Ranma again dodged her vicious kick by slightly leaning to the side without ever taking his eyes of the beeping and blinking little box in his hands. It was so typical, here she finally had him cornered in the dojo trying to get him to train with her, but Ranma acted like he was not even noticing she was there.
"Sorry, Akane, did you say something?" Ranma asked distractedly without looking up from the electronic toy in his hands.
With a frustrated growl she launched an all out attack on her pig-tailed opponent that would have left lesser mortals in a smear on the dojo floor. Ranma evaded her without breaking his concentration on the gamebox he was holding. Finally after overbalancing herself in a mad lunge at her distracted fiance she stumbled and landed in a heap on the floor.
Trying to regain her breath she looked up at Ranma who did not seem to have notice her at all. It was humiliating!
The worst part was that she knew that Ranma was not putting up an act. He really was only peripherally aware of her presence. He was so involved in that stupid game of his that he was basically sleepwalking through the world and Ranma apparently could beat her in his sleep, could defeat without even trying, could drive her to madness without conscious thought.
Having had enough of training for a while Akane resorted to desperate means. She hit the boy over the head with a wooden mallet.
"Ouch!" Ranma exclaimed. He looked up and blinked at her confusedly finally giving her some attention.
"Ranma, you were supposed to spar with me not play some stupid game!" she told him.
"Sorry about that. I was just trying to finish this difficult part before saving," he explained. "Are you ready to start yet?"
Sweating and winded she looked at him in disbelief. Could he really be this stupid?
"Never mind," she finally told him far too exhausted and demoralized to want to spar anymore. "What is this thing you are playing with anyway and how did you get it? I thought Nabiki had all your money?"
"This strange looking woman gave it to me for free. Something about beta-testing, market research and niche demographics," Ranma informed her. "It is really interesting. At first I thought it would be something like that electronic egg pet that Kasumi had some time ago, but this much better. You have this pocket-sized creatures and you have to train them to become stronger so they can fight other creatures."
"You would rather play a game where you train made up creatures in martial-arts than try to train me to become a better fighter?" Akane asked dangerously.
"It is not really very realistic in parts," Ranma confided enthusiastically completely missing her anger, "but it is really fun. You start out with really weak creatures but they all have much potential and you can train them up to be really strong if you are patient. You have this small group of them and you can direct them in fights against challengers and they work together and do exactly what you tell them to do in the fights. Later in the game they can learn all kinds of special attacks, but I am not sure if all of them would work in real life."
When Akane did not reply to this Ranma took it as his cue to continue with his game.
For a moment Akane considered trashing him and his stupid game into so much pulp but she decided against it feeling far too miserable. Dejectedly she walked out of the dojo.
It was one thing to be overlooked in favor of beautiful bimbos like Shampoo, but it was something else if she lost in competition with creatures that were not even real. Not that she was jealous or anything. Ranma had only thwarted her every attempt to become a better fighter. Every time she gained something that gave her an edge Ranma took it away from her for her own good and every time she told him that she was a martial-artist too he laughed her in her face. In the game Ranma was actively training his charges and did everything to make them stronger. Ranma would not even let Akane fight her own battles most of the time, but he had no problems with standing on the sidelines in his game.
So maybe she was jealous. Just a little bit perhaps.
In the dojo She could hear Ranma shouting as he directed his creatures in battles and let to victory.
"I only wish that Ranma could act like that to me," She complained out loud. "I wish I could be like those creatures in his stupid game."
The moment she said it she felt a strange dizziness take hold of her, but the feeling vanished as quickly as it had come.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Sat, 22 Oct 2005 20:51)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.