Akane the Suicidal
"Thank you, Ranma," Akane stated with genuine gratitude, as she took another scoop from her sundae.
"Hey," the redhead across from her replied non-chilantly, before looking back up at the other girl with a smirk, "After all, you deserved it."
Akane blushed, looking down at the table with a small smile, but didn't reply.
Ranma took another scoop of her own icecream, "I mean, two whole days, I didn't think you had it in ya!" Ranma didn't notice Akane blushing deeper.
"Th-thanks."
"Say, if you can keep this up for another day, how about I take you to the movies tomorrow?" Ranma-chan offered. She had started coming to the realization that bribes seemed to work well on Akane. Whenever the martial artist would set a goal, he would offer to take her out for a treat. He was a bit surprised at how fast Akane jumped on the first offer, but thought nothing of it. He was also glad that she got over whatever was causing her to flush like she was, probably some girl thing.
"I... I'd like that," Akane replied, cupping both her hands around her sundae. It was the third date Ranma had taken her on, and he... well... she was asking for a fourth. She tried not to let on her excitement, as her friends always advised. 'Never let them know you're eager', they would say, and she had no other advice to follow but theirs. It was a lot harder than it sounded, though, she had to fight against the flustered nervousness she felt surging around her stomach like a bolt of lighting made of cotton, almost as hard as conciously fighting the 'urge' that presented itself at every opportunity.
Akane had to internally groan at that, she never even stopped to consider it, but the phenominal amount of times she would unconciously find herself staring at a potentially life-ending ordeal with an oblivious smile and a hint of satisfaction within. The act itself didn't bother her one bit, but she knew it was anti-productive to her goals, which were to get Ranma to take her out on dates.
Akane leaned forward and sighed, staring at Ranma-chan, as she was focused on the TV behind them. She couldn't remember the last time someone actually offered to spend time with her like this . Not like it was some duty for them to perform, but just to socialize... hang out. True, she had to earn it, but it was a small price to pay to be around her fiance in a somewhat, wel, remotely intimate situation.
"Hey, I know that place..."
Akane blinked, and turned to look at the TV. It was documenting some woman warrior tribe village in China, which actually sounded pretty interesting. Unfortunately, the loud tell-tale sound of something striking brick and heavy plaster with sledgehammer force, and the growing spiderweb fracture under the TV was somewhat distracting.
After the fourth pounding, the wall threw in the towel, and took a dive. As the dust began to settle, a shapely, feminine figure stood in the haze.
"Ranma..."
Ranma groaned in dismay, burying her face in her arms. "Shampoo, what are you doing in Japan?" the redhead moaned in an irritated voice.
Shampoo's answer was simple, really, "KILL!!!!" Since it was so simple, she felt the obligation to punctuate it with a mace through the table, incidentally where Ranma's head would have been.
Of course, Ranma thought that it wasn't a good idea to leave her head where Shampoo had deigned to puncuate her statment, and pulled it, along with what was left of her sundae, out of the way in the nick of time. "Watch it! I'm not finished with that yet!"
"Who's this, Ranma?" Akane's voice held an edge to it that Ranma hadn't ever heard from her before.
"Just some violent maniac that followed me all the way from China," Ranma-chan replied, factually, while effortlessly dodging said violent girl's best attempts at interrupting Ranma's life prematurely. Ranma had to admit, though, Shampoo was making it difficult for her to continue eating her icecream before it melted.
"Hmph," Akane replied, folding her arms and turning away, "Just don't expect us to let you keep her..."
"Hey!" the redhead was suddenly in Akane's face, "It's not like I want her in the first pla-" Ranma ducked the horizontal swing of Shampoo's weapon, before realizing Akane wasn't going to do the same. Quickly kicking into a handstand, Ranma-chan kicked her heel against the head of the bonbori mace, sending it arcing over Akane's head.
"Place!" Ranma finished, inverting herself up right, and glaring face to face with Akane.
"Oh? Then what-" Ranma grabbed Akane around the waist, and swung her around, allowing both of them to pivot just out of the range of Shampoo's vertical downward blow. "-is this all about?"
"It's a lon-" Ranma dropped into a sweep, taking Akane's legs from under her.
"ACK!" Akane shouted out, as she started to fall to the ground. Shampoo's spinning heel kick just missed connecting with her head as she went down.
"-g story!" Ranma finished, just managing to catch Akane before she hit the ground. With a quick hop, the redhead evaded Shampoo's falling ax kick, and put herself near a table.
"Well," Akane retorted, "I'm waiting to hear it!" With that, Ranma grabbed the tablecloth off of the table they had come next to, startling the customers sitting at it, but amazingly leaving the contents of the table neatly intact, and threw it back behind her without looking.
Shampoo had been lunging with her bonbori towards Ranma's head, as she became entangled in it. After a few precious seconds battling the inhibiting cloth, the Chinese native looked around the ice cream parlor, and growled. "Ranma!"
"Ah..." the store clerk spoke up, pointing to the exit door that was swinging closed; perhaps if she took the hint, she would take her personal demolition derby somewhere else other than his store, "they went that way..."
Ranma kept his hand over Akane's mouth, as he looked down from the roof of the ice cream parlor. They both watched Shampoo run out, look both directions, then pick one at random to follow. Once the huntress warrior was out of sight, Ranma-chan released her hand from Akane's mouth.
"So," Akane started with an unamused tone, "What's the story with that girl? Old girlfriend or something?"
"It's complicated," Ranma replied, rolling her eyes at Akane's comment; like he would ever date anyone that violent...
"Kind of cute, isn't she?" Akane asked, probing Ranma for anything the redhead was hiding from her.
"Sheesh! Let me take you back awhile, to China," Ranma started, "After my stupid Pops got us both cursed, the guide took us to this village with warrior chicks during some tournament they have every year. Well, me and stupid Pops were in our cursed forms and starv'n, and while we were watching that purple chick beat the crap outta some gorilla looking woman, whe started pigging out on the table full of eats.." Ranma shrugged, hopping down from the rooftop, followed shortly by Akane landing next to her easily, "We figured it was some sort of consession table for the fight and all, didn't know it was actually the first place prize."
"Oh, Ranma," Akane groaned, that sounded like something he would do. They came along the canal that ran by the way towards their home, and in unison, hopped onto the fence. "What happened then?"
Ranma's brow furrowed, "That purple haired chick went and got all ballistic, speaking really fast in chinese and all. The guide translated it for me, telling me she, as village champion, was upset and dishonored from us eating her first prize. So I told them that if I beat her, there wouldn't be a problem. So we both got on that log they were fighting on, and before she knew it, I booted her off the beam, and won." Ranma's expresion darkened completely into a grimace, "After that, she got up, walked over to me, and then kissed me..."
Ranma blinked, realizing Akane wasn't still walking behind her, and turned around, "What's up?"
Akane's face remained a confused pout, "I thought you were a girl at the time."
"Let me finish," Ranma complained, "Anyways, the guide freaked out suddenly, grabbed my hand, and started running. He told me that Shampoo gave me the kiss of death or something. A promise to hunt me down to the ends of the earth and kill me. For the rest of the time me and Pops were in China, we had to look over our shoulders, because she was almost always there with some weapon of maiming." Ranma chuckled, "Thankfully, her aim with a bow and arrow's pretty poor."
"So she chased you all the way to Japan, huh?" Akane replied, finding her humor again, "Well, at least she's cute, huh?"
Ranma-chan turned to glare at her, "Would you stop?" Fortunately, they arrived home, so that the redhead wouldn't have to endure any more of Akane's taunts. Unfortunately, Kasumi announced that he had a guest...
"Wow, how did she get her ahead of us?" Akane mused, as she stared at the Chinese girl innocently drinking tea with her eldest sister.
"Ranma!" Shampoo shouted, just as Ranma-chan was about to stomp her foot through her father's fat head for allowing himself to be followed, and once again launched for the attack. The redhead easily bowed out of the way.
"Can this wait? I have an endangered species to make a rug out of..."
"HEY!" Akane jumped between Ranma and Shampoo, "None of this in the house!"
Ranma groaned, and placed both of her hands on top of Akane's head, and leapfrogged over her, incidentally forcing Akane to duck shampoo's thrust to get to Ranma through her, and sepeerating herself from Akane to place the latter out of danger.
Shampoo followed her trajectory over both of them, and spun around to bat at the landing girl's head. Ranma ducked low to evade the blow, and stood up, finding Akane in front of her again. "What the...?"
Akane would not be ignored, and circled around to confront Ranma, "People live here! If you're gonna fight, take-" Akane jerked Ranma around to behind her, causing Shampoo's bonbori to pass through empty space, "-it outside!"
"Oh yes," Kasumi piped in, "the dojo is exellent for things like that."
"Oh, go Happosai or something," Ranma retorted, causing Kasumi to shrill in panic, and run through a nearby wall.
"That wasn-"
Ranma grabbed ahold of Akane's arms, and slid herself between the other girl's legs, which in turn forced Akane to duck the spinning toe kick Shampoo meant for Ranma-chan's head.
"-'t very ni-"
Akane roughly pulled them both to the side, evading Shampoo's followup thrust kick.
'-ce, Ranm-"
Ranma and Akane both leapt over the low sweep Shampoo comitted. Ranma, Shampoo, and Akane all blinked in unison, before Shampoo and Ranma turned to the latter with puzzled looks. Akane shrugged indifferently, not sure how to explain the reason why she evaded.
Shampoo decided to break the ackward pause, "DIE, RANMA!"
Ranma grabbed Akane's shoulders, while placing her foot into the raven-haired girl's gut. She managed to pull Akane down out of the way of the bonboris that clanged together where their heads would have been, and then launched Akane over both him and Shampoo in a high arced tomoe throw. Akane effortlessly landed behind Shampoo, but was not satisfied with concluding things with her bodyguard just yet.
"Excuse me," Akane offered, lightly pushing Shampoo to the side. Shampoo recognized the polite phrase, and stepped aside without thinking. the Chinese girl then went back into her blind killing rage, and thrust her mace at the back of Akane's head, which happened to be in the way of Ranma's head. Right before impact, Shampoo realized something. Why is it this girl kept getting in the way of her prey? It was like she was protecting her, but not putting up any form of protection for herself. It was almost as if she had some kind of death....wish...
"She's probably halfway to Hokkiado by now!" Akane almost shouted in fustration, "And you know how much it's going to fix this wall?"
"Geez, I said I was sorry all... ready... what's her problem?" Ranma trailed off, looking behind the both of them. Akane blinked, and turned to find Shampoo slamming her bonbori into the floor repeatedly, while shouting in hyperfast Mandarin that even to those who didn't understand the language would find rather... colorful.
"Thank you, Ranma," Akane stated with genuine gratitude, as she took another scoop from her sundae.
"Hey," the redhead across from her replied non-chilantly, before looking back up at the other girl with a smirk, "After all, you deserved it."
Akane blushed, looking down at the table with a small smile, but didn't reply.
Ranma took another scoop of her own icecream, "I mean, two whole days, I didn't think you had it in ya!" Ranma didn't notice Akane blushing deeper.
"Th-thanks."
"Say, if you can keep this up for another day, how about I take you to the movies tomorrow?" Ranma-chan offered. She had started coming to the realization that bribes seemed to work well on Akane. Whenever the martial artist would set a goal, he would offer to take her out for a treat. He was a bit surprised at how fast Akane jumped on the first offer, but thought nothing of it. He was also glad that she got over whatever was causing her to flush like she was, probably some girl thing.
"I... I'd like that," Akane replied, cupping both her hands around her sundae. It was the third date Ranma had taken her on, and he... well... she was asking for a fourth. She tried not to let on her excitement, as her friends always advised. 'Never let them know you're eager', they would say, and she had no other advice to follow but theirs. It was a lot harder than it sounded, though, she had to fight against the flustered nervousness she felt surging around her stomach like a bolt of lighting made of cotton, almost as hard as conciously fighting the 'urge' that presented itself at every opportunity.
Akane had to internally groan at that, she never even stopped to consider it, but the phenominal amount of times she would unconciously find herself staring at a potentially life-ending ordeal with an oblivious smile and a hint of satisfaction within. The act itself didn't bother her one bit, but she knew it was anti-productive to her goals, which were to get Ranma to take her out on dates.
Akane leaned forward and sighed, staring at Ranma-chan, as she was focused on the TV behind them. She couldn't remember the last time someone actually offered to spend time with her like this . Not like it was some duty for them to perform, but just to socialize... hang out. True, she had to earn it, but it was a small price to pay to be around her fiance in a somewhat, wel, remotely intimate situation.
"Hey, I know that place..."
Akane blinked, and turned to look at the TV. It was documenting some woman warrior tribe village in China, which actually sounded pretty interesting. Unfortunately, the loud tell-tale sound of something striking brick and heavy plaster with sledgehammer force, and the growing spiderweb fracture under the TV was somewhat distracting.
After the fourth pounding, the wall threw in the towel, and took a dive. As the dust began to settle, a shapely, feminine figure stood in the haze.
"Ranma..."
Ranma groaned in dismay, burying her face in her arms. "Shampoo, what are you doing in Japan?" the redhead moaned in an irritated voice.
Shampoo's answer was simple, really, "KILL!!!!" Since it was so simple, she felt the obligation to punctuate it with a mace through the table, incidentally where Ranma's head would have been.
Of course, Ranma thought that it wasn't a good idea to leave her head where Shampoo had deigned to puncuate her statment, and pulled it, along with what was left of her sundae, out of the way in the nick of time. "Watch it! I'm not finished with that yet!"
"Who's this, Ranma?" Akane's voice held an edge to it that Ranma hadn't ever heard from her before.
"Just some violent maniac that followed me all the way from China," Ranma-chan replied, factually, while effortlessly dodging said violent girl's best attempts at interrupting Ranma's life prematurely. Ranma had to admit, though, Shampoo was making it difficult for her to continue eating her icecream before it melted.
"Hmph," Akane replied, folding her arms and turning away, "Just don't expect us to let you keep her..."
"Hey!" the redhead was suddenly in Akane's face, "It's not like I want her in the first pla-" Ranma ducked the horizontal swing of Shampoo's weapon, before realizing Akane wasn't going to do the same. Quickly kicking into a handstand, Ranma-chan kicked her heel against the head of the bonbori mace, sending it arcing over Akane's head.
"Place!" Ranma finished, inverting herself up right, and glaring face to face with Akane.
"Oh? Then what-" Ranma grabbed Akane around the waist, and swung her around, allowing both of them to pivot just out of the range of Shampoo's vertical downward blow. "-is this all about?"
"It's a lon-" Ranma dropped into a sweep, taking Akane's legs from under her.
"ACK!" Akane shouted out, as she started to fall to the ground. Shampoo's spinning heel kick just missed connecting with her head as she went down.
"-g story!" Ranma finished, just managing to catch Akane before she hit the ground. With a quick hop, the redhead evaded Shampoo's falling ax kick, and put herself near a table.
"Well," Akane retorted, "I'm waiting to hear it!" With that, Ranma grabbed the tablecloth off of the table they had come next to, startling the customers sitting at it, but amazingly leaving the contents of the table neatly intact, and threw it back behind her without looking.
Shampoo had been lunging with her bonbori towards Ranma's head, as she became entangled in it. After a few precious seconds battling the inhibiting cloth, the Chinese native looked around the ice cream parlor, and growled. "Ranma!"
"Ah..." the store clerk spoke up, pointing to the exit door that was swinging closed; perhaps if she took the hint, she would take her personal demolition derby somewhere else other than his store, "they went that way..."
Ranma kept his hand over Akane's mouth, as he looked down from the roof of the ice cream parlor. They both watched Shampoo run out, look both directions, then pick one at random to follow. Once the huntress warrior was out of sight, Ranma-chan released her hand from Akane's mouth.
"So," Akane started with an unamused tone, "What's the story with that girl? Old girlfriend or something?"
"It's complicated," Ranma replied, rolling her eyes at Akane's comment; like he would ever date anyone that violent...
"Kind of cute, isn't she?" Akane asked, probing Ranma for anything the redhead was hiding from her.
"Sheesh! Let me take you back awhile, to China," Ranma started, "After my stupid Pops got us both cursed, the guide took us to this village with warrior chicks during some tournament they have every year. Well, me and stupid Pops were in our cursed forms and starv'n, and while we were watching that purple chick beat the crap outta some gorilla looking woman, whe started pigging out on the table full of eats.." Ranma shrugged, hopping down from the rooftop, followed shortly by Akane landing next to her easily, "We figured it was some sort of consession table for the fight and all, didn't know it was actually the first place prize."
"Oh, Ranma," Akane groaned, that sounded like something he would do. They came along the canal that ran by the way towards their home, and in unison, hopped onto the fence. "What happened then?"
Ranma's brow furrowed, "That purple haired chick went and got all ballistic, speaking really fast in chinese and all. The guide translated it for me, telling me she, as village champion, was upset and dishonored from us eating her first prize. So I told them that if I beat her, there wouldn't be a problem. So we both got on that log they were fighting on, and before she knew it, I booted her off the beam, and won." Ranma's expresion darkened completely into a grimace, "After that, she got up, walked over to me, and then kissed me..."
Ranma blinked, realizing Akane wasn't still walking behind her, and turned around, "What's up?"
Akane's face remained a confused pout, "I thought you were a girl at the time."
"Let me finish," Ranma complained, "Anyways, the guide freaked out suddenly, grabbed my hand, and started running. He told me that Shampoo gave me the kiss of death or something. A promise to hunt me down to the ends of the earth and kill me. For the rest of the time me and Pops were in China, we had to look over our shoulders, because she was almost always there with some weapon of maiming." Ranma chuckled, "Thankfully, her aim with a bow and arrow's pretty poor."
"So she chased you all the way to Japan, huh?" Akane replied, finding her humor again, "Well, at least she's cute, huh?"
Ranma-chan turned to glare at her, "Would you stop?" Fortunately, they arrived home, so that the redhead wouldn't have to endure any more of Akane's taunts. Unfortunately, Kasumi announced that he had a guest...
"Wow, how did she get her ahead of us?" Akane mused, as she stared at the Chinese girl innocently drinking tea with her eldest sister.
"Ranma!" Shampoo shouted, just as Ranma-chan was about to stomp her foot through her father's fat head for allowing himself to be followed, and once again launched for the attack. The redhead easily bowed out of the way.
"Can this wait? I have an endangered species to make a rug out of..."
"HEY!" Akane jumped between Ranma and Shampoo, "None of this in the house!"
Ranma groaned, and placed both of her hands on top of Akane's head, and leapfrogged over her, incidentally forcing Akane to duck shampoo's thrust to get to Ranma through her, and sepeerating herself from Akane to place the latter out of danger.
Shampoo followed her trajectory over both of them, and spun around to bat at the landing girl's head. Ranma ducked low to evade the blow, and stood up, finding Akane in front of her again. "What the...?"
Akane would not be ignored, and circled around to confront Ranma, "People live here! If you're gonna fight, take-" Akane jerked Ranma around to behind her, causing Shampoo's bonbori to pass through empty space, "-it outside!"
"Oh yes," Kasumi piped in, "the dojo is exellent for things like that."
"Oh, go Happosai or something," Ranma retorted, causing Kasumi to shrill in panic, and run through a nearby wall.
"That wasn-"
Ranma grabbed ahold of Akane's arms, and slid herself between the other girl's legs, which in turn forced Akane to duck the spinning toe kick Shampoo meant for Ranma-chan's head.
"-'t very ni-"
Akane roughly pulled them both to the side, evading Shampoo's followup thrust kick.
'-ce, Ranm-"
Ranma and Akane both leapt over the low sweep Shampoo comitted. Ranma, Shampoo, and Akane all blinked in unison, before Shampoo and Ranma turned to the latter with puzzled looks. Akane shrugged indifferently, not sure how to explain the reason why she evaded.
Shampoo decided to break the ackward pause, "DIE, RANMA!"
Ranma grabbed Akane's shoulders, while placing her foot into the raven-haired girl's gut. She managed to pull Akane down out of the way of the bonboris that clanged together where their heads would have been, and then launched Akane over both him and Shampoo in a high arced tomoe throw. Akane effortlessly landed behind Shampoo, but was not satisfied with concluding things with her bodyguard just yet.
"Excuse me," Akane offered, lightly pushing Shampoo to the side. Shampoo recognized the polite phrase, and stepped aside without thinking. the Chinese girl then went back into her blind killing rage, and thrust her mace at the back of Akane's head, which happened to be in the way of Ranma's head. Right before impact, Shampoo realized something. Why is it this girl kept getting in the way of her prey? It was like she was protecting her, but not putting up any form of protection for herself. It was almost as if she had some kind of death....wish...
"She's probably halfway to Hokkiado by now!" Akane almost shouted in fustration, "And you know how much it's going to fix this wall?"
"Geez, I said I was sorry all... ready... what's her problem?" Ranma trailed off, looking behind the both of them. Akane blinked, and turned to find Shampoo slamming her bonbori into the floor repeatedly, while shouting in hyperfast Mandarin that even to those who didn't understand the language would find rather... colorful.