Well, this is something I came up with after reading one of the many self-inserts out there that had the author taking someone's place. Feeling left out, I decided to make one too. ;P
DISCLAIMER: Listen. I'm pretending to become one of the characters. Is that the quality of someone who owns them? No? That's what I thought. I'm not going to say this twice. I don't own them, it, nor any rights to the products or even the promos. I'm just a poor kid with a crappy computer and plenty of time.
------ Why Me? ------
"AAAHHH!!" 'GAH IT'S COLD!!' In my shock and confusion, as I was absolutely reeling from the fact that I was unprepared for not knowing what was going on, and the fact that this particular scene didn't feel like a dream, I didn't notice as I was passed between several sets of hands and eventually wrapped in something soft and warm. 'Ah, that's better... wait, what's going on?' With that thought, I then I managed to get my eyes to open, just barely; looking around I saw several large people surrounding me, and after a few minutes of handling, I was passed to the hands of what was apparently a woman.
The whole bunch of them were speaking in a language I didn't understand, but I could pretty-well guess what had happened; after all, it was fairly obvious, even though the knowledge was just as confusing as not knowing. The only problem that I could think of, though, was, 'When did I die?'
Oddly, I didn't figure it out right away, as I barely even got the chance to think about it before falling asleep. Apparently, newborns don't stay awake a whole lot.
For several days I seemed to be gliding through the days as if purely on instinct, which makes sense since I was barely awake for more than an hour at a time. Within a couple of weeks I had fallen well into the daily routine presented to me by my size and age.
And while I wasn't sleeping, I was observing, just as any child that age should be; but at the same time I also tackled that one problem, 'When and how did I die to be reincarnated!?'
The last thing I could remember was going to bed. It was late at night and I had been tired. So what happened?
Knowing Nebraska, it was rather possible that there had been a storm, even a tornado. If that was the case, then that meant three things. First was that I probably wouldn't have been the only one to go like that. Second, it must have been a pretty powerful twister to have pulled me straight out of bed, or it had more likely simply dropped something on me; that would have done it I'd bet. And third... I must have been a heavier sleeper than I thought!
Of course, it was still possible that all this weird stuff was just a dream. It certainly felt like one, since everything seemed to blur together from day to day. Heck, even though I had no idea where I was, I could have easily imagined it all!
'Well, I may as well play along...' This thought came as I apparently soiled my diaper and began to cry out loud.
--
It took me nearly an entire month to figure out what my name was. At first, I simply turned my head whenever I heard a voice, since I couldn't really pick out anything that sounded like a name in all the gibberish those people, who were apparently my parents, were speaking with. What was that name?
Akane. 'Isn't that...? Oh crud...'
I was Akane Tendo, youngest daughter of Soun Tendo and... whoever that woman over there was.
Sensing that I was hungry, I proceeded to get that woman's attention while resolving to come to know her name. After all, she is my mother now, right?
--
"YA! YA! YA!" Me and my two sisters were practicing our Martial Arts forms under our father's watchful eye. I hadn't had to pester him about it too much, he seemed more than happy to include me even at barely-speaking age. I wasn't really all that great at speaking yet, at least in Japanese, but at least I could stand around and throw punches.
Nabiki, my little-big sister, was barely any better at it than I was, and oddly, though she was at least three years older than myself, the same went for Kasumi. Kasumi just didn't seem to hold any interest in it, even less than Nabiki, who only seemed to be practicing for play.
Not that I minded, I found it to be rather fun myself. And since I had confirmed that yes, I was indeed that Akane, I was determined for things to be different. I would work harder, be better prepared, and then there was our mother...
At first, I didn't want to become attached to her, since I knew that she eventually wouldn't be there, but... I really couldn't help it. 'I'll protect them. Things will be different. Mama will be okay and we'll all be happy. I just hafta be strong...'
--
"There you go, Akane. All better!"
"Thank you, Doctor!"
"Doctor?" Kasumi's soft voice came into the clinic from the front door.
"Oh! Hello, K-kasumi! Come to get your sister?" Looking up at the doctor's face I could already see him getting a slightly glazed look in his eyes.
Shaking my head, I wondered why he was so taken with my sister. She was barely nine years old!
"Yes, thank you, ready to go Akane?"
"Uh-huh!" I happily hopped off the table and tip-toed over to my sister to take her hand.
"Thank you, Doctor, for treating my sister." Kasumi led me in a bow to the doctor, who smiled back.
"Oh that's quite okay, that's what I'm here for." He waved us goodbye and we left.
On the street, Kasumi commented on my tomboyishness. "Akane, must you be such a tomboy? You know that no boy will ever come to like you if you must always act like one."
I didn't say anything. 'And why shouldn't I be a tomboy? It's perfectly okay, and I'm not hurting anyone. And if they don't like it, that's their problem. It's no loss to me...'
Besides, whether I admitted it or not, there was only one person I was really worried about...
--
"Hello? Father? Mother? We're home!"
I placed my shoes beside Kasumi's and we went inside. There was then a voice coming from the Living Room calling to us. "Kasumi? Akane?"
"Mister Tanaka?" Kasumi seemed only somewhat surprised. Mister Tanaka was our neighbor, and the father to one of daddy's students.
"Oh girls, I'm glad to see that you're okay! Come on, we need to go now..." There was an odd urgency in his voice that I wasn't really sure I liked. And it didn't take an Anything Goes fighter to read his body language; he was practically wearing his worry on his sleeve.
"Where's daddy?"
"We're going to see him, come on, let's go." He gently led us back out the door, guiding us back to his driveway and into his car. Kasumi was confused, but I was simply worried.
I was hoping that what I thought had happened, hadn't happened.
--
My heart was racing as we walked through the turn-style doors to the local hospital. Looking around the large waiting room I located daddy's hair and pointed that way.
Mister Tanaka nodded and took us that way, guiding us through the droves of seats to where he and Nabiki were sitting, daddy constantly staring down a nearby hallway.
Kasumi spoke first, "Daddy? What's wrong? What's going on, why are we here?"
Noticing us, he forced a smile. "Come here girls," we did and he wrapped the three of us in a big hug. Then he backed off, still trying to appear cheerful. "Now listen girls. Mommy's sick, and had to come here to get better. The doctors say we can't go in right now, so we have to wait out here, so be good, for mommy, okay?"
His speech may have helped Nabiki out, though Kasumi probably knew better, judging by daddy's tears. But I, who already knew what had happened, wasn't fooled one bit.
Choking back tears, I backed up until I bumped into one of the chairs. I then climbed into it and gathered my knees to my chest, burying my face in them. Perhaps I did it to hide my tears; but really, I think I may have been trying to hide from the world, to get away from the nightmare I had suddenly found myself in. I had thought that I was prepared, even ready… but despite all my knowledge, all my time to prepare… I wasn't even close, and it scared me more than I was ready for…
I don't know how long we waited, though it was long enough that Mister Tanaka eventually told us that he had to go, and that by the time one of the doctors came to get us it was dark outside.
"Mister Tendo?"
"How is my wife? Is she going to be okay?"
The look on the doctor's face wasn't promising. "We've managed to stabilize her, so you can go see her. But she is in pretty bad condition and we're afraid that... she may not be long for this world... I'm sorry."
"I can see her?" The doctor turned around with a slight bow and began leading us to the room our mom was in.
Stopping by the door, the doctor waved a hand, bowed slightly, and went on his way.
"Kasumi, could you watch your sisters for a moment? I won't be long."
"Okay daddy."
Then he went inside, and we were left there in the hall.
Nabiki turned to Kasumi, "Kasumi, do you think mommy'll be alright?"
"I hope so, Nabiki. I hope so..." I'm not really sure Nabiki understood what would happen if she weren't. I didn't want to think it either.
'I knew I shouldn't have gotten attached... Why didn't I see it coming!? I should have known!' Despite my best efforts, tears still escaped, silently running down my knees and dousing my shorts. 'I couldn't protect her...'
I'm not sure what, but something made me pull my face out of my lap and look over at my sisters. 'But... what about them? Their mother is gone too... or going at best… I can always protect them, even if they don't want it...'
Click
Looking up at the door, I spied daddy closing the door to mama's room. He didn't look too happy, but he quickly smiled, for our sakes. "Come on, let's go home..."
"But what about-"
"Mommy needs her rest, and so do you all. We'll be back first thing in the morning to check up on her. Now let's get home and you three in bed, okay?"
The three of us begrudgingly allowed ourselves to be led out of the hospital. As we turned a corner just beyond her room I thought I heard a sudden, high-pitched squeal, and just managed to spy a doctor and a nurse rushing into the room.
Wrapping my arms around my uneasy stomach, I sped up just enough to catch up to what was left of my family...
'This is not the kind of guilt meant for a six year old… let alone the pain.'
--
When we got home daddy made dinner, with a lot of Kasumi's help, and we ate a semi-edible meal. Nothing like what mama made, and I was pretty sure it was nothing like what Kasumi would eventually be making, but it was edible. Honestly, I was a bit too afraid to even try cooking, knowing Akane's field record in the area.
We then all got clean, dressed, and went to bed.
But I couldn't sleep, I was too worried, and somehow sure that...
"Sigh I really hope she's alright..."
I don't know what time it was when I heard the phone ring, but that prompted me to get out of bed and check. Going downstairs, I found daddy standing beside a corner table with the phone.
"Yes, I understand... thank you. ... Yes. Goodbye." Click
"Daddy?"
Looking up, he noticed me standing in the hallway. "Hey, what are you doing up?"
"I couldn't sleep..." Seeking comfort, I walked to my father while rubbing my eye.
"Well come here..." Opening his arms, I could already see tears in his eyes. As I moved into his arms I thought about how much of an emotional man he already was. It was what momma had always loved most about him. He wasn't the kind of man to cry loudly on the drop of a dime, but he wasn't a tough-guy either. It was probably something to do with that old master of his, What'sisname.
"Is mommy coming back?"
He breathed deeply, trying for my sake to keep the tears from coming out, then looked down at me with an obviously fake smile. "Of course she is. She'll get better fast and then we'll all be back here, just like always..."
He pulled his hand to the back of my head, as if I was some kind of cat. I didn't mind, he had been doing it since I was a baby. The very fact that I could remember that time almost seemed odd for some reason, but I always had. But this time I pulled my head away from his hand and looked into his face, scowling slightly at the man. "Don't lie; you're not a very good liar. She's not coming back, is she?"
With a sigh, he put his forehead against mine, closing his eyes. "Mommy was very sick. She wasn't strong like you or me, and she got hurt really badly. She was asleep in the hospital, but now she's dead, and won't be waking up. I'm sorry, Akane-chan."
"Dead..." I whispered the word like a curse. Despite what most would have thought, it was part of martial arts, at least in Anything Goes, to know and understand death. This meant that all three of us knew basically that when someone was dead, that they wouldn't be waking up. And now all of us would know why we couldn't kill, because it hurt like Hell...
As I sat there on his lap, feeling protected from the world by his strong grip, I felt like I just couldn't keep it in anymore. I leaned in, and I cried. I shook slightly and cried with all my heart.
'It just isn't fair! Why did they take me here if I can't change anything!? Why am I here!?' My previous promise forgotten, I thought to myself over and over just how unfair it all was. For that time, I felt helpless, almost hopeless.
I'm not sure how long I cried. I'm also not sure how long it took me to notice that daddy was crying too.
When I did finally notice this, my thoughts changed somewhat. I realized that they, the rest of my family, were also probably thinking and feeling much the same. That they also were, or would be in my sisters' cases, feeling helpless and hopeless.
So I again resolved to protect them, to help them in any way I could.
My sobs pretty much stopped as I thought things over. My body, tired out from crying for so long, fell limp as I did, and I could hear him crying aloud in the otherwise deathly-cold room.
His sobs reminded me of the biggest obstacle I faced in holding this family together. My sisters were young, but strong. Daddy, however, had something wrong with him. Because of that master of his, he had no way of calming himself down when feeling frightened or helpless. That had always been mother's job; she was always the one to remind him that he had a life. And now that she was gone, he was going to be without control, and without any kind of direction. This was something that would be okay for a while, but he would eventually have to go back to being our father. Even I wasn't sure I could do it without him...
--
After that, I'm pretty sure that I fell asleep for real, because the next thing I remember was waking up in my bed. The sun was up, filtering through the yellow curtains covering the window, casting a soft glow through the rest of the room.
Looking at the clock, I had to guess that daddy had turned off my alarm, letting me stay home from school. So too that he didn't get me up to train with him, which probably meant that he was in bed as well.
'The first day... how do I handle this? ... Come to think of it, how will they handle this?' I already knew how they ended up, but I still didn't know how any of them initially took the news of... Kumiko's death.
The tear that came to my eye told me to stop thinking about it. The time for that was later, at the funeral. As for now... well, what now?
Finding that I was somewhat too tense, I opted for a little exercise to stretch out my muscles.
As I performed my kata out in the dojo, alone in my exercise as my sisters and father were all still asleep, I thought it no wonder that the original Akane had taken such a liking to Martial Arts, it was a great stress release.
I don't know how long I was in there before Nabiki came and got me. "Akane, come on, we're late for school!"
Oddly enough, she had caught me while I was just smashing bricks, one of the original Akane's favorite pastimes. One might think it odd that I was smashing bricks at such an age, but the truth was that all three of us could already do so by age five.
Stopping what I was doing, I looked knowingly at my sister. "I don't think we're going to school today, Nabiki."
"What? Why not?"
"Go ask daddy, I'm sure he knows..." I then turned back to the small pile of bricks I had piled, ready to be pummeled into the floor. Strangely, I no longer felt quite like breaking them, and simply left them for later. Instead, I went off to one of the corners, one with a bunch of pillows piled up, and started to sort out my emotions through meditation.
I'm fairly sure that, while I did this, I was probably glowing, although I couldn't see it myself. Sometimes daddy or one of his newer students would comment on it, and a lot of the older students, much older than I was even, would often try their best to do it too. So far, only one could begin to glow, just slightly, and none of them could glow quite like I could. I was already well known as a prodigy, and had plans to go farther.
In strength, I was barely equal to my peers, by which I mean those in the later classes, as I had always been pushing my strength as much as my skill. This coupled by the fact that I still got a good workout fighting some of those later students meant that neither of those factors alone were what gave me my energy skills. There seemed to be something special about me, something that no one could quite place. So they simply called me a prodigy and left it at that.
A while later, I went inside, after putting the bricks back into storage, not feeling like breaking them at the moment.
Inside, I found that the rest of my family was caught in a wordless group hug in the Living Room. When he noticed me, daddy motioned me over and I joined in the family hug.
Caught in the warmth, I didn't even think about why he hadn't thought to find me... I simply let it slide.
Oddly, Nabiki looked kind of confused, whereas Kasumi looked overly worried when we finally broke out of the hug.
"Now what was your question, Nabiki-chan?" I then lost my footing and, despite all my training, fell on my head.
It hurt, very much. And for a second, it made me forget about the news that daddy obviously hadn't told yet...
--
The funeral, which we held in the dojo, was long and emotional, as everyone that Kumiko, my mother, had ever touched was in attendance. And that was a lot of people.
I sat on the floor beside my sisters mostly as a formality, as I had already said my goodbyes soon after we had moved her casket into the dojo. And I had plans to say them again after everyone was gone.
Most of the conversation that I had overheard went along one of three lines. "And she was such a sweet girl too...", "Look at the three girls she left behind, and now they're without their mother." and finally, "You know, that guy, their father, he's pretty fragile. Now that she's gone he'll be a wreck, I just know it."
Those talking of the last one didn't know how right they were... But I was going to make sure that he wouldn't be too much of a wreck.
By the time everyone had said their peace there was left a large pile of flowers on, against, and in front of her casket, among other things that people had thought to bring.
--
It took a few hours for the service to be finished, after which I listened in my bed as my family cried themselves to sleep. Daddy's voice was the loudest out of the three as I lay there, looking up at the ceiling, wondering what mama was thinking about all of this that was going on down here.
I think it was midnight before all the crying stopped, leaving me alone in a quiet house, with the only sounds being the occasional traffic outside.
There was one more thing I had to do before I went to sleep that night; I had to say what was on my mind.
Moving slowly and quietly, I made my way downstairs and then out to the dojo, where mama's casket still sat. I then sat down in front of it and started speaking.
"I hope you can hear me in there, since I can't open up the top without knocking everythin' over, so I'll just have to talk like this.
"I really wish you didn't hafta go, but I guess that isn't my choice; you're gone now and I have to accept that. But before you went any farther, I wanted to say just one more thing.
"Everybody's taking it pretty hard now that you're gone, especially daddy. I know that, being the baby and the youngest, I'm supposed to be taking it really hard too. Hey, I'm not even supposed to know what death really means, but I guess I kinda cheated since I'm really a lot older than I look. Yes, I really am your Akane-chan, but I didn't really start that way. I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but now that you're gone I guess I can trust you with it. Before you had me, I was somebody else; a full-grown kid with a life... in college and everything. Then, I guess, when I died, the gods thought I wasn't finished and sent me here. I guess now you know why I was always so smart, huh?"
I took a deep breath before going on. "I'm really not sure yet why it is I'm here; but I guess I'll figure it out. I guess now that you're gone, somebody has to keep everybody down here in line, especially daddy." The more I talked, the more my heart raced and my throat began to catch, I could tell that the tears weren't far behind.
After a couple of deep breaths my heart calmed down and I could hold the tears mostly in check. My eyes were still watery, but that was okay, I wasn't really using them anyway. "Let's see, what else should I say?"
I sat there, staring at the floor for a while before I came up with a thought. "No one expects me, or even wants me to put on a brave face, so I won't. But I'll also make sure that the others don't pretend to be brave when they aren't, I don't want anyone pretending for me when they don't have to." I smirked slightly, "I guess you already know that, don't you? You always knew that I knew what you were really thinking, didn't you? And you love me for it."
I was silent for a few seconds before moving on, "I got my whole life in front of me, and so do my sisters, and even daddy isn't dead yet. I'll make sure that everybody keeps kicking, it's what you'd want us to do..."
Standing up, I leaned against the casket, trying to attempt to hug my mother through the hard wood that surrounded her. "Good by mama-san..."
I stood there for a while, not saying anything, before finally going back inside, soaking my pillow before finally going to sleep.
--
As for my training, well, before I could really train, I needed to get daddy to actually train me. And for that, he needed to get his head out of his butt.
After about a week after... well, it took me a week to decide to confront him. I simply asked when he was going to start training me again. His response was, "I don't know, Akane-chan. Maybe later."
"And the other students?"
"Later, I don't feel like it right now..."
"Don't feel like it? How much later, Daddy? A week? Two? Are you ever going to feel like it? Are you going to start training us again!?" I was upset as I said this. Maybe I was going too fast, but the fear that he might become that useless wreck told me that if I didn't go too fast, then I would lose him forever.
For a moment, he fish mouthed. Then he seemed to forget who he was talking to and yelled at me, "My WIFE just died!"
"And so did my mommy! I just don't want my daddy or my sensei to die too! Okay!?"
"What!? But Akane, I'm not going anywhere!" He had dropped the -chan. Good, I wasn't that little girl in his mind anymore, I was someone he was talking to seriously. Most people probably would have been appalled at having their child scold them, but daddy was different. He would take the scolding and seriously listen. That old master of his had done that to him, he was too sensitive...
"But if you just sit around all the time, then what are you? You've been a lump on the floor, and you'll keep on going like that unless you eventually move on! And if you're a lump on the floor, and mommy's gone, then who's there for us, huh? A lump on the floor isn't a daddy or a sensei!" I was crying now, and my breaking heart, driven by fear, made me jump out and latch onto his neck as I cried pitifully into his chest. As I did, I was as much berating myself for fear that he might be angry with me for saying what I did, and as well feeling like an idiot and a bunch of other things that at the moment I really couldn't have pinned down anyway…
He was speechless. 'Well good, I don't want him saying anything, not until I'm done at least.'
"Mommy, snif said that you were special. She said that, unless someone told you to stop, that you would be sad forever. She said that it didn't matter what happened, that if any of us left you, that it would take her forever to get you to keep going. And... now that she's gone... she can't do that... and I don't want you to do nothing but cry all day. I... I want my daddy back..." still choked up, I buried my face in his chest and continued crying... If he was going to move, right then was the perfect time.
He gripped me a little tighter and I quieted somewhat, ready to listen to what he was going to say. Tears were still flowing freely from my eyes, soaking his shirt.
"Akane-chan..." I perked up, ready to listen, "I know you're right... you're mother was right. I really should be there for you girls... I just don't think I can do it just yet..."
I pulled away gently and looked him in the eye, a scowl on my face. "Then you can take one more week. I don't care what you do; go talk to her at the grave, pray at the shrine, whatever! Just make sure that you can be our daddy again... okay?"
He took one more deep breath and looked me back in the eye, "I'll try, Akane-chan. I really will."
For a while after that, we just sat there. Then, when I felt comfortable with it, I decided to go out to the dojo to practice on my own. Just because he wasn't there didn't mean I couldn't keep practicing.
The next day he took us all out to mama's grave, and while we waited outside with Mister Tanaka, he apologized to her. He didn't think we could hear, being outside on the other side of a concrete wall... but I could, thanks in part to my training. I don't know what he was apologizing for exactly, but I knew that he was saying 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry' over and over again. I'm not sure how long we stood there waiting for him to finish, but eventually he apparently cried himself out and joined back up with us again…
Soon after, he joined me in training. It still took him time to actually teach, and it was uncomfortable for a while, but we eventually got back into the routine.
Of course, being our father meant more than just being my sensei. It also meant he was the enforcer for the rules that mama had set up long ago. It wouldn't do to have only Kasumi doing the cleaning, so we were expected to all do our share.
Personally, I really didn't mind at all; that simply solved another problem. (And I'd had nothing to do with it, either...)
--
In elementary school, my youngest years of social interaction, I found myself at a kind of loss as to what I wanted to do. I really wanted to spend almost all of my time practicing my art, and in fact, I usually did find ways to do just this. But I also wanted someone to talk to, someone to whom I could trust my thoughts, someone to call my friends.
Of course, there wasn't really all that much thought involved in the process that early on in life as to actually obtaining prospective friends; all you really had to do was say, "Hey, I'm Akane, wanna play?" But even then I knew what kind of people I was looking for; I did gather a small group of people around me, some of which were boys, and the rest of which were very much tomboys.
It didn't even take three years for the social lines to be rather obviously drawn in the sand, though, and boys were really not allowed to play with girls, and vice-versa; so I ended up spending my 'friend time' with my tomboy friends. Oddly enough, two of those girls had names (not that the others didn't, I just can't remember them now), and very well were likely to be the same girls who had been mentioned in the life of the original. They had been the most loyal of my friends and, out of a group of ten, only we three really ended up calling each other 'best friends'. Their names were Yuka and Sayuri.
Sooner or later puberty set in and we were suddenly being expected to act more feminine, like 'real' girls. For the first year or so all three of us fought it practically tooth-and-nail.
And then that changed. There was no particular reason, nor any signal to start doing it, but suddenly becoming 'real' girls became something of a game, rather than something to be hated... We would challenge each other to see how far we would really go. One day one of us would show up after school was out still wearing a skirt, and the rest of us would laugh about the novelty of it, but would eventually end up doing the same, if only to show that we wouldn't be shown up (I was especially bad about this...). This combined with pressure from my sisters at home produced a 'me' that was only slightly less feminine than the original Akane. (Or perhaps even more so? I don't know...)
But along with this growth came other things, things I found just plain distasteful and really didn't want to participate in; inevitably, the topic of many conversations ended up turning to boys.
At first, when Yuka had brought up the subject, I had reacted with surprise and a little confusion; these two were two girls I had never expected to become boy-crazy! But with female hormones raging so powerfully, both of the girls I had expected to be tomboys forever from time to time ended up giggling uncontrollably while talking about some boy or another.
I usually tuned out during these conversations, my full concentration instead going to my 'energy'; by this time I had a lot of energy, and sometimes it was almost difficult to keep track of it all, despite all my skill and practice, so when I was like this I would only answer direct questions, using the minimum brainpower required.
But anyway, back on topic. When the feeling I gave off about not being 'interested', and therefore not 'available' had actually permeated through my classmates, and even to the classes above mine, I suddenly became very desirable. Apparently, not looking to the boys, while still not being lesbian (no one, not even myself, was entirely sure about this one, and it wasn't as if I'd tell my classmates anyway) made me into some kind of prize. Every boy, and some girls, wanted my attentions.
At first I simply burned the piles of love-notes left on my desk, incinerating them with my energy; after a while I started putting them in the recycle bin, to be reused to assault me again another day.
But with each rejection came more fervent attempts; and the longer I held onto my stand of having no relationship, the more I got teased because of it.
Finally, one day right at the start of my freshman year at Furinkan High, I relented. There were a number of reasons I decided to make a choice; the first and most obvious was to stop the teasing; the second and more important reason was to finally be able to say that I was 'taken' and be able to finally be left alone.
I put all the boys through a vigorous evaluation before I finally came up with someone who looked 'safe'; he had asked me to see a movie, and I agreed.
The movie had been boring as heck, and it was rather obvious that the guy hadn't actually put much thought into the encounter as he had bought tickets to a romance movie. They may have been boy-crazy from time to time, but even Yuka and Sayuri didn't much care for the kissy-kissy movies.
I had known, logically, that he was going to try a move on me, and I had come prepared for it. Like an annoying fly, I swatted the offending hand away. That was the first time.
By the seventh attempt I had to be more direct, taking his hand and placing it back in his own space. Despite that I was offended, I wasn't going to be as short-fused as that 'other' Akane.
But by fifteen I had decided I'd had enough. "One more time and I'm going to break it!" I hissed as I roughly shoved his hand back into his own lap. I think my glowing eyes may have scared him shitless as he almost immediately excused himself to the restroom. I could clearly sense the fear practically flowing off of him in waves. It was with no little satisfaction that I tracked his signature until it stopped moving. There was something pertaining to relief in his aura, and then he came back to his seat, much more humble.
And then I smelled something funny. For a moment I wondered who let one go, but if someone had, I hadn't noticed, and I noticed practically everything.
Looking at the apprehensive look on his face, I took a closer look at his aura. There was still a good amount of fear there, but there was also something else. There was... relief?
With a thought, I could only think of a few things that would make a boy feel such long-lasting relief, and going number two wasn't one of them. Taking another sniff or two of the smell, I finally knew what was making it.
Sickened, although not really surprised, I became angry, and I think it showed. In fact, I think I was probably glowing red by the time I reached over and whispered in his ear.
"Don't abuse it, or you'll lose it."
I then stood up, and politely excused myself from the theater. The movie was a bust anyway, and I didn't really feel like waiting the half-hour till it ended.
Not even a full week after that day, Tatewaki Kuno, the self-proclaimed 'Champion' of Furinkan High School, and resident complete moron, made his declaration.
That brought one phrase to mind, the revelation that I had managed to mimic the events that had led to Akane's almost brutal situation in the original story. 'The more things change, the more they stay the same. Kami, I never knew I was so much like Akane... or maybe it's just the people around me that's to blame?'
The day after, I came to school fully prepared for the group of boys, which was more of a mob really. They didn't forget that day, neither did most of them actually bother me much since that first day...
------ End Chapter 1 ------
That's it for now. Next chapter will finally get the series started and we get to see how things are better, as well as how they're worse. And we'll even get to see how things are generally more complicated, won't we?
Refinishing Note: Well, after editing this thing I think for the tenth time, I think it's just about ready for showing. Originally, I wrote it sometime in 2003, back when Sleepingbear was still working on the original version of his own SI (He's now made an updated one, which I recommend as good reading), and when I had first started toying with the idea of making an SI. Part of this toying was a decision: Should I make an OC, or use a ready-made character that most readers would be familiar with? At the time I wasn't entirely comfortable with making an OC, for reasons I won't go into now, but when I chose to use one of the Ranma ½ staff, I still had to figure who I would make it as. My first choice, of course, was Ranma himself, but then I figured that Ranma was messed with enough and decided to leave him alone. After Ranma came Ryoga, but I dismissed him in part because... well, I actually kinda like him how he is, really, but wouldn't want to be him. I then looked to Shampoo (a thought that actually produced a workable piece, the influence of which upon this story may be revealed much, much later on), and after Shampoo came Akane. For this piece, I chose Akane in part because she seems to be the least liked of the main cast (short of the Kuno's or Happosai, and personally... there's just no way, no), and I felt that there was great potential in her, she was simply too scarred while at the same time being too naïve (among other things). Akane has always struck a chord with me, so when I started with this SI, even I was amazed at how easy it was to produce, and how vividly it seemed to come to me. It made such an effect that the original version of chapter two (which you will not see on in ANY form), even though it was cut, has maintained itself as a kind of 'stepping stone' toward all of my writings ever since. As this story progresses, I can only hope that you find it at least interesting, even if not as endearing as I have found it to be myself.
That's all for now.
12/15/2004 'finished v0.8'
11/27/2005 'finished v0.9'
11/29/2005 'finished v0.91'
Alex Ultra: Lost in a Chaotic World
LATER