I do not own Ranma ½ or any characters part or parcel of that great work, nor lay claim to any of the incredible ideas expressed by Rumiko Takahashi, or Viz video. This is just a labor of love from one fan to the rest.
Chapter 9
As the three young people arrive at Dr. Tofu's office, they find themselves once again in for a surprise as the door is opened but the person who they meet on the other side is not Dr. Tofu, or even his skeleton, Betty, as is often the case. Instead, they find themselves face to face with Ranma's other fiancé, Sakura. There is a moment of awkward silence before she looks over Nabiki and quickly motions them inside. With an obvious effort, she buries her personal feelings and puts her focus where it belongs right now, on the injured young lady that is being carried in. She leads them to one of the examining tables before hurrying off to get the doctor. As soon as she is gone, Akane throws a worried glance over at Ranma, a look that is wasted on the blind boy, but the feeling of tension that seems to hang in the air along with it reaches him quite well.
"Look, Akane, I am sure there is a good reason she is here, right? Maybe she is just visiting, you know, old friend of the family and such." Ranma says with as much confidence as he can muster right now, even if he did feel like he Kami must be getting a good laugh out of this right now.
Akane sighs heavily before addressing her fiancé "I know, Ranma, I know, it's just….I wish things were not so complicated as of late, it seems like just when things are starting to look up, something always comes along to mess it up. I just hope that no other girls come out of the woodwork looking for you; I don't think I could handle that. I don't think even your father would sink that low, would he?"
Ranma gives a disgruntled grunt at this, then leans back against one of the walls, a thoughtful look on his face "Look, Akane, you have no idea what pops is capable of, if you had been there for some of the stunts he has pulled, you would know what I mean. I would not put anything past him, as long as he gains in some small way from it."
Akane opens her mouth to reply, but quickly snaps it shut as Dr. Tofu and Sakura enter the room, Tofu cleaning his glasses before beginning to look over Nabiki. "Nabiki, how did this happen? It looks like someone beat you rather thoroughly, though, surprisingly enough, there doesn't seem to be any real harm done to you, the bruises seem to be for the most part superficial, just under the skin, not into the muscles themselves, and no deep tissue damage. Were you fighting someone, Nabiki? If you were, they tried not to truly injure you, though I can't imagine that it was a fun experience." With this, Tofu stops gently poking and prodding Nabiki and start to apply an odd-smelling cream onto the worse to the bruises, all the time gently applying shiatsu pressure techniques to get the blood flowing better, and to heal the bruises faster.
"You will probably be hurting for the next couple of days, but as long as you take it reasonably easy, they should heal up just fine. Nabiki, I would not recommend getting into any more fights unless you feel that you can handle it, you could do permanent damage to yourself unless you learn what your limits are." With this, he gives her a soft, warm smile, before turning to Sakura "Ok, now just finish her paperwork, and give her a weeks worth of the cream with the usual instructions, and then help me in the other room, I have a gentleman who seems to have managed to dislocate his hip and shoulder, and I will need some help with him." With this, he gives the Tendou's, and Ranma, a deep bow before walking out of the room towards the next one.
Sakura sighs heavily before motioning them to follow her "This way, please." As she puts the paperwork out in front of them to finish, she can't help but give Ranma a long, lost look as she feels her heart breaking inside her chest, looking at how Ranma and Akane act towards each other, and knowing what seems to be right, but at the same time knowing what her families honor demands, as well as what she has been preparing herself for all these years. Sighing inwardly, she turns towards Akane, and gives her a deep, somber bow "I wish to apologize for what happened earlier at your house, I did not mean to cause any trouble, I simply thought that I was going to collect my fiancé and father-in-law, I had no idea on the complexity of the situation, and I am sorry if my actions caused any undue problems. I wish that things could be different, but it is a matter of family honor. I can not give up my pursuit of Ranma without loosing face, and tarnishing my families honor." She bows very deeply as she adds "Please forgive me for this, but it's what I must do."
Akane flinches at this, torn between feeling jealous and protective of Ranma, and having her heart go out to this young lady in front of her. She can't help but feel upset that such a nice, sweet girl as Sakura could find herself in this kind of situation. Once again, she gets a sudden urge to mallet Genma until she feels better. With a soft, satisfied grin and a wicked twinkle in her eye, she decides that would be the perfect way to end her day, playing beat the bumpkin.
Sakura gives Akane a somewhat worried look, not knowing for whom the gleam in her eye was for, but knowing that she hoped it wasn't her. She might be a practitioner of her families own Art, but she did not want to have to use the Kusanagi School of Martial-arts Medicine unless she had no other choice. She knew that if it came to it, she could probably apply the shiatsu points rather quickly, but, having only a small amount of actual experience, was not too fond of having to rely on that against a determined, aggressive opponent. With a slightly worried expression on her face, she gives them the instructions for the cream, and wishes them all a nice night. She then hurries off to aid Doctor Tofu with his patient.
As the three of them arrive back at home, they are welcomed by Kasumi's usual warm greeting, and the sound of the fathers playing a game as usual. Ranma and Akane help Nabiki up to her room before parting ways, Ranma heading off to the furo, and Akane heading down to play a game of her own. A game of whack-a-baka.
Genma, having spent many years on the road, had developed quite a sense of when he was in danger, and where it was coming from. As soon as he heard Soun's youngest hit the bottom of the stairs, those finally honed senses and instincts kicked in, driving him out of the way of the descending mallet of the rather furious dark-haired girl. With a quick roll and leap he was out into the garden, followed quickly by an enraged Akane, screaming how he should just hold still so she could pound him like he deserved. With a quick bounce-roll-flip combination, he was quickly carried out of sight of the Tendo residence, back behind the dojo, followed very quickly by Akane, who was very surprised to see her target standing there, waiting for her. What surprised her even more was the fact that he was not looking at her in fear, but almost a sort of anticipation, eyeing her instrument of stupidity punishment in a speculative way. The look on his face was very unnerving, to say the least. He looks at Akane before bowing his head, seemingly welcoming the beating that is sure to come.
Knowing that his fate is sealed, he decides to at least his ease conscious before joining his ancestors, so he addresses the young lady glowing before him "Akane-chan, all I ask is that you listen to me for just one minute, and then you may beat me as you think I deserve. When this all started, I did not intend for it to end this way. I wanted to see what Ranma could really accomplish, and I think I lost my way, lost it in the speculation over what he could be. I lost sight of what my first and most important duty was, to take care of my son, to teach him to be a better man than I am. I taught him the Neko-ken in the height of my hubris, and the Kami saw fit to teach me a lesson in humility at the cost of my son's sight. At the time, I reasoned that it was the price of the Art, that everything I did was just for that reason alone. It wasn't till I got a good look at my son, and realized that he would never see again, all because of my own pride, that I realized just what I had done, what I had become. I made the promise to the Kusanagi's because I could think of no other way to pay the bill, and, over time, I found myself doing the same thing in one way or another. I know I am an unfit father, that I am a failure as Ranma's parent, but I have to do what I can to make up for it. I left him at those temples so that he could learn what I could not teach him, I even made the arrangements for him to stay with the Amazons, because I knew if they accepted him, that they could teach him even more about living in the world I banished him too. I have to play the uncaring fool, I have to always drive him to be better, or I will have failed him one last time. That overwhelming confidence is all that really keeps him going, that belief that no one, not even his own father, will come to his aid had made him able to take on anything, to accomplish anything. I think that my honor is a small price to pay for this. Now, please, vent your frustrations on me. I do not ask you to be gentle; I only wanted you to know the depths of my failure so that you could properly punish me for being the fool that I am. The only thing I ask is that you do not tell Ranma about any of this. I do not want to think about what it could do to him. Now, please, do what you must." With this, Genma bows his head, preparing for what is to come. What he could not be prepared for is to hear a soft sob, followed by a strong body flinging itself into him, sobbing against him. He looks up to see Akane with tears flowing down her cheeks, her mallet no where in sight.
Akane tried to keep her anger, tried to keep her rage as Genma laid out the depths of what he had done, but in the end, she could not help but feel the pain that he hid so well, the sense of failure as great as Ranma's pride. She even had to admit, that there were times that her temper got the better of her, even if she would deny it to everyone else, she knew that Kasumi would apologize to people after the worse of her outbreaks, and tell them that deep down she really was a nice, gentle, caring girl. There were times she wondered about how Kasumi could see that in her. Then there were times like this, when she could not help but have her heart go out to a person in pain, could not stop the tears over their own suffering. There were times, albeit few, that she could not help but forgive and forget, and show the person she could have been, if things had gone differently. This is one of those rare times, as she just could not get the tears to stop. She looks up at Genma, before gently pushing herself back away from him, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of one hand "Why don't you tell him all this? Do you really think it would hurt him more than this lie you keep living? How can you keep this up, it is killing both of you!"
Genma lets out a long, sad sigh, the sound a man who has lost everything and paid the price for his sins every night makes before speaking softly to the youngest Tendo "It's been too long, he would never believe me, and I don't deserve his forgiveness. No, what he needs is my constant prodding, my continuous drive to keep achieving ever more. I can't back down now, or I will be risking all that he has accomplished. No, until something comes along that will let me change things, they have to stay this way. I need you to keep treating me like you did before, or he will get suspicious. Kho Lon is the only other person who knows what is going on, and I want to keep it that way. You had better get back inside or they will start to worry about you, I will come back later, have to make it look like you either didn't catch me, or gave me the trouncing I deserve." As he gets ready to leave, he looks back over his shoulder at the young lady standing red-eyed and upset behind him. "I do need one more thing from you, Akane-chan, I need you to take care of him, for you to show that you do care for him. I think that he needs that even more than he needs the constant training. It's something it took me years to realize, just how much I missed my wife. I do hope to see her again, as soon as I can figure out a way to make it all work. Don't ask, it is…complicated." Without waiting for a response, he leaps easily up and over the back wall, slipping quietly off into the night like a thief.
It is a very much more subdued Akane that enters the house, and makes her way to the bath and her bed. She had a lot to think about, and no clear idea on what to do about it all. All she could hope was that the next day brought some answers to the many questions she had.
The morning began as most mornings do in the Tendo dojo, to the sound of combat in the back yard, as Ranma and Genma engage in their usual morning sparring session, the new additions today are Akane and Nabiki, going through slow kata off to the side, watching the father and son spar with each other, both verbally and physically. One person has a look on her face very much different from what is there normally, as she looks on the combatants with a sad look in her eyes, unable to clear the images from the previous night from her mind, not even in the gentle flow of the Art. Akane found herself in a situation that she did not fully understand, and certainly did not like being in. On the one hand, she still felt an overwhelming urge to pummel Genma for all the stupid stunts that he had pulled, especially the situation she was now trapped in regarding Ranma, Sakura, and herself. At the same time, her heart went out to him, knowing the pain that he buried away, and hid from his own son. Some part of her worried that it might all be just another of his tricks, another of his plans to secure his own well being, but the look in his eyes, it was the look of a man that had condemned himself for the sins that he saw in himself. Shaking her head, she turns her attention back to her sister who is slowly trying to get back into the flow of the kata, and work out the pain and stiffness of her many bruises.
For his part, Ranma just was enjoying himself, lost in the flow of the Art, the rhythm of kicks, punches, flips, and throws, the rhythm that he had lived his life by for years. The one thing that seemed odd to him was that his father was not insulting quite like he usually did, and he seemed a bit slower than normal today, not to mention that the feel of his ki was wrong, there just was something not right about things today. And when that kind of situation involved his father, it usually was not a good thing. Pushing these distracting thoughts aside, Ranma picks up the pace, flowing like water from one attack to another, letting himself flow with the pace of his father, sliding into his rhythm, making it his own. Pushing his ki awareness to its limits, he begins to dodge and weave in and out of his fathers attacks, landing blows of his own as he feels them open, loosing himself completely in the fight. Shortly, the fight ends with Genma flying backwards, a particularly nasty combo landing like the fury of a storm lashing out at a cliff, one blow after another stripping him of his ability to fight back. As Genma slides down the wall, Ranma bows to him and says "Not bad, old man, but not good enough!" then, imitating his father to a frightening extent, he continues on "Oh, the shame! Being beaten by a helpless blind boy!" Ranma gives him that lopsided grin of his before stalking back towards the wonderful smells coming out of the house. Nothing complimented a good morning spar like Kasumi's food, there just was nothing like it in the world. As he walks past Akane, he can't help but slow for a moment, as his senses drink in the presence of the dark-haired girl, 'Ok, so maybe there is something better…..' is his only thought as he throws that cocky grin in her direction before bouncing on in to the house itself.
Akane stands there for a moment, not even really noticing Nabiki limping back into the house, her thoughts a swirl of conflicting images, the talk last night with Genma, the revelations that it brought, the pain and sorrow she felt over the situation, how that smile of his makes her feel oddly warm inside, how he was different from all those other boys, how he was different from Kuno. All these thoughts and more plague her thinking, until she is pulled out of her contemplation by Kasumi calling her in to eat breakfast. She heads quickly towards the furo, to clean up before she eats, some part of her almost wanting to find Ranma there. She tries to clear her head of those thoughts and images quickly, since they still make her uncomfortable, and remind her all too well of the problems she has been having until recently in the mornings with the assembles perverts of Furinkan high. She finds the furo empty, and quickly bathes, before heading down to join in the morning meal melee. As she enters, she can see Xian Pu and Ryoga have joined them this morning, probably having arrived while she was washing up, and have already begun the traditional meal at the Tendo residence, at least traditional since the Saotome's arrived, that is. With a small smile, she dives into the fray, eating as quickly as she can, while trying to protect some measure of her food from the predations of the others involved. Soon, she has lost herself in the morning meal, and manages not to fret over her thoughts from earlier.
Nabiki tries her best to keep up, but the breakfast battle seems to be taking a toll on her meal this morning, no matter how hard she tries, it seems like the most delectable bits never actually make it to her mouth, vanishing somewhere between her bowl and her mouth. It seemed like the more she tried to protect it, the more that she lost, all the while, it seemed that those around her never really seemed to be losing all that much of her food. All of the sudden it hit her, what was going on. They were concentrating on stealing her food! With a devious grin, she spears a rather tender looking piece off of Akane's plate, to see it disappear into Genma's mouth. She noticed that while Genma was stealing the recently stolen bit, that Ranma and Akane made good on the opening, both snagging a little bit of his meal while he was busy. As a realization finally dawned on her, she began to look for who was busiest at that moment being aggressive, and attempting to help herself to their meal. At first, she is met with little to no success, but as the meal proceeds, she begins to see how it works, and finishes the meal decently. She knows she has a long way to go, but it is only a matter of time till she masters this, she feels. She will probably never be in the same league as Ranma or Genma, but she thinks that Akane and Ryoga, maybe even Xian Pu, are clearly viable targets. With a predatory gleam in her eyes, she begins to access what she has learned this morning, and puts that devious mind of hers to work.
The walk to school that morning proves to be an interesting one, as Xian Pu does her best to keep her 'husband' from wandering off, and Ranma attempts to cajole Akane and Nabiki to join him up on the fence. Things seem like they are going to be normal, at least normal for Nerima, until the newest addition to the chaos that is Nerima makes herself known. Sakura shyly walks up alongside the others, her gaze on the ground as she makes her way towards Furinkan, trying her best not to look at the others that are giving her a curious look, and really trying not to notice the sympathetic look that Akane, her rival, is giving her. She can't help but find this whole situation extremely uncomfortable. Once again, she wishes that she could just leave, and not have to deal with this. All of her dreams have come crashing down around her ears, all the plans that she had made over the years unraveling before her eyes. She does not know if this is a battle she can win, or even one that she should be fighting, but she knows that she has to try, that for the sake of her dreams, as well as her families honor, she must try. She looks down at the ground, not able to look at the others, knowing that she does not really belong here. Once again, she wishes that things were different, that things could be as she had always hoped they could be, but one look at Ranma talking to Akane tells her that she is fighting a loosing battle, one that gets more and more impossible by the day. Ranma can't see it, but she can, the shy little smile that graces Akane's lips as Ranma talks about some of the crazier training methods that he has undergone over the years. Even Ranma is nothing like she had expected, he is not a man that needs to be taken care of, needs to be assisted through day-to-day life, he burns with a fierce confidence, and a radiates a palatable feeling of overwhelming ability. Inwardly she sighs, and wishes that she was somewhere else.
As they arrive at the school, there is a person waiting outside the gates, his blue hakama rustling in the breeze, a boken poised at his side, valiantly awaiting his fierce love, and the vile being that imprisons her heart. "Yes, this day, I shall avenge the fierce tigress's Akanes honor on this foul, crippled sorcerer that has bound her in his web of deceit. Yes, on this day, I shall free her! This, I, Tattewaki Kuno do swear!" Said kendoist proclaims loudly, just before being plowed into the floor by the target of his affections. He tries to rise, only to be pushed back down as the bane of his existence steps on him on his way towards the school. Nabiki gives the fallen warrior an odd look, one a mixture of desire and disgust. Once again, Nabiki begins to doubt the course that she has taken, but she knows that she has to try, to resolve her feelings one way or the other. With a sigh, she continues on into the school, her mind a whirling turmoil of conflicting emotions.
The classes proceed in a rather quiet manner, for Furinkan at least, with only minor chaos and mayhem, including Sakura, Ryoga and Xian Pu being officially introduced into Ranma and Akane's class. The lecherous looks that were being passed her way were quickly ended as soon as Xian Pu made her 'introductions' to a young man more blessed in boldness than caution, who thought that the young woman's attire was an invitation to cope a feel. According to the nurse, with any luck the young man should be able to use his arm in a week or so. The rest of the class could not help but watch on as she proceeded to 'educate' him in the proper way to treat an Amazon, and the cold looks of promised mayhem that Ryoga gave only served to further enforce the fact that Xian Pu was a strictly no-touching zone.
Sakura's introduction was rather sedate in comparison, but all the more memorable in the wake of earlier events. She found herself in a place she was not used to, being the center of attention, especially as the word that she was also a fiancé o f Ranma spread through out the school, all involved soon found themselves being bombarded by questions about this newest turn of events, and what, exactly, was going on, like how one man could have two fiancés, and how this whole situation came to pass. It was with no small amount of trouble that the teacher finally got the class once again in order. The rest of the day proceeded rather quietly, in comparison.
