"ARRRRG!"
Akane stomped around the dojo, her frustration physically voiced while Ranma muttered to himself about uncute, clumsy tomboys.
He'd always been loath to train her before, but after so many close calls and the wedding fiasco he had to start taking it seriously. At the point when the wedding had been bombed, Akane's skills had atrophied to the point where she would hardly have been a challenge for Ukyo, let alone for Xian Pu.
He vowed to fix it. So Ranma had started training her in the basic kata of the Saotome School, working on her balance and speed because she had enough power already. What was lacking was her footwork. She was too grounded, too linear to really be effective against an opponent who could move.
In short, she sucked. If her opponent had half a brain and a bit of mobility, she was screwed. Unless they were stupid enough or enjoyed just taking blows, Akane didn't stand a chance against the normal caliber of opponent who showed up at the Dojo looking for a fight.
And that's why he was in the Dojo with her, well past when they should have gone to bed, waiting for her to blow off enough steam that he run her through another kata. He'd only been really training her for a few weeks now, and he was already second guessing if it was a good idea. They'd been going at it for a couple of hours, and she'd long since doffed her gi top, wearing just a sweat-darkened tee shirt and thin pants that showed of her muscles pretty clearly. And because if it, he could see exactly where she was going wrong. He winced as he watched her complete the set and nearly stumble from her foot placement.
"Ya gotta relax your hips into the turn and twist more into the punch. Otherwise you'll leave your chest too open and you'll never get the round house kick off with enough speed to regain your balance."
Akane huffed and glared at him. "Are you just going to harp at me or help me fix it?"
"I'm tryin', Akane." He stepped out from in front of her where he had been acting as her sparing partner, running the other half of the kata. "I can't tell you any plainer than I am what you're doing wrong. You're too stiff up in your shoulders and you ain't movin' your feet enough."
He could see the tick developing in her eyes that told him she was getting ready to get real mad. Okay, time to try a different tactic. "Look, I want to try something, okay?"
She narrowed her eyes. "This had better not be a hair-brained scheme like your father would think of."
"No, nothing like that. Promise! I just want you to run through it again, okay? When you get stiff, I'm going to touch you where you need to relax so that the whole thing flows better."
She looked at him for a second before nodding. "Alright."
She got in a ready stance and Ranma moved behind her. Before she even began, he reached forward and touched the muscles of her neck.
"Too tense here. Relax."
He could hear her teeth grinding. "I am."
"Well, then, relax more." He waited, and eventually the tension left her shoulders. "Good. Now relax here." He touched the base of her spine, right above her pelvis. It took her a while, but eventually she was able to release those muscles as well. The process continued as he touched her hips, outer edge of her thighs, and her calves. Once she'd managed to relax all the muscles adequately, he started from the top again; making her go through the process one last time until he was satisfied she was actually loose enough to properly perform the kata.
He stepped aside and watched as she ran through it. It was better, but she was still tense.
"How did that feel?"
Akane nodded. "Better. Faster."
"But you were still tense, right?"
"Yeah."
"Alright. Let's try it again. This time I'm going to point out where you're tensing unnecessarily as you move, okay?"
She nodded and then took a ready stance. Again he move behind her and touched her back where he could see the muscles clenching through her shirt. She tensed immediately after starting the kata, keeping him busy with light touches to the muscles he could see that needed to relax in order to propel her through the motions necessary to maintain her balance. They ran through it a few more times, but she started making stupid mistakes because she was approaching exhaustion.
"Let's call it a night."
She shook her head. "I'm not finished yet."
"Yes you are. Go take a bath."
She looked ready to argue, but he just crossed his arms and looked at her. In the end, she gave a small snort and collected her gi top before heading out of the dojo.
Ranma stayed behind, thinking about ways he could get her to relax enough to able to maintain her balance in a fight. The fact that he was willing to consider it showed exactly how much things had changed since the failed wedding attempt.
It started with an innocuous comment that Akane had made running to school the morning after the wedding fiasco. It was, in the grand scheme of things, a very small comment, and on any normal day he probably wouldn't have noticed. He kept fluctuating between relief that he wasn't married, disbelief that Akane had actually wanted to marry him, regret that he wasn't married, anger at the people who ruined the ceremony, and a confusion as to how things had ever gotten this far. In short, he'd been walking on eggshells around her, and maybe because of it he'd paid a bit more attention to her than normal.
Soun's lecture had held them up a bit, and they didn't get out the door till much later than normal. He was also distracted with all the various emotions running through him, so, rather than take to the fence tops like normal, he ran along side Akane to school.
"This is nice."
He grunted, but took his eyes off the road for a second to glance over at her. She was smiling, eyes shining as she concentrated on keeping up. Later, when he was getting ready to walk home from school with her, he had glanced down from his normal vantage point from on top of the fence. Because he was looking, he saw a brief flash of disappointment on Akane's face. He chewed his lip slightly, and with a shrug hopped down and walked beside her once they got out of eyesight of the school. The look of surprise and delight when he walked home the rest of the way had made it worth it.
And then he started to notice other small things that had changed after the wedding fiasco. He noticed she didn't get angry quite as quickly anymore. It threw him off at first, but then he started watching her a bit more closely when he talked, watching for a slight… hesitation before responding to his comments that indicated he'd said something stupid. When he noticed it, he knew it was time to back off and start explaining.
And often times, she let him. Sure, he got pounded still, but he was getting a lot better at realizing what set her off. The more he did it, the easier it was to read her, and the fewer blunders he made. It really took a couple of months before he got the hang of it, and sure he still pulled a couple bone-headed moves, but in general life was pretty good and they were getting along a lot better.
And then he'd started training her. She wasn't a bad student, but she was just so freakin' stubborn that she drove him crazy. He got up off the dojo floor and walked out to the veranda where his dad and Mr. Tendo were still playing shogi. They both ignored him, used to his sour moods after training a training session with Akane. The steady click clack of the tiles relaxed him a bit as he thought about his problems.
"Yo, Pops?"
Genma looked up from the board, a little surprised at being addressed. "What is it, Ranma?"
"How did you get me to relax when you were teaching me kata?"
Genma adjusted his glasses. "I didn't have too. You considered it fun, and it was relaxing for you."
"That's really unhelpful."
"Is there a problem?" Genma asked.
He shrugged. "Akane can't relax when she's moving. It throws her balance all off."
"Hmm…" Genma scratched his chin. "That is a problem. Good luck!" With a smile, he turned back to the board, only to glare at Soun. "Soun… The board wasn't always like this, was it?"
"I'm shocked, Saotome-kun, shocked, that you'd accuse me thus!"
Ranma snorted and left, ignoring the bickering as he worked his way into the living area. The TV was on and showing some dumb American program. He was going to turn it off, until he saw exactly what it was. Fascinated, he continued to watch as some hulky sportsman twirled a lithe young woman across the floor.
"Ranma?"
He tore his attention away from the television. "Yeah Kasumi?"
"Do you want to take a bath now?"
"Do I hafta?"
Kasumi smiled slightly. "You've got school tomorrow. It's already late enough as it is."
"I guess yer right."
Ranma turned the television off with a sigh and headed to the bathroom. Unfortunately, he was still pondering what he had seen on television and missed the sign on the door that the bathroom was occupied. He undressed and flung his dirty clothes in the hamper before grabbing a washcloth and heading inside. He opened the door in time to see Akane stepping out of the bath.
"RANMA!"
"ACK! Sorry!"
He shut his eyes and slammed the door closed on reflex, covering his nakedness with his washcloth. He heard the bathroom door open and cringed on reflex.
""Cover up, will you?" Honestly!" A towel hit him in the chest, causing him to drop the washcloth as he caught it. He quickly wrapped the towel around his waist, careful to keep his eyes closed.
Akane harrumphed and brushed by him, humming a tune. The scent of her shampoo causing his nose to twitch as he felt the wind of her passage on his skin. Eyes still closed, he heard the rustling of clothes behind him as she started to get dressed.
"Um... Akane?"
"What?"
Her voice didn't sound particularly upset.
"Aren't you... ugh... mad?"
"Hmmm. I guess so." There was some more rustling as he listened to her comb her hair. "Next time, ask first."
He heard the door behind him open and close, leaving him standing alone in the changing room blinking rapidly.
"Ask what?"
The empty bathroom didn't reply to his question.
The next day, after dinner was finished and homework completed, he met Akane back in the dojo with a CD player. She looked at him funny as he put it in the corner of the room and loaded it with some music.
"What's that for?"
"I want to try something. You need to learn to relax and move, right?"
Defensive, she nodded.
"So, I'm gonna teach you how to do that."
"How?"
"Easy." He pressed play on the CD player, and music filled the hall. Nodding his head to the beat, he stepped up to Akane and took a ready stance. "Alright. Let's try something a bit different tonight. I want you to stand up straight, arms at your sides, head up and muscles relaxed."
She did as instructed, a look of puzzlement on her face. "Okay, now what?"
With that, he stepped up to her her and gently began to thread his right hand through the gap in the ribs on her left side and her bicep.
She reacted immediately by trapping his hand on her ribs and turning into his body and tossing him over her hip in a textbook judo throw, slamming him onto the floor.
Starring down at him, she crossed her arms under her breasts as she asked, "and what was that, exactly?"
With a groan, he rolled over and stood up. "I was gonna dance with ya to teach you how to move and stay relaxed, you macho chick."
She opened her mouth to yell back, but stopped. She looked puzzled. "What?"
"You're too tense. I was gonna see if you could learn to relax and move, you know?"
"Since when could you dance?"
Ranma snorted and jabbed himself in the chest with his thumb. "I happen to be a martial arts ballroom dancing champion, ya know."
"Did your father put you up to this?"
"For once, no. This is my own hair-brained scheme. I saw it on TV last night, and thought it might be worth trying."
Akane put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. "It sounds like an excuse to put your hands on me."
He rolled his eyes. "What makes you think I'd want to put my hands on you? Besides, if I wanted to, you couldn't stop me."
Akane snorted. "So you think."
"So I know." He cracked his neck.
"Then prove it."
Instantly there air was thick with tension as Akane just realized what she said. Ranma arched an eyebrow at her, but she just stared back at him defiantly, if a bit nervously.
Ranma stretched theatrically as she dropped into a ready stance, using the kata he's showed her the day before. "Alright," he drawled, "you asked for it. I'll even be nice and let you tell me where it's safe to put my hands, just so you don't get the wrong idea or nuthin'." He looked down at his knuckles, examining them closely to avoid her eyes. "Then, there's a question of what I get out of this little bet."
"I never said it was a bet." Akane shifted her feet nervously.
"You wanted me to prove it, didn't you?"
"But I didn't say it was a bet."
"Hmmf." Ranma relaxed out of his stance. "So basically, I get nothin' out of provin' it to ya except making you mad, huh? That doesn't sound like much fun to me. If I'm gonna go through the trouble of doing this, I want something out of it, ya know?"
Akane licked her lips. "Umm... How about I cook dinner for you?"
"If you said not cook dinner for me, deal."
"You jerk!"
"Well?"
"How about we just do this stupid dancing thing instead?"
"I don't know. You're the teacher."
"This isn't much different than what I was doing last night when I was poking you."
"And what's that?"
"Getting you to relax when you move. Your balance sucks 'cause you tense up so much." He could she her grinding her teeth. "Look, you want to get better, or what?"
"Yes." She practically spat out the answer.
"Good. Then trust me."
