Ranma took Daisuke aside while Ukyou climbed down. "Daisuke, will you take some advice?"
"You're not gonna tell me not to do it, are you?"
"Naw. But I know this is the kind of thing that brings out the pervert in people. And I saw you grinning at Ukyou earlier. Ukyou can whip the hide of anyone at our school, except possibly Akane, Kuno, and I. If you don't want her killing you later, make sure you don't touch anything important, except for the spanking itself, make sure you hit the bottom, aiming higher rather than lower. And most important, ask her for permission before you start! Spank her like a gentleman."
"But what if she says no?"
"Then you'll be escaping with your life, and someone else will spank her, be branded as the school's biggest pervert and spend the rest of the year being beaten up by Ukyou and Akane. If she says yes, you'll have permission. And don't smile when you ask her, or she will say no."
Daisuke approached Ukyou; both of them were blushing. "Um, if you don't want me to touch you, I'll ask Nabiki to choose someone else."
"Why?"
"I don't want to upset you. Ranma pointed out that while you're forced to be spanked, you'd be justified to punish anyone who took advantage of the situation."
This confused Ukyou, "How could anyone take advantage of a spanking?"
"You're just trying to embarrass me, aren't you?"
"No. Really."
Daisuke blushed harder. "Some guys would try to fondle a cute girl bent over their lap."
Ukyou imagined Daisuke and her in that situation, and immediately swung into rage against Daisuke. "WHAT?"
Daisuke tried to rush out his explanation to get past the embarrassment. "It is an excuse to put your hand on a girl's bottom. It would be easy to go farther. Anyway, I'm not going to spank you, unless you tell me it's all right."
Ukyou's anger evaporated. "If you don't spank me, someone else will. If you promise not to take advantage, I'll give you permission."
"Deal."
Blushing heavily, the two walked back to the crowd, stealing quick glances at one another. Before this point, Daisuke was inflicted upon Ukyou; but with her granting permission and failing to veto him as a choice, Ukyou had, in some respect, chosen Daisuke; suddenly turning an impersonal punishment rather personal.
Daisuke sat on a stool, and offered Ukyou a hand as she dropped to her knees. She lowered the trousers of her gi, and lay down over his legs.
Daisuke gazed at her panty-covered bottom, and mumbled in a voice Ukyou almost couldn't hear, "Kawai," before delivering two swift slaps to each buttock.
After the spanking, and simultaneous photography, a blushing Daisuke offered a deeply blushing Ukyou a hand up, as the audience applauded and whistled.
Ukyou hurried back to her swinging harness and pulled herself up to leap, and try to finish stage two. Ukyou dreaded having to do something more embarrassing still, so she really strove to make an effort to get the two successes that'd let her finish this stage.
Akane knew she only needed one more failure before she would be spanked by Kuno and one more success in order to complete this stage. This motivated her beyond what she was normally capable of. Unfortunately the positioning of the perch wasn't what she was expecting as she burst through the obscuring paper screen.
Akane failed, while Ukyou succeeded.
Akane, realizing she was due to be spanked by Kuno went into shock, and seemingly emotionlessly, lowered herself to the ground.
Meanwhile Ranma pulled Kuno aside to warn him. "Kuno, I gotta warn ya. If Nabiki thinks you're fondling her sister while you spank her, she's gonna ruin your family, and Soun will probably forbid you ever marrying her."
"I hadn't thought of that. What advice do you have for me?"
"Make sure you don't touch anything important, except for the spanking itself, make sure you hit the bottom, aiming higher rather than lower. And most important, ask her for permission before you start! Spank her like a gentleman."
"Sound advice! I shall do as you say."
Kuno strode like a king, and sat on the stool, as if it were a throne.
Akane's shock transubstantiated into anger. Her friends gathered behind her suggesting she "Get it over with." She knelt next to Kuno, dropped her trousers, and as she leaned over Kuno's legs, her breast brushed his arm. This turned her anger to barely controlled fury.
Taking Ranma's advice to "Ask her for permission before you start! Spank her like a gentleman," Kuno placed one hand on the small of her back, and raised his other hand to the sky to declaim, "How blessed am I to be in this position. Truly the heavens reward the just that I am assigned the task of chastising this pert and expansive bottom."
Akane turned apoplectic, and a blue glow appears around her. The hand on her back made her feel that Kuno believed he had a right to try to pin her down. She wouldn't be able to decide what infuriated her worse. There were too many different indignities to bear, yet objecting would be an admission of failure. Pride in herself barely restrained her fury.
Kuno was oblivious and continued on. "Verily, you could ask for none better than I to tan your bum. Thus, reverently, I smack it once." Kuno gave her cheek a smack, letting his hand linger a second, before sliding it back slowly. Akane hardly felt it through her battle aura.
"Truly this day shall be remembered in myth and story. It reminds me of the Greek hero Jason, leader of the Argonauts, and his quest in search of the golden hind!" Kuno gave her other cheek a smack, again letting his hand linger over-long, before sliding slowly off. Akane's teeth ground in silent fury.
"That this too too solid flesh should suffer a bruise is a crime against nature. Yet if these apples need be bruised, there's none so deserving as I!" Kuno delivered the third slap.
"Would that I could peel those apples. Nibble on them, and suckle the concomitant juice!" The moment the fourth slap landed, Akane went from kneeling to standing in one move, pulling up her trousers at the same time.
This was followed by the most severe beat down witnessed in Nerima to date.
Luckily for Kuno, he wasn't conscious for most of it.
After the last blow fell on the prostrate Kuno, Ranma announced, "As soon as Akane is no longer angry, we'll finish up today with this stage, followed by a brief spar between Akane and Ukyou."
The two spanked girls both managed to complete their leaps successfully, allowing them to finish the stage, and finish the day with a score of eight mistakes each.
Ukyou and Akane reattached their harnesses at the intersection of a collection of bungee cords fashioned in the shape of a capital 'H' with one half red, and the other blue.
Ranma announced the rules. "Hand to hand sparring. No forfeits are awarded. At this stage this is just for fun and to acclimatize you. You're not allowed to touch the bungee cords colored on your opponent's side. You can pull or hold your own though. Begin!"
After the crowds had dispersed, Ranma, Nabiki, Akane, and Ukyou secured the equipment, so that they can use it again the next day without too much difficulty. Akane was still angry, but not to the point that she'd take it out on her companions.
Ranma broke the quiet, saying "Kuno's banned from all future forfeits."
Akane's anger rose at the mention of Kuno's name, and dipped when she realized the meaning of Ranma's message. "You mean that?"
"Damn straight! The spanking was supposed to be the equivalent of falling three times from a treetop while out of control. A bad sprain, or maybe a light fracture, and being beaten black and blue. If Kuno kept his mouth shut, and just spanked you, you'd have been pissed off, but not like this."
"And whose idea was it to spank us in the first place?"
"Actually, it was Kasumi's." Nabiki answered. Akane and Ukyou looked at Nabiki as if she were lying. "Kasumi and I brain-stormed over what would be embarrassing, but not permanently harmful. We rated them, and we put aside the really serious ones. The extremely strong ones will only come out when you start finding things like the pie-covered breasts to be unimportant. There are a few that'd earn money, which I wasn't allowed to vote on. Ranma and Kasumi agreed that any money earned would first pay for the equipment, and then be split between Ukyou, and the Tendo family's expenses."
"Unfortunately tomorrow's stage is going to be embarrassing all by itself." Ranma added. "I've talked it over with Kasumi, Nabiki, and Cologne, and they agree that you'll have to wear something other than a gi. If you were both boys, you'd be doing it wearing only protective gear. You'll have to wear a one-piece bathing suit with straps that won't slide off, or a leotard that doesn't become transparent when wet."
As Akane was angry, but without a clear target, she sniped "You're just trying to get me to give up, aren't you?"
"Nope. If you want, bring a bulky bathrobe to cover yourselves when you aren't leaping or paying a forfeit, but leave watches and jewelry at home."
Nabiki decided that she couldn't resist teasing her sister with a straight-line like this, "That includes nipple-bars, younger sister."
"I do not have a piercing there!"
Ranma was blushing, as Nabiki added "Well, that leaves belly-buttons, and one other place for non-face body-piercing."
As Ranma didn't get the reference, and felt he had to know this information to be a proper sensei, he pre-empted Akane's denial by asking, "Really? Where's that?" Leaving all three girl's blushing.
That evening at the dinner table, Soun asked, "So how was the first day of teaching?"
"We miscalculated one of the embarrassments, and Ukyou and Akane have some minor bruises and sore muscles, but I think it was a success. We got through twelve leaps. Doing it the old way we would have had to stop due to serious injury. The old way was more unpredictable than the more controlled way we're doing now; that might slow down their training. But the fact that they don't need to wait hours or days to heal from sprains and breaks should more than make up for it."
Akane growled, without much malice, "You're enjoying embarrassing us, aren't you? You pervert."
"This is why I needed Kasumi and Akane to decide on the punishments. I suppose when I become an established teacher, I can let people think I'm doing this to be perverted, or I can just refuse to teach women like my father would have."
Soun's expression turned peculiar. "Son, from personal experience, there's little worse than a perverted martial arts sensei. Don't do it even as an act. You'll give nightmares to others."
"Well, we tried out one method today to boost embarrassment without overly sexual innuendo. The pie smooshing wouldn't have been so embarrassing if Akane had known what was going to happen." Ranma turned to Akane, "Do you find it better to be surprised by a minor embarrassing situation? Or would you rather know in advance what'll happen, but make the events more sexually oriented? For now we're trying to keep things to the level of having to wear a kick-me sign all day in school, but eventually we'll get to mooning, unless you learn it before then."
"I'll learn it! There's no way I'm going to voluntarily let you ogle my ass!"
Nabiki smirked. "You know, I think embarrassment might be a more potent scourge to get them to improve than injury. At least for experienced martial artists like Akane and Ukyou, they've learned to shrug off pain."
Ranma thought about that, and said, "It would be nice if there were more types of punishments. Everyone learns to ignore minor pains. Akane will learn to ignore minor embarrassment way too soon. Genma trained me to ignore insults, although I don't see how that could be used as a punishment."
"What do you mean, I'll 'ignore minor embarrassment way too soon?'"
Nabiki answered Akane's question for Ranma. "Simple. If you get to the point where you don't mind mooning people, the punishment will be streaking. When you don't mind streaking, it'll be nude jumping jacks."
Akane looked shocked. "You're trying to turn me into a pervert!"
Before Ranma could say something that'd get him in deep trouble, Kasumi said, "You'd only become a pervert if you started to like it. You didn't become a masochist when you learned to take a punch; you're not going to become an exhibitionist because you learn to moon people. Besides, we're going to do everything we can think of to slow it down as much as possible. We're your sisters! We'll do everything we can to make sure you never have to climb Tokyo Tower wearing only a strap-on and a butt-plug."
Akane fainted.
The next day, the crowds in the forest were even bigger than the day before. Notable for his absence was Tatewaki Kuno. In spite of Kuno's orders, Sasuke could not convince the hospital staff that he could recuperate just as well in the forest as he could at the hospital. Kuno was currently strapped down, and sedated.
Nabiki took her microphone and announced, "Welcome back for day two. As the person in charge of distributing embarrassments, I'll announce the first penalty of the day. There is no first penalty! The training method is embarrassing enough. It counts as a two-mistake penalty. Ranma will explain."
Ranma continued. "Well, if my students were both male, they'd be doing this wearing only helmets and a cup. If my father were teaching this, he wouldn't allow the protective gear. But as these are women, they're wearing helmets and swimsuits."
Nabiki piped up, "Yes. They're not nude because Ranma's a sexist pig. Let's hear it for Ranma!" Some of the audience boos. "Isn't it funny how only the guys seem upset that Ranma isn't more enlightened?"
Ranma picked up the slack in the dialogue, "For this series, both students will be liberally coated with a slimy substance, removing all traction."
"This won't be bad for the skin, will it?" Ukyou asked.
"Not to worry, this lubricant is designed to be safe on the skin, even for the most..." Nabiki paused for a moment, "sensitive areas. Although it might dissolve latex." Nabiki pointed to an 80 liter tub, half filled with a clear jelly-like substance.
One girl called out, "But that stuff costs about 500 yen an ounce!" before she realized what her knowledge implied about herself, and blushed furiously.
Nabiki smirked. "Only when it's bought in an adult store." The blush turned crimson. "This stuff was purchased from a veterinarian supply shop, intended for vets who need to shove a whole arm up a cows bum. It's the same ingredient, but it's sold in powdered form by the kilogram. Perfect for that illicit game of Twister."
Ranma announced, "Both Ukyou and Akane will stand in the bucket, and liberally coat themselves, leaving only their faces uncovered, and then climb up to the leaping point, where a small bucket for touching up their hands has been placed. The targets have already been painted with the slimy gel. The perches are in plain sight, and each of them needs three successes to advance to the fourth stage."
Akane and Ukyou approached the tub with more than a little dread. Neither was willing to back down, but neither was willing to go first. Finally Ukyou broke the impasse. "I'll stand between you and the audience, and coat your back while you cover your front. Then we can switch places. That way it'll be less embarrassing."
Akane gave in, and was willing to go first following Ukyou's suggestion, but said, "But to smear that stuff over my breasts, with all those perverts watching!"
"Think of it as sun tan oil, after all, we're wearing bathing suits under our robes. Imagine you're at the beach."
"I don't rub suntan oil over my breasts through a bathing suit!"
"Look, if we stand together in a V, no one can see you covering your breasts. Let's just get this over with."
Removing their robes, they quickly and efficiently grease themselves up, pausing to memorize the name and face of the boy who wolf-whistled for later vengeance. After carefully climbing to the launching point, they launched themselves downwards at the perches.
The area resounded to a gigantic 'Splat' as Ukyou's feet hit the top of the horizontal perch, and shot upwards, causing her body to rotate, and leaving her to come to a full stop when her bottom collided with the horizontal bar, with her feet above, and her head dangling below, looking back towards where she came.
Akane on the other hand, managed to absorb most of her momentum before her bare feet slipped from the horizontal support. Her feet shot downwards, while her upper body continued forwards, over the horizontal support, leaving her looking like a bed sheet folded over a clothesline with her torso on one side of the support, her legs on the other, and her ass sticking up in the air.
Nabiki looked over to Ranma to see if Akane's landing counted as a success. Unfortunately it didn't. "And after the first leap of the day, the scores are nine-nine!"
Ranma announced over the microphone, "We're going to take a short break." before he switched his microphone off, and went to help Ukyou and Akane. "We're gonna change things around. The jump of the level of difficulty from yesterday to today is too great."
The suggestion that this was too difficult was a blow to Akane's pride. Akane objected, "I can learn this!"
Ranma's voice became more monotone as he tried to avoid shouting at Akane. "I'm tempted to let you continue as you were, and only change things for Ukyou. Sure, you'll manage on your own, but only after missing a few more times than you would if we fix this. But if you're so set on performing more forfeits than Ukyou, I'm sure Nabiki will accommodate you. Will you do it my way, or do you wanna entertain our audience?"
Akane calmed down. Ranma admitted she could do this, so pride was salved. Common sense was therefore able to throttle pride. "I'll do it your way. I shouldn't have snapped. I'm just frustrated from crashing, I don't like how this crap all over me feels, and I don't like being stared at by those idiots."
Ranma calmed down as well. "Well, it was my mistake having you start stage three like this. There are three things I should have taught you before we started this. You've got to get used to being without traction. Step one. Climb onto the perch so you're sitting on the horizontal bar, and holding onto the vertical. You should be able to sit, and switch which side of the bar you're facing without falling off."
As Ukyou and Akane tried this, Ranma explained, "Here you have your center of gravity very near where you're supporting yourselves, and you can use your arms and legs for balance. Without traction you have to rely on keeping your center of gravity exactly where you want it. Switching seating positions means you can do it while in motion instead of just static."
Both girls mastered this fairly quickly. As soon as they managed it without flailing arms and legs, but with an element of grace, Ranma continued. "Next step is harder, you've got to stand. You can hold onto the vertical support, but you gotta get to the point where you're not hugging it, but able to stand while resting one hand lightly on it, and turn around."
As they endeavored to stand, and their legs shot out from under them, Ranma pointed out, "Here, you lose your legs for balance. Also your center of balance is now about a meter from your feet. A centimeter of error uncorrected will lead to a fall."
Ukyou and Akane stumbled through this, repeatedly falling onto the horizontal pole bruising thighs and buttocks. One particularly nasty slip with legs going on either side of the horizontal pole caught Akane. Whereas Ukyou found herself bear hugging the center support, slowly sliding down, while her legs ran like mad on the horizontal support as she tried to run forward to stand, but her legs slid further and further away.
Eventually, they could both stand on the slippery pole, and change the direction they were facing.
Ranma said, "Good. Now the third step is to hop. Once you can jump an inch and land, you've got it." Akane and Ukyou eventually manage this, but not before proving that the bicycle helmets were a very good idea.
Now that the students had some feel for dealing with the slippery surfaces, they were ready for the day's second jump.
The second jump had Akane succeed, even though after hitting the horizontal pole and absorbing most of her momentum, her feet flew over the top of the bar. With a lunge, she bear hugged the center pole. Unfortunately due to her momentum she spun around the center pole like a wheel on an axel. After rotating a full revolution, she wrapped her legs around the horizontal support. Having come to a complete stop, she hung onto the poles like a love-starved octopus.
Ukyou managed to bleed off most of her momentum properly, but due to the lack of traction failed to grab onto anything, and wound up hanging from her cable.
Nabiki announced, "And the score is nine to ten! Ranma, can you comment on this jump?"
Ranma spoke into his mike, "Well, Akane managed to pull off a success through quick thinking and improvising. At least twice the grease screwed up her plans, and twice she changed her plans, and managed to pull off a success where it looked like she'd fail. Ukyou's landing was more elegant, and she was in more control of her movement, but she was obviously expecting to be able to grab the center pole, and without traction failed to do so. Ukyou has a better sense of control, but Akane is obviously trying hard, and she succeeded where Ukyou didn't."
"Well, while the two students are pulling themselves up to the launch point, I'll ask for two volunteers for our next forfeit. I need at least two people with artistic skills, to use these cans of whipped cream!"
On the next leap, Ukyou repeated her previous leap, but aimed for the intersection of the horizontal pole. After absorbing her momentum, she found herself in position to bear hug the vertical pole. Akane, unfortunately had one foot slip on landing, and her body twisted away from the center pole, and she failed to recover.
Nabiki announced, "And the scores are ten all! Any comments, Ranma?"
"Ukyou has hit on a method that'll almost always work at this stage, but it requires pre-planning, making it useless at later stages. Akane's relying on quick thought and reactions, which sometimes fails, but will stand her in greater stead for the next stage."
Akane and Ukyou look at each other as they digest Ranma's announcement. Akane said, "It sounds like you've found the simplest way to ace this stage."
"But is it a good idea or not. If I repeat it I can pass this stage, but I might not learn what I need to do the next stage. It sounds like you're learning more from your riskier method than I am."
"Well, what are you doing to guarantee success?"
"I'm aiming for the center support, so if my legs start to slip while I'm slowing myself down, I face plant into the vertical support and hold on."
Akane suggested, "So I'm taking too many chances, and trying to fix it by reacting quickly, while you're taking too few, using a method that will always succeed, but might hurt if things go wrong."
"So what do you think we should do?"
Akane paused, "We do the jumps the easy way until sensei forbids us, and if we need more skills to do harder levels, he'll teach us by adding steps like he did earlier."
"Fine. He didn't make us do anything when we slipped while learning to hop on the perches, and I don't like the sound of whipped cream and artistic skills. Aim for where the horizontal and vertical poles meet, as if you were going to push off the horizontal pole and leap up. That way when you start to slip, your legs slide downward, and push your body into line with the center pole."
"Got it. Good luck."
"You too."
The next two leaps went flawlessly.
Author's notes:
I know that by Ranma's earlier rules, Kuno had already made himself ineligible for future forfeits by performing the spanking, so Ranma's forbidding him at the end of the day was meaningless. However there are several reasons Ranma might reuse a spectator. His one forfeit per spectator was an informal guideline for Nabiki and him; a method of crowd control, an excuse to keep people like Kuno from trying to hog the show, and an attempt at fairness.
The game show format seemed like a good idea when I started it, and hopefully provided comic relief, but it seems to have taken over the story. The Amazons, Ryouga, and the Saotome elders in particular are completely marginalized. So I'm arguing that the drunken owl training is only for weekends. After Sunday ends in chapter 8, Ukyou and Akane get five days of rest, and Nabiki gets to develop the photos of the forfeits. Nabiki isn't allowed to sell these photos like she did in the original, as that would be embarrassing the students unfairly. Kasumi and Ranma are Nabiki's monetary conscience, just as Nabiki and Kasumi are the deciding factor on embarrassment levels for Akane.
Dropping the game show will hopefully let Ranma work on building his body's speed so that he can try to learn the chestnut fist. The training methods for his straight ki maneuvers are dimly remembered from his dream, but since he knows they're possible, he'll figure it out eventually; it'll just take some time.
I'm toying with the idea of having Akane actually con some physics geeks at school into actually building the trebuchet, and trying the original method of learning the beginner's drunken owl (without the bondage or the concussion) but not until she masters it Ranma's way (It takes a while to build it secretly). Maybe have Ryouga or Ukyou acting as the gunner. I think Ranma's training method is more rigorous, and Akane'd have to admit to herself at least that Ranma was right to scrap the earlier method.
As for who ends up with whom; this is not a RanmaAkane fic. At this point, any woman could succeed, with the exception of Akane, Cologne, Nodoka, and the old ladle woman. But Kaori, Kodachi, and Azusa are all REALLY unlikely.
I'll be happy if/when the characters mature to the point where someone's dating. Akane and Ranma are likely to mature the fastest. Ranma because of his dream, and the lack of Genma. Akane because so many changes are hitting her, and forcing her to adapt. But if I can write it, there are opportunities in the story for Kasumi, Soun, Shampoo, Ukyou, and Kuno to grow.
Ukyou's NOT going to just fall for Daisuke. But hopefully she'll reconsider gender issues, and realize there are alot of different males. Still, Daisuke's comment must have been as much of a shock as Ranma's comment was in the original. She'll just draw different conclusions from it.
I'm not going to explore where the dream came from. I don't care if it was psychic powers, info from deities, time traveling senshi, or an incomplete memory wipe before going back in time and merging with his past self. I'm not going to speculate whether the canon universe is going on in parallel. I may not even ever bring out the Nan ban mirror. There are so many possibilities; I'll let the reader assume whichever is the most believable.
