Tatewaki had been much easier to deal with than Ranma had feared. Once the Blue Thunder had been knocked out Ranma had send him and his retainer home. He might now have know about the location of the Akane and her abductor, but who would believe him? Ranma was sure that the castle was reasonably safe for the time being.
Unfortunately he had not been able to deal that easily with his sister. Kodachi was still a prisoner in the castle and nothing Ranma could think of would make her attempt to escape.
That was why Ranma was currently sneaking down the corridors of the dungeon trying very hard not be heard by an crazy gymnasts who might be listening.
Ranma was in her Mistress Severa costume which did not lend itself to sneaking, but she was certain that Kodachi had not heard her.
Without knocking she opened and entered Akane's cell.
"Kodachi, I told you to go back to your cell," Akane called out.
When Ranma did not answer Akane turned to the door.
"Mistress," she recognized in surprise, "I am sorry, I thought you were.... I mean I did not expect you, the only people who ever come here are Ashes and Kodachi and... Uh.... Have you come to fetch me for my training?"
"Yes, I am here to take you to a special training session." Ranma answered in amusement.
As she let the girl out of the room she explained.
"The reason I am getting you myself is that today we are not going to the gym but to another room where we will do some special training. In fact we are going to my favorite room in the castle." Ranma told her happily.
"Your favorite room, Mistress?" Akane asked on cue.
"Yes my favorite place in the entire castle: The Torture Chamber." Ranma elaborated.
"But Mistress, I have been good," Akane whined almost faltering in her step.
"Don't think of it as a punishment, little one — think of it as a reward," Ranma advised, "You have made lots of progress with your strength and endurance and we will keep that up, but now it is time to go a step further in your training and add a few special exercises. And the torture chamber has just the kind of equipment that will make those exercises enjoyable."
Akane looked unconvinced, but before she could voice her opinions on the matter a door swung open far behind them.
Ranma suppressed a groan as Kodachi came up running behind them.
"Wait! wait!" she called out dashing Ranma's plans of pretending to have not seen her and loosing her in the stairs.
Akane was only to happy to wait for her fellow prisoner, she looked like she would not have minded to delay the trip indefinitely.
"You are lucky I heard you walking by," Kodachi announced enthusiastically, "I almost missed you and I wouldn't have found the way by myself. I can't help you if am not there."
"Right, what would I do without my assistant," Ranma agreed with her while rolling eyes safely hidden behind her mirrored sunglasses.
Akane again looked rather uncertain as she realized that Kodachi's presence during the session would not necessarily work out to her advantage. Ranma did not allow her to dwell on this and motioned for her to resume walking with a gentle slap on the back (she might have aimed a bit low.)
Kodachi stood for a moment, perhaps expecting a similar encouraging gesture from the way she was posing her behind, but when no spank came she hurried to catch up by herself.
"So we are going to the torture chamber," Kodachi began to inquire while they were in the stairwell," that sounds interesting. What sort of exercises will Akane be doing there?"
"Oh all kinds of things. Strength and endurance are not everything. We will soon add more training for speed, balance and so on, but in the torture chamber we can do some special exercises to fill some holes in Akane's martial arts," Ranma explained.
"A true martial artist is supposed to be always aware of his or her surroundings. With the right training we can get Akane to develop an almost supernatural sense for danger. Martial-artists also are supposed to be aware of the state of their own body to a high degree. We can train down here some to help Akane gain some of that awareness but we can also train those elsewhere," Ranma lectured as they reached one of the deeper levels and began to walk down a dimly lit corridor.
"Another thing that we can train down here are flexibility and concentration," Ranma continued, "We have some wonderful equipment that will really help you stretch and bend, little one. And while we don't have an actual waterfall to meditate under we have some things that are almost as good. And of course there is that exercise for your breasts that I wanted to get you started on, Akane. If you are going to fight naked or at without a sports-supporter, you are going to hurt yourself from all that jumping around."
Ranma reached out to fondled Akane's chest good naturedly.
"We can't have that now, can we?" Ranma told her, "but don't worry little one, Mistress Severa will teach you how to properly take care of these lovelies."
"Don't you plan to do some toughening up training while we are here, mistress?" Kodachi broke in probably jealous of the attention Akane was receiving." I have heard that this one boy I know used to smash himself against boulders for training and now he can shrug of all but the strongest blows without even noticing."
Akane shrunk back eyeing the various whips and switches on Severa's belt with trepidation.
"That is advanced training and Akane is not really ready for something like that yet," Ranma said to calm down the poor girl, "Such things can be dangerous when done wrong and lead to scarring or loss of sensitivity. The trick is not to become numb to the sensations but learn to handle them. If you work really hard little one we can begin with that soon and I promise you that when you are finished there won't be a mark on your beautiful body and you will be able to feel every touch just as well as you do now if not better."
Somehow Akane did not appear to look forward to all this. Maybe she was now rethinking her stance on the whole I am a martial-artist-too issue. Before Ranma could bring up some more examples to drive the point home they reached their destination.
Ranma opened a heavy wooden door and stepped back to allow the girls to enter. Kodachi and Akane stood in awe as they got their first look at Severa's favorite room — though Ranma suspected that Kodachi's awe was of slightly different nature than Akane's.
Picking up the conversation again Ranma concluded her lecture by telling them: "But of course most of that is in the future. Today we will begin with something simple."
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(Posted Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:37)
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