"Hey Akane? How have your classes been so far?" Toph asked as she noticed the youngest Tendo enter the gym where she and a gang of guys (which included Ranma and Ryoga) stood.
"Alright. Though once again Shampoo has been doing better then me in the classes we share, which is all of them," she said.
"That's Shampoo for you. She probably gave the teachers a shock as you wouldn't expect her to be one of the smartest among us," Toph replied.
"Probably runs in her family or something. Ranma can be just smart as Shampoo-when he wants to be," Ryoga said.
"What d'you mean when I want to be?" Ranma asked offended by that comment.
"Well it's true. You may have this massive learning curve, but unless you're interested in whatever it is you're doing in school you are pretty much on the same level as Akane or me," Toph told him.
"Anyway, why are you two here? Don't the girls have swimming as part their gym activity for the day?" Ranma asked.
At this the two girls just stared at him like he was stupid. He already knew the reason so why was he even bothering asking them? Yet it was obvious he did not remember so they had to remind him themselves.
"It's calling 'swimming' not 'sinking.' As I'm pretty much a hammer in water after five seconds and Toph cannot see in bodies of water unless she is touching the ground, we'd rather not practice drowning today," Akane explained.
"Shampoo, however, is in her element, and will probably get tons of offers to join the swim club later," the blind sixteen year old stated.
"That's enough! It's time to start gym class, now that everyone is here. We would have started sooner but had to wait for Akane, and I had some last minute adjustments to make for the additions to my class," the gym teacher said.
Motioning the class to follow him he presented them with the first thing that they were going to be doing today. Groans and moans could be heard from multiple guys as they saw it but Toph was left confused as whatever it was it was not connected to the ground. So she was pretty much left wondering just what it was.
"Ok, so how about you go first Toph," the teacher said. She just looked at him with a blank expression on her face.
"Well are you going to go or not?" he asked.
"Well are you just going to stand there and not tell me what is? How am I supposed to do it as it's obviously not somewhere I can see? Otherwise I would have done it by now!" she shot back.
"It's…." Ranma started but was quickly told to be quite or everyone would be made to run laps.
'What crawled up this guys butt? You can't even ask him a question or tell me just what the hell we're supposed to be doing,' Toph thought.
Normally she would have no problem noticing what was apparently hanging from the ceiling, but since it was made of wood her seismic sense wasn't allowing her see it. Just then she noticed Ranma's hands were behind his back making a stretching motion which then changed to them being placed on top of one another in a repeated fashion.
As Toph was trying to figure out what Ranma was trying to get her to notice she was having to deal with the gym teacher egging her on to do the assignment they assigned.
'What is this teacher's problem? Talk about abusing your authority. I haven't been told what to do and whenever someone tries to tell me we all get threatened with 's attempt at giving me 'hints' isn't helping. What is he supposed to be doing anyway, climbing a rope or…that's it! A rope! This must be a rope climbing exercise,' she thought as her best friend gave a quick nod at noticing her realizing this.
With that in mind she just had to find the rope and climb up to make this teacher who seemed out to get her look like a fool. Easier said then done, though, as she would be feeling around unable to tell its location because it was connected to the wooden ceiling. Probably just what this gym teacher wanted: to see her do something as embarrassing as that. But once again, that would not happen, as Ranma helped her out by using small winds, too small for anyone but her to detect, to find the rope.
Once she found it climbing up was not all that hard as it was just a straight shot upwards, the rope swaying freely until she got to the top.
"I climbed your rope so what's next?" Toph asked. It may have seemed like she just asked a simple question, but the tone in which she said it set the gym teacher off as the underlying message of 'you want to try playing games with me, give it your best shot' was received.
"Akane stay clam. This teacher is purposely trying to make Toph look stupid, but if you blow your cool that will probably play into their hand," Ryoga whispered to the pissed firebender.
Akane just nodded at this. She almost got expelled once at their last school after a certain mishap left a student and teacher with third degree burns. Good thing that Haruna managed to prove that Akane was provoked into her actions and she got off with only being suspended for awhile.
As gym class went on the teacher continued his personal vendetta against Toph through a number of things they hoped she would be unable to do since they dealt with her being away from the ground and thus rendered her totally what the teacher did not know was that Ranma was helping her the whole time, informing her secretly about what she was supposed to do.
The cycle was broken when the gym teacher was called to the main office, leaving the class to go change back into their uniforms as class was already over anyways.
"Shampoo had such great time in gym," the purple haired girl exclaimed to her friends in the girl's locker room.
"At least that makes one of us," Akane and Toph said.
"Huh? What happened?" Shampoo asked seriously.
"You know that because Toph and me can't swim we were with the guys during this period? Well the teacher seemed to have it out for Toph. He made her do all these things that took advantage of her blindness, probably to try and embarrass her. If Ranma hadn't helped her out behind the teacher's back, since no one was even allowed to help her without risking making the entire class run laps, I don't know what would have happened," Akane told her.
Before Shampoo could say anything in reply a loud cry rang out; so loud, in fact, that it was heard all around the school.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M FIRED!"
In the vice principal's office…
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I AM FIRED!" the gym teacher cried out.
"Just what I said before your outburst. You are fired for abusing your authority against a student," the vice principal said.
"What proof do you have that I was abusing my power?" the teacher asked.
"How about these, and this," the vice principal said, presenting his evidence for firing the gym teacher. It was tape recorder and a bunch of newly developed pictures from an instant camera. Though the picture quality was not the best, it clearly showed the teacher was singling out Toph and keeping the rest of the class under control through unacceptable use of their authority.
"We here at Furinkan High put up with a lot from our students and teachers but purposely singling someone out for reasons of petty revenge is not one of them," the vice principal told him sternly.
"You…" the gym teacher began to say before a recording was played back for him.
"Do not worry, son. I will get back at them for what they did to you. Starting with the blind one…" the recording said in the gym teacher's voice.
Defeated, the now-former gym teacher left, but swore to himself that he would get his revenge for getting fired.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful as the Ranma and co finished their first day at their new school and headed home.
Meanwhile elsewhere…..
Two figures (one old and one young) could be seen coming into Nerima taking a good look around.
"So this is Nerima," the old one said.
"Yeah it's Nerima alright, according to the map," the younger one replied.
"You sound down. After nearly five years of searching we have finally found her. I thought you would have been more happy then this," the older figure said.
"Should I even see her again? It was my fault she ended up going missing in the first place," the young person stated.
This earned them a blow to the head from the cane their older companion was holding.
"How many times must you be told that it was not your fault she was taken? You were tricked into being a pawn in their plan. She may have stopped showing it, but she has always valued you as someone important to her. That is why you were used as their bait in capturing her," they said.
"Whatever, let's just get this over with so we can clear her name back home," the young one said sighing.
I would like to thank:
Ryuus2 for Beta Reading this chapter
cabrera1234, OBSERVER01, and Ryuus2 for reviewing this story
Gaul1 for reviewing Chapter 21
mollachd, Ryuus2, and Aiyobi Uzamaki for adding this story to their Story Alert List
mollachd, gaul1, GameDemonKing, and Angel Cullen Mew Chimera for adding this story to their Favorite Story List