This was so stupid. They were supposed to learn how to be slave masters and instead they were doing games like they were in some sort of teamwork seminar. Still it was kind of nice to be able to just let yourself go knowing that nothing would happen to you.
Crash!
"Ouch!" Daisuke exclaimed when he hit the ground.
Trying to see through the stars swirling around his head Daisuke realized That none of his friends were even looking at him.
"Weren't you guys supposed to catch me?" he demanded of figures standing around him.
"Sorry, Dai!" Hiroshi told him without looking down, "we kind of got distracted there for a bit. Can you climb back up for another try?"
That was not how it was supposed to go!
"Oh, Daisuke did you already go?" Ranma asked coming from the other side. "I must have missed your dive. It's this stupid slave-girl top that is giving me troubles. It won't stay on properly."
That was not fair of Ranma adjusting the vest of her slave-dress when it was Daisuke's turn to fall. He had had his eyes closed! Hopefully Ranma would not adjust her top again until it was someone's else turn to take a fall and Daisuke had a clear view. He had almost missed the first time Ranma had shown off a glimpse of her tits when a falling Kuoji had blocked his view for a moment.
"I see that this isn't working," Ranma told his slightly concussed students some time later. "Trust is an important aspect in a master-slave relationship and we are just not making any progress. I thought for sure we had a winner earlier with the blind run exercise. All you had to do was to run towards the wall with your eyes closed until you were told to stop."
"We shouldn't have made a competition out of it. Seeing who could get his partner to stop the closest to the wall the fastest." Daisuke remorsed.
"I think we shouldn't have tried to direct more than one person at a time." Michiru suggested. "Or at least should have formed groups of people who would run with the same speed."
"Well what is done, is done now," Ranma dismissed those recriminations. "The next exercise will do the trick for sure. Everyone partner up and one of you gets to lead their blindfolded partner around the room by the shoulders.
Nobody was especially enthusiastic about this exercise at this point but they still complied.
"Come on people. We will do this. Once we have done this we can look at a collection of educational pin-ups on the topic that Nabiki has prepared for this lesson," Ranma spurred them on.
"Yeah, that is the spirit. and to avoid past mistakes lets make sure this time that you form groups of two and only have one blindfold per team," Ranma told them. "And while you wander around the room in pairs I will put up the posters."
Michiru had quickly paired up with Keiichi who seemed the least likely to use the situation to grope her. Not that there had been much risk of that after Ranma's first lesson had been hammered home, but Keiichi also seemed the most mature and reliable of the lot. He probably would make a good master however he had come to be enrolled in the first place.
Michiru had tried to ask him about whether it had really been his girlfriend who had directed him here, but Keiichi had only blushed and mumbled something about being having been divinely inspired to continue his studies whatever that meant.
Things were going well so far as Michiru slowly steered her partner through the increasingly obstacle filled doujou. Ranma's idea to put up the promised posters while their were still doing the exercise had had some unintended side-effects. Several fellow students had already ended up being steered by distracted partners into walls pillars and the picture stands Ranma had put up. By now fallen students had started to form another class of obstacles all by themselves. But Michiru concentrated on her task. She wouldn't let her partner down.
In front of her Ranma stumbled over a blindfolded student lying on the floor and dropped his supplies in the path of another pair. It was a pity that the boy steering that duo paid more attention to Ranma trying to keep his balance then on the path ahead. But Michiru had no chance to waste much thought on them as a windmilling Ranma grabbed onto her arm to keep himself from falling down.
Being suddenly held back on one side caused Michiru to steer Keiichi in a curve directly into the path of a wooden support column. Since the rules forbade her from yelling out a warning or trying to slow her partner down there was little she could do to stop him with Ranma clinging onto her arm for balance.
But Michiru had her priorities. Keiichi trusted her and sacrifices had to be made. Ruthlessly she shook Ranma loose and was prepared to step over and on the fallen martial-artist to steer Keiichi back on the proper path accepting that she would hit the column herself in the process and later having to apologize to an angry somewhat violent martial artist for trampling him.
But Ranma miraculously recovered his balance and even in passing gave her a thumb up when she managed to only make glancing contact with her obstacle.
"I see that some of you have managed to figure it out by themselves by now," Ranma told his battered students after that exercise. "The secret is that you have to get your priorities straight. Your slave trusts you and you have to always keep that in mind. Imagine how hurt you felt when you hit the wall or the floor, when you realized that you had been let down. This is how your slave feels when you let her down. Remember that feeling and try to avoid inflicting it in the future."
"But that is not fair!" Kuoji protested. "You sabotaged us!"
"I merely made it a bit harder for you to live up to the trust your partner put in you. You won't always have ideal circumstances in real life either." Ranma defended his approach.
"But why should I get to suffer for how easily Daisuke gets distracted," Hiroshi demanded. "That is so unfair! He should be the one to suffer for letting me down and not me for being stupid enough to trust him."
"Hey, you let me down as often as I did you," Daisuke defended himself.
Ranma put up his hands to motion for silence to stop a loud argument from breaking out.
"That is what the next part is for," Ranma told them, "We will be passing out mallets for everyone and turn off the light for a few moments until everyone feels ready for the next step. I hope all of you will be able to act responsibly under those circumstances and don't take advantage of the situation. The key here is to stay where you are and once again trust your fellow students."
The boys looked at each other with smiles ranging from uncertainly hopeful, to maliciously fearful and true pokerfaces of innocent benevolence.
When everyone had their mallet Ranma killed the light and moving silently from where he had been standing to casually tap a few of his students on the head with his own mallet. Then he stepped out of the way of the ensuing chaos.
It sounded like his students really still had a lot to learn before they were worthy of a slave's trust.
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(Posted Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:29)
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