Authors Notes: I'm glad that folks are enjoying this fic so much, and I'm particularly happy that nobody was bothered with how the P-chan affair came out in the last chapter. We gave it a lot of thought, but we concluded that it really didn't serve any purpose with Akane not being the designated love interest, and it also really didn't make any sense with Nabiki being so directly involved this time.
As for the ones who commented on the trust between Ranma and Nabiki; that's another result of starting with the base concept we did. Ranma and Nabiki don't have the bad blood that they do in canon by this point, and Nabiki's different personality to Akane means that she doesn't alienate Ranma the way her little sister does. Ranma is more willing to expose a vulnerable side to her than he is to Akane in canon because he, ironically, trusts Nabiki more, as she's never "attacked" him in the way that Akane has done.
Chapter 7: The Seeds are Sown! Enter Kodachi!
On an ordinary afternoon in Nerima, a not-so-ordinary red-haired girl wandered casually through the streets, munching away at the contents of a distinctly heavier than normal takoyaki box.
'Pfheh. Moron. How can any guy really be so dense as to think a free octopus puff will make a girl want to ask him out?' Ranma harrumphed to herself. 'I mean, okay, yeah, I played the bubbly girl who might kinda be interested, but it was his own fault for being sleazy enough to buy it. Creeps... guys like that make me ashamed of my own gender. Still, if they're gonna give me free extras, then I ain't gonna turn 'em down. If I gotta be stuck with this stupid body, I may as well enjoy the perks while I can.'
The last takoyaki was momentarily balanced on the tip of a girlish thumb, then flicked through the air with a snap of said digit, only for Ranma to deftly snag it out of the air and swallow it in one bite.
'...I hope Nabiki would be okay with me doing stuff like this, though. I mean, she tries to act like it don't bother her, but after that moron Ryoga tried to pretend to be Akane's new pet, I'm sure the whole boyfriend-into-girlfriend thing must be bugging her...'
With that sour thought ringing in his mind, Ranma tossed the takoyaki box into a nearby rubbish bin. And that was when she heard female voices coming from the other side of a nearby wall.
"You're such a liar!"
"We'd never be friends with you!"
"Don't think we don't know what you're up to!"
"You're trying to stop us from competing in the tournament!"
"Why else would you ambush us?"
Three angry female voices hovering in the air, Ranma turned to the wall and sprang atop it. She found herself overlooking a vacant lot, occupied by four female teens; one, in a high-school uniform that she didn't recognize, was standing with her back to Ranma, but Ranma could make out she was holding something... whip-like. A gymnastics ribbon, maybe? She was being confronted by three girls in Furinkan High sports uniforms, each holding a pair of gymnastic clubs. All three of them were visibly bandaged, and scowling hatefully at their single opponent.
'Hey, I think they're in my class...'
Even as Ranma had that thought, one of the club-wielders shouted, "We're going to give you a taste of your own medicine! Let's get her!"
They rushed the fourth girl as-one... who simply pulled her ribbon taut between her fingers and then lashed out as though she were wielding a bull-whip! It whirled and flowed in blurring arcs, audibly snapping through the air as its bearer replied, "Now now, girls... If I weren't a lady!"
The Furinkan girls fell back with squeals of dismay, clubs either falling from fear-slackened fingers or being struck from their bearer's hands by the cracking ribbon-whip. All three fell to their knees on the ground as the ribbon-wielder began twisting her ribbon in a flowing spiral around herself.
"If I weren't a lady," she repeated imperiously, "I'd have to teach you a lesson!"
She began cracking the ribbon like a whip once again, the high-speed silk snapping over the heads of the cowering, crying teens who had moments before seemed like the attackers. "And then you'd really be in trouble! How lucky for you that I was reared better than that!" she spat with palpable disdain.
Now, Ranma had no real reason to interfere; this wasn't a fight she was involved in. And furthermore, the girls now crying and cringing on the ground had been the ones to start the fight, so on a technical level this was them getting their just desserts. But on the other hand, the ribbon-wielder clearly outclassed her opponents by a sizable margin, taking this out of the territory of justified retribution and into the territory of bullying.
And Ranma did not like bullies.
Even as Ribbon-Girl was berating her downed opponents, Ranma had flicked the sunhat off of her head and sprung to intercept the makeshift whip. By the time the hat hit the ground, the boy-turned-girl was standing defensively between Ribbon-Girl and her fallen assailants, the ribbon held fast in her palm.
"C'mon, cut it out; I think you made your point already," Ranma scolded her, her tone polite but no less firm in its resolution .
Ribbon-Girl was actually not that bad looking, with a fine-featured face made more striking by purple eyes and black hair done up in a short ponytail that jutted out behind her left ear. A bead of nervous sweat rolled down the side of her head as she surreptitiously tugged on her ribbon, trying and failing to remove it from Ranma's grip. "You stopped my ribbon. That's never been done," she observed.
She sounded calm and matter of fact about it, but Ranma thought that she detected a faint hint of uncertainty at the fact.
"You're no ordinary girl, are you?" Ribbon-Girl asked, still holding that same conversational tone, even as she began to sidle in a clockwise direction from Ranma.
"Well... uh, yes, you could say that," Ranma replied mildly. She knew Ribbon-Girl was up to something, but she wouldn't strike the first blow in this situation.
Ribbon-Girl continued to circle, until she stepped over to where one of the Furinkan girls' clubs lay discarded. "It makes no difference to me!" She suddenly snapped, kicking the club up into the air and releasing her ribbon to snatch it up.
"I won't go any easier on you!" she cried, and charged at Ranma, lunging out with the club in a powerful thrust.
But, compared to Ranma, she might as well have been moving in slow motion. Ranma ducked beneath the jabbing club at literally the last second, knocking Ribbon-Girl from her feet with a ground sweep whilst she was distracted by the afterimage fakeout.
To Ranma's surprise, and professional admiration, Ribbon-Girl didn't panic as she flew through the air. Instead, she caught herself on her hands, using her momentum to swing around into a forward flip that ended in a five-star landing, her head craned over her shoulder to look back at Ranma, who sank into a counter-striking posture and waited for her response.
"You are quite formidable," Ribbon-Girl observed, and this time she sounded legitimately impressed. "Well done. I am the flower of Saint Hebereke High School. A rising star in gymnastics. I am Kodachi, the black rose," she declared, concluding this spiel by lifting a namesake black-petaled rose on a thorny stem to her chin and posing dramatically with eyes closed. Just for a second, though; as her eyes flew open, she tossed the rose to Ranma, who snagged it out of the air deftly between forefingers and thumb.
As the dumbfounded Ranma watched, the newly-dubbed Kodachi ran to the wall at the other end of the vacant lot, springing up onto it before turning around to point accusingly at Ranma. "You will keep that in mind, won't you?" she asked, before leaping up onto a nearby power pole, letting out a wild, almost shrieking peal of manic laughter as she did and scattering black rose petals in her wake.
Her hysterical-sounding glee filled the air even as she slid down the pole and then vanished onto the streets beyond.
'...What the hell was that?'
Ranma didn't have long to contemplate that thought, however, as she realized that now she was standing alone in a lot with three sobbing, wailing girls...
Shortly afterwards, at the Tendo Dojo...
Akane felt a headache coming on. One minute, she'd been minding her own business and reading her new manga; the next, Ranma had come barging into her room with a couple of weeping girls from their classroom, dumped them on her, and then left her to deal with them quick as you'd like.
She was going to get that jerk for this... but right now, she had other things to do. Like getting to the bottom of this mess.
"So, one girl did all this by herself? She really beat the entire Furinkan gymnastics team?" she asked. Even saying it aloud, the idea sounded ludicrous.
"She jumped us in the middle of the night!" one of the three wounded girls protested with injured dignity.
"The rotten sneak wanted to make us forfeit the tournament - we won't be able to fight in this kind of shape!" a second lamented with wounded pride.
"What tournament?" Akane pressed . Okay, so she wasn't exactly the biggest fan of the gymnastics team.
"You haven't heard? It's a Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics match between our team and that of Saint Hebereke - or Saint Bacchus, as the other schools like to call it," one of the girls explained.
"Yeah; and we found out just why their champion is undefeated! The cheating bitch..." groused another.
"Please, Akane, we're begging you; will you substitute for us? There's no way we can face off against her when we're this beat-up!" the third pleaded with bare desperation.
Akane hesitated; she'd never even heard of this style up until now! But... she couldn't turn down people who needed her. Ignoring the warm stroke on her ego that they were turning to her for help and not a certain gender-bending jerk. Besides, how hard could it be? Ranma could probably give her a few pointers anyway - he was the crazy martial arts nut around here.
Mind made up, she looked at the three solemnly and then slowly nodded. "I don't know how good I'll be," she warned them, "But I'll give it a try."
"Thank you! Thank you Akane!" the three girls cheered, excitedly clasping her hands in reverence.
"With you filling in for us, I know we'll win!" One of them proclaimed, grinning widely.
"Yeah, especially if you can get that redhead who saved us from Kodachi to join in," added a second.
Akane flinched at that suggestion. "Yeah, that's not going to happen," she unthinkingly quipped back. Ranma, in a leotard, in front of an audience? As if! "Trust me, I'll take care of this for you, and avenge you all," she promised them, triggering more happy chattering from the relieved Furinkan girls.
Unbeknownst to the quartet, this little promise was overheard by a strange girl, hiding in the Tendo garden under Akane's window and eavesdropping... though she found that little exercise cut off when a tap on her shoulder brought her face to face with a panda, waving a sign with 'Can I help you?' written on it...
That evening, in the Dojo...
"Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics? What the heck is that?"
Akane stared at Ranma in dismay, hoping that he was joking... but she didn't think Ranma was a good enough actor to look that convincingly empty-headed. "You must know it!" she protested. "I mean, you said you've been all over learning every martial arts style there is!"
"And when did I ever say I'd learned them all?" Ranma rebutted; although he appreciated the unwitting praise that Akane thought he'd know all the martial arts there are, it boggled his mind to contemplate actually knowing them. His head would probably explode. "Seriously, I'm good, but I'm not a master yet - there's tons of styles I've never even heard of! Why do you got such a bug in your hair about it, anyway?" he asked.
Akane sighed... there went her last hope. "The girls you brought here were going to compete in a Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics match set next week; Furinkan High vs. St. Hebereke. That girl you saved them from cheated by ambushing them at night, so they asked me to substitute for them."
"And you don't even know how to use the style?!" Ranma blurted out incredulously.
"That's my little sister; always has been impulsively noble," Nabiki pitched in; she'd decided to do her homework in the dojo to keep her fiance company whilst he did his evening workout. Ogling her cute boytoy as he got all hot and sweaty totally counted as that, right?
"Sounds like just impulsiveness, to me," Ranma quipped.
"Oh, shut up, Ranma!" Akane snapped with an embarrassed blush, whilst Nabiki gave a light giggle. "I already said I'd do it, so there's no turning back now! I just hoped you could give me some pointers, but since you can't, then I'll just have to do my best. The girls left me with tools to practice with; and how hard could it be?"
Nabiki instantly glanced at Ranma upon hearing that. Luckily for him, he kept his thoughts to himself, but she could tell from the look on his face that he didn't think much of that little statement. Truth be told, neither did she; it didn't take a genius to see that those words were going to bite Akane in the rear...
Selecting a pair of gymnast's clubs, Akane smirked. "You just watch me, Ranma," she said, before making a mighty leap into the air, simultaneously flinging the clubs up till they nearly touched the roof whilst also twisting around, one foot outstretched. She landed gracefully on the floor...
...whilst the clubs clattered down several feet to either side of her.
Silence hung over the dojo, before Ranma conversationally asked, "Hey, aren't you supposed to catch those things?" Despite the innocent tone of his voice, Nabiki could tell the comment cut like a knife.
"I'm trying, okay?" Akane grumbled. "Maybe I'll try the ribbon..."
Nabiki watched as her little sister picked up a length of flowing pink silk and experimentally flicked it... then she groaned and covered her eyes in embarrassment as Akane lost all sense of control over it, causing it to wrap itself around her body.
"You, uh, supposed to tie yourself up like that?" Ranma asked, with the same innocence as before.
"Who asked you?!"Akane groused as she untangled herself with less than presentable grace and poise.
"Oink!"
At that, Akane finally whirled around on Ranma, thrusting an accusatory finger at him. "Shut up, Ranma! How dare you call me a pig!"
"I did no such thing!" Ranma denied, raising an eyebrow in confusion.
"Oink!"
"Oh, you think you're so funny, don't you?!" Akane snapped, even more incensed. "Even if you can do that without moving your lips... wait, how did you do that?" she asked, the confusion managing to edge aside her anger.
"I didn't!" Ranma assured her.
"Oink!"
Finally, all three teens turned and saw the source of the porcine squeals that had been interrupting them: none other than a bandanna-wearing black piglet that could only be Ryoga Hibki.
Akane's frown only deepened into a hateful glare as she took in the small, black form. "What in the world are you doing here, you pervert?!" she snarled. "Didn't you learn your lesson before?" she spat, snatching up a club and starting to advance on the other Jusenkyo-cursed youth.
The one formerly known as P-chan squealed loudly in dismay. Sitting up on his haunches, he clasped his forehooves together in a semblance of a praying posture, loudly grunting and squealing with porcine distress. The sight was so pitiful that Ranma felt compelled to intervene, shooting across the floor to interpose himself between the two.
"Come on, Akane, give him a break; it wasn't like he asked you to make him your pet," Ranma pointed out.
"He didn't fight the idea very hard, either! That little pervert was all raring to go climbing into bed with me!" Akane spat, trying to maneuver so she could at least toss one of the clubs at the figurative, and literal, pig. .
"Hey, it was probably the first warm bed he'd seen in a year! Besides look at him; he's obviously sorry, ain't that right, Ryoga?"
The pig desperately nodded his agreement to Ranma's words, too afraid to realize he was agreeing with his 'hated enemy.'.
"Besides, he must have had a reason to come here... if only to say sorry. Besides, I think he wants to talk to us; right, Ryoga?"
Another frantic nod, before Ryoga launched into a chorus of squeals and grunts, gesturing with his forehooves and clearly getting quite invested in his little speech. Ranma stood and watched him, occasionally nodding sagaciously, and even Akane felt her anger cooled to be replaced by curiosity. Nabiki had, of course, padded over to watch the entertainment herself. When Ryoga stopped, Akane looked at Ranma. "What did he say?"
"How should I know? I don't speak pig," Ranma replied flippantly.
The whole dojo went silent, two girls and a pig stared long and hard at Ranma. It was so quiet, one could hear the faint whistle of a breeze sailing through the open door, up until Ryoga firmly slapped one little hoof against his piggy head in exasperation.
"Okay, seriously, give me a sec and we'll try that again," Ranma said, before bending down and snatching up Ryoga. "Huh, look at that; maple leaf manju from Hiroshima and red bean triangles from Kyoto. Ryoga really must have been wanting to try and get back in your good books, Akane," he noted, untying the rope and letting the two confectionery boxes drop to the floor before hurrying off towards the bathroom.
Akane scoffed loudly. "Perverted little creep. I don't know what he was thinking by coming back here."
"Me either, but he's got some good taste... uh... are you going to eat those, Akane?" Nabiki asked, covetously eyeing the treats.
"Go ahead, Nabiki. I don't want anything of his," Akane retorted, whilst rolling her eyes. When it came to sweets, her sister was such a glutton.
Nabiki simply grinned and snatched up the boxes eagerly. Score! She was going to need to put a little more effort into tomorrow's workout session, but totally worth it!
Meanwhile, in the bathroom...
Soun Tendo was leisurely relaxing in the bathtub when the door slid open. "Oops, sorry Mr. Tendo, I didn't see you there. This'll only take a second," Ranma said, before he tossed something through the air to land in the bathtub with a splash and closed the door.
The Tendo patriarch blinked, but before he could even voice a protest, a black-haired head suddenly emerged from the water at the opposite end of the tub. He watched as a naked boy clambered out of the tub and silently walked out of the room. Once the door was shut behind him, he allowed himself the luxury of a resigned sigh.
He'd been hoping that having his son-in-law finally come to stay would change things for the better... he just wished they hadn't come with a side order of the surreal!
At the same time, across town...
The lights were on in the Saint Hebereke gym, as its gymnastics team trained long and hard into the night. The air was filled with the sounds of feminine exertion as its members practiced their stunts and skills, all under the watchful eye of their captain; Kodachi. She watched the proceedings with an imperious eye, and then shouted, "Right! That's it for today!"
Her words were greeted with a palpable wave of relief as the practicing girls stopped in their tracks.
"Whoah, that was rough!" complained one of the girls.
"I'm exhausted!" chimed in a second.
"Oh yeah, that reminds me, who's supposed to lead tonight's ambush?" asked a third.
"As long as we've got Kodachi on our side, our team's invincible!" chirped a fourth.
"Why do we even practice? We always win by default anyway," complained a fourth.
"You'd better not let Kodachi here you say that!" her companion hissed.
In fact, Kodachi had heard that little remark quite clearly. Luckily for the impudent... oh, what was her name again? Ah, yes, Rio Saito, now Kodachi remembered - her captain had bigger fish to fry, for her spy had returned from the Furinkan Dojo and was busily whispering to her what she had learned.
Leaving her underlings to whatever it was that they did when out of her sight, Kodachi walked over to her locker, adorned with an icon of her beloved black rose. Opening the door, she perused the fine supply of weapons she had stockpiled, before finally selecting an oni-hammer and a long, form-concealing cloak, which she swept across her shoulders.
'Fear not, Ms. Tendo. I'll be dealing with you very shortly,' she silently promised herself... before she sprinted from the gymnasium and began bounding through the streets, laughing with excited glee as her finely honed (and beautiful, if she did say so herself) legs propelled her through the streets in mighty leaps.
Back at the Tendo Dojo...
Ryoga tried not to flinch as Akane stared hatefully at him. "So? What do you want?" she growled.
"Well, ah... I want to start by saying how sorry I am for what happened last week..." Ryoga began. He realized in an instant that was probably not actually the best way to start things off when Akane scowled and began to push up the sleeve of her gi, looking for all the world as if she was about to bodily throw him out of the dojo. So he quickly blurted out, "And I can teach you Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics!"
"You can?!" the other three teens blurted out, staring at him with an array of stunned, confused and disbelieving expressions.
Seizing his advantage, Ryoga pressed on, forcing himself to sound confident. "Yes, I can. I mean, I'm not a master of it myself - it's a female-dominant style - but my mother taught me the basics, and I can pass that knowledge on to you, Akane. If you'll let me, that is?"
""Well..." Akane hesitated, then glanced to her supposed brother-in-law before sighing. "I suppose I don't really have a choice. You're better than nothing, which is where I started out this evening."
"Thank you, Akane; you won't regret this!" Ryoga assured her, trying to focus on the positive instead of feeling offended by her reaction. "Alright, let's begin... what do you know about Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics?" he asked.
"Not a thing; I only heard of it this afternoon," Akane confessed.
"I see... alright, we'll start from the beginning then..." As he said that, Ryoga stepped over to where Akane had discarded the ribbon from earlier. Picking it up, he continued, "The first thing you need to understand is that Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics is a true fighting style - this isn't a competitive sport with the martial arts label slapped on it, this is actual combat. When you get into the ring with your opponent, she is going to try and hurt you, understand?"
"Makes sense; when I saw that chick earlier, she was really giving those Furinkan girls a whipping with that ribbon of hers," Ranma mused.
Ryoga nodded, "Right, and that's the other major thing you need to remember about this style; bare-hands tactics are forbidden. Punching, kicking, chopping; all barred in an official match. They'll penalize you or even make you forfeit the match, depending on the terms - best to assume that in a formal match like this, they'll be an instant forfeit. A practitioner of Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics only uses tools to strike her opponent; ribbon, clubs, hoop and ball are the foundation of the entire style."
He took the ribbon and drew the silk taut between his fingers. "The first central technique is the ribbon," he declared. And then, without warning, he twisted around to face Ranma and deftly flicked the length of silk out in a horizontal spiral, the twining loops striking Ranma's body with an audible series of whip-cracks before the impact sent Ranma flying back to hit the wall with a thud.
Akane was staring wide-eyed at this point, her grudge with Ryoga long forgotten in the face of such an amazing stunt. "That's... that's cool!" she breathed reverently.
Ryoga simply smirked, gently twirling his wrist to keep the ribbon flowing in a tight, elegant spiral. Ranma glowered hatefully at his rival, silently vowing to get him back for that.
Outside the Dojo...
The street was quiet and still as a feminine form shrouded beneath her cloak paced beneath the streetlamps to the door onto the Tendo household's estate. A black rose clenched demurely in her teeth, Kodachi's thoughts seethed as she contemplated her mission.
'So, they've asked for help. What poor losers those Furinkan girls are. Akane Tendo, you'll soon rue the day you crossed the Black Rose...'
Laughing triumphantly, she cast aside her cloak and hefted her hammer, already planning on how to make her point felt to her unknowing rival... completely ignoring the odd looks she was receiving from passers by.
Soon afterwards...
The sound of exhausted feminine panting filled the Tendo dojo as Akane gasped for air, completely drained from her recent exertions to the point she was sprawled on the floor on her hands and knees, legs too weak to bear her weight.
Authoritatively, Ryoga snapped his own ribbon. "I think we've done enough for today," he declared judiciously.
Finally gulping down enough air to speak, Akane gasped out, "Thanks, Ryoga, for training me..." Though there was definitely still a part of her outraged by the nasty trick he'd played on her with his cursed form, he had still provided a light of hope in a situation where she'd had none. Plus, this had been a major workout, and Akane really felt like it had helped her - maybe, with Ryoga's help, she could finally show that smug jerk Ranma a thing or two...
"Your ribbon's coming along nicely. I'm certain you'll master it soon," he said in response.
Akane looked up at him hopefully. "Do-do you really think so?" she asked; that was even more than she'd dared to believe!
"Ah, man, he's lying through his teeth," Ranma interjected bluntly from his position by the wall.
Fury giving her energy, Akane shot up from the floor and whirled to face her tormentor, stomping her foot as she shouted, "Shut up, Ranma!"
"Hey, hey; let's all cool down now, Akane; why don't you go and get into the bath first? You had a hard training session, you need to rest now," Nabiki interjected. She really didn't feel up to fielding a snipe-fest between her fiance and her sister.
Akane glowered at Ranma, but ultimately she nodded, grumpily pulled the ribbon off and tossed it aside, and then strode from the dojo, heading for the bathroom. Moments later, Nabiki and the two boys followed, although they chose to instead head into the garden for a bit of fresh air.
Ranma sighed, "Man, she's so hopeless it hurts to watch," idly bouncing one of the gymnast's balls that she'd been practicing with on the end of his finger.
"Well, it's not like you're helping by picking on her!" Ryoga scoffed loudly.
"What are you talking about, pork-butt?" Ranma snapped back, glowering at Akane's new instructor.
"He kind of has a point, Ranma. I mean, I can understand why you're ticked - Akane never did apologize to you, but still..." Nabiki interjected carefully, she loved Akane and liked Ranma, so this constant sniping on both their parts was getting on her nerves.
Now Ranma gave his fiancee a hurt look. "Not you too! I'm not doing anything to her that my old man wouldn't do to me!" he protested, his indignation growing slightly more as both Nabiki and Ryoga sweatdropped in response.
"...That explains sooo much," They replied in unison.
"Hey, it's not my fault she picked a fight with a rival master in a style she'd never even heard of!" Ranma pointed out. "She's gotta stay focused on improving if she wants to stand a chance - it's not gonna do her any good if Ryoga fills her head with lies about her training paying off!"
"Why would I lie to her?!" the indignant Ryoga snapped back.
"Uh, because you're still carrying a torch for her and you hope that if you butter her up, she'll give you a second chance?" Ranma mockingly suggested, smirking as Ryoga flushed at the accusation.
"S-shut up, Ranma! My only concern is teaching Akane! Some people learn better with positive reinforcement - just because your old man is a jerk doesn't mean that every teacher has to be one!" Ryoga protested.
Meanwhile, in Akane's bedroom...
Akane sighed softly to herself as she flopped down face first onto the welcoming embrace of her mattress. "I could sleep for a week," she moaned to herself, the pain of her aching muscles mingling with her doubts. The match was barely a week away; how was she supposed to win it? Even with Ryoga helping her, she had to be realistic: nobody could master a brand new style with just a week's practice enough to be a trained master in that same style!
Outside, Ranma suddenly sneezed, blinking before wiping his nose.
With another sigh, Akane slowly rolled over onto her back, looking up at the ceiling... and then letting out an "eh?!" of consternation as she took in what she was seeing. Clinging to her ceiling like the biggest spider she'd ever seen, clutching the frames like some ninja out of a manga, was a leggy black-haired girl in a blue gymnast's leotard, a black rose clenched in her lips and a huge wooden mallet slung across her back.
The stranger stared back down at Akane, then opened her mouth and allowed the black rose to fall from her lips - right before she let go and fell straight after it, slinging the mallet off of her back and into a momentum-fueled downwards swing! "Akane Tendo! Prepare to die!" she screamed.
Pure instinct took over and Akane leapt from her bed barely seconds before the hammer slammed down where her head had been, making the mattress bounce and roll as the impact rippled through it. Calling on all her training, Akane twisted in midair so that she landed on her feet, hands pulled up into an offensive pose. "Who are you?!" she demanded of her assailant.
"I'm from the Saint Hebereke Rhythmic Gymnastics team, of course," the black-haired girl scoffed. "I'm Kodachi, the Black Rose."
"Kodachi who?!" Akane blurted; that was the most arrogant moniker she'd heard since Kuno had dubbed himself 'Blue Thunder'. The next thing she knew, she was dodging backwards as the crazy bitch took a swing at her with the mallet!
"There's only one more week until we face each other in the gymnastics tournament next week, so let's both fight fair, okay?" Kodachi declared with palpable 'sincerity', punctuating each word with a horizontal swing of her mallet and emphasizing the end of her sentence with an overhead slam that smashed against the floor and nearly squashed Akane.
"Fair?! Compared to what?!" The indignant Akane snapped.
"I didn't ask you to sneak into my room!" she pointed out, lashing out with a snap kick... that Kodachi nimbly dodged, racing around Akane and putting some distance between them, hoisting her mallet aloft as she blocked the door. Akane thrust an accusatory finger at her hypocritical assailant as she added, "And I never asked you to attack me in the dark!"
"In the dark? Utterly ridiculous," Kodachi scoffed, her expression and her tone as innocent and carefree as a child's. "I came merely to size up my opponent before the big match next week, that's all."
"Don't you give me that!" Akane snarled in response. The nerve of this weirdo! Feigning innocence like that... who did she think she was fooling?
Kodachi simply smiled... and then, faster than Akane could react, she whipped out a gymnast's ribbon that she had concealed in her bosom and tied the youngest Tendo girl up with a deft flick of her wrist. Akane squawked in shock and tried to flex her arms, hoping to break free of the seemingly flimsy restraint, but it wouldn't budge. Her efforts merely elicited a peal of laughter - high-pitched and borderline shrieking - from her assailant. "You're finished, dear!" she mocked, then raised her hammer aloft. "Die!" she screamed, charging forward to deliver a crushing overhead blow, with Akane helpless to do anything but watch the mallet's striking face approaching her own.
"Leave her alone!" came another thunderous cry, mingled with the sound of glass shattering from behind both girls. A shadow flew past in the corner of Akane's vision, and the next thing she knew, the hammer she was certain was about to leave her in a concussed pile on the floor had halted dead in its tracks.
"Who are you?! What do you think you're doing?!" Kodachi demanded, straining to try and pull her mallet free of this sudden assailant's hands. She should have known that Akane would be a cheater, just like those other girls from Furinkan High who had tried to ambush her that afternoon!
Her opponent simply snarled at her, baring fangs like a wild animal. "Stopping you from hurting someone ten times better than you, that's what! I don't like hitting ladies... but you're no lady!"
Before Kodachi could retort to that, the strange youth used her own mallet as a lever to hurl her backwards, straight out through the window he had smashed open. She was so caught off-guard by this sudden feat of inhuman strength that she couldn't even try to compensate for the attack, resulting in her head audibly smacking against the frame and scattering her wits to the night winds. She only had time for one last, brief thought before she faded out of conscious...
'Is this it...? Is this the end of the Black Rose of Saint Hebereke...?'
Outside...
"Ryoga, are you nuts?!" Ranma shouted as he saw the unconscious girl spiraling out through the window and into the open air. He had been clinging to the side of the now permanently open window, having taken a moment to decide to follow Ryoga in his bull-in-a-china-shop approach to rescuing Akane, but since it looked like Akane's assailant was the one in trouble now, he kicked off of the wall and leapt to catch her, pulling her into his arms and then twisting around in a flip to forcibly redirect them both back down to earth, allowing him to take the impact of hitting the ground.
"Akane! Wait, that's not Akane... who is that?" Nabiki asked, still trying to process the speed with which everything had happened. One moment, she and the two boys had been joking around, the next moment they'd heard shouting and smashing noises from Akane's room, and then Ryoga leapt right up and through Akane's window like a human cannonball.
"This is the chick who was picking a fight with your sister. Ryoga wasn't exactly gentle about separating the two of them - she's out cold," Ranma explained, cautiously touching the goose egg already sprouting from the rear of her skull and checking for any signs of deeper injuries.
"And you rescued her?" Nabiki dryly asked.
"She's out cold! What was I supposed to do; let her fall and break her neck?" Ranma protested, not turning his head from his examination.
"I suppose not," Nabiki conceded; she knew he was right, but it took a moment to turn off the big sister instincts. "So, who is she anyway?"
"Uh... not sure. I think she called herself Kodachi?" Ranma sheepishly admitted. With perfect timing, the black-haired girl moaned and stirred. "Oh, she's waking up!"
'Is this the afterlife?' was the first coherent thought to return to Kodachi's mind. The world was a blur that stung her eyes as she opened them, which combined with the pain from her skull to disabuse her of that notion - surely, heaven had no place for such petty torments!
"Hey, are you okay?"
The gently concerned and distinctly masculine voice brought her focus back to the world around her. She blinked her eyes, forcing her vision to clear, and then stared in wonder at the glory that unveiled itself before her. 'Maybe I went to heaven after all... what a man!' she marveled, drinking in every spectacular facet of the handsome face hovering over hers - ooh, and she could feel strong yet gentle arms cradling her too, holding her like a precious jewel.
Instinctively, she turned her face, smiling blissfully to herself as she demurely covered her blushing cheeks. She kept her gaze averted for those agonizingly long seconds that her status as a lady demanded, and then she turned her longing gaze back to the man of her dreams.
"Ah...I...hold me!" she pleaded, reaching up first to clasp his shirt, and then to fling her arms around him in a bold embrace, before burying her own face into the crook of his shoulder. So this was what it was like to be held by a real man!
"Gak!" Ranma blurted, his exclamation of shock ignored by the girl currently busy cuddling him like a stuffed toy. "I swear, it's not what it looks like!"
His efforts to protest his innocence were derailed when Nabiki burst out laughing. "Wow, smooth, Mr. Romeo. No wonder she fell for you with charms like that," she teased him with a snarky grin.
Truth be told, she was a little displeased by the way this girl was latching onto Ranma like a limpet... but it wasn't like she hadn't watched the whole exchange. This wasn't Ranma's fault in the slightest; why should she get mad at him? Besides, watching Mr. Super Martial Artist be so clearly out of his depth from a little hug was hilarious - if she didn't know better, she'd think he was legitimately scared of girls!
...Although this 'Kodachi' could be letting her fiance go any time now, thank you! Strange, though; why did that name seem to ring a bell?
"Ranma, you're unbelievable! Right in front of my sister no less - have you no shame?!" came an angry feminine voice from the broken window above them.
"Akane..." Ranma groaned in disbelief.
"Two steps forward, one step back... or is it the other way around?" Nabiki mused to herself.
Kodachi stirred from her position in Ranma's arms, finally looking him in the eyes again. "Ranma? Your name is Ranma?" she asked.
"Yeah. Ranma Saotome. And you're Kodachi, right?"
"That's right," she replied, nodding to emphasize her agreement. "I'm the Black Rose of Saint Hebereke."
"Who cares who she is? What do you think you're doing, Ranma? She just came in and attacked Akane!" Ryoga shouted down from the same broken window.
"Uh, saving her from going splat in the garden? What the hell, Ryoga? What were you thinking, throwing her out of the window like that, pork-butt!?" Ranma snapped back at his rival.
Kodachi twisted slightly to glower at her assailant over her rescuer's shoulder. As relieved as she was to finally find an end to the long dry spell in her romantic life, that didn't mean she was going to just shrug off what the vicious brute had done to her!
'Just you wait, cretin; the Black Rose will make you rue the day you crossed her!' she vowed to herself.
Of course, as her savior and her assailant got into a shouting match with each other, with that dreadful Akane Tendo chiming in like the ignorant little peasant that she was, it had completely spoiled the romantic mood she was going for. Sighing softly at the waste of it all, she reluctantly extracted herself from Ranma's arms and took several steps away from him. She made a show of brushing herself off as she announced, "Well, I know when I am not wanted. I will see you in the tournament, Ms. Tendo, and then you will rue the day that you crossed the Black Rose! And as for you, my darling Ranma..." she winked at him and blew him a kiss. "We shall say au revoir for now, but we will meet again..."
She burst into peals of laughter, whipping out her trusty spare ribbon and sending black rose petals flying hither and yon in a whirling storm worthy of her exit. Then she sprinted for the wall and sprang over it, still laughing fit to burst as thoughts of vengeance and romance danced in her mind.
In her wake, she left four staring teens, none of them sure of how to break the awkward silence. Finally, Ryoga spoke up by saying, "Sorry about your window, Akane."
"Oh, it's alright, Ryoga. Better the window than my head. But can you at least help me clean up the mess?" The youngest Tendo sighed in response.
"Sure thing!" Ryoga eagerly responded, anxious to further make his way back into Akane's good graces. And so the two disappeared back into Akane's room, leaving Ranma and Nabiki alone in the garden.
Ranma sighed softly, and shook his head. "Well, that was... something," he muttered.
"Tell me about it... I know a lot of girls like the white knight routine, but she was something else," Nabiki observed, still distracted by a half-hearted effort at trying to place that girl's name.
A shiver ran down Ranma's spine as slowly developing instincts for dealing with girls sounded warning clarions in his brain. "Hey, whatever she thinks we have, it's all in her head! I'm not interested in her!" he desperately assured Nabiki.
"I do have eyes, Ranma," his fiancee dryly replied. "I know I was a little paranoid when it came to Akane last week, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start crying in self-pity if another girl starts mooning over you. Especially not when it's a nut like this Kodachi girl. No, once this stupid little fight between her and Akane is over and done with, she'll be out of our lives and everything will be back to normal."
Ranma's relief was palpable, and he smiled at Nabiki's response. "Yeah, I know. But... thanks for trusting me, Nabiki."
"Fair is fair, Ranma," Nabiki replied. Despite the breezy tone of her words, she was smiling too.
Chapter End & Closing Notes
Here's an interesting note about a little continuity error in Ranma 1/2's anime canon; at the start of the Kodachi intro episode, Ranma is shown using his girl-side to order an ice-cream cone, receiving a free scoop from the smitten vendor. But in the chronologically later Shampoo intro episode, Ranma explains he's never had ice-cream before that first sundae with Akane. This little goof up is unique to the anime; in the manga, Ranma is shown ordering a bag full of sweet buns instead.
So, Kodachi has reared her head! Any bets on what will happen next?