In a shadowed room, two dark figures conversed quietly. One of the figures, the man, spoke up. “I trust you saw Mr Saotome’s performance, earlier?”
His female companion nodded as she answered. “Yes, I was watching. He’s quite impressive, isn’t he?”
“Impressive? He outclassed every other player on the field, and he doesn’t even know how to play the game yet!”
“Yes. Pity.”
The man leaned back slightly, staring at the woman in confusion. “What’s a pity?”
The woman laced her fingers in front of her face as she considered her answer. “…the most recent donation to the school came with a number of…conditions. The most relevant of these is that the Faculty and Administration cannot, under any circumstances, push Mr Saotome into joining an extracurricular activity. We aren’t even allowed to ask.”
“Why in God’s name would you agree to something like that!?”
“It was an extraordinarily generous donation, and I had no way of knowing of Mr Saotome’s athletic prowess.”
“Well, you’ll just have to give the donation back, won’t you?”
The woman scowled, making her subordinate cringe. “I’m afraid that simply isn’t possible. Most of the money has been spent updating the schools facilities, and even if I had the money I couldn’t give it back, not without massive legal repercussions.”
“…isn’t there anything we can do? For Christ’s sake, the kid makes Tommy Sherman look like Upchuck!”
“My hands are tied, and so are yours. I repeat; no teacher or administrator can ask him to join an extracurricular activity.”
“…are we finished here?”
“Yes, I believe so.” As the man stood and turned to leave, the woman called out to him. “And Gibbs?”
“Yes?”
“Find out why the janitor is taking so long to find a light bulb, will you?”
Seated on the lawn under the tree he’d claimed, Ranma picked idly at his bento while he waited for everybody else to join him. A familiar voice made him look up, and he smiled at the sight of Daria and Jane walking towards him, lunch trays in hand and Jane finishing up a joke.
“…and then I said to him; ‘this is a chisel!’ and I whipped out a banana!”
Daria glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “And what does that have to do with the orangutan?”
“…orangutan?”
“The one with the cowboy hat. At the beginning of your joke.”
Jane frowned in thought for a second before whapping herself in the head, groaning in aggravation. “Damn it, I can’t believe I forgot the orangutan! No wonder you weren’t laughing, I missed the best bit!” Sighing, she looked over to Ranma, then down at his lunch. “Hey, where’d you get the Chinese food?”
“It’s Japanese, and I made it.”
“Firstly; you can cook? Secondly, is there really any difference between Chinese food and Japanese food?”
Ranma frowned up at the chatty artist. “I live alone, so of course I cook for myself. And yes, there is a difference between Chinese and Japanese food.”
“Like what?”
“…do you want me to bite you again?”
Jane smirked and winked saucily, cocking her hip to the side and patting her butt with a free hand. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Ranma snorted, immersing himself in the Soul of Ice to stop the rising blush. “Please, I’m still trying to get the taste out of my mouth from last time. Don’t wash those stockings very often, do you?”
Daria arched an eyebrow and adjusted her glasses. “Why is your breath condensing? It’s nowhere near cold enough for it to happen naturally.”
“My breath?” The martial artist looked down and exhaled, a pale fog billowing from his mouth.
“Hey, is that the ‘Soul of Ice’ you were talking about yesterday? The thing you use to dull emotions?” The artist’s grin was shark-like as she leaned forward. “Which emotions were you dulling, Ranma?”
The martial artist’s eyes narrowed, and a pale blue aura shimmered into view. “The ones telling me not to hurt you.”
Mack almost had to jog to keep up with his girlfriend. “Slow down a little, Jodie, before you drop your lunch or something.”
The Vice-President of the Student Council slowed down just a little. “Sorry Mack, I’m just fascinated by the whole ‘Ki’ thing. Some of the things I’ve read on the Internet…incredible strength, altering your brainwaves at will, changing your body temperature, holding your breath for more than an hour…if Ranma can do even half of that he’ll be a modern marvel.”
“Well, I don’t know about the rest of it, but he’s definitely got the ‘incredible strength’ down; he held up the back of Kevin’s truck for me while I changed a tire.”
Jodie rolled her eyes before realizing he was serious. “But Kevin’s jeep must weigh more than a ton!”
The Captain of the football team nodded as they left the building. “That sounds about right.” A quick glance was all it took to find Ranma sitting with his back against ‘his’ tree, an aggravated expression on his face, and Jane lying perpendicular to him, her head in his lap while he fed her from a lunchbox of some kind. “Hey Ranma, what’s the deal?” He gestured to Jane, who simply smirked.
Ranma grumbled something along the lines of ‘I hope she chokes’ as he stuffed the empty bento into his bag.
Daria looked up from her copy of ‘The Raven.’ “She called his bluff, and he gave her his lunch to shut her up.”
The artist in question patted her stomach contentedly. “Ranma’s a goooood cook.”
Jodie sat across from the interdimensional warrior. “Ranma, I’ve been reading about Ki on the Internet, and I wanted to see if you could explain a few things for me.”
He sighed and nodded. “As long as we don’t go too far into the theoretical stuff; at the moment I’m a ‘practical application’ kind of Ki wielder.” When he saw the curious looks he was getting from the rest of the group, he shrugged. “I read it in one of the scrolls.”
“…well, can you tell me what you can do with your Ki? You know, how strong and fast you are, how long you can hold your breath, things like that.”
“More powerful than a locomotive! Faster than a speeding bullet! Capable of leaping-UMMPH!”
Ranma smirked down at the silenced Lane, his hand covering her mouth nicely. ‘Should have done that earlier.’ “I’m not sure, I haven’t had the chance to push my limits. I know I can lift a couple of tons, easy, and I can throw more than a hundred punches a second.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he thought it over. “Holding my breath…I dunno, ten…maybe fifteen minutes if I sit completely still.”
“What about altering your brainwaves?”
“…”
Jodie shook her head. “Right. Stupid question. What about the energy ball you made the day before yesterday?”
“That’s kids stuff, anyone could it with a little training.”
Daria looked up from her book again. “If that’s ‘kids stuff’ then what is the ‘grown up’ stuff like?”
“Vacuum blades, invisibility, pressure points, lethal strikes, stuff like that.”
Jane managed to pry Ranma’s hand away from her face. “What the hell are ‘vacuum blades’?”
“Razor sharp blades of nothingness that can cut through pretty much anything.”
“Cool. Hey, about that invisibility…”
“Yeah?”
Jane glared up at him. “If you ever try and sneak into the girls locker room, I’ll hurt you. Badly. Then I’ll sic Daria onto you.”
By the end of the day, Daria and Jane were forced to once again brave the lions cream-puff’s den. “So, what are we talking about when we talk about ourselves? Anyone?” He picked a student at random. “How about you?”
The confused guy blinked. “We’re…talking about…us?”
“Excellent! When we talk about ‘ourselves’, we're talking about ‘us’. Now, guys, I've got a little challenge for you; today we talked about turning your daydreams into reality. Tonight, I want each one of you to go home and do just that. What do you say? Um...you.” O’Neill points to Daria. “What's a daydream that you'd like to see come true?”
Daria managed to come up with an answer she believed the sappy teacher would approve of. “I guess I’d like my whole family to do something together.” ‘Something that would really make them suffer…’
“That’s a wonderful dream, Darla!”
*BRRRIIIIIIIIINNNGGG!*
“Oh my, it looks like we’re out of time for today. We’ll pick up where we left of tomorrow, everyone.” While the rest of the student’s hurriedly packed up their belongings and left, Daria and Jane waited until they were alone with the teacher before leaving their seats. O’Neill frowned in concern. “Did you need clarification on something we covered today?”
Daria spoke first. “We feel really good about ourselves.”
Jane smiled cheerfully. Too cheerfully. “We want to take the graduation test.”
“I'm glad your self-image meter is on the uptick, but there's still three more weeks of class left.”
“This first week has been a real eye-opener. It must be the way you teach.”
Timothy blushed, flattered. “Oh, well... thank you very much.”
Daria smirked. “So can we take the test?”
Mr O'Neill hesitated before nodding. “It's not the way we usually do it, but...I guess so.” He picked up a sheet of paper. “Okay, question one: self-esteem is important because...”
“ It's a quality that will stand us in good stead the rest of our lives.”
“Very good. Now, the next time I start to feel bad about myself...”
Jane handled this one. “I’ll stand before the mirror, look myself in the eye and say; you are special. No one else is like you.”
“You two really have been paying attention! Okay, there's no such thing...”
“As the right weight.”
“Or the right height.”
“There is only what's right for me.”
“Because me is who I am.”
The English Teacher beamed with pride. “I don't think we have to go any further. I am really pleased; I think the whole school needs to hear about this at assembly! In fact, I’ll go set it up with Ms Li right now!”
As he scurried from the room, Daria and Jane turned to each other, paler than usual. Jane recovered sooner. “…is this good, or bad?”
“…I don’t know.”
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(Posted Wed, 11 May 2005 16:58)
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