Today just wasn’t Akane’s day. First her room got ransacked by Ranma’s idiotic clod of a father, then said clod had casually insulted her ability at as a martial artist (and during the whole course of events he’d managed to hurt Kasumi), and now the clod had just burst in on her while she was in the furo.
Akane couldn’t believe the nerve of the man standing in front of her, apparently oblivious to the fact that she was still naked. She wanted to bean “Uncle” Genma — she really did. But unfortunately, the only thing within reach was her washcloth, and that simply wasn’t solid enough to do any damage. She could have stood up and found something more suitable, but in order to do that she would have had to stand up, which meant that Genma would get an eyeful of more of her person, and she simply wasn’t willing to do that. Thus, she had to settle for awkwardly covering everything that needed to be covered as she sank her body further into the furo, in the hopes that the water would sufficiently distort her image so she could retain some semblance of dignity. “Do you even know what the word ‘privacy’ means?”
“Of course. I demand that Ranma respect my privacy all the time.”
“Then how about respecting mine?”
Genma laughed merrily at this notion. “Silly girl — you’re just a child. You don’t have any right to privacy! At least, not from mature adults who are looking out for your wellbeing.”
Ugh, embarrassing me is bad enough as it is, but does he have to be so damn patronizing on top of that? “Assuming that I accept that line of reasoning, which I don’t, what does that have to do with you?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to teach you the Bakusai Tenketsu!” What more explanation could the girl possibly want?
“You expect me to believe that a Martial Arts move is essential to my wellbeing? You’re off your rocker!”
Genma rolled his eyes — this girl clearly didn’t have her priorities straight. “You are the heir to the Tendo school, and therefore any improvements to your Art are in your best interests. When you have students of your own—”
“I haven’t actually decided to become a sensei myself yet.”
Genma laughed. “Ha! That’s a good one. How are you supposed to be a professional martial artist if you aren’t a sensei? The underground fighting circuit doesn’t really pay that well unless you’re near the top.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be a professional martial artist.”
“Of course you do. Now, enough of this banter — we’re getting sidetracked. I’ll need some time to get things set up for the Bakusai Tenketsu training, but I should be ready within a few days. Once that’s done, we can spend a day or two on the actual training, and once you’ve mastered the move, we can call things even and put this room-invading business behind us.”
“And what about school?”
This gave Genma pause… “Oh, right. Soun is rather picky about this whole ‘education’ thing, isn’t he? Well, not to worry, I’ll talk to him — I’m sure he’ll make arrangements when I tell him how enthusiastic you are. Don’t worry, we’ll have you breaking rocks no time.” The large framed martial artist prepared to leave, when Akane called out to him.
“Hey, I still haven’t agreed to do this.”
Genma sighed — why were there always annoying technicalities like this to get in his way when he wanted to get anything done? “I can’t see why you wouldn’t want to… I mean, it’s perfect for your fighting style…. Look, I’m not good at this whole ‘settling accounts’ business, so just bear with me, okay?”
“‘Settling accounts’? You mean you’re doing this as an apology?”
“I never said that. Genma Saotome does not apologize — I just… occasionally offer to share my knowledge to promote good will amongst my peers in the martial arts community.”
Akane sighed — it was rather obvious now that Ranma picked up his massive ego from his father. Still, she could understand what he was trying to do… almost. “Look, give me some time to think about it, okay? I’ll give you my answer later — when I’m not in the nude.”
“I suppose that will have to do.” With that, the large martial artist finally left.
As the relaxing mood in the furo had pretty much been ruined, Akane decided to get out and dry herself off. What is with that guy? Trying to figure out Genma was giving her a headache — though it was quite possible that the stress of the situation had something to do with that as well. Her mood was still sour as she toweled off, however, it was tempered a bit by her knowledge that Genma Saotome apparently was trying to make up for his goof, earlier, though she could hardly begin to guess at his motives—
Without warning, the door to the furo swung open again. “By the way, it’s best that you not tell Ranma about this, as he might get touchy about you learning a move he doesn’t know—”
“GET OUT!”
“You seem a little moody. Is it that ‘time of the month’ thing Nodoka’s always carping about?”
“Get out, get out, GET OUT!!” Akane slammed the door to the furo shut as Genma left again. She collapsed against the wall as she let out a deep breath. “How the hell could Ranma have turned out so decent after being raised by him?” she asked of no one in particular.
Ni Dao swallowed hard as she entered a large hut in the middle of the village. While she agreed with the wisdom of Xian Pu suggestion that she stay in Joketsuzoku for a while to learn Japanese from one of the elders, she’d never expected to learn her husband’s language from this one. “Um, excuse me? Matriarch?”
“Ah, Ni Dao! Here for your Japanese lessons, eh?”
“Yes, M-Matriarch.”
Ku Lon smiled at the young Amazon’s nervousness. “Good heavens, child, you’ve been my great-granddaughter’s best friend for over ten years now — you don’t have be so formal around me all of the time.”
“I— I’m sorry… ma’am?” Ni Dao hoped she wasn’t stepping out of line by being so informal with the Matriarch.
For her part, Ku Lon sighed. For as long as she’d known the blue-haired teenager before her, Ni Dao had seemed have a serious lack of self-confidence. No doubt a result of continually comparing herself to Xian Pu, the elder mused. In fact, one of the reasons she’d volunteered to personally tutor the young woman in the Japanese language was so she could try and help boost her self-esteem before she set off to search for her husband. (The other reason was because she really was the most fluent in Japanese, thanks in part to her encounters with a certain miniature pervert.) But now was not the time for idle speculation — Needle had a language to learn.
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(Posted Sun, 29 Oct 2006 03:53)
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