That she was a self-trained martial artist didn’t hurt either. Her style served her well, but he felt she would prove more malleable than the other two regards adapting her style into Anything-Goes. The rose-obsessed youth and the Chinese delivery girl were… institutionalised in their fighting techniques. From the little information he’d squirreled from numerous sources, and the lot of information he bought from Nabiki, Shampoo had been learning Amazon Wu-shu since before she could walk. Kodachi was thrust into her first leotard not much later than that.
But the Osakan girl hadn’t even began to develop her distinctive style until after Genma had abandoned her. And even so, it was focused more on cooking than actual combat. With several intensive months of training behind her, he felt that she could reach Akane’s former level at the Tendo School of Anything Goes. Considering that she was already much better than that with a giant spatula of all things, he didn’t expect Ukyo to hit the same block his daughter had upon reaching that level.
Amazingly, and contrary to established belief, Soun wanted the schools joined to perpetuate their Art. Unfortunately, few suspected such noble intentions were concealed behind his generally petty behaviour and immature comportment. The man’s bellicose impatience sadly tarnished all that was honourable about his aspirations. But his objective remained steadfast.
This was why he was not going to take the girl’s refusal lying down. He knew she essentially lived alone, having apparently purchased her restaurant with what was left of her father’s inheritance (after the government had taxed her out of most of it, Nabiki had deigned to comment for an extra ten percent). He felt that he could tempt her with the promise of a real family home, and of course, her desire to wed Ranma. Frustratingly, the girl was displaying a silly amount of caution. Everybody in the prefecture knew that Soun Tendo was a man to be trusted,; a man you could rely upon. (After all, everyone is entitled to the occasional minor to earth-shatteringly major slip-up now and then.) He just had to convince the girl of the veracity of this somehow.
Glancing over at his old friend, Saotome, Soun gave a look that indicated they back off. Genma did so, frowning curiously at his old training partner. They sat in booth, and Ukyo warily approached them to take their order. Tendo noticed that she was without her main spatula, and was throwing apprehensive looks back toward the counter. She relaxed considerably, when another young girl appeared from the kitchen, making eye contact with her. Genma just shrugged, and whipped out the ‘Travel Shogi’.
The men ordered and ate without incident. It was approaching closing time, when Ukyo made to usher the pair out of the building. Soun made his play.
“Miss Kuonji, I understand if you feel a little you need to be careful before making any decision, and we apologise if our earlier assumption offended you in any way.”
“We do?” asked Genma dubiously.
Ukyo cocked her eye in suspicion, but shrugged and answered honestly,
“Water under the bridge,” she punctuated the saying with a glare at Genma, who cringed in his booth. “Listen,” she began, grabbing the min-shogi board they were poring over. “I’ll say this once and then I want you two to drop it.” Seeing she had their attention she continued, “I want Ranchan to marry me because he loves me. NOT because you two insist on it at every turn. I saw what some of your schemes did to Akane and him. It split them apart more often than making them closer. And it annoyed the hell out me!”
“Huh?” mumbled Genma. “If you think, baselessly I might add, that our brilliant plans stymied any growth between my son and Akane, surely you’d be happy about them? Wouldn‘t you want to thank us?”
“Thank you!?” she repeated disbelievingly. “Because of you two, they could never get far enough to find out if they even really liked one another or not! And if they could make anything between them work.” She shook her head, seemingly disappointed in herself at being shocked by Genma’s myopia. She turned to Soun. “Did you think anyone stood a chance of making any headway with Ranchan while he was still mooning over his first major crush? If you morons had just let them be, they’d have either got together or they wouldn’t. At least then I’d know where I stood. But no!” she growled, looking to the heavens, “Bamboo Boy and Forest Whitaker had to force them at every single god-damn opportunity! Gaah!” she loosed inarticulately in vexation.
“But we,” began Soun only to be cut off by Ukyo, who was still in full venting mode.
“Can’t be trusted to leave a pair of teenagers alone for five minutes for fear that they’re not behaving according to your dumb expectations.” She laughed humourlessly. “Did you honestly think, even WITHOUT the concern of being transformed into a freaking _animal_,” she stressed, "that I’d want to invite upon myself, the misery I saw Akane go through at both your hands?”
“Now listen here, Missy!” began an ostensibly irate Soun, determined to put this mooncalf into her place, “I’ll tell you something…”
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(Posted Fri, 03 Jun 2005 10:27)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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