Now that was truly enjoyable, Akane muses to herself as she walks through the front gate of the Tendou home. "Tadaima!"
"Ah, Akane-chan, you're back," Kasumi walks onto the porch.
The younger Tendou gazes on her sister, quickly noticing the pinched look on Kasumi's face. "Is there something wrong, Onee-chan?"
"I'm afraid there is, sis."
Akane looks over to see Nabiki step onto the porch. The look on the middle Tendou daughter's face sends a chill down Akane's back. Whenever Nabiki had that look on her face, trouble was brewing. "What is it?" she steps onto the porch.
"You, sis, screwed up big time," Nabiki beckons her sister with a finger. "C'mon..."
Sometime later, a shell-shocked Akane sits on Nabiki's bed, her mouth fluttering as she tries to muster the words, ANY words, which could explain this deep hole she now found herself in. "But...?" she rasps. "H-HOW?! I knocked Ranma clear out of the room..."
"That is BESIDE the point, Akane!" Kasumi sternly cuts in, causing her sister to instantly wilt. It was rare for Kasumi to so openly express her displeasure, which made it twice as hurtful for her younger sister.
"Onee-chan..."
Kasumi takes a deep breath. "It's not because you have a relationship with Shampoo-chan, Akane-chan. You know I really don't care about things like that," she reaches over to squeeze Akane's knee in reassurance. "You love Shampoo-chan and she loves you. I think that's wonderful, little sister. But..." she pulls her hand away. "In pursuing your relationship with Shampoo-chan, you LIED to Ranma-kun. What's worse, you THREATENED to force him into something he clearly doesn't wish to be. And this was something that's always been VERY important to him, Akane-chan. And that..." she sighs, "...was enough to force both him and Auntie to break the engagement."
Akane thinks about that for a moment, then she sighs. "Dad would never allow it to end like this..."
"I talked some sense into him," Nabiki cuts in. "Once I got the panda out of the way, of course. Easily done, after all."
"You got rid of him?" Akane stares at her sister.
"Sure. Shortly after Ukyou diced her way into our lives, I did a discrete background check on what else Uncle might've done that would've come to hurt us in the future. Soon as Auntie and Ranma-kun left, I called the police. Instant they showed up, Uncle unsealed his Umisen-ken technique and amscrayed." An icy smile crosses her face. "I don't think we'll be seeing him anytime soon."
Hearing that, Akane smirks. "Good riddance to bad rubbish."
"Agreed," Kasumi sighs, now clearly showing the strains putting up to a year of Genma's endless appetite forced on her.
"What about Dad?"
"Well, in spite of all of this, he still wants an engagement to go through between one of us and Ranma-kun," Nabiki reports. "Now, since you and I are pretty much on Ranma-kun's shit list now..."
"Nabiki-chan, your language," Kasumi scolds.
"Forget it, Onee-chan!" Nabiki snaps back, then sighs, waving to her older sister. "The only way this'll work out is through Onee-chan."
Akane blinks, then stares at Kasumi. "Onee-chan, you don't have to do this...!"
"I'll do it."
"Onee-chan!!"
"No!" Kasumi snaps, rising from the bed and marching to the door before gazing at Akane. "What you both have done to Ranma-kun since he first came here was wrong. It has to be addressed. Since it might be a very long time before Ranma-kun can make himself forgive you both -- if he ever will -- then I will help redress this. And maybe it will work. And maybe it won't."
She steps out. Nabiki and Akane watch her before exchanging looks...
Later that night, Akane lays awake in her bed, gazing absently at the ceiling as her mind rolls through the day's events. What should have been something of a normal day had turned into a nightmare thanks to her making one big mistake: believing that Ranma would just continue to put up to her abuse without striving to curtail it in some way. And he just had to try to put it to use at the worst time possible.
And now...
Now...
Akane grimaces. Until now, she never had taken the chance to truly appreciate how much Ranma valued his manhood. Before this, she believed that in subtle, cautious ways, Ranma was moving to develop a sense of what being a woman was about. Oh, yes, there were the times when Ranma, as a girl, turned on her own personal "kawaii effect" to get free food or to razz that moron Kunou. Each time that Akane had been personal witness to those situations, it had been quite the struggle to not leap over the gorgeous redhead and pillow her brains out.
But now, in the wake of today's events, it was brutally obvious. Ranma looked on his girl body as a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. A tool he had no real control over thanks to Jusenkyou's nature, but still a tool. And that, in a purely asthetic sense, offended Akane like nothing else. To see such a gorgeous creature, even one created by ancient magic, treated in that fashion...
No! It would not be.
But how to change it? How could she try to make Ranma see reason, especially in the wake of what happened today? Yes, let Kasumi try to re-establish some rapport between Ranma and the Tendous, but Akane wanted something out of this, too. And hell, Shampoo and Ukyou deserved something out of this as well for all the garbage they had to endure because of Ranma...
No.
Not Ranma.
Akane closes her eyes. No, the real fault didn't rest on the shoulders of a naive, clueless yet fundamentally decent person like Ranma. It was Genma and Nodoka who were truly to blame in this case. Genma, the lazy-ass fool who was perhaps one of the worst hypocrites in the world. Always hazing Ranma time and time again about maintaining his honour when the stupid panda didn't know a THING about true honour, given the number of families whose lives had been affected by his thieving ways. And to believe that Souun was friends with such a man!
And Nodoka...?
Akane's lips turn into a sneer. Who the HELL gave that over-honoured, homophobic bitch the right to judge anyone, much less her own child?! ESPECIALLY after ABANDONING him for ten whole years to a monster like Genma, then marching back into Ranma's life waving that katana and that rotted old sheet of paper around, saying in effect that Ranma had to act like HAPPOUSAI of all people or else lose his head and his life!
And Ranma honestly still LOVED her after that?!
Akane breathes out. No. If there was going to be any progress made on this regard, Nodoka just had to GO!
"Akane? You in there?"
She sits up to see two shadowy figures looming by the window. A relieved grin crosses Akane's face as she recognizes them, then she walks over to open the window and allow Ukyou and Shampoo inside. "Hey, what're a pair of nice girls like you doing out on a night like this?"
Her lovers/ex-rivals giggle as they slip inside...
"So it's true..."
The air seems to waver for a moment before it melts into Ranma, he leaping off the fence of the Tendou home before racing off for his own house. He knew about Akane and Shampoo, but there still had been a faint, wavering hope about Ukyou.
That hope was gone now.
Now what?
(Posted Fri, 28 Feb 2003 08:22)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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