"Of Loss, Life, & Love"
A Ranma ½ Fanfic by Luna12
Chapter 15: "Challenge"


Shampoo held her arms across her chest in a posture of defiant hostility, doing her best to hide her nervousness and disappointment. The medical paper on the examination table crinkled audibly while she fidgeted. It was an annoying sound, and only served to irritate her further. She did not want to have to go through with this plan. She wanted Airen to be hers. She was more than happy to bear his children, but the victory would be hollow without being able to parade her marvelous trophy husband to her Amazon sisters.

Cologne eyed her fidgeting heir with apprehension. She had not brought her all the way to the fertility clinic for the young woman to back-out at the last possible moment. Cologne gave her a comforting pat on the knee. "It'll be over soon, child."

Shampoo gave her grandmother a hopeful, pleading look. "Shampoo get pregnant, then double cross sneaky-Tendo girl? Ranma so honorable, he marry Shampoo if she carry his child, no?"

Cologne sighed. "How many times must I tell you, girl? It's over. I had suspected we had failed long before this, but your little escapade at Jusendo proved it. This is the best solution: to return home bearing Ranma's child and without him." Cologne gave her heir a comforting pat on the arm and a mischievous wink. "You never did have a lack of suitors. Even with a babe in arms, you'll be quite the catch."

Shampoo pouted but remained silent. It seemed that everyone else was satisfied by this deal except her. Cologne, who so longed to return to the Tribe, would be able to crow triumph at the birth of the next generation.

The only other loser would be Mousse. Shampoo shook her head, surprised that she would even think of him. Yet his downtrodden face nagged at her mind.

Cologne ignored the disrespectful glances Shampoo gave her. With the extra Amazon fertility herb treatments she had administered to Shampoo, she was guaranteed to conceive, and likely twins at that. It was worth putting up with some extra surliness.

A middle aged woman in a white lab coat knocked and stepped into the small exam room. She looked down at her clipboard with a frown.

"I think there's been a mistake," she said. "According to my charts, the donor you wish to use has a severe case of oligospermia."

Cologne raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"He's infertile."

Shampoo's eyes went wide and Cologne grimaced.

The doctor continued. "I'm sorry, but the sperm count is so low as to make the procedure impractical."

Cologne hummed low to herself as suspicious thoughts swirled. This was too convenient a diagnosis. Her intuition screamed foul play, especially as the Tendo girl put an infertility clause in the blood pledge. Then again, perhaps Ranma's Jusenkyo curse was to blame? Either way, the old crone was not ready to give up.

"Impractical, but not impossible?" Cologne questioned the physician, with strong emphasis on the last word.

"Well, technically you could attempt it, but -"

"We'll do it."


Akane read the grocery list a second time, her eyebrows raised in puzzlement. "Are you sure this is right, Kasumi?" she asked. Although Akane trusted her eldest sister implicitly in the kitchen, she had never seen such an odd shopping list before. Did they really need a dozen watermelons, ten cantaloupes, and a 50 lb bag of rice? She was pretty strong for her size and gender, but this was ridiculous to hand carry across town.

"Kasumi, I don't think I can do this in one trip. Do we have a wheelbarrow I don't know about?"

Kasumi smiled sweetly at her. "Oh, just bring Ranma along. I'm sure he'll be happy to help you."

Akane almost thought she detected a devious twinkle in her elder sister's eye, but surely she was imagining it. Nabiki was the type to manipulate, not sweet Kasumi.

As Ranma and Akane left, Nabiki peeped around the corner. Kasumi gave her middle sister a big smile and a thumbs up. "Oh my, but this is fun!"


It was a beautiful day in late August. The oppressive heat and humidity had passed, and Ranma enjoyed the excuse to be out on a nice walk.

Akane was in short sleeves and one of her frilly skirts, with a simple red headband adorning her short hair. She was walking next to Ranma and looking at the grocery list as if it were a puzzle waiting to be deciphered. Her lips pursed in concentration.

*Wow...it's cute when she does that…* Ranma caught himself staring and quickly averted his eyes before Akane could notice.

She shook her head, then glanced at Ranma, barely managing to miss how he had been staring at her before. She did take notice that he chose to walk beside her instead of on the fence railing. He had been doing that since the failed wedding. It was a subtle change in behavior, and hardly what anyone else would consider a romantic gesture, but Akane secretly appreciated it just the same. "Thanks for coming along, Ranma. I have no idea why Kasumi wanted all this stuff."

Ranma shrugged. "Heh, no problem. Pop and I can easily devour a dozen melons before they go bad."

Akane laughed. "That's true."

As they rounded the corner, louder music than usual was pulsing from the arcade across the market. Colorful, large bundles of balloons bounced on each side of the entrance, and a new banner overhead announced "Dance and Fight Tournament X! Sign up today!"

Ranma's eyes lit up. He was game for anything that said "fight" in it. Though he knew better than to get his hopes up. Fighting video games were a far cry from the excitement of their real Art.

Akane noticed his reaction and smiled. "Do you want to check it out? My treat." Nabiki had, quite surprisingly, given Akane a small boost to her allowance before she had left, claiming it was earned from the teaching revenue.

Ranma grinned. "Sure."

The arcade owner, a middle aged gentleman in a retro Atari t-shirt, greeted them with an over abundance of enthusiasm.

"Ah, customers! Come! Come!" He was shaking their hands with gusto. "Free tokens to try out my new D.A.F.T. machines!" He quickly shoved tokens into their palms and pushed them inside.

Desensitized to eccentric characters, Ranma and Akane blithely followed the banners to the new game.

A small crowd was cheering on two players on one of the new machines. The crowd was just large enough to obscure what the boy and girl were doing. Visible above the heads of the crowd was the lighted marquee graphic, proclaiming "Dance-Fight-Evolution!"

Across the arcade aisle from the crowd was an identical system, unoccupied. Akane recognized the layout from a similar game she had played years ago.

The arcade machine was surrounded by large floor speakers (blasting techno dance music) and glowing neon lamps. Above that was the monitor, currently displaying arrows scrolling upwards from the bottom of the screen that passed over a set of stationary arrows near the top. Next to the monitor were two additional smaller speakers and flashing lights on either side. In front of the arcade cabinet was a raised metal platform divided int grid. Each square had a single lighted arrow pointed in orthogonal directions.

Ranma's eyebrows rose. It didn't look at all like the fighting games his classmates Hiroshi and Daisuke had shown him.

Akane explained the basic mechanics. "You hit the arrows on the pad in time with the music and arrows on the screen."

Ranma looked incredulous. "Stompin' to lights? Kinda boring. I thought it was supposed to be a fighting game?"

Akane shrugged. "Maybe there's a new twist to it, but it looks just like a game I used to play with Yuka and Sayuri back in middle school."

Akane placed her game tokens into the machine and tried it out. Ranma watched as Akane quickly moved her feet to hit all the flashing squares below her. A lifebar on the monitor increased with each properly executed move.

Ranma studied her, enjoying the view of Akane bouncing with athletic enthusiasm. There were times she was forced to jump in place, and the motion would slightly raise her skirt to reveal more of her shapely form. Ranma swallowed hard, silently berating himself for behaving like the pervert she always accused him of. There was a reason the boys at school became a drooling mess whenever Akane practiced gymnastics. He'd caught Nabiki selling close ups of Akane's legs in her leotard before, and the mercenary Tendo proudly proclaimed they were one of her hottest sellers. Ranma smirked at the memory of him confiscating them from his fellow classmates. Of course, Akane had later caught him red-handed and he had sputtered some wise-cracks about her having tree-trunk thighs to deny any desire on his part.

Ranma sighed in frustration. Childishly insulting Akane's body, mentally or verbally, was no longer enough to convince himself. The desire was there - he was a healthy male, after all - but lately it was combined with a deeper longing. He could control himself over all the other hot girls that threw themselves at him, but with Akane...damn. She was always something more.

Ranma shook his head and tapped lightly into some of the same mental control he used to enter the Soul of Ice. His desires properly under control, he focused again on the game mechanics. Akane was certainly performing well at it, but it was a far cry from the excitement of a good fight.

Akane finished and the game brought up a screen congratulating her on scoring in the top five.

Ranma smirked. "Heh. The game's perfect for you, tomboy. It's all about violent jumping and hitting."

Akane stuck her tongue out at him. "It takes coordination and some skill, too, you know."

"Then how come you managed to score so highly?" The teasing remark came out without thought.

Akane growled, but before she could attempt to smack his arm in retaliation, a deep, silky voice interrupted.

"Hmmm...Smooth timing, great force, and all in an attractive package."

Akane turned dubiously to face the speaker.

He was a young man in his early twenties. His dark brown hair had bleached tips styled into tousled spikes. His eyes were obscured by sunglasses, which he removed to give Akane an obvious once over. His light brown eyes lingered over Akane's exposed, shapely legs.

Akane scowled at the undressing gaze he was giving her body. Just great, another pervert to contend with, she thought.

"I can show you some other ways to improve your game. The name's Fujita Genji. And you are...?"

He was leaning suggestively towards her, his voice nearly purring.

Before Akane could get out a dismissive retort, Ranma stepped between them. "She's not interested. So why don't you go back to wasting your time with those kiddie games. Over there."

"Kiddie games!?" Genji's smooth demeanor melted. "If you had an ounce of fighting talent, I'd give you a real taste of these 'kiddie games'." He turned to show off the back of his jacket. Against a large crimson dragon were embroidered the words "10th annual Dance-and-Fight-Tournament Champions!"

Ranma had never heard of "Dance-and-Fight-Tournament" before, but he figured it couldn't be stranger than martial arts tea ceremony.

"Hitting on newbies again, Genji?" The same young woman they had seen playing in front of the crowd appeared. She was wearing the identical sports jacket, only cut more attractively for her hourglass shape.

The woman wrinkled her nose at Akane. "She looks like a forceful clod, though."

Ranma wisely bit his tongue to keep from commenting. This chick was picking the wrong fight. He could practically feel the waves of indignant anger roll off Akane.

Before a fight, verbal or otherwise, could break out, Genji spoke up. "This is Matsuda Mai and we are the Dancing Dragons team! Undefeated champions three years running."

Ranma gave a dismissive gesture. "And I should give a crap because…?"

Genji smirked. "Because we'd wipe the floor with you."

Ranma took the bait. "Is that a challenge?"

Fujita smirked. "Ha. I doubt you're man enough to accept."

Before Ranma could shout his acceptance, Mai laughed. "More like a lesson beating, noobs."

As usual, Ranma's mouth failed to think before speaking. He turned to Akane, confused. "Did she just call us boobs?"

Akane face palmed in embarrassment. "It has nothing to do with breasts, pervert! She's just calling us amateurs. "

Mai snickered. "Your boyfriend's a real idiot, isn't he?"

"Hey!" Ranma protested.

Akane scowled. It was one thing for her to call Ranma that, but she felt her blood boil at the smug woman insulting him.

Mai either didn't know or care about pushing Akane's buttons even further. "Though it would take an idiot to think they could defeat us."

"That's it!" Akane exploded. "Challenge accepted!"

"You're on!" Ranma agreed in chorus.

As if the owner had been waiting for just such a declaration, he burst in between the youths, waving application forms.

"Excellent! More challengers for the tournament. Just sign here, and here, and here and then there's the entry fee, and we're all set!"

Ranma and Akane blinked and tried to take in all the fine print. It seemed fairly mundane; the usual waivers for any bodily harm, and assurances not to damage the equipment or bystanders.

The Dancing Dragon duo laughed at them. "What we did before was a mere warm up." Both threw off their jackets. The commotion they had made redrew the crowd from before to witness.

The subwoofer pounded out the beat, drowning out the small dings and electronic whirs from the surrounding arcade games with the massive bass. The two players scrunched in to overlap on the same dance pad, rather than the usual spread out layout. They competed to hit the correct mark, while simultaneously blocking and jabbing each other. It turned the casual dance game into an electronic sparring match. "Of course, normally we have two other opponents, but you get the main idea. Excessive force earns you a foul. So brute strength won't do you any good."

"Guess that gives you a handicap, Akane." Ranma joked.

Akane pinched him in the arm before hissing back. "I'm more than brute strength, jerk!"

Ranma absently rubbed the spot on his arm while he mock-yawned at his opponents. "Was that supposed to intimidate us? We're real martial artists. It won't take us long to memorize the steps and pulverize you."

Genji smirked. "It's not all about the fight, either. You have to dance, too." He swavely extended his right hand to Mai. The young woman accepted it gracefully before turning to taunt her future challengers. "There may not be any judges here, but let's give you a preview of what we're capable of."

The song level they selected was at a much slower tempo than the combative level they had demonstrated. This time, not only were the "Dancing Dragons" triggering the arrows with perfect timing and accuracy, but the moves they made actually looked like dancing. They weren't stomping or marching in a blur to hit the correct panels. Mai was in Genji's arms throughout as they did their own version of a passionate Brazilian tango. A casual observer would even forget that they were still playing an arcade game, as it looked more like an intimate courtship on display. The couple never even glanced at the screen as they moved in perfect rhythm.

"Do you get it now, amateur?" Genji sneered at Ranma. "The first and final round depends on dancing with your partner, not just hitting the steps."

Ranma and Akane simultaneously felt their confidence drain. This part wasn't martial arts. Even Martial Arts Ice Skating, with its pressure to have an attractive female partner and sleek costume, was no where near as sensual.

Mai had a superior smirk on her face as she looked them up and down. "Of course, the couple's dance round isn't just scored by the machine. Professional human judges evaluate the performers for passion, chemistry, grace, and..." Mai paused to lick her lips. "...sexuality."

Ranma swallowed hard. He was expected to dance like that in public...with Akane? He looked at Akane from the corner of his eye, trying to gauge her reaction before speaking. He was sure any comment about being eager and willing to participate with her like that would result in a bashed head and cries of "pervert".

Akane felt her face flush in embarrassment, her thoughts running in a similar vein. She was supposed to sensually dance in tandem with Ranma, in front of a crowd, and be judged! What the hell did they get themselves into this time?

Akane turned to look at Ranma and noticed his hands were twitching nervously. His eyes met hers and the look he gave her made it clear he was waiting to follow her lead. She took one of Ranma's hands into her own and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Akane's face firmed in determination. "We're the heirs to the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. Anything. So prepare to be defeated."


Author's note:

I made a mistake with the Japanese academic calendar. Although I got the start and end dates of the semesters, the second term starts in the fall. I had it being the first term. It would take a major rewrite to change everything, so for now I'm keeping it in. Creative license? (In other words, I messed up). Gomenasai!

Special Thanks to my beta reader, Angela Jewell. Check out her latest Ranma 1/2 story, "Broken Palace".

Anybody still out there? I have a review challenge and incentive for you all! If I get 100 additional "real" reviews (signed and commenting about characters, plot, or writing style, etc.) before the end of the week, I will post the next chapter early on that same day! The number of reviews as of this posting (08-14-2014) is 205.