Ranma stood there for a few seconds to ponder this revelation.
Konoe wanted connections between him and the school? What does that mean? Did Konoe want Ranma to feel protective of the school? Make lasting friends? Become so attached that he didn't want to leave?
Those reasons sounded redundant and meddlesome since Ranma already promised to attend, so Konoe must have one Ranma couldn't think of.
Ranma slipped the rod back into his sleeve and turned toward the school gate. He couldn't put off dragging out Konoe's motive anymore.
"Where are you going?" said Takamichi with a concerned frown.
"To Konoe's place," said Ranma.
"What about school? You have the entire afternoon left."
Ranma glanced at Takamichi. Was the man trying to stall him? Allowing Konoe to find out what happened today might make a difference, one that wouldn't benefit Ranma at all.
Ranma turned and waved a hand at the sad scene of injured students still scattered across the courtyard. "You think there'll be any teaching for the rest of today?"
Takamichi didn't look as Ranma indicated. "Even if there won't, a student has to attend class while school is in session, or else you'd be a truant."
Ranma's face darkened. He didn't promise to go to a school where teachers wimped out of their jobs and his schoolmates spent their time fighting and cowering instead of learning.
"And also," said Takamichi quickly when he saw Ranma's expression, "Principal Konoe is working, and can't meet with you."
As soon as Takamichi said that, he must've realized Konoe's inability to meet Ranma wouldn't stop Ranma from storming into Konoe's office, and added, "And more importantly, if you leave, who will keep the students from fighting?"
Dammit. Ranma couldn't argue that. The kids watching this might be smart enough not to challenge him, but he didn't need to imagine hard to see them returning to their usual clashing in his absence. No, he'd to keep these idiots quiet.
Ranma sighed, and this time he turned to go back in the school to find a teacher. He'd wring an explanation for the lack of discipline in this school out of them soon enough.
"And don't talk to the teachers," Takamichi said behind him.
Ranma whirled back.
"Damage control is my job," said Takamichi before Ranma could speak. "Not yours. You don't want to have to explain what just happened to everybody, right? That means keeping the teachers in the dark, and even your classmates, but I'm sure Principal Konoe explained that to you before."
Konoe hadn't bothered to remind Ranma, but Ranma's common sense told him to shut up about his abilities. He didn't want any more attention.
But avoiding the subject of his abilities didn't equal avoiding the subject of the fight, or the teachers' absence.
"What do you mean, don't talk? How am I supposed to deal with the stupidity in this school if I can't force the teachers here to do their jobs?"
Takamichi blinked at the subject, and hesitated. "It's politics, and how things work at Mahora."
Ranma wanted to punch Takamichi again. Maybe coughing up a little more blood would teach the man not to hedge. "Don't give me that. I know the teachers will come out and deal with fighting. I've seen them."
Ranma searched his memory, and added, "Once. When I called them."
"It's more complicated than that," said Takamichi. "And it's not something you can deal with yourself."
Ranma stopped himself from yelling at Takamichi, because what was the point of abusing one of Konoe's pawns? Instead, he turned and walked off for real this time.
Takamichi called after him, but Ranma left without listening.
The bell for the next period had already beeped while they talked, but Ranma spent the next fifteen minutes in front a restroom mirror instead of going to his first afternoon class. Going back to class on time was pointless, because the looks he'd get for his injuries would just delay any lesson.
Injuries for the sake of making Takamichi leave was fine, Ranma concluded. The man might be talking to the school officials, but Ranma didn't care as long as Takamichi didn't loiter afterwards.
He had a six major bruises. Five were hidden under his uniform on his chest, both forearms, leg, and hip. The important one was the one on his left cheek, where the red puffiness was hard to hide and probably off-putting, but it would shrink soon enough even without ice. The most trouble the bruises would give him was the temptation to rub the tenderness all the time.
His hands were in worse shape. The melted drops of Takamichi's cuff burned a small area on top of his wrist before he shook them off. The burn hurt, but he knew his way around burns, and he didn't think much of it. It would heal at its own slow pace.
The bone fractures across his right knuckles were a problem though, because while their throbbing actually hurt less than the burn, the inflammation and bruising that would start soon would make holding anything impossible. Writing too.
At least the skin wasn't broken, so if he didn't do anything stupid the pain would fade in two days at the latest. Ranma sighed. Not good, but still a cheap price for shooing Takamichi away.
He cleaned his burn with water and wrapped his handkerchief around that wrist. He couldn't do anything about his knuckles, since going to the nurse would only invite questions, so he just resolved not to shake any hands until he got home and... put ice on it? Whatever, he'd figure it out later.
Ranma left the restroom and walked down the empty hall back to class. He slid his classroom door open, and there in front of his eyes was his math teacher writing arithmetic equations on the board. The teacher and his classmates turned their heads at the sliding door, and upon recognizing him, they stopped.
As expected.
The teacher didn't ask him where he had been or why he was late. She looked too stunned to say anything, so Ranma went to his seat. The jittery energy from the kids close to him suggested they wanted to shift their desks away, but didn't want to risk attention.
The teacher tried to continue class, but she kept looking over at Ranma instead of concentrating on her lecture. Her distraction would've been worse had Ranma not moved his attention away.
The classroom window still had a crack in it from the rock somebody threw there. Outside, all the injured students had been cleared away. As Ranma watched, Takamichi walked by on his way out the front gate, accompanied by the school's principal.
Ranma figured Takamichi had been hammering out an agreement with the school staff, or maybe spreading lies. Neither mattered to Ranma, as long as Takamichi went out and stayed out.
Class ended half an hour later, and Ranma expected the people near him to flee. The teacher sure did so.
Not his classmates though.
"What the hell happened out there?" said the boy who wanted Ranma to go and fight in the first place—
And whose face Ranma now graced with a spot on his mental corkboard. The boy's label: Pants.
Because Pants wore some, Ranma supposed. Clothing description was a shallow well.
—while the rest of the class gathered around Ranma, but not within arm's reach.
Ranma glanced from the window to Pants. "What?" he said, while hoping he won't call anyone by label on accident.
"Why did Death Glasses let you go? I thought you were going to get your ass stomped."
Ranma's expression stayed the same while his mind raced through possible misinterpretations that the people inside could've come to. Were they too far away to see things through the crowd? Well, the important thing was Takamichi not interfering with his decree, and everybody else's thoughts were secondary.
"I showed him conviction," said Ranma, "and he agreed that I should preserve the school's peace by myself."
The rest of the crowd murmured excitedly about that. Pants didn't join in, and instead looked down at Ranma's right hand, which was already swelling and purple. "He sure messed you up before agreeing, huh?"
Ranma pulled his right hand into his jacket sleeve and turned back to the window. "Nothing's free."
"What you did is just gonna piss off the bullies even more," said someone else in the crowd.
"So what?" said Pants. "Saotome's decreed that nobody is allowed to fight. That means he'll protect everybody else, right?"
Ranma almost shrugged. That was... one interpretation.
"How will he be around enough to stop all the fighting?" said someone else.
"If he could fight off Takahata, who's gonna take the chance and get on his bad side?"
Ranma doubted that even in a middle school, keeping peace was that simple.
The afternoon went by, and even though Ranma made a note to glare at every teacher he saw, his hostility only managed to unnerve the school staff instead of inciting them to defend their inaction. Oh well.
He had to sit out physical education because of his hands, but the P.E. teacher didn't even look at his injuries before agreeing. Ranma wanted somebody to show a little spine, but Takamichi's influence must've spread around the school by then.
Or maybe facial bruising scared people. He had no idea.
As Ranma sat on the sidelines, watching his class practice baseball while himself not spending time productively because he couldn't do homework and got nothing out of reading textbooks, a girl ran up nearby, looked around, saw him, and approached him with hands clasped.
If Ranma had been reading a textbook, he would've clapped it shut, heaved a sigh, and demanded what this girl wanted. Since he wasn't reading, and he didn't want to go through the motions because that would make people think he liked pantomiming, he didn't.
As for why a bruise would scare off a teacher but not a girl, he had even less idea.
"Hey," said the girl, "can you do me a favor?"
Ranma turned to look at her, and immediately concluded that he didn't know her, and she was dressed in casual clothes instead of the girls' school uniform, so he didn't know if she went to this school.
"What favor?" he said, since not being acquaintances was not enough reason to refuse a girl's request.
"People are looking for me," said the girl, "so I need somebody to hide me."
Her clothes were pristine, Ranma noted, so he figured she wasn't being chased by delinquents out to collect on a debt. The culprit was likely the student committee then, and if she wasn't a student here maybe they wanted her for trespassing.
Ranma really didn't care, as long as they didn't fight.
"Alright," he said.
The girl blinked. "So you'll help me?"
"Sure," said Ranma.
Then without any elaboration, he sat there and looked at her. She looked back in confusion, or maybe it was shock. Nothing happened for a few seconds. Did she really have time, Ranma thought, to stare like that? He sort of assumed she had a plan for hiding before asking for his help, because he certainly didn't know enough about her situation to make one.
"Uh, okay," said the girl. "Then first—"
"Sonozaki!"
Ranma looked past the girl at the posse of three teachers coming their way. The man in front was that teacher from the lunchroom two days ago, Necktie.
The girl wasted no time darting around him, then pulling him up from his seat by the arm and standing him between her and the approaching teachers like a makeshift wall.
The teachers recognized Ranma, and while he found their sudden stumbling halt amusing, Ranma turned his gaze to look askance on the girl behind him and... wait, she didn't just reach under his jacket. She's not actually going to—
Oh, no. Her hand left his back.
...Okay. Ranma glared forward at the teachers. "What do you want?"
In the same pathetic display as the other times he made that face, the teachers flinched back. Necktie at least managed to remain calm, even if it wasn't as calm as when he forced Wrinkles's gang from the lunchroom.
"We're here to take that girl," Necktie said.
"Obviously," said Ranma. "Why?"
"To make sure she's not carrying weapons."
Uh... Ranma hadn't expected that response, but on the other hand, so what? "Plenty of kids carry weapons," Ranma said. "Why worry now?"
"That girl," said Necktie, "supplies them."
Huh. A good answer. Ranma turned around to look at—
Incidentally, while he didn't need to know her name, if she played arms dealer for the school he probably should distinguish her.
Err, what was her name again? Somebody said it already, Ranma remembered, but he hadn't been listening.
Oh well, he'll label her instead. Ranma looked at the girl. Hmm, he already did too much clothing descriptions. The next option was... hair color.
The girl's hair was green.
Ouch. Ranma had to keep the wince out of his face. The last person he gave this label still left bad memories.
Ranma almost sighed, but stereotyping was bad, so he decided to go with it anyway.
—at Green.
"Are you dealing weapons at school right now?" he asked Green.
"Of course not!" said Green with an indignant frown. "I don't sell weapons!"
"Okay," said Ranma, narrowing to Necktie's complaint. "And are you carrying any?"
"No!"
Ranma narrowed his eyes and scanned Green up and down. Then he turned back to the teachers. "She's not carrying weapons. Is there anything else?"
The teachers regarded Ranma with, understandably, far more concern than they regarded Green. As the rest of his class slowed their practice to watch the drama unfolding, Ranma could see unwillingness to deal with him in the teachers' twitchy postures.
"Fine," said Necktie, visibly straining. "Then we'll let it go this time. As long as she keeps them out of school."
The teachers left. What a bunch of pansies. He didn't know what Takamichi told them but it must've been accompanied by a swift punch to the groin.
Green breathed a sigh of relief, while Ranma reached behind his back for whatever the girl had slipped into there. She didn't respect personal space, apparently.
"Thanks," said Green with a very big and pretty smile.
Ranma ignored that in favor of widening his eyes at the scalpel he now found in his left hand.
A scalpel? Yes, he expected something when he felt metal, but a scalpel?
Green saw his face, and correctly guessed what was going though his mind. "I bet you didn't think I'd hide something like that on you."
"No," said Ranma as he turned the tiny blade slowly, "I thought you were going to hold me hostage."
"Oh?" said Green. Her good humor shined forth. "But I couldn't do that to somebody who promised to help me."
"Yeah," said Ranma with no humor at all, "that would've ended miserably. Good thing you just tucked it in my belt, but I would've liked a warning."
Green laughed nervously. "I'll keep that in mind next time." She reached for the scalpel.
"Whoa there," said Ranma as he pulled it out of her reach. "What do you plan to do with this?"
Being deprived took some of her happy expression away. "It's for defense," said Green.
Really? Ranma couldn't agree, as the only reason he'd wield a wood-cutting scalpel instead of a knife for defense was because it would usually be cheaper to get, easier to hide, and came with a built-in excuse if found. Those were suspicious priorities for someone worried solely about defense.
"I'm keeping this," said Ranma. "It's too dangerous for you to walk around with."
"Hey! You can't just take it!"
"Think of it as payment for lying for you. Besides, you won't need this kind of defense around here anymore, and even if you did—"
Ranma gave Green a flat look.
"—I'm sure you'll be fine carrying that many cans of pepper spray."
"What?" Green gave Ranma a rather impressive glare, at odds with her previously pleasant demeanor. "Who made you judge over how I should defend myself?"
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(Posted Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:16)
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