Before the shit hit the fan…
Kisara made her way into Ryozanpaku, a little unsure of just what she was doing here. Although Ukita’s suggestion had seemed like a good idea at the time, she had been tired, sore, and stressed. She didn’t want to just give up Taekwondo, Takeda did just fine with only boxing as his style after all, so mixing martial arts wasn’t necessarily the answer. On the other hand, he had a teacher. Hell, even Siegfried had found some guy over in Tibet.
There was Freya, but… she was more of someone Kisara worked out with than a teacher.
The former fist of Ragnarok blinked at hearing some voices, and jogged over to the dojo. She slid the door open
“Hellooooooo, anybody home?” she called from outside the door. Kisara opened the door and looked around.. “I heard voices so-”
“Then I’ll fight her!” some angry girl shouted before she ran at Kisara and attacked with a jump kick.
“Nya?” Kisara mumbled when the unknown girl suddenly came at her.
Back in the dojo, Nabiki groaned and lowed her head to rub the bridge of her nose. She knew they should have left the moment these people had started demanding a fee. Akane had come into this place with her temper already at dangerous levels, then she was put in the back and allowed to have her anger simmer, and the last rather inopportune comment finally broke the dam. The redhead was just at the wrong place at the wrong time… and had on the wrong hair color.
Always the optimist, Nabiki did manage to find something good about the situation. Well, at least it wasn’t the little girl that drew her attention. Why was it that the longer her sister was angry, the less sense she had?
Kenichi’s just went slack when the crazy girl suddenly went after Kisara for no apparent reason. “H-Hey! What the heck are you doing?”
Kisara managed to put up her arms in time to take the hit, and then backpedaled to keep from being knocked down and immediately assumed a stance. “Umm, what’s going on?”
“Shut up! If that sexist pig won’t fight me, then I’ll take you! Kya!”
As he watched Kisara slowly back her away around the lawn, Kenichi glanced over to his masters. “Aren’t you people going to do something?”
Sakaki blinked, then looked over to Akisame. “Umm, should we?”
“Well…” Akisame mumbled while the battle played out. Miu’s friend pulled back from a trio of punches, and caught the other girl on the third to yank her off balance with her right hand before spinning around to kick with the left. The close quarters kept it from doing any real damage, but it knocked the other girl off her attacking rhythm and allowed Kisara to prepare for another round. “… nah.”
“No,” Shigure agreed.
“Apachai not think so.”
Kenichi gave an annoyed groan at his masters, and then rushed out to help. Either Kisara would get beat up by a violent maniac, or the redhead would land a good kick and scatter the other girl’s brains on the lawn. He made it between the two and held out his arms. “Stop it!”
Kisara blinked at the idiot stepping into the fight. “Huh?”
Akane just continued on. If they wanted to do two on one, she was fine with that. In fact, she preferred beating up the guy who’d just jumped in. She socked the sexist right in the jaw.
As Kenichi stumbled back for the blow, Kisara got out of his way rather than get tangled up with him while some crazy girl was trying to kill them. She thought about just shoving Kenichi out of the way, but with that overly-chivalrous fool’s ideals, he’s probably just keep jumping in to get himself hurt even more. She hated to just back out of a fight, but Kenichi didn’t back out after he stuck his nose into someone else’s business.
“Now just stop-” was all Kenichi got out before Akane attacked again. With little choice, he switched tactics. First he’d just toss her around to buy some time, and put her in a hold until she’d clamed down, then make the troublemaker leave.
The girl swung and Kenichi grabbed her sleeve and pulled forward to add to Akane’s momentum, then dropped back and grabbed the front of her gi while rolling onto his back. He planted his foot on her stomach and…
From the sidelines, Akisame smirked. “Ah, so he’s using that throwing technique.”
Sakaki crossed his arms and frowned. “Yeah, but to you think he realizes the wall is-”
…Kenichi rolled backwards and let the girl sail over him. On the other side of the hold, Akane let out a angry yell when the open part of her gi gave the boy a good view of her chest. “YOU PERV-ugh!”
“-right behind him,” the karate master finished right as the girl‘s head slammed into Ryozanpaku’s wall before Kenichi had even let her go.
As soon as the woman collapsed on top of him, Kenichi let out one of his girlish screams and started apologizing, saying that it was an accident, and all those sorts of things. Having heard the like before, Kisara just grabbed the back of the woman’s collar and tossed her off, the offer her hand to help Kenichi up. “I could have taken care of it.”
“With those on?” Kenichi demanded, pointing at the boots she was wearing. “You could have really hurt her!”
You mean like what she was trying to do to me? Kisara thought. But, instead of saying that, all she did was look at the wall, then Kenichi, and raise an eyebrow. “I don’t know… seems you did that all yourself.”
“T-That was an accident,” he said in a pitiful attempt at defense. He didn’t really hit her… did he? The counter had just been an attempt to gain some room so he could talk the woman down. If she had continued after that, Kenichi could have put her in a hold until she gave up.
Kisara rolled her eyes. “Who was she anyway?”
Before Kenichi could answer, Nabiki quickly made her way over to hoist up Akane’s unconscious body, and slung one of the girl’s arms over her shoulder. “Oh, she nobody special. Just someone coming to challenge the dojo. Let me just get her out of the way…”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Kisara yelled. “She attacked me I’m not with them!”
I was afraid of that, Nabiki thought. Still, she put on her best smile and waved her free hand dismissively. “Come on, it was just a little mindless aggression, no harm done.”
Akisame walked up from behind the girl and checked Akane‘s head. “I wouldn’t say that,” he mumbled. “Come to by bonesetters clinic behind the dojo. That was a nasty hit she took.”
I really did hit her Kenichi told himself as waterfall tears ran down his eyes and his legs gave out. I hit a girl. He was scum. No, worse than scum. He… he was Niijima!
“Why? So you can charge us more?” Nabiki demanded.
For his part, Akisame let out a deep chuckle. “Of course!” he told her before handing the girl a bill. “By the way, since you did fight a member of out dojo, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask for the ten thousand yen.”
Nabiki frowned at the request. Normal insults were one thing, but money? “Screw you! He attacked us!”
As he watched the girl head out the door, Akisame crossed his arms and frowned.
“You want to make her pay up?” Sakaki asked as he cracked his knuckles.
“… no,” Akisame finally said after thinking it over. “Kenichi did jump in after all. Let’s just let the matter drop, for the moment at least.” It wouldn’t be the first time that someone tried to skip out on their bill.
With that taken care of for the moment, he looked over to Kisara and raised an eyebrow. “I think we have more important things to do.”
After the excitement had worn off, everyone went about their business. Apachai and Shigure went back to playing with Honoka, although the game was short-lived when she realized it was time to start working on lunch. Sakaki dragged Kenichi off to the back yard to smack some sense into him, leaving Akisame and Kensei to deal with their newcomer.
“So I take it by the lack of a panicked look on your face, this isn’t an emergency?” Kensei asked.
Kisara sighed, and the spelled the situation out for them.
When she was done, Akisame nodded to himself. “I see, you want special training, but believe that studying another fighting style would be a betrayal to what you’ve learned so far. Of course, there is also the fact that you‘ve already made adaptations to your basic knowledge of Taekwondo.”
“Well… that’s true,” Kisara admitted. “But that’s just my own innovations.” Except for the stuff that came from Miu, but she had long thrown that aside in favor of her own adaptations.
“Tell me, do you know the history of Taekwondo?” Akisame asked.
Kisara frowned in thought for a moment. “Sort of… I know it was used by the military by some countries that are modern day Korea. But, that‘s about it.”
“That’s a little… inaccurate,” Kensei told her.
“But good enough for the moment,” Akisame added. “What I wanted to point out was that modern day Taekwondo is somewhat different than it’s original style. Like Maui Thai, today’s Taekwondo was originally used by a military and turned into a sport in modern times; and as such was made less lethal. Also, during the Japanese occupation of Korea, Korean martial arts were forbidden and Karate took its place in an attempt to suppress Korean culture. When the occupation ended and Korean culture came back into the mainstream, their martial arts had already been greatly influenced by both Karate, and several styles of Kenpo from China. Later on, the differing styles were eventually merged into one by the act of the Korean government.”
“Basically, the martial art you know is already an amalgam of several styles, plus your own innovations,” Kensei told her.
With the explanation done, Kisara could only stare while the digested the information and tried to figure out what the men in front of her were trying to say. If anything, it was a perfect reason of just why Kisara didn’t like having a master guide her. They were always cryptic, and expected their students to figure things out on their own most of the time when it came to this philosophical stuff. “So… you’re saying it would be okay if I took Karate here?”
The suggestion made Akisame flinch. “Oh lord no.”
Kensei made a face. “I don’t think Sakaki could take having to deal with another disciple.”
“Actually, I was just saying that it wouldn’t be as bad as you think to learn a few techniques from other styles,” Akisame clarified. “As to what you really asking about, I don’t think you need to enroll at Ryozanpaku in order to improve your physical abilities. I can make a training schedule and show you some exercises if you want, as long as you consent to an examination that is. I‘d need to see just what you need to work on, and what you want to build up.”
By the time Kisara left the dojo, the sun had already been down for over an hour. The experience had been… enlightening.
She had always thought that there had been some weird, ancient secret to Kenichi being able to do what he did, especially considering background. After actually seeing him workout, the only secret she could see what someone who dragged him back to work when he wanted to quit.
Unfortunately, it also left Kisara with a bigger problem than when she entered. Before, it had just been a question of trying to figure out how to balance her work and martial arts. Now, that really wasn’t an option. If she hoped to improve, she’d need to quit her job and train full time, or else just stay the way she was and only exercise to maintain her current level.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:00)
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.