Author's note: Yo! Well, like I promised, we're back to Ranma/Akane again. Enjoy.
Also, just to help any readers who'd otherwise get confused...
"Yeah now!" is Hawaiian slang for "Good job!"
"You da kine!" is Hawaiian slang for "You're the best!"
"A hui hou!" is Hawaiian slang for "Until we meet again!"
Chapter Seven: Anticipation
It was a couple of days after Dr. Tofu had asked Kasumi out on their very first date – the following days having been taken up by Akane giddily squeezing details out of Kasumi – and it was now, finally, the day that the youngest Tendo daughter had been waiting so patiently for.
Akane slipped on her shoes, eager to head back to Furinkan High and finally see if she had passed her university entrance exam. This was the day when she'd discover where her life beyond high school was going to lead her. She felt sick with worry, yet her heart was beating hard in excitement at the same time.
"Kay!" she called out. "I'm leaving now!" She slid the door open.
"Ah, just a moment, Akane!" Soun called out.
"Hey!" Ranma called out in protest.
Akane glanced behind her before her face twisted into a shocked and confused mess; her father was frantically shoving her fiancé towards her and said fiancé was looking rather annoyed.
"Dad," she said, "what-?"
Soun stopped shoving Ranma and beamed at her. "Well," he replied, "Saotome and I talked it over! And we decided that, since the two of you are getting along so well lately... you should go together!"
Genma poked his head around the corner of the living room door. "That's right!" he added. "You get to spend some quality time alone together!" He then flashed a peace sign. "We'll have them married in no time, Tendo!"
Soun laughed. "We will indeed!"
Ranma turned to the two of them. "Now, wait just a minute!" he yelled, slightly red-faced.
Nabiki sauntered in from the living room and smirked. "You two have been getting along awfully well lately." She paused to smirk wider. "I'm beginning to think there's something you're not telling us... like maybe how you're a bit closer than fiancés now?"
Akane heart froze in fear and horror, both from her sister's suggestion and the sudden sparkle in the eyes of Soun and Genma.
She blushed heavily. "D-Don't be ridiculous!" she yelled.
Soun suddenly started crying, then linked hands with Genma and danced around the room. "We're finally going to unite the schools, eh, Saotome?" he asked, tears streaming down his face.
Genma laughed. "That we are, Tendo!" he replied. "Life is grand!"
Akane's anger slowly started to boil as she watched them; God, she and Ranma could never get any peace. Those two morons were always trying to force them together, no matter what the cost was. The fact that they were suppressing the freedom and independence that had built up inside her over the years always drove her insane. Perhaps if she and Ranma had been left to their own devices, they'd have made progress a long time ago. She paused a moment in her anger; well, perhaps not. Their personalities did naturally bounce off one another, after all.
Huffing, she turned on her heel and stormed out the front door. "Well, if you're coming, Ranma, then hurry up!" she snapped. "If not, then stay here!"
Ranma stood in the middle of the schoolyard at Furinkan High School with his friends, Hiroshi and Daisuke, and felt a strange sense of nostalgia. God, he hadn't been gone long and, already, he was remembering the good old days.
"The place is packed out today, huh?" Hiroshi pointed out as he looked over the mass of students.
"Yeah," Daisuke replied. "As soon as I see an opening, I'm heading over to the boards to see if my number's there. Can't see a thing with all the people crowding round."
Hiroshi looked back at Ranma. "So, are you waiting for Akane, Ranma? 'Cause we know you're not checking your results."
"Yeah. She went to get her number."
"Aloha, me keikis!" a Hawaiian accent called out as Principal Kuno danced past them, playing his ukulele. "You must be missin' de big kahuna. Well, too bad!" He laughed. "You all be too old to be me students now!" He paused. "Although, me gonna miss playing de games and having de big fun, ya!"
Ranma gave him a half-lidded stare, both annoyed and wondering if being a deluded lunatic ran in the family. "Uh, yeah, sure. Whatever," he replied. In actual truth, he was glad to be rid of this clown and his 'games'.
A glint appeared in Principal Kuno's eye under his sunglasses. "Hmm?" He pulled a hair clipper from his pocket, his other hand still holding the ukulele. "Me see dat Ranma Saotome still be misbehavin'. Perhaps me need to get snippy-snippy with dat pigtail."
"Not on your life."
Principal Kuno was about to reply when one of the male students dashed past him at breakneck speed, closely followed by a pint-sized Miss Hinako holding a five-yen coin between her fingers.
"Come back here, you delinquent!" she cried in her childlike voice. Ranma looked away in a mixture of exasperation and pity for the poor guy, so he didn't see what he knew what happening. "Happo Five-Yen Satsu!" A scream erupted and the sound of a body drained of its battle aura fell to the floor. A moment later, the fully-grown Miss Hinako walked back the way she came, flicking her hair and swaying her hips as she passed by them. "That's another miscreant taken care of."
Principal Kuno stared for a moment. "Uh... yeah now! You da kine, Miss Hinako!" Said teacher only lifted her hand in response. The principle then put his hair clipper away and resumed playing his ukulele. "You behave now, keikis! Especially you, Ranma Saotome." He danced away again. "De big kahuna got much to do! A hui hou!" He then disappeared amongst the crowd.
"Hey, Ranma!" Akane said cheerfully as she walked over to them. "I picked up my number. Oh, hi, Hiroshi! Hi, Daisuke!"
"Hey, Akane," Hiroshi replied.
"Do you think there are any schools in the world crazier than ours?" Daisuke said.
"Who knows." Hiroshi glanced away and back, suddenly grinning. "Oh, hey, look! A gap in the crowd! Let's go check if our numbers are on any of the boards!"
"Okay. Catch you guys later." The two then turned around and walked off.
"Yeah, see ya!" Ranma replied. He looked at Akane with a small smile. "You ready for this, Akane?"
His fiancée paused a few moments to breathe deeply before a determined look shone in her eyes. "I'm ready," she said. "Let's go."
Ranma chuckled. "Alright. Let's hope you haven't failed." There was a sudden growl. He didn't have time to think before he felt a fist to the back of his head. "Ow..."
"I'm not going to fail, you jerk!"
He rubbed his sore head and glared at her. Alright, he knew that, at the present moment, she was probably scared spitless and trying her hardest to convince herself that she'd passed. Perhaps teasing her was insensitive of him, but, hey, it was fun! And he was allowed his fun, right? Japan was a free country, after all...
"Come on." He walked towards the line of boards that were covered in various students' numbers. "Let's go check your stupid number, then go home."
"Why, you! Nobody forced you to come, you know!"
"Well, technically, they did."
"Ranma! You-"
Akane's rant was suddenly cut short when she screamed. Ranma spun around in panic, ready to pummel whomever had made his fiancée scream when he spotted Tatewaki, with his arms tightly wrapped around said fiancée. Okay, where the hell had he come from?
"Ah, my beloved Akane Tendo!" he declared, rubbing his cheek up and down hers while she visibly shuddered in disgust. "What joy mine heart feels upon seeing you again! It has been far too long, my love!"
Akane's face then sported the 'I'm going to kill you' expression that Ranma was very much familiar with. He'd pity the poor fool for what was about to happen, but Tatewaki was a brainless idiot with delusions of grandeur. No amount of pain would ever make him see sense and that was incredibly annoying.
"Get your hands off me, Kuno!" Akane delivered a powerful uppercut that sent Tatewaki flying straight up in a vertical line towards the clouds.
Ranma shielded his eyes as he watched him fly. "Huh..." he said, "is your aim a little off today, Akane? You usually punch in a diagonal line."
"Shut up!" She stormed past him. "I'm gonna go see if my number's on one of the boards."
Ranma shrugged. "Meh. I'll come with." He followed her as she pushed her way through the slowly-thinning crowds to find her number. He peered at the nearest board. "Okay, so, what's your number?"
"Three-seven-four-one." She sounded calmer now, though nervous.
He scanned the board carefully, ignoring the sound of Tatewaki hitting the gravel somewhere behind them. "Hmm. Not this one. Try the next one along."
"Kay."
Akane moved over to the next board. He was about to follow her when something wrapped around his waist and hauled him backwards.
"Gack!"
A crazed laugh erupted behind him. "Ranma-darling!" a voice that could only, to Ranma's immense chagrin, be Kodachi said from behind him. That meant that the thing around his waist was her rhythmic gymnastics ribbon. "What a pleasant surprise it is to find you here!"
Ranma groaned; why the hell were the Kuno siblings here? Obviously, neither of them were after exam results, because Tatewaki was already a year into university and Kodachi had attended St. Hebereke's School For Girls... They must have been stalking them again.
"Don't you have an exam result to go look at?"
Another crazed laugh erupted from her throat. "I need not look, my darling, for I most certainly have passed without fail! However, I had a strong feeling that you would be here, so I came to see you."
"Great..."
"Ranma!" Akane called out. "It's not there! Where did you-?" She stopped short as she saw them and scowled. "Kodachi!"
"Greetings, Akane Tendo," Kodachi replied coolly. "Did you perhaps run into my dear brother yet? He came to visit you, just as I came to visit my darling Ranma."
"Unfortunately, yes. Now, let Ranma go! We're busy."
Yet another crazed laugh erupted. "Busy? Looking for your number on the boards, are we? Tsk. Do not waste your time, for there will be nothing there to find!"
Akane's scowled deepened heavily and even Ranma felt a stab of annoyance. "What?"
"Hey, come on, Kodachi!" Ranma scolded, unwrapping himself and turning around to face her. "Don't go saying that!"
"Oh, but Ranma-darling..." Kodachi replied in a much softer tone, "I am only telling her the truth."
He was about to say something else when Akane suddenly screamed again. He whirled around in panic again, but felt the same aggravation at the sight of Tatewaki clasped onto his fiancée.
"My love!" he cried. "If I were a fool, I would believe your punches to mean rejection! It be fate, then, that I am not!"
Akane angrily elbowed him. He crumpled to the ground. "How do you figure that?" she yelled.
"Urgh... Your punches are your way of expressing your unconditional love for me, Akane Tendo... If I were truly a fool, I would not realise as such..."
"Pch," Ranma said, unimpressed. "Yeah, right. You wish, Kuno."
Tatewaki growled, then leapt to his feet – still flinching slightly – and pulled his wooden sword from his robes. He held it in front of him. "Ranma Saotome, you cretin. Not only do you keep the fair Akane Tendo trapped within the constraints of your engagement to her, but you mock the love that we so share. You shall taste the sword of Tatewaki Kuno, Blue Thunder of Nerima, for such insolence. En garde!"
He began swinging his sword wildly at Ranma, who dodged out of the way of every blow, feeling rather bored with the lack of a challenge. He was always striving to better himself, always improving... whereas Tatewaki always remained at the exact same skill level. This didn't include his training on Watermelon Island, of course, since that had all been for show anyway.
"Brother-dear!" Kodachi cried out, sounding appalled. "You leave my Ranma-darling alone!"
Suddenly, a pink ribbon flew past Ranma's head and collided with the wooden sword. Tatewaki looked affronted. "How dare you."
"How dare I? How dare you attack the future husband of The Black Rose!"
"Twisted sister of mine, you will stand aside!"
"I shall not! If you hurt one hair on my Ranma-darling's head, then I shall maim your beloved Akane Tendo!"
"Excuse me?" Akane cried out in disbelief.
"Now you have gone too far, my twisted sister!" Tatewaki cried in outrage. "En garde!"
"En garde yourself, brother-dear!" Kodachi replied.
The two siblings charged at one another and began to exchange blows with their sword and ribbon, both nimbly dodging each other's attacks before countering with their own.
Ranma crept over to Akane's side in the chaos. He glanced at her and noticed that she looked rather annoyed. "Akane?" he asked.
"This is ridiculous!" she replied. "All I want is to see if I passed my goddamn entrance exam!"
"Well, come on, let's go check while they're busy fighting."
"Hmph. Fine."
Once again, he followed her to a board, but, at that moment, Kodachi's ribbon wrapped around Akane's waist and yanked her backwards. She yelped in surprise and crazy laughter soon followed. "And where do you think you are going, Akane Tendo?" Kodachi asked.
"Oh, for crying out loud!"
"Release my love, you vile witch!" Tatewaki called out, swinging his sword wildly at his younger sister.
Kodachi dodged the blows by jumping backwards a few times. "Vile witch, am I?" she asked. "Well then, let us see how you like this!" She swung the ribbon and threw Akane straight at him. With a yelp, the two crashed into each other and fell to the floor.
"Akane!" Ranma called out, fearing for her safety. God, she always got herself into so much trouble... and needed protecting so much. It really got to him whenever he couldn't protect her from something. It was then that he felt a few raindrops on his face and he froze in horror. "Aw, crap..."
Akane forced herself away from Tatewaki and onto her feet, then scooted away a bit to prevent him from glomping her again; she really hated it whenever he did that. It was a major invasion of her privacy.
She suddenly felt a few drops of rain on her face. "Huh?" she asked, looking up at the sky. The clouds were quite dark now, which was just typical, since she'd not thought to bring an umbrella. "Great..." She was bound to get soaked.
This was the moment that the clouds above decided to open up and shower down their water upon Nerima. She was just about to grumble in annoyance when someone interrupted her.
"Aw, great!" an unmistakable female Ranma called out. "You couldn't pick a worse time to rain, could ya?"
There was an abrupt pause in the fighting. "Pigtailed girl!" Tatewaki cried out, throwing down his sword and rushing over to Ranma, glomping her in five seconds flat. "My love!" Ranma screamed in protest. "Oh, I must have pleased the gods in one form or another, for I have been blessed with both my loves on this glorious day!" Ranma growled angrily at him. "Although I be soaked to the bone, 'tis a sure sign that the gods themselves are weeping in joy for our union! Oh, pigtailed girl, I-"
Ranma punched Tatewaki hard and sent him flying over the horizon. "The gods can weep for your union with the sky instead!" she yelled.
Kodachi brandished her ribbon like a whip. "You wicked wicked girl!" she growled. "What have you done with my darling Ranma?"
Ranma groaned and, quite frankly, Akane felt like doing the same. "I ain't done nothing with your 'darling Ranma'..."
Akane felt like giving Ranma a hand this time, simply because of two reasons. One, she wanted to get out of the rain. Two, she really wanted to see if she'd made it into university.
"Um..." she said, quickly thinking up an excuse, "he... had to leave... Said he had somewhere to be." She paused. "Somewhere not here."
Kodachi stared at her for a moment, then glanced longingly into the distance. "Oh, Ranma-darling!" she cried. "What possessed you to leave, I do wonder? Perhaps you were frightened away by the combination of two vile witches out to steal you from your one true love. Fear not, my darling! I shall find you and we shall be alone together at last!" Twirling her ribbon, she bounced away, laughing madly.
A moment passed before Akane put her hand to her head. "Honestly... Why do we always have to deal with such nut-jobs?"
Ranma shrugged. "You got me, Akane," she replied. "Come on. Let's go find your number, so we can get home, outta this rain."
Akane paused, staring at Ranma. Had she just... insinuated that her number would actually be there this time? "Ranma..."
There were a few moments where the two of them just stood there in the rain, staring one another in the eyes. Akane lived for these moments, where she and her fiancé could share an intimate bond of no spoken words.
Suddenly, Ranma, looking uncomfortable, coughed. "Uh, yeah, well... come on then."
Akane smiled and nodded, glad that Ranma was no longer teasing her about the prospect of failing. "Kay."
The two of them walked side-by-side over to the next board and Akane noticed with a faint trace of horror that the rain was rapidly soaking the paper. Her eyes raced over the numbers, trying to find her own. Wait... she'd forgotten it already! She quickly rummaged around in the pockets of her dress and pulled out the slip of paper, staring at the number on it.
"What was the number again?"
"Three-seven-four-one. Quick, find it before the paper shrivels!"
"Kay!"
Akane looked over the board once, then, with heightened panic, realised that she couldn't find it. She shrieked. "Where the hell is it?"
"I dunno..."
She looked over the numbers a second time, but still couldn't find it. Tears welled up in her eyes; no... she didn't get into university... She was officially a ronin... Oh, the shame... What was she going to do now?
"Wait!" Ranma pointed. "I see it! Over there!"
Hope filled Akane's chest as she followed the path of the red-head's finger, then she saw it. "Oh, my God! There it is! It's there! It's there!" She laughed in pure unbridled joy and began dancing around on the spot, crying for a whole different reason now. "I made it. I made it into university!"
Ranma laughed along with her. "So you did. Congratulations, Akane!"
Akane couldn't contain her happiness any longer, so she hugged Ranma. "Oh, Ranma, I'm so happy!" She broke away, beaming so brightly that she could have sworn that the sun was shining out of her face. Ranma, she noticed with some satisfaction, was blushing slightly. "I'm a university student!"
Ranma laughed rather uneasily. "Eh, yeah, heh. So, uh, what was your course of choice again?"
"Sports Science. Ooh, I can't wait!"
"You did well there, Akane. Come on, let's go home now."
"Alright!"
Akane followed Ranma out the front gates of Furinkan High for the very last time as the two of them headed down the road. Okay, so Tatewaki and Kodachi had delayed her significantly, but the important thing was that she'd passed! Which meant that she wasn't a ronin! Which meant that she wasn't ever going back to Furinkan High! Which meant that she was going to be doing a Sports Science course at university! Which meant that her life could finally move forward!
"Race ya."
Akane looked up at Ranma, who was grinning at her while walking along the fence. She grinned back, in far too good a mood to refuse. "You're on." The two of them stopped walking.
Ranma prepared herself. "Ready?"
Akane did the same. "Set?"
"Go!"
They raced off down the street, the pair of them laughing the whole way back to the Tendo household. Akane had never felt so alive.
