Story: Pride and Joy

Here's the last update - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QWL_YfLfl1Bcdqhn0Oga_L1SZ0erXVzh-sFIebKUqWo/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.qaw9kfx0t3w4

Not to beat a dead horse here, but Akane Tendo is a more capable martial artist than many give her credit for. Sure, her confidence had taken a knock since Ranma showed up and gave her a taste of what’s truly possible with proper application and training. Even so, she’d fallen into a mindset where that level of skill felt permanently out of reach—especially since Ranma himself was improving massively, and fast.

The thing was, so had she. She had to. There’s only so far you can get by steamrolling your average high school athletes. Kuno was a threat, sure, but he was the kind of threat she was adapting to faster than he could adapt to her. Then Ranma arrived, bringing his unique brand of chaos, and she had to step up again. She picked up new exercises just in her attempt to keep pace with him in their zany misadventures. Her strength, speed, and skill had grown—quite substantially as it happens.

The trouble was, Ranma’s growth rate was on another level. Unfairly so. She couldn’t help but compare herself to him, and the result was a kind of psychological blind spot. She couldn’t see how far she’d come. She underestimated what she was capable of, because the feats she was pulling off felt like the territory of martial arts fanatics—of which, by most standards, she still figured she was barely on the fringe.

Which is why she hadn’t tried something like roof-hopping. And, honestly, it’s easy to understand why. One misstep and you’re lucky to get away with just a broken ankle. Not exactly something you attempt on a whim. Since she clings to the idea that she’s the “sensible one,” Akane tries not to indulge in anything too ridiculous. Especially since, let’s face it—if she ever did end up in a situation where roof-hopping was necessary, odds are she’d wind up being carried by Ranma anyway. A convenient excuse for a sly snuggle, not that she or Ranma, or even her conscious mind, would be ready to admit that.

"All done!" Akane chirped, putting down the book now fully marked off properly. She then turned her attention to the girls on either side of her, made sure their faces were appropriately marked and resumed hopping on the roof to reach her target as if the whole thing hadn't happened.

"Must mark face of partner!" Akane happily, giddily cheered while doing something she thought she could not. The spell of the sakura mochi had well and truly taken hold of her, guiding her on the straightest path possible towards a particular end. "X marks everyone else!" And the extra bonus of that route was, not only was it a straight line, as it was across the rooftops of Furinkan it meant that she was less inclined to encounter anyone.

"Akane Tendo! Break free of this madness!" cried one of the few people she might encounter. Mousse. Now, Akane has a weird relationship with Mousse. She didn't really mind him all that much. When she was still fighting with Shampoo, it had almost seemed like a stellar opportunity to get rid of her once and for all would probably involve Mousse in some way. He didn't seem like a bad sort, really. Not Akane's type either, but so long as he wasn't being a complete idiot he wasn't too bad to hang around with. Of course, her perception of him changed a lot when things started kicking off, but even so - 

"Not my partner~" Akane chirped. "I see there are signs of an X already, did you try to wipe it off? Bad Mousse!"

"You're not acting ration-" Mousse began, only to find his face covered with black ink as she drew another X across his features. One might almost think of an old Looney Tune - in fact, it wasn't hard to imagine Akane jumping up, clicking her heels together, making a 'beep beep' noise and then hurrying off to find Ranma while leaving a dust cloud perfectly in her shape right where she'd been a moment ago.

In actuality she'd merely run and jumped away without a care in the world. Meanwhile, the Mousse to her Shampoo arrived - Tatewaki Kuno, climbing up a ladder, himself marked across the face with a big prominent X. Almost as if Akane had been very decisive about the issue.

"No fortune with her, I see!" Kuno said, tears streaming down his face from sheer admiration. "Indeed, you can plainly see the fire inside her that brings me to her time and again!"

"We each have our own tastes," Mousse said while cleaning ink off his glasses. "This is a real problem. I think we can catch up with her fine, but containing her long enough for the effect to wear off..."

"Quite so," Kuno nodded. "And what do you suppose will happen if she were to reach Saotome, in this condition?"

Mousse considered this for a moment. "I suppose there's some magical element to it," he said. "She'll probably wind up marrying him right aw-" He stopped cold. The hamster in the wheel inside his head began to chirp happily. "Huh! That might not be such a bad thing... Kukuku, if it works like that, then maybe Shampoo will leave him alone...?"

Alas, while Mousse's hearing might be... let's use the word subpar here, you could not use the same word for Kuno's hearing. He picked up on what his supposed ally was saying right away, and had his bokken drawn in an instant.

"Fiend!" he hissed. "I see how it is! No ally are you! Instead, you seek to marry off the fair Akane to that scoundrel so that you may abscond with that Chinese floozy!" He stopped for a moment. "Not that I could blame you, she is extremely beautiful - but not my type."

"If you can't blame me, then why is your sword drawn?" Mousse asked.

"Because we are in a situation where only one of us gets what we want," Kuno said. "And I am engaging in the gentlemanly act of - "

Mousse sighed, shrugged, then flicked his wrists, causing a chain to almost tumble out of his sleeve. It wrapped around Kuno's little stick, and allowed him to pretty much easily toss the idiot overboard. Worth noting that Mousse might not be at Ranma's standard - but he's certainly above Kuno's. Especially when the idiot won't shut up, making it extremely easy to place exactly where he is at all times.

"Now, where did that girl get to...?" Mousse mumbled to himself. "Urgh. This ink on my face is starting to tingle. It better not be doing something weird, magical and slightly horny to me, or I might wind up getting angry." Then, in a quieter tone, to himself. "Unless the effect let me have fun with Shampoo, that's more than welcome! Even if I don't remember it in the morning, that would be amazing!"

And off he went like the blind idiot he was. She'd gone this way, right? For some reason, his instincts were pulling him in this direction...

=====

So, like, this is super duper early and stuff, but as it turned out, it was time for a certain someone to shine! A pretty young cheerleader named M-A-R-I-K-O K-O-N-J-O, who was a super great cheerleader getting ready for next week's volleyball game against those freaks at Furinkan!

She'd come up with a few totally neat tricks to really flummox them as well, tee hee, she could hardly wait to see the looks of panic on their faces when they L-O-S-T to the power of her L-O-V-E!

Still, it was totally weird today. There was this creep selling sakura mochi which was supposed to, like, lead you to your one true love or some bullshit like that. Something about marking the faces of those you're destined to be with, with sakura petals? And everyone you're not with an X? Urgh, she didn't go for that L-A-M-E supernatural mumbo jumbo, she was a total pragmatic modern girl, who would fight for her man, fight with her man, and she didn't need no stupid superstition to find her one true love! Because her one true love was -

Crash! Now, Mariko had been about to think 'cheerleading', but that was until she got a really good look at the hunk that just fell off the roof in front of her. Oh, mama, give her some of that! Until now Mariko didn't realise she had a type, but now she had a T-Y-P-E!

It was hard to put into words what it was. You' think the X across his face would be a turnoff, but for some reason, for Mariko it felt like just the opposite. Like, as if, anyone else in the world seeing him right now would think he looked like a total goofball... But for Mariko alone, he seemed to be shining.

"That traitorous, duplicitous worm!" the hunk yelled, raising his bokken to the air, no doubt cursing the villain who had tossed him down from the rooftops above, where they had been engaged in a noble battle, for the purest of intentions. "Where did I leave that ladder! That oaf, that cur, he shall not best me so easily! I shall undo his wicked schemes, or my name is not Tatewaki Kuno!"

"Tatewaki Kuno..." Mariko sighed, clasping her hands together as she watched him run off, nobly returning to battle despite that he should be badly injured from that landing. "So brave! So heroic!" She pulled out a baton, began to twirl it around and started to do kneelifts as well. "In that C-A-S-E, I'll just have to cheer him on! Show my love!"

And then... She made a lewd movement with her hips and licked her lips. She would show him her love in a whole other way! Time to get rid of that pesky virginity~