It was once again the start of a new school week and once more it concerned Ranma. He has seen firsthand how fast a rumor can spread thru Furinkan High. Although every student has known about their arranged marriage for some time, none of them knew about the couple's recent engagement. The boy had no doubt that once someone discovered Akane's new ring, the entire student body would learn of it by the end of the day. She, on the other hand, wasn't as worried, telling him everything would work out for the better in the end. Most of the students accept the fact that the two teenagers are together, with the only one opposed to it being Mr. Blue Thunder himself, Tatewaki Kuno.
They arrived at the school earlier than usual, hoping to avoid their daily confrontation with the president of the kendo club. Too bad he was standing in front of the school's entrance, wooden sword drawn, apparently waiting for the couple to show up.
"Here we go again," moaned Ranma, watching the older boy approach them.
Stopping to where his bokken was an inch from his rival's chest, Kuno says, "How dare you."
"What did I do now?" asked the younger of the two boys, pushing the sword away.
Returning the blade to it's previous location, the upperclassman replied, "You know what you did."
"Pretend I don't," responded Ranma, giving his rival a stren look in the face.
"How dare you force both the lovely Akane and my pig-tailed goddess to treat me that way," answered Kuno, anger present in his voice.
"You mean when they told you how they felt towards you? I had nothing to do with that," said the younger boy.
"You lie!" snapped the older teen, "I know you ordered them to say those things. I could see it in their eyes, that it pained them to utter those insults. Even though they love me, the control you have over them is too powerful for them to ignore. But I plan on freeing both lovely ladies from that control, here and now."
Ranma says to Akane, "Maybe you should head in, I'll catch up later."
"No," interrupted Kuno, thrusting his bokken to the side, preventing the girl from leaving, "She will stay, so she can bear witness to your defeat."
"Have it your way then," replied the boy, getting into a battle stance.
The older teenager raised his wooden blade over his head, ready to bring it down on his rival. Before he could, Akane had stepped between the two boys. She put both arms out to her sides, protecting Ranma the best she could.
"Enough," she says, "There will be no fighting today. I've already decided on who I want to be with and that's Ranma. You're just going to have to accept it, Kuno."
He was about to answer her, when something shiny on her finger caught his eye.
"What is that?" asked the older boy, using his sword to point at Akane's hand.
She looked at her hand, then immediately hid it behind her back and answered, "Nothing."
"That was the undeniable sparkle of a gemstone, wasn't it?" he wondered, talking louder than needed.
By now all the other students paid very little attention to the two boys fights. They've gotten so use to it, that everyone ignores them, but when Kuno mentioned the word "gemstone" some of the students remaining outside became spectators to their battle. Ranma watched as a few of the students ran inside the school.
"No, that was your imagination," replied Akane, smiling nervously.
"No, I'm certain that was a shimmering jewel I saw on your hand. Question is: who gave it to you and why?" argued the older boy, looking over at his rival.
With her hands behind her back, the girl pulled the ring off her finger and showed her hand to Kuno, saying, "See? There's no gem on my finger."
"Show me your other hand," demanded the older teen.
Ranma took the ring from her and he quickly shoves it in his pocket.
"Nothing here either. Believe me now?" said the girl, showing him her other hand.
"No, I believe only what I seen. And I know I saw a shining jewel on your lovely hand," answered the older boy.
Before too long, classrooms on the first floor opened their windows so people could watch what was happening outside.
'Oh, great, it's spreading already,' thought the younger boy, looking at the growing crowd.
Ranma spoke up, "Suppose I did give her a ring, what about it?"
"I will not allow such a foul human being like yourself from ever giving my maiden Akane a gift such as that," replied Kuno, disgust present in his voice.
"I am not your maiden. I never was your maiden, or will I ever be your maiden," snapped Akane, stepping up to the older teen and pushing him backwards.
"But it is our destiny to be together," responded the upperclassman as if talking to someone who couldn't understand Japanese.
"My destiny is to be with Ranma and I choose to follow that path," she corrects him angrily.
"I will prove you're my destiny, by defeating the cur you believe to be your's," stated Kuno, raising his bokken again.
"I said, 'no fights'," she repeats, putting her arms out to her sides again.
"Forget it, Akane. He isn't going to listen to you, he believes what he wants to is right and nothing will change it," said Ranma, adding, "Maybe we'd better off if I pounded his head a couple of times."
"No, Ranma, all this nonsense ends today. There will be no more fighting between the two of you, got it?" answered the girl.
"I cannot accept those terms," responded the older boy.
"How about these?" started the younger teen, "If I win you can no longer go after either Akane or the pig-tailed girl."
"And when I win?" wondered the upperclassman.
"If you win, then you get your pick," said Ranma.
Akane glanced back at him and shot him an angry look.
"And if that girl rejects you, will you believe it came from her heart?" finished the younger boy.
"Yes, because your control over both of them would be gone," answered Kuno, "But I'm confident neither one would reject me."
"Prove it," replied Ranma. 'There is only one way to make him understand. I don't want to do this, but I have no choice,' he thought.
"Gladly," said the upperclassman, rushing forward.
Akane was forced to step out of the way of the charging older teen, allowing him to pass. Kuno brought his blade down from over his head to about knee height in front of himself, missing his target who had sidestepped the attack. Turning the wooden sword sideways, the older boy sliced up at an angle from the ground to his right shoulder, missing again because Ranma had jumped up to avoid being hit.
Upon the boy landing, Kuno quickly reverses the blade, cutting right to left one-hundred-eighty degrees. The younger teen ducked under the sword as it went by. Raising his sword over his left shoulder, the older boy sliced down at a forty-five degree angle down to his right foot. Again Ranma stepped away from the attack.
Reversing the blade again, Kuno tried cutting from the ground up to the sky. The younger boy flipped back to avoid the sword. Kuno charged and thrusts his bokken forward. Once more, Ranma sidestepped the attack.
"Thousand Blade Strike!" shouted the older teen, producing a flurry of quick jabs with his sword.
The upperclassman's assault may have been fast, but the younger boy matched that speed, successfully dodging each thrust as they came. Completing the last jab, Kuno sliced his sword to his side, trying to catch his opponent off guard, but the younger teen ducked down, allowing the blade to pass by over his head.
Ranma backed away a few steps, anticipating the upperclassman's next move. Holding his bokken out in front, the older boy measured his oncoming attack. Using the sword to point to the ground, Kuno drew a circle in the air around his body. Putting the blade over his left shoulder, the older teen ran towards his opponent.
The kendo student slashed down to the ground, an attack the younger boy sidestepped, then suddenly Kuno reversed the attack and the sword shot up to the air. The only way the younger teenager could avoid the blade was to jump over his opponent. Turning to face his rival, the older boy began breathing harder.
Getting back into a fighting stance, Ranma stood there waiting. He didn't have to wait long, because Kuno charged forward once more.
The upperclassman shouted, "Shooting Star Strike!" and the series of slashes produced a five-point star attack.
The younger teenager dodged each pass the sword made. The last part of that attack was the older boy thrusting his blade thru the center of the star. Ranma easily sidestepped it at the last second, spreading his arms out to avoid any contact, leaving his chest wide open. But Kuno saw his opponent's lapse in defense and quickly turned the entire sword sideways and planted the base of the hilt into the younger boy's gut. Ranma gave an airless cough, grabbed his stomach with both arms and collapsed to the ground.
Akane gasped watching the younger teenager fall down. By this time every student in attendance at the school had been viewing the battle. Seeing the boy laid out on the ground began a flurry of murmurs from the crowd.
"I win, Saotome," said the upperclassman, setting his sword in his belt.
Turning around, he smiles and says, "Now my sweet Akane, come give me a hug and congratulate me."
The girl began running to him. As she got closer, Kuno opened his arms wide, ready to accept the girl's embrace.
Instead, she ran right past him and got on her knees next to Ranma.
"Are you okay?" she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.
The boy looked up at her and gave her a sly, little wink.
"Wha?" she said, with a confused look on her face.
She continued to stare at him, wondering what was going on.
"Akane," started the older boy, "I freed you from his control, you don't have to keep up the charade."
She looked over at him and it began to dawn on her. She remembers the conversation the two boys had:
"And if that girl rejects you, will you believe it came from her heart?" asked Ranma.
"Yes, because your control over both of them would be gone," answered Kuno, "But I'm confident neither one will reject me."
'I understand it now,' thought the girl, turning her eyes towards the younger boy.
"Come Akane, let us leave him here and allow me to walk you inside," requested the upperclassman, holding his arm out for her to take.
Not taking her gaze off of Ranma; who continued to lay motionless on the ground; she responds, "No."
"But you're no longer under his command, you don't have to stay by his side," argued Kuno, with a hint of worry in his voice.
"I know I don't," said Akane, running her hand over the boy's hair lovingly while smiling, "But I want to."
The older teen gave a small gasp and backed away, shock apparent on his face. 'She's rejecting me; Tatewaki Kuno; so she can be with him? Even after I defeated Saotome and broke the power he had over her, she still remains at his side. Perhaps she had been under his control for so long, she developed feelings for him and so now it seems she's really in love with him,' he thought.
"Akane," he began, sounding like he was begging.
"What?" she snapped, looking at him with a scowl on her face, "Don't you get it? No matter how many times you ask, I'm not going to go with you. So just go away and leave us alone," then she turned her head away with a, "Hmph."
"I see," said Kuno, his voice trailing off.
The older teen turned and walked away with his head hung low, looking as though he was the one who had lost the fight.
From his fetal position, Ranma quietly asked, "Is he gone yet?"
The girl watched the upperclassman reach the front entrance of the school. The older boy looked back and let out a discouraged sigh.
'At least I still have my pig-tailed goddess,' he thought.
Then he entered the building and pushed his way thru the throng of students awaiting the two younger teenagers.
When the kendo student was out of sight, she said, "He's gone."
"Thank goodness, I thought he'd never leave," replied the boy, sitting up seemingly unhurt.
She asked again, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, it didn't hurt as much as I made look," he answered.
"No, I mean are you okay with losing a fight to Kuno, even if it was on purpose?" wondered Akane, rephrasing the question.
"I'll live with it," said Ranma, waving it off, "It won't bother me, as long as Kuno finally understands he can't have you."
"Yeah," she agreed, adding, "All that is left is for his 'pig-tailed goddess' to reject him and then he'll leave us alone."
Both teens stood up and started for the entrance. The boy reaches into his pocket and pulls out the girl's ring.
"Here you go," he says, giving it to her.
She thanked him and placed it back on her finger.
Nearly every student standing around the front doors began asking them questions. Not wanting to answer those questions, the two teenagers made their way thru the crowd to their awaiting classroom. Of course, it wasn't any better inside the classroom than out in the halls.
All the girls in the class were hovering around Akane's desk, admiring the ring and congratulating her on the engagement.
"That ring really is beautiful, Akane," said Sayuri, one of the girl's closest friends.
"Yeah, I wish my boyfriend was as committed as your's," added Yuka, another close friend of Akane's.
The girl couldn't help but smile at the remarks.
Meanwhile all the guys were telling Ranma how lucky he was to be marrying one of the prettiest girls in the school.
"Who would've thought you'd actually give her a ring?" said Daisuke, smiling.
Hiroshi included, "Yeah, it took him this long to admit he loves her."
The boy gave a small chuckle to the statement.
After seeing the ring, Ukyo walked over and gave the boy a slap on the back, saying, "Nice choice."
"Thanks," he said back.
"What made you decide on that ring?" she asked.
"I thought the ruby was a nice way to represent Akane's inner fire," replied Ranma.
"It suits her," agreed his friend.
She walked back to the other group when their English teacher; Miss Hinako Ninomiya; walked in. She saw her class was split into two large groups.
She makes her way over to the group of girls, her waist-length brown hair flapping behind her and she asks, "What's going on?"
"Akane's wearing a ring," replied one of the girls.
And true to her child-like form, she gleefully says, "Let me see, let me see," and pushes her way into the group.
Looking at the ring on the girl's finger, she said, "That's pretty. Who gave it to you?"
"Ranma did," answered Akane, with a big grin on her face.
"Ranma Saotome?" wondered Miss Hinako, glancing over at the boy as he laughed with his friends.
Then she remarked, "Who'd of thought?" before exiting the group.
She returned to the front of the class and announced, "All right, everyone take your seat."
When no one listens, she pulls a five yen coin out of her purse and tries again with a harder tone of voice, "I'll only say it once more, everyone take your seat."
The group of girls begin filing back to their seats, but the group of boys remained together.
Holding the coin between her index and middle fingers, Miss Hinako shouts, "Happo Five-Yen Attack!" and drains some ki energy from all the boys, who all go limp and fall to the floor. She uses this energy to transform into her slim, busty adult form.
With a voice an octave lower and still holding the coin between her long, slender fingers, she commands, "Now take your seats."
Slowly the boys crawl their way to their seats.
After a few minutes the boys' ki levels return to normal as the teacher laid out the day's assignment, "Everyone get out your books and turn to page..."