“Oh, … Just great.”
Akane felt very annoyed—extremely so. She had already gone through a rough spell of depression, where she would have glowed green had she still had any ki left to do so, as she contemplated suicide. That spell was followed up by an extreme burst of rage, that plowed right into her and then through her, like an unstoppable tidal wave, overwhelming her, drowning her in unadulterated anger, as frightened spectators anxiously stepped out of her way, before pausing to turn around, as they watched her walk by, wondering what the heck her problem was. Now it was time to be annoyed. After all, she had to make herself feel something, anything, to remind her that she was more than just some dumb machine—a soulless automaton. So obviously, her feelings had to be negative; she didn’t feel like experiencing anything positive, right now. It wasn’t the time for that, not after what she had done. So annoyed it would be.
Her goal wasn’t too hard to accomplish, not with her body being a constant, nagging, reminder of her folly. Even before the paroxysm of rage, people would stop and gawk at her—a mother taking her child aside to whisper in its ear, shaking her head in stern disapproval, Akane’s keen sense of hearing unfortunately picking it up—as people all around her would wonder why she wore geisha makeup while not being dressed the part, them labeling her as some sort of lunatic—a freak to avoid. Fortunately, her synthetic skin was fresh off the roller, or so the technician was quick to point out, and would eventually ‘tan’ somewhat like the real McCoy, given enough exposure to ultraviolet radiation. In other words, there was a nice tanning salon out there, somewhere, with her name on it. Still, the technician was sure to clarify that it would never darken beyond the pigmentation of a pale human being; it too being an early prototype.
‘Oh well, I suppose I could always get retrofitted when they advance the synthetics,’ she speculated, feeling a bit of relief wash over her, before stopping herself, forcing it dead; there were still plenty of things to be vexed at.
Her eye twitched sporadically, as she walked, strolling her way through a noisy crowd, while being irritated at all the extraneous information being pumped through her head by the cyber-brain. She knew things that she didn’t want to know. For instance, the lady to her right, the one with the freckles, weighed approximately ninety seven point two kilograms. She had such meaningless approximations for everyone she saw. Worse yet, she could see the lady to her left, the one with too much makeup on, had stuffed her bra with socks—probably her brother’s—as a cyan overlay outlined their shapes. She could also tell, thanks to her built-in lie detector, that the nervousness level of the male, presumably the girl’s boyfriend, indicated that he was lying to her. Closing her eyes in defeat, hoping to get some sense of relief from the sensory overload, she continued walking, to only have her infrared vision kick in, letting her see through her eyelids, which caused her to rapidly force them back open, as she sucked in a breath through her teeth and grumbled through them.
There was another emotion she was experiencing, besides the annoyance, one that she was currently basking in, and that was disturbance. Her battle systems were continuously running, ever vigilant, always calculating the best method to take someone out of the equation—a quick, powerful palm strike and push up the nose here, a quick twist of the wrist, push down and snap, exposing the bone, there. She literally saw the little green squares of her ranged targeting system, in the back of her mind, as they covered different vital spots on everyone around her—there always being one more intensive than the others, representing the most imminent threat.
‘I—I’m more than just a weapon: … I did this, be—because I—I wanted to save people—‘ It was at this moment that she was interrupted by someone.
“Halt, thou foul rakshasi miscreant who dares usurp the visage of the fairest maiden, Akane Tendo, and in so doing, hath left the safety of the stately manor of thy nobel lord, Tatewaki Kuno, that hath been assigned thee,” commanded Kuno—his voice filled with disgust—as he pointed his oaken bokken at the cyborg girl.
He was enraged. How dare that lowly-simulacrum-of-a-converted-gynoid—the one who he had remodeled to look like Akane Tendo, using the girl’s illegally obtained medical records—be out gallivanting the streets like this? Did the fool of a girl not know it to be illegal? Of course, she did not, he thought, pausing to realize that the module—the one replacing the gynoid’s central processing core—should only give her the ability to execute such commands as, “Bend over and grab your ankles, Akane.” This was a curious development—most curious, indeed. Still, the simple fact remained that he needed to get the treacherous contraption out of there, and quickly too, before anyone else took note. The very future of his company and his own personal freedom were at stake, since Kuno industries was only provided the gynoid under the strict provision that it was to be used for the advancement of the company’s cybernetics; anything else was illegal.
Akane froze, and would have grown even paler if she could have. “Great! Not … that … idiot!” she swore. Sure, she wanted to be annoyed, but dealing with Kuno was like having a gallon of bubbling bile with tiny frog bits poured down your throat; she just couldn’t handle it.
“Doth thou not hear me, ye mechanical wench? I command thee to turn round and go yonder, return to whence thee came from and await thy justly punishment … lest I smite thee now.”
Akane whirled around—her eye now violently twitching—with a cold, sharp smirk on her face, as she immediately set her glare onto Kuno. There was a odd sense of satisfaction, as the green targeting square radiated with intensity, flooding her mind with hundreds of fatal ways to best deal with the buffoon. It was at times like this that she really hated being a nice person—her morality forcing her to settle for a non-fatal way to dispose of him. She settled for a high snap kick to his chin, punting the kendoist through several concrete floors of the complex, leaving behind a cloud of debris and a high repair bill for him to pay.
‘Boy, that felt good,’ thought Akane—a smile now forming on her face—as she continued home.
Nabiki quickly wiped the remainder of her tears away, as she calmed herself, while trying to suppress involuntary sniffles from coming out. She couldn’t let anyone catch her like this, in her moment of weakness, she thought, as she stood there in front of her family home, having grieved on her way there. Now she felt guilty, like a heel, for how she had belittled this new Ranma, in front of his family no less, as he stood there and listened. She felt ashamed. After all, he was like her love’s twin brother that he never knew he had, technically an uncloned clone of him, and that alone made him family to her. But she had been greatly wounded at the time, and like the classic experiment of where you place a rat and a doll inside a cage, before shocking the rat with electricity, she had bitten the doll. She just hoped that he could forgive her. Now came the scary part: confronting her father.
“…You mat not be interested in him, … nor find his mind stimulating. And I do not even care if you love him. All of that is inconsequential. I will repeat, … again: it is your duty, as my daughter and heir, to marry him. … All that matters is genetics, and I assure you that, that has not changed,” castigated Akane’s father, in the background, as she stepped into the house, before she could even greet them with a, “Tadaima.”
‘Oh boy, sounds like sis and father are really getting into it. That egotistical snob of a jerk must have cheated on her. … Guess it’s probably for the best though: never liked that jerk to being with.’
“Look, daddy, you might as well see the cold, hard reality for what it is. I am not marrying the guy. Don’t love him. Don’t even know him. And most importantly, you can’t … make me. It’s not like you can afford to disinherit me either, like you did your other daughter, not when it would bring financial ruin to your company that you so seem to love more than us. Just face it daddy, the reality is: you are more expendable than I. I really do hate telling you thi—“ she laid down for him, only to be stopped when his expression grew horrified, causing her to swiftly turn her head. ‘Oh my god! Akane! What did you do?’
“AŻAkane?” questioned Soun, on a day that was going to turn into one of the worst of his life.
Ranma looked down into his bowl of miso soup, deep in thought, as he pushed the wakame with his chopstick, causing it to swirl around in the bowl. He really wished he were home, in his own world, perhaps on a picnic with his tomboy and their family somewhere, maybe listening to the wind rustling through the trees. There was none of that on this world; it was so sterile, just a bunch of rooms connected by an endless number of corridors from what he’d observed so far—so artificial and lifeless. The only thing noteworthy he found so far was the porn collection of him and Nabiki in his room, which was both disturbing and arousing at the same time—his mind instinctively cataloging all the moves.
Then there were the constant reminders about just how uneducated he was. It wasn’t just his mother, letting him know her expectations of him; that he appreciated. It was also the disappointing looks his father gave him—the man belittling him every chance he got—letting Ranma know just how much smarter his old son was. ‘Well hey, I got a wimp for a pops,’ he grumbled internally, already missing the fights with his old man. But what had hurt the most was when Nabiki had said it. He expected as much from his father, figuring him to be an idiot even as a genius. But Nabiki, she tended to speak the truth, even if she was flat out conning you, so he had listened to what she had said and took it to heart.
‘Probably didn’t mean it. She’s hurt. … And just lost her fiancé too. Gu—Guess I can understand that,’ he thought, feeling a bit teary eyed as he thought about Akane. ‘Wonder what this world’s Akane is like… Probably smart as everyone else,’ he frowned at that, doubting that she’d be interested in a baka like him He was just about to reach for his glass of water when Nodoka interrupted him.
“Anything the matter, dear?” she asked, concerned.
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(Posted Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:57)
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