Chapter 3: Twist

Shiho was feeling much more confident about the situation. Akane's and Genma's explicit understanding that the boys were a complete non-issue was contagious, and it was easy to be caught up in their pace. Additionally, the targeted training with them had been immeasurably useful. Genma had acted as the director, guiding her and Akane through each and every one of the opponents. Shiho had jumped, kicked, punched, thrown, and otherwise countered Akane hundreds of times, if not more.

The only issue was the weather. They needed to wait for a morning rain in order to set the proper stage. As tedious and as stressful as that delay was, it was useful as well. The days spent waiting were also days spent in welcome recovery. By the time an appropriate forecast arrived, Shiho's bruises had recovered to the point of being faint discolorations, and only the lingering hints of stiffness remained in her limbs.

It was finally time to introduce Ranma Saotome to the world.

Shiho called in sick to St. Maria, and then she dressed for the performance. She put on a male school uniform too large for her body, acquired from the costume department of the Hi Ao Production Company, and she used a baseball hat to hide her long hair.

She met Akane and Nabiki at the entrance of the Tendo house. The gloomy clouds overhead cast everything in a gray tinge and threatened the city with the promise of rain.

"Are you ready?" Nabiki asked.

"Of course," Shiho said. "Let's go."

As they had weeks earlier, they passed by several stores, clinics, and homes. This time, Shiho walked beside Akane in her oversized school uniform, rather than a block away dressed as an office lady. Her bearing and gait naturally shifted to reflect the different nature of the role, that of Ranma Saotome escorting his fiancee to school to see the nature of these attacks upon her.

Shiho hovered at that awkward distance suggesting she wanted to get closer, but not so close as to actively be intruding within Akane's personal space. It was a not-uncommon position for a boy to take with respect to a girl in a pre-A relationship. She consciously tried reaching for Akane's hand once, but she didn't go so far as to actually take it.

It was a relief when the drizzle started. Akane and Nabiki both pulled out umbrellas in response. For her part, Shiho continued walking forward, ignoring the rain. She wanted to be obviously wet when she reached the school.

The sprinkles of water still filled the air when the gates of Furinkan came into view, revealing the audience waiting therein. The crowd of bows was visibly milling about in the courtyard, irrespective of the weather.

It was time to begin the performance.

"Is that them?" Shiho asked. She pointed at the mob of boys standing in the courtyard.

"Yes. That is them. Ranma-kun," Akane said stiffly and loudly.

Shiho regretted not having spent more of the time with Akane practicing her part. Still, most people didn't pay too much attention to how people acted in general, and the rain would help mask the anomalies.

"Here, hold this," Shiho said. She shrugged off her backpack, tossed it to Akane, and advanced in an overtly threatening manner. She shouted, "My name is Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts!" She pointed at Akane. "Akane-chan is my fiancee!" She pointed at the crowd. "And you are going to pay for making her suffer." She lowered her stance into one of the positions she had learned from Genma. "Come at me, if you dare!"

The boys looked at each other in hesitation, but none of them moved.

Shiho held on to the hope that maybe her bluff would hold. Once her engagement was known, it would dissuade all the boys from bothering Akane. Shiho could leave and call her job complete. Her weeks of training would have been wasted, but that was the best possible outcome she could imagine.

"I see. Now I understand." Shiho couldn't see who had spoken, but the boy's voice was strong enough to carry over both the distance and the dampening effect of the rain. "You must be the reason why the fair Akane Tendo cannot show her love for me."

The crowd continued to muddle around without any obvious direction.

"Free the fair Akane-kun from her wretched fate! Attack!" the boy shouted.

That broke the spell.

The mob moved slowly at first, but it gained momentum until it was charging at Shiho with all the noise and frenzy she had seen in the past.

"Oh! No! Ranma-kun! Don't beat them up too hard!" Akane shouted.

It was almost good that Shiho was distracted by the imminent fight so she couldn't linger on what Akane had said.

Shiho's eyes tracked the opponents. First would be the boy wearing boxing gloves on the right. Immediately thereafter, the large boy in the keikogi on the left would try to grab her. Next, the boy with the baseball jersey would dive at her.

Two seconds later, the battle was joined. The boy with the boxing gloves jabbed forward with his right fist, and Shiho used the moment to dance to his side and jab an elbow into his face. She twisted to the left, abruptly changing her movement, such that the boy in the keikogi only grabbed at the empty air she had just vacated. She punched out with all her might, knocking him back, and she used the momentum to jump over the boy diving at her.

She reacted with the reflexive familiarity of dozens of drills, and each of her partners played their roles perfectly.

In the end, Shiho was surrounded by the fallen bodies of the boys while she herself was entirely unscathed. She was also desperately gasping for air while simultaneously doing everything she could to hide that fact. There was still one more person to go before she could declare victory. She just hoped that she would be ready for it.

"Such a feeble effort," Kuno said from the other side of the courtyard, confirming it had been his voice Shiho had heard earlier. "Truly none of them are worthy." He was once again wearing his white uwagi and dark hakama, which was much more intimidating when viewed across the field of battle. "I see the duty falls to me." He readied his boken in an aggressive stance pointed at Shiho. "Know that you face Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High. I will defeat you and force you to renounce your engagement."

It appeared Shiho would not have the very much needed minute to catch her breath. The climax was upon her. She said, "So you're the jerk behind this all. I just got to beat you to get this all to stop, huh? Sounds easy enough. You face Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts." She once again readied her stance. "I accept your challenge!"

"You fiend! Have at you!" Kuno charged forward. Or rather, he sprinted forward, crossing the courtyard in what felt like the blink of an eye.

Just like she had in her practice with Akane under Genma's watchful instruction, Shiho bided her time. When Kuno was approximately three steps away, she feinted to her right. As expected, Kuno slashed in the same direction, and Shiho dodged to the left to take advantage of it. Before she could raise her leg to snap a kick at his face, though, Kuno pivoted and swiped around with his boken to slash towards Shiho.

"Such pitiful technique!" Kuno shouted.

Shiho flinched away, escaping the blow so closely that she could imagine the wind of the strike brushing her face. She continued back, springing off her hands and flipping away as a gymnast might, in order to get some space.

This was very bad, to say the least. She was now off script. She frantically thought what she could do next, trying to improvise as Genma had suggested she do in these circumstances.

But Kuno didn't give her any time. He charged forward once again, shouting, "I will never accept your relationship to Akane-kun!" He slashed down, and it was all Shiho could do to dodge to the side. The wall behind her was much less lucky, and the brick was cleaved by his boken as if it were no more substantial than a bank of snow.

"An opening!" Kuno shouted. He twisted, his boken slicing through the wall as easily as it had before, and he swung right at Shiho's head.

Shiho reflexively, desperately raised her right arm in front of her face and braced for impact.

The dull crack was as quiet and as prominent as her pager pinging in the middle of the school welcoming ceremony. It filled her ears, and indeed her whole body. Kuno followed through, smashing into her ribs and sending her flying through the air. The next impact was of her back against a tree before she finally crumpled down in a heap.

Shiho's vision was filled with a faded, gray haze, but she forced herself to move and to get her bearings. She was sure her elbow was supposed to bend in the other direction. Her wrist, too, looked entirely unnatural, turned until it was nearly flat against her forearm. Obviously both of those joints hurt, but curiously, it was more in an intellectual and abstract way than in overt and overwhelming way.

"Ranma-kun!" Akane and Nabiki both shouted. They ran forward towards Shiho.

Kuno swiped his boken so the tip of it pointed at Shiho's face. He said, "You are defeated, and that means the beautiful Akane Tendo is mine!" He dropped his boken and held both of his arms wide open as he ran towards the approaching Akane. "Come to me, my..."

Akane barely broke her stride to kick Kuno across the courtyard.

Meanwhile, Nabiki crouched down at Shiho's side. She said, "This is bad. This is real bad. We got to get you to a doctor."

Shiho tried to use her left hand to try to push herself up, but it wasn't very effective.

"Akane!" Nabiki shouted.

"Help get her on my back," Akane said. She squatted down while Nabiki lifted Shiho by her shoulder and flopped her over.

Akane grabbed Shiho's two legs in her arms and started running, Nabiki right beside her.

"Doctor Tofu's clinic is only a few blocks away. You'll be fine. You'll see," Akane said.

"It's not over yet," Shiho said. She could feel cold sweat beading on her face, and she found she was gasping with short breaths.

Two blocks later, the intellectual knowledge that she was in pain transformed into a visceral one. Her arm felt like it was being sawed off by a dull razor blade, and her ribs felt like they were tearing through her gut. It was all she could do to focus on her shallow breathing, and each painful jolt after painful jolt as Akane ran forward only caused things to escalate higher and higher.

"Tofu-sensei!" The shout sounded faint, like a distant cry over the roar of a waterfall.

"Nabiki-chan? What's wrong?"

"Ranma-kun needs help."

Shiho found herself flopped down onto a hard bed of some sort.

"What happened?"

"Ranma-kun fought Kuno-senpai. Can you help?"

"Hmm..."

A man's hand grabbed Shiho's, and the sudden jolt of pain eclipsed everything she had felt thus far.

She screamed.

It impossibly managed to grow yet worse when he wrenched her arm out of its socket and punched it with a fist.

Shiho screamed again.

He then struck Shiho's back with an open-palm strike, sending her jolting forward by half a meter.

Shiho managed to hold her cry in this time, and limit herself to a cry of, "Oww!"

"How does that feel?" the man asked.

"It feels..." Shiho shouted. She turned to stare at the man, and then notice she was able to. She patted her chest and found things were settled there. Her arm, too, seemed mobile again. There was a trace of lingering soreness, but it no worse than after her training sessions with Genma. She was amazed.

In a more normal voice, Shiho said, "It feels okay."

"Don't do anything stressful for the next two days. You need to give your joints a chance to heal," the man, presumably Tofu, said. He was fairly young, maybe in his late 20s. Like so many other people Shiho had met since taking the Tendo job, he wore a martial arts keikogi. "Now what happened?"

Now that Shiho wasn't practically blinded with pain, she had a chance to better take in her surroundings. The bed she had been dropped onto was simple wooden one with a thin mattress. Around her was what appeared to be a hybrid of a medical clinic and a massage parlor. It definitely wasn't a hospital, given the homely ambiance and non-sterilized feel of it, but it looked like it was trying to be one. There were several cabinets along the walls filled with bottles, a skeleton hanging near the door, and a characteristic medicinal smell in the air.

"I got into a fight with Kuno-san," Shiho said.

"Why would you do that?" Tofu asked.

"To protect Akane-chan's honor," Shiho said.

Tofu looked Shiho up and down as intently as Genma had when they had first met. He said, "Really? If anything, it looks like she should the one fighting to protect you."

"I'm the heir of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts," Shiho said. "I don't need anybody's protection."

Tofu remained seated, but he turned to Akane. He asked, "What's really going on here?"

Akane blushed and looked down. She said, "It's... uhh... Ranma-kun... I mean..."

"She's a P.A.," Nabiki said.

Shiho's heart jumped, and the corresponding surge of electricity jolted through her arms to the tips of her fingers. It was always a panic-inducing moment of shock whenever her character was broken and her real identity was exposed on the job. She had to consciously remind herself that it was the client who was doing the revelation, so it wasn't a problem, but that didn't prevent the effects she felt.

Tofu turned to look at Nabiki. He asked, "What's that?"

"A private actress," Nabiki said.

After a few seconds of silence, Tofu asked, "What's a private actress?"

The few seconds of respite were enough for Shiho to regain herself. She decided it would be easiest if she were to answer his question herself. She had had a great deal of practice doing so, after all.

"A private actress is what it exactly sounds like. Some actresses perform for the public, in movies and in theaters. A private actress performs privately, for people in ordinary life," Shiho said.

"I had heard that Akane-chan was engaged," Tofu said. "Is that this?"

"That's right," Akane blurted out. "It's not really real. I'm not really engaged. You know?"

"We hired her to play at being Akane's fiance," Nabiki said.

"Why would you do something like that?" Tofu asked. He looked back and forth, addressing both Akane and Nabiki.

Akane's gaze wandered around as she said, "Some of my classmates have been bothering me. We were thinking if they thought I had a fiance, they would leave me alone."

"I'm supposed to be Ranma Saotome, the heir of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts," Shiho said. It was a simple declaration, very different than the boastful bravado of Ranma.

Tofu turned to Shiho and said, "That's really irresponsible. You can't do that."

"Sure I can. I can play any role, if you pay me," Shiho said. She spoke with the confidence of known fact, as unassuming and assured as saying that Nerima was in Tokyo.

"I'm sure you can, but acting as a martial artist is very different than being a martial artist," Tofu said. He met Shiho's eyes, fixing his gaze upon her. "Do you have idea how dangerous this is?"

Shiho met his eyes and stared back just as intently. She said, "It doesn't matter. A good P.A. is willing to put her life on the line for a job." That was not an idle boast, either. It was not infrequent that she was called upon to replace a person in a life-threatening situation. She had been kidnapped, shot at, run down by a car, shoved off a fourth-story balcony, and numerous other more harrowing incidents.

"Maybe, but a good doctor ensures his patients' health comes first," Tofu said. He turned his gaze at Akane and then Nabiki. "You two need to put a stop to this, right now."

"Sorry," Akane and Nabiki both said.

"Don't apologize to me. Apologize to her. She's the one whose life you put at risk," Tofu said.

"Sorry," Akane and Nabiki said again. They both bowed to Shiho.

Classes in St. Maria were effectively the same as they always were. There were the casual greetings from Shiho's classmates, the teachers going on and on about whatever subject they were the expert in, and the floating gossip which was ever-present in a girls' school. The only real evidence that the day before had happened were the hints twinging in Shiho's wrist and ribs, and those felt more like she had slept in a weird direction the previous night.

Nevertheless, she couldn't shake the ominous feeling of foreboding. It hovered in the air, lingering throughout the day. Like a gray sky and blustering wind foreshadowing an incoming typhoon, Shiho knew that something big and bad was about to happen. The only question was when. It wasn't during the morning announcements, nor during the lunch break, nor during the afternoon classes. Each of those went through without incident as the minutes ticked by extra slowly.

Shiho's pager finally beeped at her on the way to the bus station after classes had ended.

The quiet noise was much less conspicuous on the sidewalk in front of a convenience store than it was in the middle of a school hallway. Nobody bothered to take notice of her as she pushed the button acknowledging her receipt of the message.

It was certain that the page was in regard to the Tendo contract. Tofu's warning loomed large in its presence, and Akane and Nabiki's penitence in the face of his scolding made the outcome all but assured.

Shiho looked around, spotted a nearby payphone, and went into the booth. It was time to hear the sentencing.

"Hello," the secretary's voice answered Shiho's phone call. "Hi Ao Production Company. How may I help you?"

"This is Shiho. I got a page?"

"Kobayakawa-san?" the secretary asked. "One moment please. The boss would like to speak with you."

There was a quiet click on the phone, and then the boss said, "Hello? Shiho-san?"

"I'm here."

"Good," the boss said. "We got a call from Tendo-san today. They're terminating the contract."

Despite being expected, the statement still felt like a physical blow to her chest. Shiho sighed in response.

The boss said, "Don't be disappointed. They paid fully, and Tendo-san added an extra bonus on top of it as an apology. They're happy with your performance, and the next time they have a job, they promised they'd think of us first. The only reason they're canceling is that they decided this job was too dangerous, and they want to pursue a different path."

"Thanks," Shiho said. It was a mechanical response, only said because it was the right thing to say.

"Take a few days break. You've earned them," the boss said. "Bye."

Shiho hung up the phone.

And she fumed.

She felt angry.

She felt humiliated.

She felt worthless.

The Tendos had hired her to stop the attacks on Akane, and she had failed to do that. It was the first time she had ever failed a client, and that was an insult she could not abide. She charged a premium for her services, and her honor demanded that her clients get what they paid for.

Such a situation could not be allowed to stand.

The question was what could she do about it?

As unwelcome as Tofu's assertion had been, Shiho was inclined to believe it. She couldn't defeat Kuno in combat. Despite the distorting effects of adrenalin and first-person excitement, she was absolutely certain that Kuno had moved more quickly and sharply than he had in any of the videos. It was the fastest she had ever seen anybody move in her life.

Moreover, upon thinking about it, she wasn't even sure what defeating him would accomplish. Akane already beat him up day after day after day, but thus far, that had failed to stop the attacks. It was possible that one more thrashing would be the final one to end things, but that was doubtful at best.

But if violence was not the solution, then what was? Shiho had absolutely no idea.

And that was when it struck her. That lack of knowledge in and of itself was the key.

She had had it all wrong.

It was true that the Tendos were her clients, but they was only that. They were not her audience. The ones she had to convince were all the attacking boys. More precisely, it was Kuno. From how he had lingered behind them and how had he spurred them on, it was clear that he was the leader of the group. If she could convince him, that would bring the attacks to an end.

However, that led to the next issue. She had no idea how to go about convincing Kuno to stop. In fact, she knew almost nothing about him: he was the son of the school principal, he had some interest in Akane, he practiced kendo, and he was politically connected. That was useful information as far as it went, but it was a far way from being enough to craft a compelling performance for him.

That was clearly a problem. However, it was one she knew exactly how to go about solving.

Last Updated: November 14, 2021