School


Every school had its routine, and Furinkan High School was no exception. True, its routine might have been a little...weirder... than some, as evidenced by the gaggle of different sports club members gathering on the front field, but it was still a routine. But into every routine, some divergence must come...

"Don't you think you were maybe a little hard on Akane last night, Ranma?" Nabiki asked as she and her new fiancé - and she still had to fight to keep from grinning smugly as that word echoed in her mind for the umpteenth time that morning - walked through the front gates.

"Hey, she was the one goin' on about being your dad's heir! I never said she was a bad martial artist, just that I expected more of her!" Ranma protested passionately.

"Well, after seeing the two of you duke it out, I can't exactly say that you're wrong about being better than her," Nabiki conceded flippantly. "But stick around, and see if you want to reassess her."

Ranma rolled his eyes, but he was smiling faintly as he did so, glancing fondly at the girl who had her arm gently looped around his own.

'This is... different... to the way me 'n' pops argue. I dunno why, but it's almost...fun?'

He didn't have any real time to reflect on that bizarre thought, however, as Akane suddenly came jogging up the street. She was wearing an expression of roughly equal parts resignation, grim determination, and simmering fury, and she was limbering her joints as she came. She spared maybe the briefest glance for Ranma, her expression somehow growing even darker, before she refocused on what lay ahead of her.

Ranma watched in shock, blinking dumbfoundedly as the motley array of boys suddenly charged the girl in a single disorganized mob. Baseball, football, and tennis players rubbed shoulders with boys dressed for judo, karate, boxing, and kendo. All of them wore matching expressions of lustful determination, and all were shouting at Akane as they thundered towards her.

"Akane Tendo, I love you!"

"Oh please, Akane, just surrender and go out with me!"

"I don't want to hurt you! Won't you just give in?"

"You can't resist me forever! Let me date you!"

Akane didn't waste her breath on them, instead savagely counter-charging into their ranks. They attacked her with professions of love on their lips, swinging at her with varying degrees of skill. Those who were from the true sports clubs were clearly untrained, simply attempting to leverage their size and athletically honed strength and speed with raw enthusiasm. The boys from the combat clubs were better... to varying degrees of "better".

But none of them could hold a candle to the heir to the Tendo Dojo. Certainly not when something had lit a fire in her belly beyond her usual morning rages. She wove around some attacks, blocked others with her arm or bookbag, and countered with savage punches that hurled boys who had to be nearly half again her size around like they were ragdolls, intermingled with agonizing elbow strikes, brutal palm thrusts and ferocious kicks. Bodies bounced off of the ground with a clatter of disturbed stones, slammed into trees, or went crashing into bushes alongside a cavalcade of sports paraphernalia, much of it as broken as its former wielders.

When Akane had arrived, the horde of boys numbered the better part of two dozen, maybe even three dozen strong. In a minute or two at most, the only person left standing was Akane. She was breathing hard from the exertion, but other than that and a glistening smear of sweat on her brow, which she wiped away with her forearm, she was untouched.

"Honestly! Haven't any of you learned yet? We've been doing this every morning, I'm sick of it!" She complained, scowling at her fallen adversaries.

"What'cha think of Akane's little morning workout routine, Ranma? She sure cleaned their clocks," Nabiki noted, a sisterly smugness mixed in with her playfully teasing tone.

"I keep saying; I never said she wasn't good, I said she wasn't as good as I expected," Ranma protested with a feigned huff.

"Shouldn't you two be getting to class?!" Akane barked, glaring at her sister and her hateful new brother-in-law-to-be.

"What, and skip the opportunity for Ranma to see what you can when you really get serious for real?" Nabiki chirped, smiling that mischievous smile of hers that had always made Akane's blood boil, because she knew it meant that Nabiki knew full well that she was pushing Akane's buttons and she thought it was funny.

Akane inhaled, about to give them both a piece of her mind, when something came sailing through the air towards her, and she reflexively snatched it with one hand. She stared at the single red rose entwined in her fingers and her whole face fell. Exasperation and resignation warred on her face as she turned to face the rose's source as he came striding solemnly across the yard, bokken loose at his side and bare feet scuffing through the dirt.

"Who's this guy?" Ranma whispered to Nabiki, watching all the while as Akane faced off against the newcomer. He said something to the Tendo heiress, but Ranma tuned him out - it sounded flamboyant, vaguely flirtatious, and more than a little pompous, so he was more interested in Nabiki's reply. The sudden crack of thunder from overhead and the way Akane and the newcomer were clearly squaring off didn't help, either.

"That's Tatewaki Kuno. Local rich boy, and his daddy runs this school - but he's off on some extended trip to America. Apparently, he left instructions behind, so Tatewaki kind of runs this place in his absence? He's also the guy who set up that little 'welcoming committee' you just saw Akane taking down," Nabiki replied, and unlike Ranma, she was paying no attention to her sister or Akane at all.

"Wait, seriously?" Ranma asked, turning to her with confusion on his face.

Nodding absently, she replied, "Mhm; at the start of the semester, he got up and made this ridiculous speech where he declared he wouldn't permit anybody to go out with Akane unless they could beat her in combat first. And, well, every school day since, all these losers show up to fight Akane on her way in, and she mops the floor with them."

By this point, Kuno had launched his attack, bringing his bokken around in a mighty sweep that Akane narrowly ducked beneath, the sight drawing both Ranma and Akane's attention back to them.

Nabiki smiled, not worried in the slightest about her sister, and turned back to Ranma. "And then, as you can see, Kuno shows up, boasts a bit, and gets beat up too. And he's not some run of the mill weakling, either - he's our school's kendo champion, our strongest fighter! Well, next to Akane."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that - he's letting her win," Ranma casually observed.

"What?!" Nabiki blurted, snapping her head back to look at the fight.

"Look closer at his body language - he's deliberately aiming to nearly miss her, an' he's holding himself back, not going as fast as he could, or trying to hit as hard as he can," Ranma told her, pointing with his finger.

Nabiki followed her new fiancé's hand, but even as she watched Akane counterattacking and swiftly getting the upper hand, she couldn't understand what she was supposed to be looking at. But her dismay at that was swiftly edged out by dismay from an entirely different source as a flash of lightning drew her attention to the school's clocktower.

"Oh, no, it's getting late! We better hurry - yeek!"

She squeaked in shock as Ranma suddenly swept up into his arms, a mischievous grin on his face.

"Well then, slowpoke, let's move!"

"No-no-no wait stop put me dooooown!" Nabiki's protests elongated curiously as Ranma seemingly went from 'standing' to 'sprinting as fast as a car' seemingly without any unnecessary interventions, like the need to build speed. The wind whistled through her ears and made her eyes water, forcing her to screw them closed - and then, an instant later, she found herself being lowered to the ground.

Cautiously opening her eyes, she realized she and Ranma were both in the interior hallway, the school's analogue to her own home's genkan, where assorted latecomer students were pausing from their geta bako, the school-assigned shoe-lockers, to stare at the newcomers. Nabiki looked coolly at them, mentally smirking as to the last they hastily looked away from her, before she turned her attention back to Ranma. For a moment, he looked hesitant, as if expecting her to scold him, but she smiled mischievously at him.

"Well, somebody likes to move fast! Tell me, are you that quick behind closed doors, too?" She asked him.

"N-Nabiki!" Ranma recoiled in shock, blushing beet red.

Nabiki giggled, daintily kicking off her shoes so she could swap them for the mandatory uwagutsu, the "indoor slippers" used to lengthen the lives of the tatami mats on the floor. She stepped forward to hug Ranma's arm, the picture of the blushing girlfriend, beaming with delight as she reached up and gently 'booped' him on the nose with her fingertip.

"You are so cute! I'll see you after class, sweetie," she told him, the faintest hint of command under the lightness of her tone.

"Oh, ah, yeah, yes," Ranma mumbled, still blushing like an idiot, but even as he rubbed the back of his head, he was smiling. Then the sight of Nabiki swapping her shoes seemed to kick his own brain into gear and he hastened to follow in her metaphorical footsteps.

Neither of them noticed a shadow detaching itself from the wall.

"Hmm… Project Sentai might just work out…" Rose mused, switching her eyepatch to her other eye…