Murakumo Kurama held his daughter, his wife Uroko beside him, as they made their way home. Yakumo was in her father’s arms, asleep to the entire world after her first grueling day of taijutsu training under Ranma Saotome. Despite what the man feared—because well … this was a kid raised by Nodoka Saotome after all, the mother of whom was now called the Icha Icha Ninja—Ranma had been almost professional about it. He knew how to push someone past their limits, to get them advancing quickly, without causing severe damage. He even knew how to lessen the final minor damage such extreme measures could put on the body.
It was only because of Kimiko and Uroko’s steady hands that he didn’t try and beat the shit out of the body when a move strayed a little too close to his daughter’s … upper body for his liking, let alone the massage afterwards.
The fact Nodoka seemed somewhat … disappointed by his maneuvers didn’t help either.
But Kasumi vouched for them, though why the girl had so many photos developed at that time was beyond him.
“This will be good for her,” whispered Uroko, not wanting their girl to wake up. She needed all the sleep she could get, after all. “He might work her hard, but I’ve never seen her so happy.”
“I’d be happier if someone else was the one training her,” muttered Murakumo.
“She will one day be interested in boys, my dear.”
“I’d rather her be interested in Uzumaki than Saotome,” he replied.
“Now don’t be like that, Ranma-kun is such a nice boy. Granted, the Hell No-chan puts him through for the sake of training is well…”
“Illegal? Unethical? Morally corrupting?”
“I was going to say stressful on one’s sanity,” she finished. “But her little law is almost up their with the Third’s Law: no giving him scrolls on jutsu until he graduates. You’d almost think she wants him to be underpowered and looking for inspiration everywhere he can.”
He stopped at those words. It … it made sense! Nodoka was starving the boy of easy-access to what had been done before. She wanted him to be inventive. But she also controlled any and all outside sources that could inspire him.
By the Heavens, she wants him to only be inspired by the perverted! It all made sense! If the boy could only be inspired by the perverted, then he would seek that out of any issue that came up. She was grooming him to be conditioned to seek a particular outlet for any energy. “She’s trying to make a Super Pervert,” he said in awe.
“Now that child is no pervert,” snipped Uroko. “The fact he’s not one says a lot for his moral character. He didn’t once try and take advantage of our precious little girl, not once. Heaven knows he’s had plenty of chances.
“And I for one don’t believe any of the village gossip about him. Notice how few of them bother to stand up to No-chan, but have no trouble blaming the boy. It’s just like those despicable people who blame Naruto for…” she trailed off, not wanting to break the Law.
He had to agree with her. As a clan the specialized in genjutsu, they were very well adapted for finding fact behind fiction.
Naruto Uzumaki was not the Kyuubi. He may be a trickster, but there were much worse habits and traits he could have picked up from his passenger.
“And I think it is so nice that No-chan is helping train Naruto as well.”
And in that moment, Uzumaki was tacked onto the same mental board as the Saotome kid under the heading of Dangers to Daughter’s Purity. Yes, he’d have to make certain they never got near his daughter ever again.
“I’m sure they’ll impress you at dinner tomorrow,” she continued. “I wasn’t able to convince Kimiko to let Nabiki come over … yet. But Naruto and Ranma are coming over after classes tomorrow. I think it’s wonderful she has such dedicated friends now, don’t you?”
Maybe he would have time to make a genjutsu to ensure the vile spawn would never lay an impure hand on his precious little girl…
“Dear?”
Hidden in her room, Hinata stared at the first book in the series, the first book that would hopefully help her become as strong as Ranma. I can do this! I can become stronger!
She had been psyching herself up for this for the last half hour, still under her covers, the book sitting before her, daring her to try and tame it. Time wasn’t exactly a luxury, nor was it scarce. After all, there was no chance of her father suspecting it was her that had taken them. At best, he would assume someone had gotten past the skeleton staff on hand.
It had been done before, and because it had, all pipes and the grounds were checked after every time a skeleton crew was used in case Naruto had booby-trapped anything again.
But you never truly knew what the future had in store for you. She was going to have to work fast, hoping she could put them back before her father noticed they were missing. His tone about the meeting suggested there would be many more in the next few days for some reason. Taking a deep breath, she threw her hands on the bright orange book and opened it. She was finally ready to take the first step in becoming stronger.
Thirty seconds later, she was passed out from reading the first page.
“I taught you better than that.”
“Mom, I am not going to grope a student,” grumbled Ranma, as the duo made their way back home. “I’m focused solely on getting her skills and body strong enough so that when the technique wears off, she’ll be strong enough to continue forward. I am not going to grope her or any other girl I spar with or train.”
Nodoka just shook her head.
“Besides … her parents were there,” he offered, trying to keep his mother from another ‘manly’ rant. “If I did that, not only would her parents have thrashed me, but so would Auntie Kimiko since she has that ‘no perving’ law in her place, and we might have the Kurama clan after us for assaulting their heir.
“Besides, I gave a promise to help her to the best of my ability. Groping her sort of breaks that promise, doesn’t it? Isn’t breaking a promise … unmanly?”
Nodoka slowly nodded, Ranma’s words finally making her see his point.
Truthfully, neither Nerima-Ranma nor Konoha-Ranma liked groping people. Bad enough when his mother insisted on practicing some spars to do it (insert huge shiver and psychologist bills here), but there was no way in hell was he going to use it in practical situations.
Maybe enemy kunoichi, but one would think that would be one of two areas they’d booby-trap (pun intended).
Besides, if he could pull this off just right, maybe he could get another technique out of his mom, hopefully without having to go to one of the public bath houses to practice it.
“I think when we get back home, I will have to teach you the techniques of Hitejutsu,” she said.
Ranma blinked. She was going to teach him some Hidden Hand techniques? That could be useful.
“Afterwards, you should have no trouble with groping them and getting away with it,” Nodoka squealed happily.
The ground shook slightly from Ranma’s immediate face-fault.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by The Demented Redhead
(Posted Sat, 24 Jan 2009 01:46)
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.