This might come as a surprise to learn but Akane Tendo was perfectly willing and able to give Ranma Saotome the benefit of the doubt. No, really. Stop smirking! This was quite sincere. Believe it or not she didn't actually think he was all that much of a pervert. It would be more accurate to call him an idiot. Because he kind of was. A weird idiot who did and said weirdly annoying stupid thoughtless things.
Case in point. Akane had decided to blow off some steam with a little training. Break some bricks, run through some katas, work up a good sweat. Yet what should she find upon entering the training hall.
"Hey Akane," said Ranma Saotome. Sans shirt. Working through an intricate methodical kata with the precision of a black belt and the ease of a gentle stroll through the park. "See anything you like?"
“The bricks look very well made today.” Akane said, walking right past him. Best thing to do with an arrogant brat like this: Don't dignify them with what they want. Now, Akane could intellectually see what it was that had girls tripping up over him. Unlike them, she had enough self control to not jump at him the first chance she got. Or even the one hundred and thirty seventh.
No, she was not keeping count, she'd arbitrarily picked a large sounding number to make a point!
Speaking of making a point, here's Ranma's flexing bicep filling her vision. "What's that? You want to feel my bicep?" he asked. "Well, since you asked so nicely."
Akane took a deep breath. This proved a mistake as Ranma had already worked up a bit of a sweat. Then she put her hand upon his admittedly impressive muscle. Then she used that grip to overhand throw him across the room. Not that it mattered much as he twisted in the air and landed on his feet. A landing like that would make an Olympic gymnast jealous.
"Put a shirt on already," Akane said. Looking around she couldn't actually see his shirt anywhere. "What're you going to do if you get splashed by cold water? Walk around as a girl topless?"
“I bet you’d love to see that.”
The image leaped unbidden into Akane's mind. Not only Ranma skipping and frollicking around in girl form topless, but also... being naked in her bed. Like before. Which Akane had been fairly certain she'd imagined, but with Ranma acting the way he was now she wasn't so sure anymore.
While thinking that, Akane had turned away to grab hold of some bricks to stack up. "Well, you shouldn't go wandering around topless at any rate," she said. "So, you'd better put your shirt on or -"
By then she'd turned around. Ranma had his shirt on and was giving her a puzzled look. "What're you talking about, tomboy?" he asked. Huh? What? "I only just got here and you're already throwing that attitude my way?"
Huh? Wai-wait, wait a second here. Hold up. He'd only just arrived? Looking at him, he didn't have even a bead of sweat on his forehead. In fact, from the way he was walking it was like he'd really come into the training hall right that second!
Her eyes narrowed at that.
"What are you up to?" she asked.
"Flirting with a pretty girl," he answered. Wh-what? She stumbled back on hearing that.
"D-Don't say something like that!" Akane said, turning away and absent mindedly hip bumping the boy across the room. "What's gotten into you all of a sudden?"
"What's gotten into me?" Ranma asked, popping back up to his feet and for his trouble noting a trio of bricks that Akane completely accidentally threw at his head. "All I said was that I was here for training, and you start acting weird on me!"
"Oh, don't you even try to pretend you didn't - Why are you juggling those bricks? They're not for juggling you dummy, put them down!"
Ranma shrugged and tossed them back across the room, where they landed perfectly right back into the pile in the corner. Hmph! That boy, showing off again! Honestly that was half the real problem with him, Ranma always had to show off how strong and fast and skilled he was which led to him doing such monumentally stupid things.
Stupid things that Akane could kind of see herself doing if she was at that level.
"Man, what's up with you today? You've been acting weird for a bit now," Ranma said. "I could get it if it's something I did, but now it's almost like you're inventing things." Was that it? Was she inventing things? Then all of a sudden Akane felt his hand squeeze her butt while he whispered in her ear. "Can't be that you get off on 'punishing' me, could it?"
Ohhh, that was it! She didn't get the pervert switch flipped by this boy that often, but this time really tore it! She whirled around to hit him - and then fell flat on her face when he wasn't actually there. In point of fact he was doing sit ups on the other side of the training hall.
"S-See, this is what I'm talking about," Ranma said a moment later from underneath Akane. When she had decided to sit on his chest to teach him a lesson. "Uncute! Super uncute!"
"You're not fooling anyone," Akane said. "This is another one of your tricks. Well, it's not funny! Messing with someone's head like this is really mean! What are you even thinking?"
"I'm thinking about the heavy lump pressing down on my lungs!" Ranma protested, which only made Akane shift her weight so even more of her was on his chest, pulling her feet up to rest them on his torso. "Help! Mayday! I'm being murdered! Death by uncute!"
You know, he said that but Akane suddenly felt something behind her, poking her in the butt. You see, when she'd lifted her feet up onto Ranma's chest that meant the rest of her body was moved back a bit. Which meant that she could feel very well that this boy was definitely enjoying himself more than he was letting on.
In fact it reminded Akane of that one time when she was sick and Nabiki had decided to torment her while she was helpless by describing a variety of fetishes that she'd found out about. One of which was 'auto-erotic asphyxiation.' That is, people getting off on 'not being able to breathe'.
"Ew, ew, ew!"
Now, Akane had never in her life managed to jump up onto a rooftop. She was not quite nimble or strong enough to leap that high. But you know, it's amazing the physical feats one can manage when not thinking about it while at the same time being extremely motivated to do it. This girl damn near put her head through the roof of the training hall.
Luckily for her Ranma was able to catch her on the way back down. For which he earned the prize of a hard slap to the face. Gratitude, when does that show up again?
"You!" Akane seethed. "I felt that! Don't try to pretend it was nothing! What were you trying to do? Get me so confused that you could pull me into the sack? Is that what this was?"
"... Man, I'm gonna have to kick Hiroshi's butt for this..." Ranma griped. "Oh no, trust me Ranma. It'll work for sure! Man, what does he know about girls anyhow?"
Hiroshi? Oh yes. Him. She'd seen him off to the side at gym class, taking sneaky pictures when he thought nobody could see. Or, no... Wasn't that the boy with the rings around his eyes? What was his name again? No, no! It was one of those two idiots that was always hanging around with Ranma.
"Well, bye!" Ranma said, turning around and making to stride out of the room. "Gotta see a man about a horse!"
Yeah, he wasn't going anywhere. Especially not with Akane yanking on his pigtail to make him sit down. She kept a tight grip on it and scowled at him darkly.
"I am not letting you go until you tell me everything," Akane said.
"Well, from what I understand all matter in the universe started off really close together until -"
"About your weird behaviour today," Akane interrupted. Honestly! This boy was impossible!
"Nothing weird about how I've been - " Tug on hair. "Hey, cut that out!"
She answered him with the look. You know the look. Even if you've never seen the look, you know what the look is. It's what happens when someone in your life has decided they're not putting up with your bullshit anymore and they're going to make you admit the truth whether you like it or not.
"Were you trying to flirt with me?" Akane asked. "Based on that idiot's advice? Is that what this was?"
"Hah, me flirt with you?" Ranma asked. "Why would I ever do something like that? Besides, a guy like me knows fine well how to flirt with a chick. Did you forget that I already have three other super hot girls chasing me?"
Akane kicked him a few times for the last question alone. Of course she hadn't forgotten! It was somewhere in the back of her mind pretty much every waking moment! You dummy! This is what she was talking about, he was such an inconsiderate idiot, idiot, idiot!
"Wait a minute," Akane said. "Hold on. Those three girls are pretty shallow."
"Hey, no they're not!" Ranma protested. "Well, Uchan isn't shallow... I won her over with my manly charms!"
"Oh my god you accidentally fell into a harem," Akane realised to her growing horror. "Three shallow girls throwing themselves at you, so you think it's just that easy to pick up women."
"H-Hey, I know it's not that easy!"
“I mean, think about it Ranma, Ukyo is some arranged marriage scam by Uncle Saotome and Shampoo has her weird village laws. Kodachi is the only girl to actually like you without any obligation and she’s… Kodachi! No wonder your attempts to seduce me have always been so clumsy!”
Ranma continued to protest but Akane drowned it out. Suddenly things made a lot more sense. He must have been trying to get her attention for ages now, and she hadn't noticed because - because he was so used to girls tripping up over themselves to get at his admittedly very, very handsome face and lean physique that he didn't know the first thing about actually flirting or actually picking up girls! Then she started thinking about Genma Saotome and what it must be like to be brought up by him and... ew, that explained way more than she was happy with.
"... I could pick up any girl I liked like that!" Ranma said, snapping his fingers to punctuate his point. So Akane punctuated hers by tugging on his pigtail again.
And now we get to see what kind of person Akane Tendo really was deep down. For all that she was easy to anger, she was a caring and sweet person deep down. Whatever weird antics Ranma was getting up to, she was finding it a little bit difficult to really blame him for it. Well... blame him <i>entirely</i> for it. With the influences he'd had it was hardly any wonder. So he wanted to seduce her by playing mind games? Well, two can play at that game.
"In that case, try seducing me," Akane said. "Bet you can't seduce me within the next week."
"Hah! You're on, tomboy!" Ranma immediately replied. "You'll be putty in my hands within a week!"
She let go of him and let him slink off to plot and scheme. There we go. Of course, she wasn't actually planning on letting him seduce her or anything like that. All she was doing was helping him learn in her own way. That idiot needed all the help he could get.
But... Akane might be a little less confident in her thought process if she could see the extremely perverted smile on Ranma's face as he left the training hall. Akane would be outright furious if she could see what was on his mind right now as well. What do we mean? Well, it's worth remembering that Ranma may have a bad habit of making a fool of himself, but he was also pretty damned good at coming up with plans.
"Predictable tomboy," Ranma cackled quietly to himself once he was safely out of hearing distance. "I've had my eye on you for far too long now! You've given me what I've been after from the start, an excuse to seduce you! You won't be putty in my hands within a week. A day, tops! Mwahahaha!"
"Oh, Ranma! Are you trying out for the role of mad scientist in a school play?" Kasumi asked. "Hrm... Your laugh needs a little more mania to it."
"Th-thanks Kasumi," Ranma said. Then set about grabbing hold of his tools. Oh yes, that tomboy wouldn't know what was hitting her until it was already tapping her fine, glorious uncute booty.
All of a sudden Ranma's seduction attempts gain a crystal clarity that catches Akane off guard.
- Ranma's seduction attempts fail - but he does pass the spell onto Akane...
- Shampoo arrives at the Tendos to muddy things
- Mousse tries another inept attempt to woo Shampoo, however she’s now thirsty and perverted enough to be receptive, at least for a one night stand.
- Asuka runs into a new victim
- Something else
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