Setsuna's New Life/Ranma's New Groove: Mental Maneuvers [Episode 135875]

by Kender

Despite the show of pride that Ranma tended to put out all the time, she had always been aware of the fact that there simply weren't things that she could do. People would have been surprised to realise that fact, but if they sat down to consider it, they would have seen that fact. After all, there was no artifice when Ranma claimed not to understand why a girl did something. Nor did she have much use for an education, since she'd never really stayed around school long enough to have much of one in the first place. And she had little to no idea of how to handle a relationship that didn't have a large amount of insults involved in it, since that was what she grew up with.

So, she'd handled things the only ways that she could. If she couldn't handle it, she'd either try to brush it off, or fight it off. Either way was simple, as she just had to react, and then it'd happen. That was simple enough and she could do it on instinct.

But as her eyes slowly widened and her jaw began to drop, she realised that if life was the Art, then certain principles would be applicable, and there was one simple rule that she'd been breaking all the time. One simply did not react out of hand, as it was always better to have some sort of plan of attack, no matter how quickly it was thought up.

She sat there on the ground and tried to articulate what she'd come to be aware of, but couldn't manage it. With her actions before hand, she'd wound up with fiancees who wanted to bash her, rivals who couldn't be reasoned with, and pressures coming from multiple sides. However, that was only because she was reacting on instinct rather than treating it as a martial art. In the Art, a person did not try and go fight without reason. If she'd been fighting Ryoga, then she'd use her speed advantage on him, as his physical power was on the order of a giant boar on steroids. When trouble came, she could move on the fly, instead of being locked into a single plan. And she'd already managed to use her girl side to get the things that she wanted.

The name of the game was 'adaptation', and she'd never realised that she could fit it to her life as she was considering now. Simply pushing back had only served to make Akane want to do the same, but if she shifted position, she could avoid getting pounded into the ground. Nabiki might be smart, but the pigtailed girl had always managed to adapt her strategies to deal with more immediate dangers. Heck, she'd even grown to know how to predict her father's movements, and as such, she could handle him better as she got older.

Just about everything could be handled better if she put her fight honed mind to it. Instead of powering or dodging everything, there just might be ways to metaphorically throw, block, or even disarm someone else if a situation became a problem. Of course, that wouldn't fix everything but it could make some things easier. Doing it by the methods of the Art would mean using one's strengths and lessening one's weaknesses, perhaps even using them as an advantage. Such a plan could be like if she used the fact that she didn't understand girls to explain to girls why she couldn't connect with what they were trying to do, and thus get information as to what was going on. Then she could advance past the chaos and get onto a more managable footing.

And there was only one thing that she could think of at that moment.

"Damn. Why didn't I think of this earlier?" she muttered to herself, while:

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(Posted Fri, 25 Mar 2005 22:54)


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