Ranma walked up to Ukyou. "I gotta talk to you. Nabiki told me you agreed to learn my school, and be a sparring partner to Akane."

"Ok, Ran-chan, what's up? Or should I call you sensei?"

"'Sensei' is just during lessons. I gotta make sure you know what you're getting into. My father's training methods are sadistic. And Akane's behaving like a masochist! I've gotta change things, and I need you to tell me what you think before I spring things on Akane and you."

"I can handle that."

"Well, Cologne had some good suggestions on lessening the danger. The problem in making it less dangerous is it removes some of the incentive to strive past your limits to succeed. So I thought of replacing risk of injury, with risk of embarrassment."

"I'm not sure I like the sound of that."

"That's why we gotta talk before-hand. The penalties have to be really embarrassing to work, but they can't be so bad you can't go through with it. Nabiki and Kasumi are vetoing things for Akane, but you've got to decide for yourself if a punishment is too severe or weak. For the first technique we're replacing an uncontrolled sixty foot fall from a tree with these. Ranma hands her a sheet."

"Oh, my!"


"Kuno! I've more news for you about Akane."

"Tell me."

"Well, Soun wants me to teach Akane my school of unarmed combat, but without the throwing of the student out of a tree."

"So she will be learning your skills."

"But there's no way for anyone to learn without the element of danger, so Nabiki is helping me replace the danger of injury with the danger of embarrassment."

"What sort of embarrassment?"

"I can't say. Nabiki is deciding the embarrassments. After all, if you or I were to force Akane to moon the audience, we'd be perverts. But if Nabiki makes her moon us, we're helping her development as a martial artist."

"I'll be there!"


Although they thought they knew what to expect from Nabiki's descriptions, they were overwhelmed by the carnival atmosphere. The school seemed to have emptied out into the forest. Ranma hopped up onto the perch to make his announcements, using a mike from a battery operated karaoke sound system to broadcast.

"Ladies and gentlemen. This is an experiment. Akane and Ukyou will be trying to learn a maneuver. Whenever they fail, Nabiki will assign an embarrassment. In order to finely control the level of embarrassment, the use of photography or other recording equipment is prohibited."

Sasuke sighed in relief as he lowers the TV station quality video camera.

"Both students will be given a single practice run. After that, they have to do whatever Nabiki tells them if they fail. If they refuse, they're out of my school. The first exercise is learning to stop at 50kph, or the speed of someone jumping out a third or fourth floor window. As this is the easy part of the lesson, the target is visible, and non-slippery! If they miss their target, Clive Barker, tell them what they lose!"

Nabiki growled. "I knew suggesting you use daytime television as a source of ideas was a bad idea." Turning on her own mike, Nabiki announced "Each contestant gets one free screw-up. After that, the first two mistakes get traded in for ... One embarrassing childhood secret! For Akane Tendo, we have her nickname from when she was three years old!" The crowd ooohed appreciatively. "For Ukyou, we have a potty training story. And folks, it's scatological!" The crowd ahhed, appreciatively."

Akane shouted down from the leaping off point "Couldn't we just fall from a height, or get hit in the stomach with a plank or something?"

Ranma shouted back, "Nope! And if you can't get it in three tries, the next level of failure brings ..." Ranma pauses to heighten the audience's attention "Audience participation! Nabiki will be selecting two volunteers. Each volunteer is only allowed to help in one forfeit, so if you want to participate in the more embarrassing ones, don't sign up yet! You must tell Nabiki if you're participating in order to help the victim, revenge, or because you fancy the victim." Akane whimpers.

Ranma called out "Now for the first leap. Begin!"

Seconds later, Akane face planted into the main vertical support, while Ukyou collided with hers at a glancing blow, and bounced off to the side.

Nabiki called out "So far, the score's tied at one all. No clear winner after the risk-free inning. While the contestants are pulling themselves back up to the leaping perch, let's have a word with their Sensei, Ranma Saotome. Ranma, what did you think of their initial leap?"

"Well, it's really hard to tell at this point. Either one of them could have face planted on the first go. The second leap is much more important, to see whether they make the same mistake, or if they learn, and wind up making new mistakes. That's why they were allowed one free go, they're being graded on how fast they can improve over this first leap."

"Thank you Ranma. And I can see our students are ready to go for round two."

Ranma called out "Begin!" and the two leaped. Akane tried to grab the vertical support in a bear-hug, but was ripped off as her momentum sent her past it. Ukyou came in feet first, using her legs to absorb the shock, but this sent her shooting off unharmed.

Nabiki announced "And with the score tied two all, we go to Ranma. Any comments?"

"Well, Ukyou's swing would have been the smartest move of this were the original training method, as it left her in control after the collision, unfortunately that doesn't help with our embarrassment-penalty system. Still, if she can bleed off enough momentum to allow her to grab the post, she'll do well. Akane's playing to her upper body strength, which is unusually high for a woman, unfortunately it's also a woman's greatest weakness, and I'd imagine her chest is really hurting. She's going about this exercise the hard way. If she succeeds, it'll be quite an accomplishment. With normal training methods, as long as she can bear the pain, her straightforward brute-strength method is as good as any other. I wonder how her training will go when she realizes she has to learn quickly to avoid embarrassment."

Nabiki announced "We also have our first two volunteers for the up and coming forfeits. Two of Akane's friends, Yuka and Sayuri, who are doing this to try and keep the forfeit from being too embarrassing. We'll be announcing the forfeit after the third leap."

Ranma shouted "Begin!"

This time, Ukyou hit the horizontal perch feet first, and absorbed 80% of her momentum, landing in a crouch, unfortunately her momentum carried her over the top. Akane tried a bear hug using both arms and legs, and smacked into the central support chest, face, and pelvis first, knocking her silly. Because of the pain and the stunning, she failed to hold on.

Nabiki announced over the mike "And with the score tied three all, we come to the first forfeit. The girls will be let down, for embarrassment, rest, and advice."

Ranma walked over to his two students. "So, what do you think? Are you learning anything from this method?"

Akane suggested "Never stop a pole with your pelvis? It feels like I was kicked in the groin, chest, and face simultaneously."

Ranma commented "Be glad you're not male. Trust me; it hurts much much more for males. You know you're doing it the painful way, don't you?"

"I don't need your advice!"

Ranma smirked. "Don't need a teacher's advice? Your funeral. How about you, Ukyou?"

"I'll get it shortly. I've got the stopping part down. I just need to get the stopping on a dime part."

Ranma commented "You'll both get it soon on your own. It looks like Nabiki's ready to do the forfeit."

Nabiki announced into her mike, "Because of Akane's late potty-training, and her method of announcing her diaper needed changing, Akane's first nickname was ..." Nabiki paused "Poo-poo-chan!" After the snickering died down, Nabiki continued "While potty training, Ukyou once used the result as face paint, and went hollering like a movie version of an American Indian around the house, bottomless, while trying to evade capture!"

Both Ukyou and Akane's faces have gone pale. Ranma asked "Are you sure you don't want a word of advice? It might speed up your success, and lessen the number of forfeits."

Akane said "I suppose advice couldn't hurt."

"Two things. First, you're not competing in this. You can share what you learn in this exercise. Second, you've each learned different halves of doing this stage. Akane's clinging would have worked by now if the momentum was less. You'll have to get much better if you're going to just grab on. Ukyou has removed most of her momentum, but unless you learn to remove exactly all of your momentum, you'll still go flying off after landing. You both want to use your legs like Ukyou to slow down, but you want to rebound into the center pole, and grab on like Akane to fully stop. You can continue what you were doing, and you'll succeed eventually, if you want."

Ukyou commented "He's right, Akane. We're not competing with each other; we're both competing against Nabiki. And if Sensei has advice, and we ignore it, we deserve what we get."

Ranma asked "Before we continue, I want to ask about safety equipment. I guess you see why the helmet was necessary. You could learn without it but it'd take longer if you had to recover from head-blows. Are there any suggestions for making this safer? Remember I plan to teach others someday. Males will have to wear a cup."

"Something to protect the knees from collision, but kneepads would be useless. Gloves might be nice if they provided traction."

Ranma shook his head. "We'll be removing traction soon enough. I don't want you to get used to it. You'd better get back to your perch. Nabiki's signaling that we should get moving. Remember, share your observations."

As Ranma walked back to Nabiki, and the students lifted themselves to their perch, Nabiki announced "For the next forfeit, we have Yuka and Sayuri, six whip-cream pies, and two photographers! Let's see what Poo-poo-chan and the Indian Chief have learned, shall we?"

Ranma called out "Begin!"

This time both Ukyou and Akane struck the horizontal perch near the vertical pole, and pushed off into bear hugs of the center pole. Ukyou's landing was lighter than Akane's as she had more practice absorbing her momentum, but Akane's increased 'hug strength' stopped her.

Nabiki announced "And we have a tie! Three all. Both of them succeeded on the fourth try! Time to up the difficulty!"

Ranma announced "For the next stage, you have to succeed at least three times to pass. This is to insure that no one passes this stage due to luck, and because later stages are much harder. Much much harder. For stage two we've constructed panels of stretched butcher paper which block the sight of the perch until just before impact. Behind the screen, each perch gets modified to be different every jump. If we run out of screens or forfeits, we'll continue tomorrow."

The lack of time to prepare a landing favored Akane's method of grabbing the center pole, however the method was of no use unless she could successfully use her legs to bleed her speed and direct herself into a position to grab the pole. The first attempt had Akane nearly missing the target entirely, her left foot connected with little effect as she flew past. Ukyou hit the horizontal perch off-balanced, grabbed the vertical bar near where it branched, and barely stopped herself by wrapping her legs around the vertical pole, well above her head, leaving her upside down and looking silly.

Nabiki asked for volunteers for the third forfeit, and with Ranma's wink to Kuno, Kuno volunteered, with Daisuke sensing which way the wind was blowing, volunteering immediately after.

On the next leap, Akane successfully bled off her momentum with her legs against the central pole, until they each decided to slide off in opposite directions, leaving her to collide pelvis first, but successfully hugging the pole. Ukyou failed to bleed off enough speed before grabbing the pole, and found herself ripped off it due to momentum.

Nabiki shouts "And they're tied again! Four all! Any comments, Ranma?"

"They're doing better than I thought. Whether it's due to luck, or skill I can't say. If they breeze through this stage, it'll be harder on them in stages three and four. While Ukyou's landing looked silly, it shows she was thinking quickly, and adapting to a bad situation. Akane's landing displayed less skill and more determination to succeed, and since she's here to learn the skill, she should have no problem eventually."

The next leap resulted in a double failure, and a double forfeit. Yuka and Sayuri received last minute instructions from Nabiki. For the forfeit, Nabiki and Ranma stood behind Akane and Ukyou, and covered their eyes. Yuka and Sayuri each had a pie, and people held four more to hand to them.

Akane and Ukyou were expecting that Yuka and Sayuri would throw the pies into each of their faces. Instead, while Ukyou and Akane couldn't see, Yuka and Sayuri walked up to Akane and smooshed one pie each into Akane's breasts. When Akane opened up her mouth to object, Nabiki uncovered Akane's eyes in time to see Sayuri smoosh a third pie in her face. The photographers recording the expression for eternity. Then Yuka and Sayuri took the fourth and fifth pie, and smooshed Ukyou's breasts, followed by Yuka smooshing the sixth in Ukyou's face.

After the whipped cream is wiped off faces, and clothes, Nabiki announces "The score's five-five! Due to the severity of the next forfeit, the contestants..." Nabiki paused "I mean the students are each allowed three failures. The forfeit, to be delivered by Kuno and Daisuke is ... PUBLIC SPANKING! Lying over the knees, four swats with trousers down, panties on, and no fondling!"

"WHAT?" Akane and Ukyou scream in stereo.

Kuno slid into a daydream, and began to nose-bleed. Daisuke grinned ear-to-ear, and snuck quick glances at Ukyou.


Author's Note:

Not exactly a cliff-hanger, is it? They'd better learn it before the public streaking, because anything after that'd make me change my rating to R! :)

I'm still writing chapter 7, which will finish the first day, and the start of the second. It also will be at least 50% longer. Ranma's training in the Amagurican has been delayed while he works on getting his body's speed up. Genma and Nodoka deserve more time, perhapse in a day or two (Chapter 8 or 9). Kodachi is still on standby, and Kaori and the golden pair are on indefinite postponement.

I'd like to have Ranma help Akane with her attitude problem, but I can't see Ranma figuring out how to do that. On the other hand, getting serious training, having a training partner she can relate and comiserate with, and dealing with the embarrasments themselves should have some effect. I just haven't decided what it is yet.

The problem inherent in having Ranma learn the Tendo School is that besides the demon head, we see no evidence of it being anything but straight kempo in the Manga and Anime. Also Soun's teaching methods would be rather boring as he wont risk Akane. Is there anyone who thinks Soun could train Ranma without training Akane?

However, Akane, going through what Ranma did, even a more sane version, well that's slapstick! Besides, Ranma is now Cologne's student, and I doubt she'd be willing to share that with Soun. Happosai can do what he likes, but Soun's not going to upset Cologne without a very good reason.

Hey! I just realized! Soun and Cologne have both given up on forcing Ranma. There's no reason they should be opposed at all. And they're both widowers! Anyone think the kids should fix them up on a date?

I'm just adding that to promote people to comment. Comments, especially corrections, are dearly appreciated.