Chapter 4: New Interest
Ranma left for school with a proverbial spring in her step. By any measure, she was making excellent progress in her Umisenken training. She had successfully accomplished both of the first two tasks the same day she had received them. She wasn't sure what the full training regiment was but she was sure she would complete it long before Genma's nebulous deadline had arrived.
Ironically, the only real limitation to her progress was Genma himself and the fact that he wouldn't actually tell her the next step. While she couldn't blame him for his cautious prudence, assuming he was actually telling the truth that keeping the third step hidden would improve the effect of the training, she could still fume at him in annoyance. It was a not-uncommon posture for her to have with respect to him.
Ranma merged together with the small crowd of similarly dressed girls making their way to Lillian. Along the way, she noticed that most of them stopped briefly at the statue of the hooded woman she had noticed the first time she had crossed the school grounds. Ranma wasn't sure what that was about, though, so ignored them and continued on her way.
Her trip through the school was uneventful, up until the moment she entered the First-year Chrysanthemum Group classroom, whereupon a girl with long, black hair confronted her.
"Gokigenyou. Is it true?"
Ranma reflexively took a step back from her too-close approach. She asked, "Is what true?"
"Is it true that you're the now the petite soeur of Sachiko-sama; that you're Rosa Chinensis en bouton petite soeur?" the girl asked. Two other girls stepped closer, and Ranma subtly prepared herself for an attack.
"Uhh... yeah," Ranma said.
The loud shriek the three girls gave caused Ranma to startle back. The exclamation drew the attention of the others in the room, who all crowded towards the door to join in the conversation.
"Oh, you're so lucky!" the first girl exclaimed.
"How did you do it?" one of the new girls asked. Her black hair was in a pageboy haircut.
"Osa... Onee-sama was looking for somebody to help, and I said I would," Ranma said. She had been expecting an attack, but had not imagined it would be like this.
"Ohhh..."
"What's Sei-sama like in person? She's so cool," a girl with medium-length, frizzy, blonde hair asked.
"No, Sachiko-sama. Sachiko-sama's better," the first girl said. "I'm so envious."
"What does the inside of the Rose Mansion look like?" a girl with glasses and short, blonde hair asked at the same time.
The flash of a camera seized Ranma's attention, and she twitched her head to the side in reaction. In the hallway, the girl with glasses and long bangs from two days earlier was pointing a camera at her.
"I think I'll call this one, 'Rite of Succession,'" the camera girl said. Her camera flashed again.
"What's with all those pictures you keep taking? Who are you?" Ranma asked.
"Oh, right. I never introduced myself, did I? I'm Tsutako Takeshima, of the photography club," the girl said. "I'm taking photos for the upcoming festival exhibition. That reminds me, do you mind if I publish this?"
Tsutako handed over a picture of Ranma being surrounded by a bunch of girls at her desk. In the photograph, Ranma was looking obviously harried. A small label had been stuck to it, upon which was written, "Welcoming Committee."
Ranma handed it back to Tsutako and said, "Sure, why not?"
"Great, thanks," Tsutako said.
"You didn't answer my question. What does the inside of the Rose Mansion look like?" the girl with glasses and blonde hair asked again.
"It looks pretty ordinary," Ranma said.
The crowd in front of the doorway was large and growing as more girls in the classroom crowded close. Not only that, but in the hallway, too, a small crowd was starting to gather as well.
"Can I see the rosary?" a girl with long, curly, brown hair asked.
The question gave Ranma a jolt of panic. That was a problem. She actually couldn't show her the rosary because she didn't have it with her. It was back in the camp. She wasn't exactly sure where, but she thought it might be on the top of her pack. In hindsight, forgetting about it had been a mistake due to the possibility of situations exactly like this occurring. She would need to be more conscientious in the future.
Ranma was saved from the oversight, though, when a girl with brown hair draped to one side of her head asked, "Where did the ceremony take place?"
It was an opportunity, and Ranma pivoted to take advantage of it. She conveniently used the topic change to ignore the previous question and said, "Outside, by that statue of that woman."
"Ohhh..." the girls surrounding Ranma all gave a collective squeal. Several of them raised their hands up to cover their faces.
The questioning finally came to a close when Ami clapped loudly and said, "Please, everybody, take your seats. Class is about to start."
A quick glance to the side showed that Tanezaki was in the hallway and approaching. The crowd there quickly scattered, and the girl inside the classroom dispersed as well. It cleared the path for Ranma to reach her desk just in time for Ami to announce, "Stand. Bow."
Ranma's third day of classes had begun.
Throughout the lessons, Ranma's classmates kept glancing at her. It was very much like her first day, with her possibly getting even more attention than she had two days earlier. It made her nervous. The very first instruction Genma had given to her was to blend in, and she thought she had been doing a reasonably good job of it, but this newfound attention was calling that into question. She was worried that she had made a mistake of some kind.
That feeling was further exacerbated when lunchtime came around. A girl with accusatory eyes and a tight brown ponytail stormed into the classroom. She was flanked by two smaller girls with short black hair, one with glasses and one without. She surveyed the room and then charged straight at Ranma.
"Gokigenyou," the girl said. Her greeting was clipped and terse. "I'm Minako Tsukiyama, head of the newspaper club and the editor-in-chief of the 'Lillian Kawaraban.'"
"Yeah?" Ranma asked. She was cautious. The direct approach from the girl felt more like a challenge than anything, and Ranma instinctively readied herself once again for a fight. It would be three against one, but she thought that she could handle it. Her chair would act as impromptu cover if she rolled backwards and used her momentum to kick it up as she flipped back to gain some space.
"I'm writing an article on the new Rosa Chinensis en bouton petite soeur and would like you to answer a few questions," Minako said. She pulled out a small notepad, leaned in towards Ranma, and asked, "What brought you to Lillian?"
"It was my mother's dying wish," Ranma said, repeating the almost-certain lie Genma had told the headmistress on that first day. She kept an eye on Minako and her two backers as she did so, in case the question was a distraction to try to create an opening in her defense. Minako was busy writing things down, which occupied her hands and thus negated much of the tactical advantage of her leaning in closer to Ranma, but the other two girls were free and could do some tricky things if she weren't careful.
A few gasps filled the room, and several girls said a quiet, "Aww..."
Minako didn't let it distract her. Even as she was writing on her notepad, she asked, "Then your mother's dead? Does that mean your father raised you?"
"Yes," Ranma said. She wasn't sure where Minako was going with her questions, but they gave her a bad feeling.
"How was that?" Minako asked.
"How was what?" Ranma asked.
Minako stopped writing for a second and directed a pointed look at Ranma. She asked, "How was it growing up with only your father?"
"Fine, I guess," Ranma said. She wasn't even sure what to compare it with. It was the only life she had ever known.
Minako scratched more notes on her notepad. "What school did you go to before coming to Lillian?"
That question was the turning point. Ever since Minako had arrived, Ranma had felt like she was about to be attacked, and Minako's reinforcements had only bolstered that impression. However, it had become clear that she had been wrong; she wasn't about to engage in a fight, she had already engaged in one. Rather than being one of punches and kicks, though, it was one of words. In hindsight, considering what she had discovered of Lillian, that made perfect sense. It was also problematic, in that Ranma was not equipped to fight such a battle.
Still, failure to be prepared had never stopped Ranma in the past. If anything, ignorantly throwing herself into the fray was the most common way she learned things. Occasionally her entrance into a new discipline of martial arts was in the form of training, but much more frequently, it was through a trial by combat.
Now that she recognized the situation for what it was, Ranma could see that she was clearly losing the fight. She had already given enough ground. It was time to take the offensive.
"Why do you care?" Ranma tried to turn the questioning back on Minako.
"It's not me. It's the readers of the 'Lillian Kawaraban.' Everybody always likes to hear about the Yamayurikai, and a new transfer student is always exciting. Combined together? A girl shows up, and one day later, she becomes Rosa Chinensis en bouton petite soeur? There's obviously a story here. So where did you go to school before?" Minako's words flowed together, leaving no opening in her riposte.
Ranma was sent frantically thinking. She hadn't given any thought into what her fictitious life prior to coming to Lillian was supposed to have been. If she started to give specifics, there was a very real chance that she could be discovered.
"Here and there," Ranma said. It wasn't a lie, either. She had lost track of all the different schools she had attended throughout the years.
And without realizing how, Ranma once again found herself on the defensive. She was clearly over-matched here, which meant it was time to utilize the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts Secret Technique: Fast Break. A tactical withdrawal was definitely in order. She could return to the engagement once she was better prepared for it.
"Hmm... very suspicious," Minako said. She continued to quickly write in her notepad. "Then let's try this instead. What is Sachiko-san to you?"
That was an obvious question with an equally obvious answer. "She's my Onee-sama, of course."
Concurrently, Ranma surveyed the area for the best way to effect her withdrawal. The most obvious path was straight out the door. However, Minako's two, silent partners had not moved from their initial positions directly in the way of the room's door. It could have been a coincidence, but that was doubtful.
Minako nodded and asked, "How did you meet her?"
"She helped me with my uniform," Ranma said. She felt much less confident about that answer.
A majority of the students had stayed in their seats and were openly eavesdropping on the interrogation. It meant that while the room was full of people, but it was also relatively open. The only real obstacle was Minako and her two helpers, who were blocking the nearest two aisles to the classroom door.
It was a reasonable defensive formation. If Ranma were to try to push past one, she would necessarily be flanked by the other two, and if she tried to go the long way around them, they had more than enough time to reposition themselves to block her once again. However, their position had a major, fundamental flaw: They had left the path to the windows was completely clear. Even better, the windows had been left open to let in the refreshing Autumn air.
It was a really strange oversight to have made, but Ranma wasn't going to question her good luck. People made exploitable mistakes all the time, and learning to recognize and use them was both basic and natural.
"And that was enough to make you her petite soeur?" Minako asked.
"Listen, I'd love to talk more, but I gotta go," Ranma said. She stood up and started walking to the windows.
As expected, Minako and her two escorts repositioned themselves as she moved, blocking the way to the door. As that wasn't Ranma's destination, though, their motions did not affect her in the least.
Ranma reached the windows, turned her head back to Minako, waved a hand, and said, "Bye."
She then jumped out.
Behind her, she she heard the sound of some girls screaming as she plummet down from the second-story window, but it was easy to disregard them as they were muffled by both the angle of the windows and the sound of wind rushing past her ear. She could instead focus on positioning herself in relation to the rapidly approaching ground.
She kept her knees loose, and the moment her feet impacted the hard surface below her, they collapsed. Concurrently, she pushed forward to convert her falling energy into a forward roll and somersaulted twice on the ground. She then used the last of her momentum to push herself back up to her feet once again. That coincidentally placed her standing right next to a girl with porcelain-like complexion and long, wavy, brown hair.
Ranma quickly recognized the girl as being Shimako from the introduction in the Rose Mansion the day before.
"G..Gokigenyou," Shimako said. Her voice was obviously one of surprise, but she still mostly maintained her composure. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah. Everything's fine," Ranma said. She dusted off the back of her dress. It had been a flawless example of a landing.
"If you say so," Shimako said hesitantly. She tilted her head slightly. "I was actually on my way to eat my lunch. Would like to join me?" She was carrying what appeared to be a lunch box swaddled in a cloth wrapper.
"I guess so, but we'll need to go by the vending machines first," Ranma said, gesturing in the appropriate direction.
"That's quite alright. After you," Shimako said, gesturing for Ranma to go first.
Ranma quickly made her way to the vending machines, with Shimako walking beside her along the way. Once there, Ranma inserted her coins and once again acquired lunch.
"You must enjoy noodles very much," Shimako said.
"They're cheap and light, and you get a lot with them," Ranma said. They were an excellent food supply to carry while hiking through the wilderness. It was always good to have a backup plan, as there was no guarantee of success when foraging for food.
"I suppose," Shimako said.
Ranma picked up two of the cups she had bought and cradled them in an arm before grabbing the last one and holding it in her free hand. She then turned to Shimako and asked, "So where are we going to eat?"
Shimako tilted her head and asked, "Don't you need to cook them first?"
"No, not at all," Ranma said, shaking her head vigorously. Hot water to cook noodles was far from a consistent thing when camping, and now that she was trying to masquerade as a girl, it was effectively prohibited as long as she was in Lillian. "They're better dry anyway."
"I see," Shimako said. "In that case, let's go eat behind the primary gym. I know a nice spot."
Shimako led Ranma outside the building, walking in the measured pace which was the norm in Lillian. She proceeded down the main road and around the buildings to a grassy grove. Almost hidden amongst all the ginkgo trees there was a single cherry tree. Two wooden chairs had been built into the ground there, and Ranma and Shimako both took a seat.
The package Shimako was carrying turned out to be a lacquered lunch box. She unwrapped it and revealed the ornate meal contained within. It had a section for rice, another section for vegetables, several cookies in cute shapes, some potato balls, and some fried cutlets.
Shimako pulled out a pair of chopsticks and said, "Itadakimasu."
"Itadakimasu," Ranma likewise said. She then ripped open her first cup of noodles and started eating with her bare hands, eager to get something into her empty stomach.
"How did you fall out of your classroom earlier?" Shimako asked between bites.
Ranma swallowed a mouthful of noodles and paused briefly to answer. "I was trying to get away from some newspaper girls." Ranma then took another large bite of her already-half-finished first cup.
"So you jumped?" Shimako asked. She was eating her meal at a substantially more measured pace than Ranma's voracious devouring.
"Yeah. I mean, it's only the second floor," Ranma said, a bit puzzled why it was even a question. It was like being asked why she had stopped to pick up a 100-yen coin on the ground.
Ranma shoved the last bite of the first block of noodles into her mouth. As she chewed, she took the opportunity to open the second one.
Shimako paused in her own eating. She placed her chopsticks across her lunch box and held them there. "Only?"
"Yeah," Ranma said. She looked up at Shimako's face and saw two wide open eyes staring at her in surprise.
Worry flashed through Ranma. She thought back to what they had been talking about, and that worry grew. She had been told to blend in, but Shimako was very much acting like she had stood out. She asked, "Is that unusual?"
"Yes, it is," Shimako said slowly, nodding her head.
That completely shocked Ranma. It was only the second floor. She had been jumping from that height for as long as she could remember. It was like somebody suggesting that wearing a keikogi was unusual. However, as absurd as the idea was, Shimako had said that she thought it was unusual, and Ranma needed to do something to diffuse the situation.
She could hear Kondou advice about how to manage a disguise. The first and best layer of subterfuge was to not be noticed, but Ranma had already failed that. The next layer was to try to deflect and make whatever had caught the guard's attention seem inconsequential.
"It's really not that big a deal. My pop's been throwing me from higher than that for years," Ranma said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
"He has? That sounds horrible! Why?"
That was a silly question, too, but Ranma answered it as she moved on to her third block of noodles. She said, "For training."
"Training? What type of training?" Shimako asked. She had resumed eating her vegetables, albeit much more slowly than her initial pace.
Ranma almost said "martial arts," but managed to stop herself. Ordinary girls didn't do martial arts. She needed to think of a different explanation. She wasn't sure what would be a better one, though. In the end, she had jumped to avoid Minako and the others, so that could serve as a good explanation. She said, "Training to avoid annoying newspaper girls, teeheehee."
Shimako raised her eyes at Ranma. She asked, "For evading newspaper girls?"
"It worked out well," Ranma said. She finished the last bite of her third cup of noodles. The edge of her hunger had been addressed, but she couldn't help but stare at the lunch in Shimako's lap. It was still half full, and it looked incredibly delicately put together.
Shimako gave a small laugh which sounded forced. She said, "I can't disagree with that. Maybe I should learn the same thing." Shimako leaned in and whispered, "Minako-sama really can be quite difficult to deal with sometimes."
Ranma tore her gaze upward to make eye contact. That statement raised hope in Ranma. She had thought that Minako's interest in her had been the result of a mistake she had made. Maybe she hadn't actually botched her mission of blending in.
"You too?" Ranma asked. "I thought she was targeting me for some reason."
"She is targeting you," Shimako said, still in a low voice. The statement caused Ranma's heart to sink. "She targets everybody in the Yamayurikai. It's pretty normal." Ranma's heart bounced back up.
Shimako leaned back and spoke in a more ordinary voice. "It's always like this when a new member joins the Yamayurikai. Yoshino-san missed the school's opening ceremony, but Rei-sama still made her her petite soeur. You can imagine the reaction to that. She was made a member of the Yamayurikai before she had even attended her first class.
"There was even more interest when Onee-sama selected me. Onee-sama had gone through her entire second-year without selecting anybody as a petite soeur, and then skipped over that year entirely and picked me. For weeks, Minako-sama or one of the other members of the newspaper club followed me wherever I went."
Shimako's explanation was a relief to Ranma. Apparently her situation was ordinary, relatively speaking. That should be good enough.
"People always like to hear about what the Yamayurikai is doing, and Minako-sama is always bothering one or another of us to find out," Shimako said. She leaned in again and said in a quiet voice, "She never gets things right, either. For example, the 'Lillian Kawaraban' is trying to play up some big feud between Onee-sama and Rosa Chinensis."
"So there isn't one, then? A big fight between Rosa Chinensis and..." Ranma tried to remember all the names and titles and relationships, "... Rosa Fotida?"
Shimako swallowed her bite of cutlet and sat up straight again. "Of course not, although my Onee-sama is Rosa Gigantea. There isn't a fight between them either. The Three Roses get along quite well together. It's kind of expected, being in the Yamayurikai. The student body places all of us on a pedestal. They like to watch us, and they like to imitate us, but they rarely befriend us. Most girls just naturally keep their distance. It makes it difficult to make any new friendships with anybody outside the group."
That was both good news and bad news. It meant that if Ranma stayed in the Yamayurikai, she would have a natural advantage in regard to befriending Sachiko and Eriko. On the other hand, it also made it sound like it would be much harder to befriend the as-of-yet-undiscovered Kanina. Seeing how Ranma was focused on Sachiko at the moment, though, that handicap probably didn't really matter.
"Does that mean you're friends with Yoshino-san?" Ranma asked. Her attention was drawn once again back to Shimako's lunch box. It would be so easy to swipe something. She was sorely tempted, but thus far she hadn't seen anybody steal any food in Lillian. Even the cafeteria had been bereft of any bread warfare.
"Kind of," Shimako said. "We're friendly enough with each other, but we don't have very much in common. She isn't that interested in Catholicism or other religions, and I'm just not that interested in martial arts or the Tokugawa-era books she likes to read."
"Yoshino-san? Are we talking about the same girl? Skinny, twin braids?" Ranma asked, pantomiming Yoshino's hair style as she did so. She had a hard time reconciling the idea that somebody as fragile-looking as her could be interested in things like honor, guts, and fighting spirit. Ranma appreciated them, of course, but had been under the impression from Genma that regular girls didn't care about that kind of stuff at all. It was part of the reason she had hid her martial arts training a few minutes earlier.
Shimako covered her mouth and giggled. She said, "She doesn't look it at all, does she? See, that's a perfect example. Most people think Rei-sama is the one who's into samurai and sports, and Yoshino-san is the one who likes sewing and cooking. It's actually the reverse. However, nobody outside the Yamayurikai ever gets close enough to find out the truth."
A slight frown touched Shimako's mouth. She said, "It's actually lucky that you two are in the same class. You should try to make friends with her. I think she's a bit lonely."
Shimako followed Ranma's gaze down to her lap, where it still stared at the remaining fourth of her lunch. She looked up again at Ranma's face, tipped her lunch box, and asked, "Would you like to try some?"
Ranma didn't need to be offered twice. She quickly said, "I'd love to."
Shimako pulled out a second pair of chopsticks from the side of her lunch box and handed them to Ranma. She said, "Help yourself."
"Thanks," Ranma said as she grabbed a cutlet. It was just as succulent as she had imagined it would be. Despite the fact that it was cold, it still had a crispy exterior and a juicy interior. The lightly seasoned vegetables were equally delightful, as were the potato balls. "It's delicious!"
"If you'd like the rest, you can have it. I'm pretty close to done," Shimako said. She held out the box to Ranma.
"Really? You're the best," Ranma said. She snatched the box and shoveled everything into her mouth. Shimako's lunch quickly disappeared, and the only evidence left behind from its passing was the broad smile on Ranma's face. "That was great."
Shimako once again hid a giggle behind a raised hand. She said, "I'm glad you enjoyed it." She took the scraped-empty box back and stood up. "We had best return to classes. The next period will be starting in a few minutes."
They returned the way they had come, walking around the primary gym, onto a brick path, and eventually made their way into the school building. Inside, they split up. Shimako stepped into one of the restrooms while Ranma took the stairs up to the second floor.
The satisfied glow of food filled Ranma's stomach. While she definitely could have eaten more, Shimako's lunch had been decidedly delicious. The complexity of flavor had been a pleasant contrast to the monotone saltiness of her instant noodles.
That warm feeling was abruptly shoved aside and replaced by feelings of caution and apprehension when she turned the corner at the top of the stairs. Standing outside the door to her classroom was Minako and her two assistants. Ranma could recognize the signs. They were on the lookout.
She had been in the same situation with Genma enough times to know exactly what to do. The first and most important objective was to get away.
Ranma jolted backwards, landing on the second step of the stairs she had just climbed. This caused a girl below her to cry out in surprise, but Ranma didn't let that slow her down. When trying to evade a pursuer, seconds mattered. Any delay would dramatically increase the chances of being caught. She instead made her way down the stairs as quickly as she could move without appearing to be in a hurry. Once there, she found the closest corner, glanced behind her to confirm that she had no pursuers in line of sight, and then turned it.
With the immediate danger over, she could afford to slow down and think. She needed to get back to her classroom, but the obvious way was blocked. That left two options. She could go straight through, or she could find another way in. Technically there was also a third option as well, in that Ranma could just give up and leave Lillian, but that wasn't really viable. If there was one thing which defined her character, it was that she did not give up.
A frontal assault was a definite possibility. However, without a distraction of some kind, a direct approach to the classroom would certainly result in another confrontation with Minako. Lunch had been a welcome respite, but Ranma had not learned any new techniques during it, so engaging in another fight with Minako was a bad idea.
The second option was to find an alternate route. Upon consideration, that was definitely the more promising idea. She could just re-enter using the same window she had used to leave earlier. Even if jumping from such a low height was considered unusual, which was something Ranma was still somewhat skeptical about, climbing had to be commonplace. Climbing was much easier that falling, after all.
With that in mind, Ranma walked back outside and retraced her steps. The building was fairly large, but not to the point that it took her more than a few seconds to recognize the window she had jumped out from at the start of lunch.
It was just as easy to climb up as Ranma had known it would be. She braced her foot against the wall, jumped, grabbed some hand holds along the building's wooden facade, jumped again, and grabbed the open window.
A girl sitting beside the window looked over at the sound. She then screamed. This caused the other girls in the classroom to turn, look, and then join her in screaming.
The only conclusion Ranma could draw was that her reasoning had been in error. It left her feeling frustrated. How was she supposed to have known that going in and out of a window was such a big deal? It had even been wide open; she hadn't needed to pick a lock or anything. She mentally fumed against the unfairness of the tasks that Genma had given her. Then again, as he had said, it was a challenge. It was never meant to be easy.
She quickly pulled herself into the room, flipped forward, and adroitly landed on her feet. She was immediately surrounded.
"What happened?" "What was that?" "Are you crazy?" "What were you thinking?" "Where'd you come from?" and several other questions flooded at Ranma.
Ami was the girl closest to Ranma, though, and everybody else quieted down as she spoke. "Ranko-san... that was... that was... very impressive... can you... that is to say... is the..." In exasperation, she turned to her side and exclaimed, "Yoshino-san!"
"Ranko-san," Yoshino said, "I believe what our class representative is trying to say is that it would be preferable if you treated the window as a window and not as a door."
At the same time, Tanezaki walked into the classroom. She looked around bewilderedly, and in a raised voice she asked, "What's going on in here? Tsukiyama-san, are you causing trouble again?"
"No. It wasn't me. She... she..." Minako said from the periphery of the crowd, unable to get any closer due to the throng surrounding Ranma.
Tanezaki pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. She said, "Just leave. Classes are about to start."
Minako shut her still gaping mouth, turned, and left. Her two companions followed behind her.
Tanezaki looked over the class, clapped her hands twice, and said, "That's enough. Everybody, back to your seats."
The girls slowly dispersed, and Tanezaki begin her next lesson. It was only a temporary respite, though. Throughout the class, different girl kept darting glances at Ranma. It was like the morning had been, only more so. Ranma ignored them and focused on the teacher in the front. Encouraging her classmates' interest had to be a bad idea.
It didn't do much good, though. As much as Ranma had hoped that things would quiet down and be forgotten, the moment the class started to migrate for PE, she was once again surrounded as everybody clamored for answers. Ranma found herself repeating the same story of training she had told to Shimako earlier; consistency was in many ways more important than plausibility when telling a lie. Her explanation received a variety of reactions, ranging from shock to sympathy.
Except for the questioning from her classmates, which continued even into the changing room, PE class itself was the same as always. They had moved on to learning how to serve the ball, but that didn't represent any real change; Ranma could do that blindfolded as well, let alone the weak underhand serves the majority of the class had resorted to. Likewise, the classes after PE were more or less the same as the day before.
It was with some small disappointment, but no surprise, that once classes ended, Ranma saw Minako loitering outside the door. She had successfully evaded Minako earlier, but had not actually defeated her. It was not unexpected that Minako would pursue and re-engage. Ranma would definitely need to figure out some new techniques soon.
For the immediate future, though, she did have an easy way to avoid this confrontation. Unlike at lunch, this time she had an easy distraction she could use.
"Sorry. Got to go clean the music room. Talk to you later," Ranma said as she walked out the door. She was very careful to keep pace with her classmates as they migrated. If she lost either her momentum or the cover the other girls provided, she had no illusions as to what would happen.
It was a mixed blessing how quickly they finished their cleaning assignment. The room was straightened, wiped, dusted, vacuumed, and covered in a matter of minutes. While it was good to be done with the chores quickly, it meant that Ranma's excuse for avoiding Minako had also been eliminated equally quickly. She was certainly loitering outside the room, waiting for the moment Ranma left to pounce.
On the other hand, the music room did have a window. It was on the ground floor, too. Ranma wasn't sure what the limit of what an ordinary girl did, but this certainly had to fall in that realm. It was as easy and natural as leaving through the back door of a restaurant.
Ranma approached the window, opened it, climbed out, and pulled it shut behind her. She congratulated herself on her cleverness, managing to completely avoid Minako.
"Gokigenyou. Thank you for coming."
Ranma froze. She hadn't expected to be intercepted so easily. She tried to play it casually. The trick when caught by a shopkeeper was to not act suspicious. She turned her head to the side and saw the no-glasses companion of Minako from earlier.
"Hello," Ranma said.
"I'm Mami Yamaguichi, with the newspaper club. Do you have a few minutes for some questions?"
"Not really. I have to get to rehearsal, at the Rose Mansion," Ranma said as she turned to walk away. While she wasn't particularly against questions in the abstract, Minako's earlier attempts to pry into her history made her both suspicious and concerned.
"Perfect. We can talk along the way," Mami said. She held a small note pad similar to the one Minako had carried.
Ranma resigned herself to the upcoming interrogation. She would need to concentrate to not end up revealing anything inappropriate.
Mami fell in step, slightly in front of Ranma, and asked, "It sounds like you're going to be in the play?"
"Yes."
"What role are you going to play?"
"What are they doing?" Ranma asked, ignoring Mami. Along the side of the building, in plain view, was a small cluster of girls. She recognized the four of them as being various classmates in the First-year Chrysanthemum Group, and they were standing beneath the window of their classroom. One of them was scrambling against the wall.
Ranma felt vindicated. She had been right. Climbing up the walls wasn't that unusual.
That feeling melted away, replaced by feelings of appall. The girl pawing at the wall was doing it all wrong. It was like watching a child floundering in the face of a chalkboard covered with trigonometry equations; it was cute in a way, but it was also a source of dismay.
Something had to be done.
"What?" Mami asked. She looked behind her and saw that Ranma had changed direction. She turned and hastened to catch up.
"What do you think you're doing?" Ranma shouted at the girls as she approached.
"Ranko-san!" the girl nearest the wall exclaimed.
"Gokigenyou," the second girl said.
"We're sorry. We were just..." the third girl said, trailing off.
"We didn't mean any harm. Please don't tell anybody," the fourth girl said.
"Really?" Ranma asked, sending a pointed glare at the first girl. Her foot was still propped against the wall.
The girl backed away, shamefaced.
Ranma stepped forward and said, "You should to put your foot here." She demonstrated by bracing herself against a small outcropping on the side. "Now jump up this way." She leaped up and grabbed a wooden plank with both of her hands. "And pull yourself up." After a quick pull up, she had her foot set against a different protrusion in the wall. She was now above the heads of the girls below, and she had to look down to address them. "Then just repeat, and you're up." Ranma pushed off from the wall, landed in a crouch behind the group, and stood back up.
"Incredible..." the second girl whispered.
"T... thank you..." the third girl said.
The first girl stepped up to the wall again. She put her foot where Ranma had done so earlier and looked back. Ranma nodded in approval. The girl then gave a tiny jump, nowhere near high enough to reach the wooden plank, before falling back to the ground behind her with a small shout.
"It's a start. Keep working at it and you'll get it eventually," Ranma said. She turned back in the direction of the Rose Mansion.
"Shouldn't you be stopping them or something?" Mami asked.
Ranma shrugged. "It's just a bit of harmless fun. The worst thing they can do is break a leg, and that's not that big a deal if you're in a city. It'll heal up eventually," Ranma said. She was then struck by another thought. "Then again, I guess they could break their heads, too." She looked back at the girls behind her, who appeared substantially more pale than before, and loudly said, "Make sure you don't land on your head. That would be bad." She then said to Mami, "There. That should do it."
Ranma resumed her journey to the Rose Mansion. Behind her, she could hear one of the girls saying, "Uhh... maybe this isn't such a good idea..."
"Growing up with only your father must have been a very different experience," Mami said. She scratched away on her notebook with a pencil as they walked.
"I don't know," Ranma said. It was the only life she had ever known: on the road all the time, going from city to temple to forest to dojo, scrounging for whatever food they could find, and training her body to be an efficient fighting machine. She didn't really have anything to compare it against.
"You mentioned you're going to going to practice, right? Which role did you say you had?"
That seemed like a safe enough topic to discuss. It was public information, after all. Ranma said, "Cinderella."
"Cinderella? Wow. Do you have any past experience acting?"
That was a more personal question, which once again caused Ranma to worry. Over the years, she had lost count of the number of different people she had pretended to be in the various tricks she and Genma had pulled. In fact, that was what she was doing now, if on a larger scale than she had ever done before. However, she wasn't sure if that counted as acting. Regardless of if it did or not, though, it was clearly a bad idea to go into details about it. On the other hand, if she said that she didn't have any past experience, it could raise Mami's suspicion and encourage her to investigate further.
Ranma settled for saying an ambiguous, "A bit."
"I see. Is that how you ended up with the starring role of the play?"
"We'll leave that up to your imagination." Sachiko's voice came from behind the pair, causing Mami to startle. "Now if you'll excuse us, we're both needed in the Rose Mansion. Rehearsals will be starting soon, and we mustn't keep the others waiting." Sachiko pulled Ranma forward, and Ranma noticed how soft her hands felt as she did so.
Mami called out after them. "Sachiko-san, why did you select Ranko-san as your petite soeur?"
Sachiko looked back and flashed Mami a smile. She then turned forward again and sped up ever so slightly.
Ranma was impressed. With a sentence and a smile, Mami had been vanquished. Compared to Ranma's own attempts at fending off the girls of the newspaper club, it was a decisive difference. Sachiko's technique of dismissal had been as effective as a well-executed judo throw. Ranma did her best to analyze the demonstration of proficiency she had just witnessed, as it was certain Minako would confront her again, and this was very possibly the technique she would need need to triumph when that happened.
After Mami was out of earshot, Sachiko leaned down to Ranma and said, "It's best to not encourage the members of the newspaper club. They can be most troublesome."
"I'm learning that," Ranma said. She had never had any experiences with reporters in her travels, but she was rapidly discovering that she didn't much care for them. She would definitely need to practice her own techniques in preparation for the upcoming rematch.
Sachiko led Ranma to and then into the Rose Mansion. This time, rather than climbing the stairs up to the upper-level conference room, Sachiko instead brought Ranma to a room to the left of the entrance. It had been set up like a living room, with several comfortable padded chairs and couches around a coffee table. There was a pile of unmarked boxes along the back wall of the room, and various stage props could be seen poking out of the open top of one of them.
Inside the room, Youko and Sei were sitting on two plush chairs and talking to each other. Yoshino was present as well, standing near a window and staring out of it. All three of the girls turned at the entrance of Ranma and Sachiko.
"Gokigenyou."
"Gokigenyou. We're still waiting for Rosa Foetida, Rei, and Shimako to arrive, and then we can get started," Youko said.
Sei and Youko turned back to each other and resumed their conversation about some upcoming test. Yoshino likewise returned to casually looking out the window at the bright autumn day.
Ranma found a place for herself in the corner of the room, leaning back against a table in such a way that she could see everybody else, especially Yoshino.
No matter how much Ranma looked, she just couldn't see it. Yoshino appeared very much like a stereotypical cloistered princess. The frail-looking girl was as far a cry from a gutsy fighter as could be imagined. She really looked like she would be perfectly at home sitting in a chair with crochet needle in her hand and a fluffy animal in her lap. It was almost impossible to picture her swinging a sword or getting excited over an intense duel, no matter what Shimako had said during lunch.
The first time Yoshino caught Ranma's glance, she met her gaze and turned away. The second time, Yoshino turned and asked, "Is something wrong?"
"No," Ranma said. "It's just Shimako-san was saying you're big into martial arts."
"Oh, that?" Yoshino asked. She cross the room to stand next to Ranma. "Yes, I am a big fan. Mainly kendo and sumo. Are you also interested them?"
"A bit," Ranma said. It was the standard understatement she gave anytime anybody asked her about martial arts. Being underestimated by a potential opponent was always a prudent precaution to take.
"Really?" Yoshino's voice raised fractionally, and she spoke ever so slightly faster. "Did you see the Honshu regional kendo tournament last week in Minato ward?"
"No, I missed it," Ranma said. A week ago, she had been swimming across the Sea of Japan.
"That's a shame. The final match was amazing," Yoshino said enthusiastically. "Okido-sensei was terrific. He won even before the match began. You could tell Takanabe-sensei was intimidated by how easily Okido-sensei dispatched Fukuchi-sensei in the semi-finals. He tried to use his superior reach to fend him off, but Okido-sensei used a low approach to get under his guard. It was all over after the first hit. Takanabe-sensei tried to rally, but he was overwhelmed by Okido-sensei's fighting spirit. It was a good example of how the one who moves first is guaranteed victory."
Yoshino's confident assertion rankled Ranma. In her experience, it was actually the reverse. Typically, the person to act was the one who made the mistake and thus lost. There was a reason her fighting style tended to allow and even encourage the opponent to make the first move. A proper counterattack was always devastating. She said, "No, the person on the defense has the advantage."
"No way. The person who's on the offense can choose the terms of engagement and focus their energy into one big strike. When a person is on the defense, they're at the mercy of the attacker," Yoshino said.
"Unless they make a mistake, and they always make a mistake. No matter what the attacker does, they'll leave a hole that can be exploited. The defender gets more information and can tailor the perfect counter once the attacker has commited."
Yoshino decisively disagreed, and the two of them ended up engaged in a long discussion of strategies and the importance of initiative in a fight. It quickly became clear that Yoshino didn't have much direct experience with fighting, it was also clear that she did know what she was talking about. By the time she started referencing examples from recent sumo matches, Ranma was forced to acknowledge that Yoshino had some valid points, even if her overall interpretation was wrong.
"Okay, okay. Let's get started everybody." Youko's announcement caught Ranma by surprise. All the rest of the Yamayurikai had arrived, and everybody was watching her and Yoshino's discussion. A look at a clock showed that 15 minutes had passed since Ranma had entered the Rose Mansion, and the realization that that much time had passed further surprised her.
"Now, do you know the story of Cinderella?" Youko asked Ranma.
Ranma shook her head in response. She had done a lot of reading throughout her travels, but she hadn't encountered that particular story before.
"Okay. Then let me give you a quick summary," Youko said.
Ranma paid close attention. If she was going to play the part, she was going to do it right. This was a challenge, even if it was one which was ancillary to her primary objective of learning the Umisenken, and her pride would allow nothing less than success.
"Cinderella was a young girl with a step-family full of wicked and selfish people. They constantly made fun of her and always forced her to do chores all day. Nevertheless, she was a good girl, and she always did everything that was asked of her and more.
"One day, the prince of the kingdom they lived in decided to hold a big ball. His goal was to find a wife, and so he invited all the single women of the kingdom to it. That included Cinderella's family. However, Cinderella's step-mother and step-sisters forbade Cinderella herself from going.
"On the night of the ball, Cinderella's family all dressed up and left her behind to go to the castle. Cinderella was naturally very saddened by this development, and she cried out in despair.
"A passing wizard happened to hear her and took pity on her. He used his magic to transform her clothes into that of a noblewoman. He also conjured some horses, servants, and everything else that Cinderella would need to go to the ball. They would only last until midnight, though, and then all of his magic would disappear.
"Cinderella went to the ball, and she charmed everybody there, including the prince. They met, danced, and by the end of the evening, the prince told her that he had fallen in love with her and asked her to stay. Cinderella wanted to, but before she could answer, midnight struck.
"She fled just before the wizard's magic ended and revealed who she really was. In the end, the only evidence left behind of her visit to the ball was a single slipper she had lost in her haste to escape. The prince found it and vowed to use it to find the lady with whom he had fallen in love.
"The prince then went around the country, having girls try on that slipper. Eventually he came across Cinderella, and when she tried on that lost slipper, it was a perfect fit. The prince had found the lady from the ball. With that, the prince took Cinderella away from her wicked family, and they went back to the castle, where they lived happily ever after."
The room was quiet in the aftermath of Youko's explanation. This was broken when Ranma said, "Cinderella's kind of dumb, isn't she?"
Several of the girls gave a sharp gasp and stared at Ranma.
"What exactly do you mean?" Sachiko asked deliberately.
"Well, why'd she run away? If she wanted to stay, then why didn't she just do it?" Ranma asked. It seemed obvious to her.
"It's complicated," Rei said. "She didn't know how the prince felt about her."
"Yes, she did. The prince outright told her," Ranma said.
"She was pretending to be somebody else. She might have been worried that if the prince knew the truth, then he would change his mind," Shimako said.
"And Cinderella was a commoner, too. She was probably worried that she wasn't worthy of the prince," Eriko said.
"Or that society wouldn't accept them being together," Sei said.
"Yeah, whatever," Ranma said, waving her hand in dismissal of the girls' suggestions. "It still seems easy to me. She should have just gone for it. What's the worst that could have happened?"
"Exactly. Those who seize the initiative are guaranteed victory," Yoshino said with a nod.
"Exactly," Ranma said with an answering nod. She then hastily added, "But that's different."
The smug grin still remained on Yoshino's face.
"Be that as may, that is how the story goes," Youko said. The others in the room naturally quieted down. "Now that you know it, let's go through the script. Ranko-chan, you are, of course, Cinderella. Rosa Foetida is the stepmother. Rosa Gigantea is the king. I'm the queen. Rei is the wizard. Sachiko is Sister B. Shimako is Sister A. Yoshino-chan is Sister C."
Ranma counted in her head and looked around the room. All the people in the room had been accounted for, but one of the characters in the story was missing. She asked, "Then who's going to be the prince?"
"For the rehearsals, Rei has been filling in, but for the actual play, Kashiwagi Suguru-san will be the prince," Youko said. At Ranma's inquisitive look, she continued, "He's the student council president of Hanadera's Academy for Boys. They're our neighbors, and we frequently work together on things. We helped their student council last month, and now they're returning the favor."
"Okay," Ranma said. The name meant nothing to her, but Sachiko's reaction had been interesting. When Youko had said his name, Sachiko had paled and flinched ever so slightly.
Whatever it meant, though, it didn't stop Sachiko from walking over to Ranma and handing her a booklet titled, "Cinderella (Lillian Private Girls' School version)."
Ranma opened it to the first page and was immediately overwhelmed. Over half of the lines, each highlighted in pink, were Cinderella's. Like tiny islands dotting that sea of pink, there were a couple of Sister B's lines highlighted in blue as well. She flipped to the second page and saw about half of the ones there were Cinderella's, too. The next page was better, with only a fourth being hers. Then a third. Then another third. It would be a major task to memorize them all.
She lowered the script and looked up. She asked, "I'm supposed to learn all that?"
"Yes. Cinderella is the leading role," Youko said. She tilted her head. "Would you like to back out? It's not too late."
Sachiko's breath stuck as she looked at Ranma.
"Heh. You wish," Ranma said. She had never backed away from a challenge before, and she wasn't about to start now.
"Very well. Then let's start our rehearsal. Ranko-chan, whenever you're ready."
"Right," Ranma said. She flipped back to the first page, took a deep breath, and started from the top. "It's good that the rain's stopped..."
It was a testament to how engrossed Ranma had been with talking to Yoshino earlier that she hadn't noticed when the cookies and pastries had been brought into the room. Regardless, some had been placed on one of the side tables, and everybody took advantage of them as they went through the play.
Unfortunately, Ranma herself could only lightly partake, given how she had a major speaking role throughout the play. Her only real break was in the palace scene, and she took advantage of that brief pause to inhale a couple of snacks as well as to gulp down some of the cold water Shimako had brought with her when she had poured tea for the others.
Eventually they reached the end of the play. Ranma's throat felt dry and scratchy, which was ironic in that the paper in her hands had acquired some damp wrinkles after being held for so long. Talking had never been a major component of Ranma's training trip, and she had said more in the last hour than had said in some weeks in the past.
"Good job!" several people said.
Ranma wasn't sure why they said so. Her performance had been a stark contrast with the others. Cinderella used a particularly flowery and feminine vernacular with which Ranma wasn't very familiar, let alone comfortable. She had stuttered, mispronounced, and outright needed to re-read several lines. In comparison, everybody else besides Yoshino had recited their lines from memory, and Yoshino's reading had been decidedly more fluid and natural than Ranma's had been.
"Okay. That's a good start," Youko said, her gaze making it clear she was primarily addressing Ranma. "Be sure to practice before tomorrow. The festival is a week from Sunday, and we're expecting big things from you." Youko then turned to address everybody in the room. "Now I fear the members of the festival's executive committee need to take care of some business. Rosa Gigantea, Rosa Foetida, let's meet upstairs. Rei, can you go check on how the stage is progressing? Sachiko, can you check on the costumes? Shimako, Yoshino-chan, why don't you two work with Ranko-chan and practice the opening scene?"
The different girls all nodded.
"Good job everybody. Thanks for your hard work. Gokigenyou."
Sachiko, Rei, and the third-year students all split away to go to their respective destinations. Ranma took advantage of the transitional break to finish off the few remaining snacks which had managed to survive to this point.
Ranma, Yoshino, and Shimako went through the first third of the play once again. In addition to saying their own lines, Yoshino and Shimako split Sister B's part between them, and Yoshino took on the added responsibility of the step-mother's part. Ranma did modestly better on this second attempt, but had no illusions that her performance had been anything close to passable.
Once they completed their training, they cleaned up around the room. Ranma deftly avoided the responsibility of cleaning the dishes by volunteering to deal with the trash, and they had everything done in a matter of minutes.
The late afternoon sun was once again descending the horizon when Ranma and Shimako left the Rose Mansion. Yoshino stayed behind, supposedly to wait for Rei to return.
When they reached the front entrance of Lillian, Shimako said, "Good work. Gokigenyou."
"Later," Ranma said in return, and then she left to begin her trip back to camp.
The read through had been rough, but that was nothing new. Being the new student and frantically trying to catch up with everybody else was a typical experience for her. It happened in every new school she encountered, martial arts or otherwise. She would not only catch up to but would indeed surpass everybody else after a few days of intensive training. It was always the case.
Her plan was to read through the script twice tonight, focusing on the argument with the step-sisters and the meeting with the prince. The rapid and passionate conflict of words with the step-sisters was tricky, and the conversation with the prince had several ornate phrases and language she would need to internalize. However, after a few repetitions, she was confident she would have them figured out. She could memorize 70-step katas with barely any effort, and this couldn't be any harder than that.
When Ranma reached the temple, she surreptitiously looked around. Once she was sure the area was clear of spectators, she darted into the campsite. Inside was Genma. He was wearing a pair of black trousers and a buttoned shirt.
"Hurry up and put on something nice. We're eating out tonight," Genma said.
That was something of a pleasant surprise. Ranma did enjoy the opportunity to eat out, which was something they couldn't do too often when they were camped in a single area for a prolonged period of time. It was easy to get a reputation, after all.
The key trick for eating out was to be inconspicuous. She needed to be dressed in such a way as to not draw attention to herself, either by being too shabbily dressed or by being too nicely dressed. That had been made much more difficult since getting her curse, but it was certainly still possible. She took off her school uniform and replaced it with a red shirt and a pair of black trousers.
Ranma and Genma jogged two kilometers away from the temple grounds. It helped work up an appetite, not that either of them needed it. More importantly, it disguised where they had set up their campsite.
Once Genma had deemed that they had traveled far enough, they stopped at a nondescript Chinese restaurant and entered it.
They ordered well and ate with a restrained gusto. There was no fighting over food this time; it wouldn't do at all to make a scene. Near the end of the meal, at Genma's unspoken signal, Ranma stood up and left the table. She palmed a glass of tea in her hand as she casually went out the front door. About a block away, she sped up to a jog, and about three blocks later, she dodged into an alley and waited. She took the opportunity to pour the tea onto her hand, triggering her transformation.
A minute later, Genma showed up and dodged into the same alley Ranma had.
"That's my boy. Good dinner," Genma said with a hearty laugh. He was half-way through slapping Ranma's back, when he balled his hand into a fist and turned it into a punch. Ranma easily dodged back. It always paid to be on guard whenever Genma was in striking distance.
"Come on, pops. Let's spar later. I got some stuff I gotta study tonight," Ranma said.
"Study? What have I done to be cursed with such a lazy child? You'll study. You'll study my fists!" Genma shouted, launching into another flurry of attacks. Ranma had no choice but to defend himself, although he did take great relish in giving as well as he received.
The fight continued for hours, and it was well into late night when they returned to camp. It was a relief when Ranma was able to finally collapse onto his cold bedroll once again. As he laid there, though, he remember that he was supposed to have read through the script. He struggled to sit up, but then looked around. It was far too dark to read anything, anyway.
He reasoned to himself that he could just catch up in the morning, flopped back down, and quickly fell asleep.
Last Updated: November 26, 2021