Ranma grunted as she pulled the raft behind her thanks to the rope attached to her waist. “You know, if you’re not that tired, then you should still be the one swimming,” the redhead said as she plowed through the water with her arms and legs.
“It’s really not safe to spend more than a few hours in sea water like this, tired or not,” Miu told him as she looked up from her bag for a moment to reply, and then went back to searching through the thing. She put aside Floral and Fauna of the Chinese Wilderness, the list of people and locations Kensei had given her that they could get free food and lodging from, and then pulled out the one she wanted.
“Safe? Like what? Sharks and stuff?” Ranma asked.
After putting her pack back in it’s place, Miu shifted around on the cramped raft until she’s gotten into a comfortable niche, and then opened her book. “Actually, it’s dehydration.”
Ranma looked back at the girl as if she’d gone crazy. “I’m surrounded by water!”
Instead of getting into a lengthily explanation, Miu just left it at that. “Hey, you want me to read to you?”
Ranma grunted and reached back to keep her boxers from falling off. She really wished she’d packed a swimsuit. “Read what?”
“Chapter Nine, female section” Miu began. “For a couple skilled in martial arts, the options for sexual intercourse-”
“WHAT?” Ranma shouted.
Miu looked back and smiled as she held up her book on relationship advice. “Aww come on, I’ve really been wanting to get to this part. You should hear it too.”
Although she really wanted to just drop it, Ranma knew that would amount to hearing a lot of stuff she really didn‘t want to. “Why the heck would I want therapy from a book? And what the hell do you mean, female section.” If Miu made a comment about them both being girls at the moment, Ranma swore she’d start heading back to Japan.
“Oh, I suppose you’re right, you really shouldn‘t hear the parts meant for the wife,” Miu replied. Upon seeing Ranma’s questioning face, she looked down at her husband and held up the book to provide a visual aid. “Some chapters are split in half, one for the husbands and one for the wives. I just read the stuff I’m supposed to.”
Well, that wasn’t entirely true, she had read one of the husband parts on how to keep the relationship stable, but it seemed like most of it had just been the exact same thing with different wording. Most of the whole book could be summed up as ‘be supportive, understanding, and communicative’. Most of it she already knew, although there were helpful hints and things to avoid that interested her.
Ranma looked back to the water in front of her. “Well then don’t let me hear it,” she deadpanned.
Unfortunately, that turned to be even more torturous…
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” Miu mumbled as she scanned the pages. “Oh pictures, that‘s convenient… Oh wow. OH wow!… I didn’t know they could be used like that. Hmm… I should try that tonight.”
Eventually Ranma changed to a faster pace that kept too much water sloshing around her to make out anymore. Although… from the way Miu was reacting, maybe Ranma did need to take a peek at whatever had her so worked up.
Meanwhile, back in Japan…
Akane looked down at the address on the paper in her hand, then to the street signs, and finally the dojo gate in front of her. This was definitely the place. “I didn’t expect it to look so…”
“Crappy?” Nabiki asked.
The younger sister moved her eyes to glace at Nabiki, then nodded. Although their Tendo Dojo was a little worse for wear, it was in much better condition than the place in front of them; which looked ready to fall apart in some places. This was just the wall too, the outward face that everyone saw and worked to hide how bad things really were on the inside.
Akane stepped up and put her hand on the door. “Well, come on, you insisted on tagging along.”
Behind Akane, Nabiki sighed at the girl’s brazen attitude. The only reason she agreed to come was to haul Akane back home when she was put to sleep again. If the guy from earlier was just the student, she didn’t think Akane was ready for his teachers.
“Didn’t he say bring the old man?” Nabiki asked.
Akane let out a ‘humph’ sound, and looked back to her sister. The frown told Nabiki everything she needed to know about Akane’s opinion bit of info. “If they refuse, then I’ll take their sign and make them give me mine back.”
With her questioning sister taken care of, Akane pushed open the heavy door, and looked around at the empty courtyard. The inside hadn’t been as bad as she was expecting, but it was still plenty run down. Didn’t these people have any pride in their appearance?
As soon as she walked inside, Akane got a weird feeling, like someone was watching her. It was a little creepy since no one was around.
“COME OUT, I’M HERE TO CHALLENGE YOU!” Akane shouted before pointing her finger towards the dojo and striking a dramatic pose with her other hand on her hips and her legs spread apart.
Behind Akane, Nabiki could only stare as the scene played out in front of her, glad that she had kept several meters away from her sister.
At first, it didn’t seem all that bad. In fact, all that happened was a cute little girl with short brown hair poked her head out from around the corner to look at the two Tendo sisters. “Hey, dojo challengers! Oh, I saw something like this on a martial arts movie once. Now how did it… oh yeah! Get’em Apachai!”
“APA!”
Nabiki blinked at the strange sound coming from above, then looked up just in time to see a dark form descend and crash into the ground right in front of Akane. When the dust cleared, she saw it was actually a man with tan skin and bandages wrapped around his hands and feet. Even crouched down from the landing, Akane only came up to his chin.
From the opposite direction as the little girl, a man in jeans and a jacket with no shirt underneath, came around with half a bottle in his hand. It was hard to tell because of the distance, but Nabiki thought he was just as large as the first one. “Hey, we got customers?”
Nabiki turned when she heard the rustle of leaves behind them, and watched a ninja with impossibly huge breasts in a purple suit with a sword on her back suddenly fall from the tree to hand upside down. “Challengers.”
“Hold on a second Apachai!” a Chinese man with a mustache shouted from the dojo’s doorway before he came running up to the giant. “She hasn’t paid yet.”
The giant blinked, and then nodded. “Okay, first you pay Apachai 10,000 yen, then he kill you!”
“WHAT?” Akane shouted, finally overcoming her shock at seeing some giant monster just appear in front of her.
In response, the Chinese man took a look at Akane, bent over to examine her chest of all things, then let out a sigh and shook his head. “Come in, I’ll explain how this works.”
And so, a short while latter…
Nabiki blinked. “So, what a second… you want us to pay you to get the rights to fight you?” It was actually a rather good idea from an outsider’s point of view. A nice way to make a few thousand yen… if the Tendo Dojo ever had any challengers that is.
The man, whose name was Kensei Nabiki had learned, nodded. “That’s right. I’m afraid that we have so many challengers, the only way to dissuade the riffraff from banging on our doors all hours of the day is to charge people. That way, only the people who are really serious, or think they have a real chance of winning go through with it.” Since the girl with the more ample frame didn’t seem to know martial arts, he didn’t tell them about the multiple opponent deal that allowed everyone in a group to attack if they all paid.
“That’s a load of crap!” Akane shouted. She couldn’t believe that anyone would be so low and cowardly to hide behind money. “One of your martial artist came to our dojo looking for my father, then took our sign! I’m here to take yours in revenge on that blond cheater.” Then she’d force them to give back her sign, and the money they had extorted from so many other people they‘d probably pulled this same trick on.
Kensei messed with the right part of his moustache, and nodded to himself. So, it was a family vendetta sort of thing. Still, for her to accuse them of cheating… sure some of the Elder’s techniques looked like magic or trickery, but it was 100% legitimate skill and power. “Well, I’m afraid the person you want not here at the moment.”
The Elder had left to help clear his head now that Miu was gone.
“Then I’ll challenge someone else!” Akane shouted, her anger increasing at how this shady place functioned. First they drew people in, and then forced them to pay a ransom for what was rightfully theirs, and the person responsible for it just ran away instead of face what was coming to them. She looked over to her sister. “Nabiki, give me some money.”
“Akane-”
“This thing doesn’t have any pockets,” Akane told her.
The rather useless explanation made Nabiki roll her eyes. “Excuse us for a second, would you?” She then grabbed the back of Akane’s collar and pulled he r little sister out of earshot. “Akane… are you insane?”
Akane blinked. “What?”
“What?” Nabiki repeated, albeit it in a very different tone, as if she couldn’t believe the question. “Have you taken a look at some of these people. Two of them have arms bigger than you! The crazy ninja woman has a sword as tall as either one of us, and that Chinese guy hasn’t taken his eyes off my butt since-”
*click*
Nabiki blinked. “Did he just take a picture of my ass?”
“Yeah,” Akane told her.
Well, she’d suffered worse, so Nabiki just ignored it. “Look, let’s just forget about this. It’s obviously a scam.”
The redundant statement made Akane roll her eyes. She had figured that out the second they started asking for money. Since Nabiki wasn’t listening, she pushed her out of the way to look at the men trying to exploit money from them. “Hey, isn’t there someone else, an assistant master or someone I could fight?”
There was no way these were the only people at this dojo. If Nabiki saw someone smaller for Akane to fight, then she’d agree. Not that size was all that, Akane had beaten people much bigger than her on multiple occasions.
“Akisame is in dojo with Kenichi,” Apachai told them cheerfully, which made everyone else behind him sigh.
“Then I’ll fight him!” Akane said determinedly. She figured they were hiding their weakest member somewhere.
Kensei looked own at the ground and shook his head. Why were these people being so difficult? Usually they just signed up, took a pounding, and then paid for the medical care before being sent on their way. He supposed he could just make them leave and come back later… no, angry women were the hardest thing in the world to get rid of. It was one of the universe’s great truths.
And so, another short while later…
“I’m sorry, but Kenichi doesn’t represent the dojo, you can’t fight him,” the white-eyed jujitsu master told the girl that had just walked in on his training session. “However, any one of the others present is available.”
“Besides, I don’t fight girls,” Kenichi added from his place behind Master Koetsuji.
Nabiki rolled her eyes at that comment. If there was a phrase something that set Akane off faster, she hadn’t heard it yet. In her mind, she could almost see a cartoon-ish Kenichi walking up to the control panel for Akane’s emotions, and pressing the big red button marked ‘ANGER’ several times in rapid succession.
“QUIT HIDING BEHIND YOUR MASTER’S SKIRT AND FIGHT ME!” Akane shouted, now if full rage mode thanks to the runaround she was getting from these blackmailing martial artists. “I’m the assistant master of the Tendo Dojo-”
“Where Apachai hear that name before?” the giant mumbled.
Kenichi blinked at the name, then shook his head. It was like there was something he was supposed to do but... well, scary girls giving him dagger glares made it hard to think.
“-and I’m challenging you!” Akane finished.
Akisame held up his hands, palms open towards the girl. “First of all ma’am, it’s a hakama, not a skirt” he explained calmly. “And second, Kenichi is a disciple at this dojo. The closest things we have to assistant masters are on their honeymoon at the moment. If you’re not here to fight one of us or learn, and do not have permission to remain from one of the masters, I must ask you and your sister to leave. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’ll have to show you the door.”
For her part, the way this man seemed to treat her so calmly, like he was talking down to a child or something, just made her even more angry. They were the ones in the wrong, and they were asking her to leave?
“Hellooooooo, anybody home?” a new female voice yelled from outside the door. It opened to reveal a redhead with a T-shirt of the same color, and a green cap. “I heard voices so-”
“Then I’ll fight her!” Akane shouted before attacking with a jump kick before the old men could say anything.
“Nya?” Kisara mumbled when the unknown girl suddenly came at her.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Mon, 10 Aug 2009 02:03)
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.