Chapter 8 Trust
Two days later, Akane showed up at the Saotome residence. "Hello, Auntie Nodoka,' said Akane.
"Come on inside, Akane. My children are in the dojo waiting for you," Nodoka replied.
'Children,' Akane wondered as she ran over to the dojo. Akane stood at the door to the dojo, staring in disbelief. Ukyo was sitting on the floor of the room with her back to the door, Ranma running his hands up and down her leg. Akane started getting angry, 'Pervert,' she thought, 'what does that baka think he is doing?' Angry thoughts just kept running through her head. Suddenly she screamed, "Ranma No Baka!!" as she charged, Mallet of Doom at the ready. Warned by the scream, Ranma jumped up in surprise. Akane swung her mallet him ready to send him to Low Earth Orbit. To her surprise, he caught the mallet and pulled it out of her hand. Tossing the mallet away, he grabbed both her arms as she tried to hit him.
"I saw what you were doing with Ukyo, feeling her up, you had your hands all over her," she screamed, "let me go you bastard," struggling as hard as she could. He held her, looking at her with eyes as cold as ice.
"Ucchan, can you leave us alone, please? It looks like Akane and I need to have a discussion. That is I'm going to talk and she's damn well going to listen," Ranma said coldly.
Akane stopped struggling, stunned by the coldness in his voice. Ukyo nodded, slowly got up and limped out the door.
"Don't look so surprised, Akane, I could always have blocked your mallet attack. I know I tend to put my foot in my mouth a lot and say things that I don't really mean. That usually meant that I would get your mallet on my head. When that happened, I usually deserved it. What I always hated was how come you would never listen to me; everything that happened was always my fault. Most of the time, I was an innocent bystander. This time, I'm not going to let you get away with blaming me. I not sure what was running through your head right now, but you're going to listen this time. Ucchan and I were sparring when she tripped and fell. I was making sure she hadn't pulled a muscle or twisted an ankle or something. That's all that was happening. What got you so blasted angry? I thought we were past all of the jealousy, and insecurity by now," he said, "If this is how you plan on reacting, then I'm not sure you should be coming here. Do you have any idea how much your lack of trust hurts?"
Akane stood there listening in shock. He had never tried to explain, no she had never tried to listen, she realized, she had always assumed the worst, and just hit him. She fell to the floor crying, "I'm so sorry, Ranma. I was angry this morning because of something I heard, I thought I had gotten over it, but seeing you two together brought it all back. Sakura had told me that she had seen you and Ukyo over at the mall yesterday, holding hands and acting all cuddly and everything. It just brought back all of my insecurities, and that got me going; after all she was the cute fiancée. Please don't make me leave." Tears were pouring down her face.
Ranma's anger vanished, hearing the anguish and despair in her voice. He picked her up and held her tight in his arms, just letting her cry herself out. When the worst of the storm appeared to be over, he finally spoke, "I don't know what Sakura was talking about, I was here all day filling out my college application, and cleaning up the dojo. Ucchan went out shopping, but she didn't say she was meeting someone. But that's kind of beside the point, anyway." 'Man, how can I tell her she's the only woman I ever wanted?' he thought. "Listen, if we are ever going to be friends, you have got to learn to trust me, just like I have to learn to trust you. After all, you are going to be going overseas to college in just a few short months, and we won't see each other for a long time."
Akane heard the caring in his voice as he spoke. Hearing that, she felt even worse. 'I'm such a fool, I know he cares for me', she thought, 'why am I so insecure?' "We've been through so much together, I should know better, but it just hurts sometimes. I think your so good looking, and you had so many better-looking women chasing you, I just get scared sometimes. I know you never wanted any of them, but still…" she said.
He put his hand over her mouth, stilling her voice. "That's all in the past, now, just let all of that go and just concentrate on the future. We can't do anything about what happened before. Let's just work on being friends, okay," he said, "Do you still want to work out?" She nodded her head, and then left his arms. Ranma went and got Ukyo, who seemed to be all right now.
"Sorry Ukyo, I don't know what happened, but what are you doing here?" Akane asked, "Don't you need to be working?"
"It's ok, Akane, I know what it looked like. No, Konatsu can handle the morning crowd, besides my brother here asked me to stick around. He said that if the two of you are going to train together, he thought I could use some training as well. Plus we could both use another sparring partner anyway." Ukyo replied.
"Why are you calling Ranma brother?" asked Akane.
Ranma finished his exercise, and replied, "Did I forget to tell you? Mom is adopting Ucchan. Isn't that cool. Now she'll be my sister for real."
Akane looked stunned. Then she smiled, "That's so neat. Now I'll have more reasons to come over here. My sensei and my best friend both live here." She hugged Ukyo.
"Akane, I told you that I was willing to train you. But there are a few rules we need to establish. For this to work, you really need to treat me as your Sensei. That means you need to do what I tell you. You can ask questions of course and I'll try to explain why I want you to it as well. Now I want to practice with you. I will just defend right now since I want to judge your form. I need to find out what we need to work on.
Akane warmed up for a few minutes, stretching her muscles with a few simple exercises. After she felt like she was ready, she turned to Ranma and said "Ready, Sensei." At Ranma's nod, she began attacking him as hard and as fast as she could. He blocked every blow. Surprisingly, he said nothing during the bout, but watched her every motion cataloguing every attack. Akane began getting frustrated, and it began to show in her attacks. They weren't as smooth and as targeted as before. After a few more minutes of that, Ranma said, "Stop." Akane froze.
"Ok, you were beginning to angry and frustrated, weren't you?" he asked. She nodded. "That's one of the things we are going to have to work on. You need to be able to control your emotions, if you don't you will lose any real fight. Since your dad hasn't been training you since your mother died, you've also picked up a few habits that we need to change. For starters, you are trying to use brute strength in your attacks. That really isn't the right style for you. You're not Ryoga you know, so you can't stay in close and take blows. You need to work on increasing your speed and your grace. That's really the better attack for you. I don't think that will really be hard for you to learn, you're closer to that than you might think. Some of your positioning could use a little work; you're just slightly off. I think that might be because your dad didn't take into account that you're a girl, you look just slightly off balance. Did you see anything I might have missed, Ukyo?"
"Well, the one thing that I noticed is Akane seems to be having trouble with what's she is wearing. While she was fighting you, her gi was getting in the way of her moving cleanly. It was too loose or something, unless that's part of her strategy, of course," Ukyo answered. Akane looked down, she blushed, and tightened up her belt. "Come on Akane, I think I have a better outfit for you to wear. Ranma needs to change as well." Everyone leaves.
Shortly, Akane came out with Ukyo. Both of them have changed into a pair of shorts, and a pullover top. Akane is blushing in embarrassment, since its obvious she is wearing breast bindings like Ukyo, instead of a bra. Ranma comes back, having changed – both his gender and his clothing. She is dressed in the same fashion as the other two girls.
"First things first, Akane. The reason I am a girl now is that even though I 'know' that most of what Pop taught me about women being weak is so much garbage, I still can't bring myself to hit you when I'm a guy. The reason I wanted us wearing this is so we all can see how each of us moves," Ranma said.
Ukyo chimed in, "Besides, the way your gi kept falling open was distracting him. You really need to wear a t-shirt underneath. This takes care of both of those problems."
"Ucchan!" Ranma said as she blushed, "That's enough of that." She whispered to Ukyo, "What was wrong with a sports bra, anyway?"
Ukyo just smiled, "I didn't have any that were clean, and I didn't think she would want one of yours," she smirked.
Ranma mock glared at Ukyo, and then said, "Ok, Akane, Ucchan I want you to watch this kata. After I do it once a regular speed, I'll slow down so both of you can follow." She performed a complicated set of exercises. She then ran through it much slower. This set the pattern for the remainder of the afternoon. Finally toward the end of the session, Ranma was working with Akane. She still couldn't really touch Ranma, but Ranma had tossed her several times. Again, Akane started getting angry, when suddenly Ranma stopped her. "Akane, remember what I told you before, when you get mad, you start getting sloppy. If I hadn't been paying attention, I could have really hurt you. Calm yourself down, and we'll try again," Ranma said sadly.
Akane waited a few minutes, struggling to get herself back under control. 'What got me so angry,' she wondered to herself, 'Ranma's doing what I want; she's training me. All that's she's really showing me is how much I have to improve.' Finally, after taking several deep breaths, she bowed to Ranma and said, "Sorry, Sensei, let's try again, please."
They fought for several more minutes, Akane concentrating on keeping herself under control. She actually managed to hit Ranma a couple of times, but Ranma was scoring touches on her all the time. Finally, Ranma hit her hard enough that Akane flew across the room and crashed into the wall. She sat there in astonishment, while Ranma looked worried. She ran over and helped Akane up. "You Ok, Akane, I didn't mean to hit you quite that hard," she asked anxiously.
Akane said, "Yeah, I'm fine, but I bet it leaves a nice bruise though"
"This is probably a good place to stop for the day. You both did real good. Why don't you girls go clean up, and soak in the furo for a while. Let me know when I can have my turn in there," Ranma said.
Akane looked at her. "Thanks Ranma, this means a lot to me that you're doing this, it means that you take me serious as a martial artist," she said.
"Ah, man, I should have done this a long time ago. If I had, you would be one of the best in the city in martial arts. Sorry it took me so long to figure this out," Ranma replied.
And that's basically how the remainder of the year went. Nodoka finally adopted Ukyo. A big party was held to celebrate, though strangely, Gemna was off on a training trip still and missed it. Everyone assumed that he was still avoiding his wife. Nodoka worked on helping Ranma understand himself better both as a male and as a female. Ranma actually managed to avoid insulting Akane. The three women, or four if Akane came too, often went shopping together, or went out dining, and generally had a good time. Nodoka managed to teach Akane how to cook a few simple things. Akane realized that Ukyo really was a friend now that Ranma no longer came between them, and forgave her for her part in the wedding fiasco. She spent as much time as she could in training and in learning how to control her temper. She never got quite good enough to beat Ranma, but it didn't matter anymore. Just the fact that Ranma was training her was good enough.
Then, finally, it was time for Akane to leave for college in America.