"You're to be the concubine of a samurai named Ranma Kamiya. He's real famous abouts these parts."
Thinking for a moment, the young lady eventually spoke up in remembrance. "Ah, I know him. I saw him at a swordsman tournament last year. He was quite skilled."
The porters continued on a while about the young man, but at that point Akane tuned them out to be alone with her own thoughts.
He had indeed been at the tournament, and had even gone up against her former master.
That had been when she had just started showing, which had also been her last public appearance at Kuno's side. At that time he'd already moved on to other girls who had actually been at his side, gushing over him and stroking his ego.
In the match against Ranma, he had of course been confident. They were both using bokuto, and Ranma's style was known to be virtually useless without a steel blade.
To the chagrin of those present, most everyone had forgotten he also practiced the less famous Kamiya-Kasshin style, which favored wooden swords almost exclusively.
For most of the battle, Ranma had stood in one spot, only moving his sword arm as the only effort it took to deflect Kuno's sword. No matter what her former master had tried, his techniques had all been deflected and defeated with ease.
Eventually after taking his measure of Kuno, Ranma had launched his own counterattack. After dodging a particularly clumsy overhead strike, he landed a strike to Kuno's wrists, leaving him defenseless. From there his opponent had been wide open, allowing him to land a number of blows on Kuno, finishing the match in a single moment.
Kuno had always been a sore loser, and he had been a particularly sore loser that time. When Ranma's attention had been diverted to accepting the win and his guard was down, Kuno had struck. Drawing his katana, he struck an overhead slash that everyone was sure had downed his off-guard opponent.
Then to everyone's amazement, Ranma was still alive, even though the sword stroke should have split his torso open.
Then came Kuno's horror at finding half the blade of his cherished family katana missing.
The victor of the match tossed the missing pointy end to the ground,apparently having broken it off bare-handed.
As mush as a disgrace as it was to attack someone unawares like that, as much of a blow as it was to his honor to have the family blade broken, the obvious disdain for his skill that being defeated barehanded and so casually carried was the final insult.
Well, almost, as Ranma had spoken up with obvious disdain for his opponent. "I don't have the patience to deal with pretend samurai."
That of course brought to mind what Kuno thought giving her to Ranma would accomplish.
It was possible they intended her to turn on him, perhaps assassinate him. Of course, her lack of loyalty should have been painfully obvious even to Kuno. It was possible that they might use the baby she'd never met as a bargaining chip, but she didn't exactly feel a lot of attachment to the spawn of someone she detested so. If that was their plan, they likely would have had her breastfeed the baby and bond with it first.
No, more than likely they would intend to use her family as a bargaining chip once again. Personally though she'd probably promise anything to Ranma if he'd take care of Kuno if it came to that. It was after all quite foolish to send her as a gift to someone that could take Kuno so easily.
On the other hand, it was probably just the insult she expected herself to be. A discarded concubine that had already had a child and lived in a brothel, all Kuno had to do was let that slip if it wasn't already known. That meant she likely wouldn't be greeted too warmly by the Kamiya family, but she had been through worse. If it meant being accepted into her new position, she was actually prepared to show a little willingness and put some effort into pleasing her new master.
She hadn't seen much of him, but what she had seen had impressed her deeply. That match had been one of her few cherished memories in recent years. Her only regret was that Kuno had walked away from it with little injury.
Though she did have to wonder what kind of man Ranma was, because the girls that had traveled there with him had been strange ones indeed.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Valor Phoenix
(Posted Fri, 11 Aug 2006 19:47)
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.