Waking up the next morning it was mostly the same morning routine for Akane. Without Ranma around however it was far quieter, with a slightly sad lonely atmosphere to the morning. Kasumi most of all was simply going through the motions, no young martial artists waltzing in to dance with her.
When Akane stepped outside though, there was just a touch of strangeness waiting outside to liven up her day, a pale-skinned black-haired woman in a black outfit, her red eyes staring straight at her. “Miss Tendo, Lord Ranma is waiting for you at the school yard.”
Staring at the woman, Akane stood to curiously consider her statement. “Lord Ranma?”
All she received in return was a slight smirk. “Are you not going?”
Staring for a second longer, Akane turned and started jogging towards school.
Sighing at how straight forward her little sister was, Nabiki turned back to the mystery woman to get some actual answers. There was no trace of the woman however, leaving Nabiki alone except for the rapidly departing figure of her little sister.
Getting to the school gate, Akane found a few of the usual guys there, but they made no move to stop her. Making it into the courtyard without a challenge for once, a quick look around revealed most of the students were preoccupied with something else.
That something else proved to be Ranma, surrounded by four girls that definitely weren’t from her school. There was a brunette with a long side-ponytail wearing a white-with-blue-accents school uniform chatting happily. Then a girl with short blue hair in a blue kimono with pink obi and purple hakama smiling quietly at his side. On the other side of Ranma, a pale girl with long pink hair wearing a fancy dress was talking to some of the Furinkan girls. The final girl standing behind Ranma was no where near as refined as the other three, a brash modern girl wearing a orange and black top and ruffled miniskirt that left her belly bare, her twin blond ponytails bouncing with her motions.
Since Ranma wasn’t in a uniform either, they actually looked like a cohesive group since everyone else was in school uniforms.
Awkwardly approaching the group, Akane stopped at the edge, bowing slightly. “Good morning Master Ranma.”
The young man however gave her an easy grin in return. “Morning Akane-chan. Guess we need to talk about your training. Seems Mom wants me to stay with her.”
Nodding in turn, Akane supposed she could understand that, but there was something else bothering her. “Your father freaked out as soon as he found out you went to your mom’s. What was up with that? He even wrecked my room looking for something.”
Ranma heaved a heavy sigh, long tired of hearing bad news about stupid stuff his father did. “Eh, Mom’s kinda upset with the old man right now. Also all the trouble Pops causes comes to our house, so maybe some of that bit him in the ass.”
Brightening up at the idea of the fat jerk in trouble, Akane looked around at the girls.
Catching her look, Ranma nodded and introduced them: the cheerful brunette, “Nanoha Takamachi”; the blue-haired samurai-princess, “Aoi Sakuraba”; the pink-haired knight, “Utena Tenjo”; and the blonde kunoichi, “Naruko Uzumaki”.
Ranma however didn’t let them get dragged into chatting away, instead bringing the discussion back to what he needed to talk with his erstwhile student about. “About the whole training thing, what do you wanna to do? It’s starting to look like I might only be able to train you on weekends. I’m just wondering if you really wanna keep this up.”
Looking at the girls surrounding Ranma, it was obvious they were familiar with him. His question was more than if she wanted to continue training, but whether she wanted to keep their relationship going, offering her an out. After last night, she was feeling like it might mean he’d leave her life completely. It might have been only one day, but they’d bathed together twice and he’d even slept in her bed, so they weren’t exactly strangers anymore. If nothing else she wanted to at least improve her art from the clumsy feeling style she knew.
Taking a breath, Akane firmed her resolve before bowing to Ranma. “I will continue to be in your care.”
Sighing lightly at the situation, Ranma tried to clear up some things. “Well, we don’t have to do it that way. When I told Mom about the arrangement and she found out you girls turned it down, she dissolved the arrangement. It’s really just training now, you can forget about that stuff Nabiki tricked you into.”
Aoi gently interrupted their conversation with a question. “Ah, Ranma-sama, what arrangement might you be referring to?”
After a bit of thought, Ranma realized it was public knowledge since yesterday morning, so he might as well tell them instead of letting them hear it through gossip. “Our fathers are old training buddies, so basically I was supposed to marry her or one of her sisters to unite the styles and families. We worked it out to me training Akane a bit so she can take over her dojo, and that’ll unite the styles.”
Relieved to hear that Ranma was still protecting her reputation at school by hiding the sex-slave thing, Akane noticed something odd. From the looks the girls and Ranma were trading, it seemed more like he was hiding it from them, or at least being careful to phrase it gently.
Akane made a point to not get too deep into schoolgirl politics herself, but she was certainly familiar with it due to her own odd popularity. The blue haired girl, Aoi, reminded her of Kasumi in how despite her gentle polite question there was a definite undercurrent tension. Obviously something about the arrangement was bothering her. Bothering all four of them actually, and Ranma was trying to smooth it over.
Looking at the girls, she couldn’t shake the very clear message their group was sending, that they were there for Ranma. There was also that strange woman at her house earlier. “Ah, Master Ranma, there was a strange woman outside my house that called you Lord Ranma.”
Pausing a beat, Ranma relaxed quickly. “Ah, it’s no big deal, some people just like to be formal.”
Suspicions firming, Akane realized he was definitely hiding something.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Valor Phoenix
(Posted Sat, 09 Apr 2011 04:00)
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.