Story: Dojikko Ken

Don't post this yet! Post the patreon update from October first, as that's the proper order.

 
Akane felt stuck. She was on the verge of a breakthrough. She knew it. She simply knew it. A little more reach and she could bring her new martial arts style to all new heights, enabling her to put her newfound rivals in their place! Looking up at Ranma, she was a little grateful to the boy. He was a bit weird - even with the curse aside - but he had been quite a useful sparring partner up until now.

"Whatcha scowling about?" Ranma asked. "Doesn't that go against this whole cutesy thing? Making an uncute face like that ruins your image."

"I'm not scowling, I'm concentrating," she insisted, though made a concerted effort to unwrinkle her nose. "It's not easy, you know. Having to put up a completely defenseless act all the time."

"Yeah, yeah..." Ranma said, then both of them had a moment of intense warning. A martial artist of sufficient training has a good sense of danger about them. This isn't something supernatural, it's simply... well, think about it like this. When your eyes are open they're taking in a lot of information, but you don't focus on everything you're looking at all the time. There's one or two or a handful of things that you're seeing, but you're not looking at all of it. The same goes for the rest of your senses as well. You'll tune out background noise, not pay that much attention to the clothes you're wearing, tune out smells after a bit, etc.

Well, just because you're not paying attention to them doesn't mean your subconscious isn't. Again, most people ignore that and get on with their lives, but a martial artist with sufficient training has a good sense for when something is coming for them. The wind shifts. Shadows change. Something you'd normally ignore as not a big deal trips an alert in your brain, and even if you don't know what it is your body start to move automatically.

That's why Ranma leaped from the fence while Akane rolled aside, rising to her feet just in time to see a boy dropping down onto the pavement right by Ranma with an umbrella thrust out. While Ranma cartwheeled out of harm's way, the boy looked up at him. The two locked eyes, and there was a moment of intensity between them.

"Cool..." Akane muttered to herself. Then shook it off. Okay, so big deal that looked like a scene from an action manga, whatever! Some jerk had showed up to pick a fight with Ranma and -

And he just made a crater in the pavement when he landed. Not a big one, but still. Cracking concrete like that with a freaking umbrella isn't something you see every day. Then he lifted that umbrella and pointed it at Ranma, who was staring back all nonchalant and kinda cool still, like that hadn't even phased him, and then the boy said -

"Ranma Saotome! I will end your happiness!"

"Oh, hey Ryoga!" Ranma said. "Finally caught up to me, huh? That only took, what, four months this time?"

"Four months of hell!" the boy, Ryoga apparently, yelled while lashing out with his umbrella. Ranma ducked and dodged around it with ease. "All because of you!"

"Ranma, we don't have time for this!" Akane yelled. "We're going to be late for -"

Late for school. Oh. Oh! Ohohoho! How about that? Licking her lips, she saw a chance for a little training opportunity and pulled out a slice of bread that she was going to use for lunch. Sticking it in her mouth, she could feel her cute/clumsiness levels rising. She rushed in, grabbed Ranma's arm to pull him away and then for some reason the sun set quite suddenly and oh look at all those happy marshmallows frolicking in the streets.

"Want one?" Ranma asked, plucking one out of the sky and offering it to her while the two of them walked arm in arm down rainbow boulevard, where the cats skipped and bounced and played. One landed on Ranma's head, and he laughed at its antics while placing the marshmallow in her mouth. "You like? It's pretty sweet."

"Not as sweet as you..." Akane mumbled. Actually, come to think it did taste pretty stale. In fact, it tasted sort of like the pillows in Doctor Tofu's office.

Cue Akane opening her eyes and realising that she was, in fact, in Doctor Tofu's office with a splitting headache, and the corner of a pillow in between her teeth.

"Ugh, what kinda stupid dream is that?" Akane grumbled to herself. "That's like the sort a little kid would have..."

"Ignoring your inner child is rarely healthy," Doctor Tofu said. Ah! He'd masked his presence from her perfectly! She'd thought she was alone in the room! "How do you feel?"

"Like someone slammed a fridge into the back of my skull," Akane answered.

"An umbrella, actually," Doctor Tofu said, smiling in that handsome way that he did when he was trying to be nice. "A  really, really heavy umbrella. Should have caved your skull in. As it is, it seems to have barely knocked you out for an hour. Your training must be further along than I thought if you could take that kind of  hit." Ah, now his face was serious. Which was, in her opinion, his best expression. "Don't take those kinds of hits again. You'd give your father a heart attack if he thought you were taking those kinds of attacks."

Her training was further along, huh? Not far enough. Doctor Tofu was right. She should have at least been able to dodge it. That guy, he was pretty quick. Not as quick as Ranma, but... fast. Normally Akane would treasure every moment that she had with Doctor Tofu. Which makes sense when you know that she's absolutely smitten with him, and has been since she was little. Not today though. Today she was analysing. Critiquing. Trying to understand what had happened and how she could prevent it from happening again.

You know, except for the obvious "don't step into a fight between two other fighters" advice. Which was stupid. And dumb. There had to be something she could have done differently. She could have gotten Ranma out of there, she was sure of it.  She'd seen the potential behind this style, and could feel that there was more to it. So why couldn't she reach it....?

On leaving Doctor Tofu's office, she found Ranma leaning against the wall next to the door. He looked a bit sheepish. Guilty, probably. After a moment, he held out a flower that had obviously been picked from someone's garden. "Sorry," he said, then left before she could say anything and - woah, she felt a bit giddy all of a sudden. Weird. Well, whatever. One thing she did remember from Tofu was that she had permission to head home for the day.

"Tsch, he couldn't have escorted me home?" Akane asked. Oh well. She sniffed the flower and - "And now it's raining, great."

Alright. Let's try to think this through rationally. The bit of bread she'd used was regular uncooked bread. Maybe that was something? It had to be toast, right? Yeah. That made sense. If she had a bit of toast in her mouth instead of regular sliced bread then maybe she'd be invincible then.

Which meant... maybe she needed props? Something to enhance her cuteness level. Akane wracked her brains all the way home, but even though the headache was clearing out she still couldn't get her thoughts together on what would work best. Nothing was coming to mind. The cutest thing she could think of was - well, Ranma's girl form. Cute as a button, tomboyish as all get out, but somehow she doubted it would count if she started using Ranma as a prop.

And then she saw it. In the middle of the street. Looking up at her with big wide eyes. A tiny little black pig.

"Well well," she muttered, approaching the pig slowly. It backed off as she approached, poor thing was obviously afraid. But Akane smiled, crouched down and offered her hand. "What would be cuter than a little piggy like you?"

<hr>

Meanwhile, on a rather strange farm not too far outside the Furinkan area, a young girl suddenly leaped to her feet and yelled "nothing!"

An old man in a wheelchair that was being pushed by a rather large upright porcine looked at her funny and asked hte obvious question. "Akari, why did you yell that?"

"I have no idea, grandfather," Akari Unryuu said, every bit as confused. "It felt like someone somewhere had just asked a question that I absolutely, positively had to answer with all my heart and soul!"

<hr>

Ah, yes. Ryoga Hibiki. The eternally lost boy. Ranma Saotome's most persistent rival, the one that is actually able to keep up with him. The yin to his yang. Cursed to take the form of a little black pig due to the thoughtless, careless actions of Ranma Saotome!

Now, let's be real here. Step back a bit. Ryoga getting cursed is totally his own fault. He's the idiot that couldn't let it go. He's the idiot that doesn't take simple basic precautions to ensure he doesn't get lost like making sure he's escorted everywhere by someone or something that knows where they're going. Like for example the family dog. He's the one that challenged Ranma to a fight in an empty lot behind his own fucking house nad showed up two weeks late for the fight. I mean, sure Ranma kinda knocked him into the spring because Genma was an asshole, which means that he must take a little of the blame here but on the whole Ryoga's really the asshole here.

Anyway, right now he was in pig form being carried home by the girl he'd accidentally knocked out earlier on when Ranma suddenly and inexplicably used her like a human shield because he was afraid of the rightful fury and wrathful revenge that was finally being given to him.

On the one hand he felt tremendously guilty that such a cute girl could be pulled into his mission for revenge against Ranma. On the other hand... this was a rare opportunity. This girl clearly knew Ranma. Knew him well. If Ryoga was smart about how he did this, he could use this as a chance to get revenge upon him. In a way he'd never see coming!

Of course, that plan was predicated on a faulty premise. If Ryoga Hibiki could be smart about anything, he wouldn't be in this situation to start with. Ah, but there was another issue that he wasn't aware of. Not yet at least.

You see, being a prop for the purposes of helping a girl like Akane learn the further steps of Dojikko Ken is a kind of hell that he hadn't yet experienced. A hell that would be much worse than anything he had gone through so far.

"Well, at this point I'm already late for school so -" Akane began, then trailed off. "Oh! That's perfect!"