Bowing slightly to get Ranma's attention, Kaede shifted her arms to point to a bench on her right. "If it's alright, could these two cadets tag along?"
Noticing there were two girls wearing the same schoolgirl outfit as Kaede, Ranma eventually put names to their faces as they stood up to greet him. "Ah, Nodoka and Asuna right? Uhm, sure, but why?"
Nodding happily, Kaede indicated one girl and then the other. "Nodoka-san should be useful to your studies, but needs to work on her physical skills. Asuna-san as you know has excellent physical skills but could use work on her behavior and technique. It is hoped that you might help them become better."
"Ah." Nodding to himself, he did recall the girls pretty well.
Nodoka was really nice, but also very shy, so he couldn't exactly say he knew her very well despite getting along with her easily enough.
Asuna on the other hand was almost completely her opposite, particularly in that he wished he could forget her sometimes.
It wasn't his fault that she had walked in and started bathing before she spotting him soaking in the bath.
It wasn't his fault that she'd panicked at the sound of the other girls coming in and jumped into the tub to hide him from view. He didn't know why she was trying to hide his presence since he'd been told by the girls to bathe in there, not that she had been listening.
It really wasn't his fault that the other kunoichi had started cheering her on after discovering the Asuna's body smashed all up against Ranma's in the tub. He'd been trying to tell her they knew he was in there all along.
The thing with the destroying of her clothes had kinda been his fault. The wind technique had been something Ranma loved learning, particularly if he ever got good enough to fly. He wasn't that far yet, but it was fun and had some nifty uses like blowing up dust, intimidating people or even knocking them over.
It was partially her fault for startling him when she tried to chew him out for the bathroom incident. He hadn't even known the technique could be used to destroy clothes like that, he'd just instinctively tried to push her back with his new technique. Still, he had apologized for that one.
The thing with the pudding was totally her fault.
The thing with the bag of panties was his father's fault. He still didn't know why his father was going through the girl's underwear drawers and he really didn't want to know. Surprisingly Asuna and the other girls had listened to him and allowed him to return the bag of stolen unmentionables with no fuss.
Then a gust of wind had blown Asuna's yukata open, showing she was sans undergarments. That she had blamed him for that despite the fact he'd kinda learned to control his technique by then and he hadn't even been startled. Definitely not his fault, though he'd been unable to convince her of that.
Unfortunately demonstrating what a blast of wind from him would have been like and blowing her yukata completely off had not helped matters. Definitely not one of his better ideas, and he'd apologized for that one several times.
Considering that she was still glaring at him, he figured she hadn't quite forgotten their various run-ins either.
Seeing Ranma grow uneasy about Asuna's presence, Kaede stepped in between them before any sparks started flying. "Do not worry Ranma-dono, Asuna will behave herself. Please give her a chance to start over."
Frowning to herself, the girl in question winced at the reminder. While being spirited was okay as long as she could put it to use in a fight, it had gotten her a reputation as a failure for being so pathetic with special techniques. Unfortunately hitting a newly minted lord of her village and causing such a fuss was a lot less forgivable in the eyes of the council. Her lack of skills concerning her abilities as a ninja only shamed herself, but repeated incidents with 'Lord Ranma' were shaming her adopted clan and even the entire village.
As such, she had a trial with Ranma to prove if she had what it took to be a kunoichi.
She didn't think the incidents were that bad, but the pudding one she could see as being a bit much to dismiss. She still had to apologize to him for that incident.
It really had been a rather innocent accident, she'd simply bumped into a bench after getting a snack. If she'd been paying more attention she wouldn't have tripped. Ranma had come over to offer her a hand up, but she'd been a little too dizzy to accept right away.
Then she'd heard Kazumi and the others girls cheering her on for being so forward with Lord Ranma.
At that point she'd realized she was on her knees, eye level with his crotch with globs of creamy pudding dripping down her face.
Screaming and punching him below the belt while he was trying to help her up had not been one of her best moments.
With the 'hero' of the village curled up in a ball on the floor and whimpering, she'd realized that things were quite a bit out of hand. As the other girls had gone from teasing to horrified, she'd realized it was definitely not good.
Those worries had come to light when her superiors had chewed her out over the incident. They had tolerated her before because she'd been mostly harmless, but that policy had changed after that incident. Even Ranma leaving for China without a kunoichi by his side had been blamed on her as people gossiped that she'd scared him away from the village.
The final decision was that she be given to Ranma as a slave-girl first, not a ninja. It wasn't as bad as it sounded, they just wanted her to take this seriously as Ranma was literally her last chance to prove herself. Whether she passed or failed, she'd stay his for the foreseeable future, so it was best to start things off on good terms.
With that in mind, she stepped around Kaede to get up close to the boy who had given her so much trouble. Fidgeting with her fingers, she looked away as she hesitantly spoke up. "Uhm, yeah. It's, uhm, really not proper behavior, so..."
Laughing nervously, Ranma interrupted the hesitant girl, babbling away in a panic. "Hehe, that's okay. No hard feelings and all, right?"
Actually cheered up that he was letting her off the hook so easily, she frowned as she noticed he was backing out of arms reach of her. Sighing she realized he was still a little hesitant to be near her, even if he was so forgiving.
Steering the conversation onto a more pleasant track, the tall ninja-girl poked in, taking Ranma's arm with a smile. "Ah, so tell us about your trip to China."
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Valor Phoenix
(Posted Wed, 02 Aug 2006 08:03)
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.