -
"Nabiki, there you are!" Kasumi said. "I was meaning to ask. Would you please take this book back to the library? It appears to be due tomorrow, but I don't quite have the time to do it myself."
"Sorry, sis," Nabiki replied. "I already had plans for today. I'll be back for dinner."
"Oh my!" Kasumi sighed. "In that case, I suppose I won't quite have the time to make that apple pie I was planning for us to have for dessert."
Nabiki stopped in her tracks, and so did Happosai. An opportunity to savour sweet Kasumi's sweet apple pie? Being denied?! Such cruelty! It made an old man weep from the depths of his soul! It was like seeing panties hanging on a line, only for it to flutter along and land within a pile of dirty boxer shorts! Such a cruel, needless fate!
"In fact," Kasumi said, tapping her lips. "Since I would be so terribly pressed for time, I might even have to ask Akane to -"
"Oh, how silly of me!" Nabiki coolly said. "The library was already on the way to where I was going. I'll just drop it off there while on my way and save you the trip."
"Are you sure?" Kasumi sweetly smiled.
"Of course!" Nabiki replied with a relaxed shrug. "I'll even do it free of charge. But just this once."
And off she went, leaving Happosai staring after the two sisters while deep in thought. Once Nabiki had gone, he hopped up along towards Kasumi and stared at her for a moment. Soun's eldest. A miracle worker at housekeeping. Calm. Collected. Never seemed to get distressed about anything. He tended not to go after her because, well, it just didn't feel right. He'd felt she was too pure, but on more careful analysis that didn't make sense for his personality type.
No... It wasn't that she was too pure. It was his latent danger sense as a martial artist.
"How did you do that?" Happosai carefully asked. "I mean... How did you make Nabiki take that book to the library when she didn't want to?"
"I didn't make her do anything," Kasumi said, keeping on with what she was doing as easily and naturally as breathing. "I simply laid it out for her what would happen if I did not have the time to do everything I needed to do because I had to visit the library."
Yes. Yes, she did. He thought about it a little more, though. Kasumi was cutting up a carrot in preparation for lunch. A carrot. Yes. You might say that was it. She'd used the apple pie as a carrot, and the threat of Akane's cooking as a great big stick. "Here's a nice reward for good behaviour, and here's the punishment if you don't follow through."
The carrot and the stick. Threat and reward. The gears in Happosai's head started turning, and just like that a plan began to form. It had seemed like such a completely useless couple of items when he'd discovered them, but come to think of it... If he used them together, he might be able to get what he wanted. You couldn't force that obstinate pair to do anything, no matter how you threatened them. But you didn't need to. There were other, subtler ways which usually he would never care to try. He normally wouldn't have the patience to bother. For those two? An exception would be made.
<hr>
When Akane woke up the next morning, she felt a mite... Peculiar. Couldn't exactly place it, but something was seriously wrong here. She got up. Out of bed. Looked at herself in the mirror. Checked her eyes. Nothing wrong there.
<i>Squeeze your breasts!</i>
Akane shook off the strange thought, then immediately reeled as a real doozy of a headache hit her. Oh boy, that was a bad one! Here's hoping she wasn't coming down with something.
After a moment of thinking about it she just got dressed like usual to go out for her morning jog. The feeling sort of went away after a little bit. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she slept weird last night. Maybe Happosai had crept into her room in the middle of the night and put some freaky hex on her and she wasn't quite noticing the aftereffects yet.
Whatever it was she stepped out of the room. Passed by her unwanted fiance on the way to the front door. Said "Good morning!" because, unlike perception often indicated, they actually did tend to get on quite well when one or the other wasn't acting like a jackass. So, pretty rarely. It made her realise how complicated their relationship actually was and -
<i>Gotta limber up!</i>
And that was a pretty good point, actually. Given that she was feeling a little weird, it might be a good idea to make sure she didn't accidentally pull something. Didn't usually happen, but it never hurt to make sure, so she did a few stretches and in the process experienced bliss.
It was the weirdest thing. For no reason she could explain she just sort of felt really, really good. Couldn't stop smiling if her life depended on it. Like her entire body just sort of sighed in relief all at once.
Of course, she had no way of knowing that she was being deliberately trained to behave like a pervert. The carrot of inexplicable bliss. The stick of headaches. How long would it take before even a pervert hater succumbed to that kind of effect?
- Follow Akane as the effect starts to dictate her actions.
- Follow Ranma, who was hit by the same effect.
- Follow Ranma, who is wondering about Akane's weird behaviour but wasn't hit by the effect.
- Happosai also did this to someone else.
- Something else
Oh what a nice setup :3
ReplyDelete