[Episode 202280] [Episode 202280]Ranma sighed as he made his way back to school. During his rather enlightening talk with Ku Lon, he’d forgotten something very important he’d been hoping to get at the Nekohanten: lunch! He’d forgotten to pack one when he left, and now he had barely enough time to buy some bread before he had to get back to class! Oh, woe was him!!!
…Waitaminute. Why was he making such a ruckus over lunch? He’d gone without a decent meal for weeks before, both as Ran and Ranma. Missing one lunch should be nothing! Once again, he blamed the “Ranma” part of him for his brief moment of stupidity. Gee. He seemed to be blaming his old self for a lot of things lately…
The incoming “ding ding” was all the warning he had as a familiar bicycle nearly beaned him on again head… again. He sidestepped out of the way right on time, letting Xian Pu land beside him instead of on top of him.
“You know, Pu-chan, riding a bike onto my head isn’t exactly the best way to greet your husband,” he drawled, though his grin belied anything serious.
“Nihao, Airen! What you mean riding bike on head? I no do that!” she replied, looking slightly put upon.
Ranma just gave her a flat look.
“What?” she asked, suddenly looking so innocent that Ranma was surprised a halo and a pair of wings hadn’t appeared on her. Ranma just shook his head and chuckled, her antics now more amusing then annoying to him.
“Never mind, Pu-chan. What’s up?”
“Xian Pu looking for Airen!” She replied, “Have too too delicious ramen for Airen’s lunch!” And as if to prove her point, she shoved a still-warm signature Nekohanten delivery box under his nose.
“Oh. Thanks.” ‘Huh. The Lord provides, huh?’ he fleetingly thought as he took the box. It was quickly opened and divested of its contents: a bowl of ramen and a pair of chop sticks. He broke apart the chopsticks, said a quick “itadakimasu”, and was about to dig in when he suddenly remembered several occasions when freely given food has been drugged. He hesitated, an action that caught Xian Pu’s attention.
“What wrong, Airen?” she asked.
Ranma looked down at the bowl of noodles for a bit, before focusing his aura senses on the girl and asking, “There isn’t some kind of mind-altering substance in here, is there?” Hey, sometimes the direct method was the best method to get the job done… or, at least, that’s what he’d heard… somewhere… eh, whatever.
Xian Pu blinked in confusion, then shook her head. Her aura confirmed that her confusion was authentic.
Seeing that she was telling the truth, Ranma gave her a sheepish smile. “Sorry, Pu-chan, but you HAVE been known to pull some wacky shit with your food every once in a while,” he apologized. He was able to catch a quick glimpse of Xian-Pu blushing before he started eating.
The next several minutes were quiet (sans sounds of noodles slurping), as Ranma ate and Xian Pu watched him eat. Feeling a mite bit uncomfortable after a while of this, Ranma broke the awkward silence and asked her something that’d been on his mind ever since… well, ever since he’d gotten enough control of the grey matter between his ears to think about something else besides martial arts and food.
“Xian Pu?”
“Yes, Airen?”
“Have you ever thought of going to school?”
Xian Pu blinked, then cocked her head to the side. “What Airen mean?” she asked.
“I mean, have you ever thought of going to Furinkan, like all the other kids our age?”
Xian Pu snorted in distain. “Why go to school? Xian Pu going to be warrior and matriarch of village, so why need learn silly things like numbers and letters?”
Ranma raised an eyebrow; it struck him there just how similar she was to him… or rather, how similar she was to the old him. The old Ranma had had much the same thoughts on learning: he was going to be the greatest martial artist on earth, so why bother with school?
On the other hand, Prince Ran- and now himself- understood why lessons in things other then fighting had been needed. Oh, he hadn’t liked those lessons he’d been forced to endure, but he’d understood how they could help him, and put his all into learning them.
“Pu-chan, school is a lot more then just numbers and letters… though those are good to know, too,” he said.
The incredulous look he received convinced him a slightly different angle would be needed.
“Tell me, do you know anything about the history of the world?”
“Why? All need to know is history of village to rule village.”
Ranma raised an eyebrow. “Really, now?” he asked, “Haven’t you ever heard of the saying ‘History repeats itself?’”
“What that have to do with ruling village?”
“It means that anything major that happens in your village- war, famine, disease- has probably already happened on a much larger scale somewhere in history. This, of course, means that, instead of learning from whatever mistakes you might make during the situations, you can learn from the mistakes of someone else and be ready for when the situation comes.” He looked at her from the corner of his eyes as he took a quick bite of the delicious noodles. “See what I’m getting at?” he asked, gauging her reaction as he swallowed and took another bite.
She visibly thought about it, before giving a reply. “Xian Pu think so… but still big waste of time if that all useful to learn at school,” she said.
“Alright… how about this: how does a gun or a bomb work? How would you protect yourself from one?”
Xian Pu gave him a scandalized look at the question. “Gun? Bomb? Those coward’s weapons! I no need to learn them!”
“And why not?”
“Airen deaf? Those coward’s weapons!”
“That’s not a reason to not learn about them.”
His answer brought Xian Pu short. She blinked in confusion, and Ranma elaborated.
“Haven’t you ever heard of the saying ‘Know thy enemy?’”
“Of course; only fool fight enemy they no know.”
Holding back a comment about their first meeting, Ranma instead said, “And what happens if your village is threatened by a small, but modern, army? One armed with machine guns, rocket launchers, and other modern tools of war?”
“Then they cowards!”
“Do you think they think so? Or care?”
Xian Pu was brought short again.
“They won’t care if you think they’re cowards, Xian Pu. Heck, they’d laugh at you, call you a dumb barbarian, then blow your brains out… or rather, if this hypothetic situation takes place not too far into the future, they’ll disable you, rape you, THEN blow your brains out, since anybody with one eye could see you’re an attractive young woman.
“And the situation would be quite the same throughout your village. Your village walls, though sturdy against arrows, blades, fists, and probably most ki attacks, won’t stand a chance against a laser-guided rocket-propelled grenade. Your lookout towers will have just about the same chances as your walls. Your men, even those skilled in the art like Mu Tsu, would be gunned down before they can do anything. Your warriors… well, that depends on the invading army, though let’s just say for the sake of this argument that they’ll be shot at and, if not dead already, raped, then killed, much like you. The matriarchs, powerful as they are, will be gunned down, or, if they’re too fast, blown up with a salvo of rockets. Your non-combatants and children will… well, if your warriors didn’t stand a chance, how could they? In the end, your village would be decimated in less then a day, your treasures pillaged, and your history wiped off the face of the earth.”
Ranma, finished with his meal, turned to look at Xian Pu. She was a little green around the gills, no doubt at the slightly exaggerated, but still possible and disturbing mental image he had painted.
“On the other hand,” he continued, taking pity on the heir-apparent, “What if you knew how their weapons worked? How powerful they were? You could make it so that your walls just might be able to defend against a rocket-propelled grenade. You could make it so that your warriors had body armor that won’t be ripped apart by small, pointed projectiles fired at near-Amaguriken speeds. You could make it so that your village might be able to repel these invaders with just a bit more trouble then you would have repelling the Musk or the Phoenix people.
“But to have the knowledge to even comprehend the things needed to do all that, you would need quite a bit of experience in the fields of physics, mathematics, chemistry, several branches of engineering, and military technology, among others. High school provides the foundations for understanding the first three. College, the step after high school, would then provide a much more in-depth look, along with introduction to engineering and military tech.
“In other words, to lead your village and preserve it to the best of your abilities, you would have to not only go to high school, but graduate and go to college.”
Xian Pu looked shocked, but it was quickly replaced with a thoughtful look as she considered what she’d just heard. Ranma took the chance and drove the point home with one last comment:
“And, if for no other reason, the government is bound to respect your village more if they knew it had a matriarch that was college-educated. They’d give you less trouble, if nothing else.”
Finished with his little impromptu lecture, Ranma put the long-since empty bowl back into its box, wrapped it up in the little cloth that had come with it, and put it gently in the still thinking girl’s hand.
“Thanks for lunch, and it was nice talking to you again, but I have to get back to class,” he said, giving her a warm smile before heading for school. “See ya around, Pu-chan.”
A wave farewell, a hop onto the nearest roof, and he was gone, leaving behind a very confused heir-apparent.
By some miracle, Ranma made it back to class just as the bell rang, signifying the end of lunch. Of course, his luck didn’t last, as he was accosted by Akane as soon as he swung through the window.
“Ranma! Where were you? You were with that Chinese bimbo, weren’t you? WEREN’T YOU?!?” she screamed at him. Ranma sighed. Akane jumping to conclusions. What else was new?
…Of course, this time he really WAS with Xian Pu, but that was beside the point.
Ranma turned and coolly regarded the steaming (literally!) Akane, and decided, right there and then, that it would be fun to fuck with her mind. He owed her, after all; she had fucked with his mind enough times, letting him think she actually cared, before turning around and- POW!- smashing him into LEO. She had unrepentantly played with his mind and toyed with his heart, and he was getting sick of it.
It was time for the payback to begin.
So, she thought he was sleeping with Xian Pu? Alright, fine. “Yeah, and I got laid. It was fucking awesome,” he deadpanned, then smirked as the class- including the teacher- stared at him in disbelief. Akane herself froze in the midst of swinging her Mallet-sama at him, her jaw dropping rather comically.
It was all he could do to keep himself from laughing out loud.
Instead, Ranma closed her mouth and, just to spite her, plucked the mallet from her shocked fingers and putting it in his subspace pocket. Then he took his seat, got out his notebook and pencil, and sat there as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
His smirk grew wider. Oh yes, this was going to be FUN.
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(Posted Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:29)
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