“Akane! How many times have I told you not to lean your head back and follow through with that part slower,” Genma said as the girl her was addressing rubbed her sore posterior.
“Well it’s not my fault, my hair keeps getting in my eyes,” she yelled back with a frown on her face before looking back down to the ground and lowering her voice. “Besides, I don’t see why I have to learn that stupid kata anyway, not like I’m ever going to use it.”
Genma opened his mouth to tell her otherwise, when the sound of a horn outside quickly cut him off and made him look down at the watch on his wrist to see the time. It was about eight o’clock, meaning that could only of been Nodoka on her way back from shopping with Ranko. So, letting out a sigh, Genma dropped his arm back to the side and then looked back towards his part time student. “Well, guess that’s it for today, go do some cooling down exercises and I’ll see you after school on Wednesday.”
“Oh, yes sensei,” Genma heard Akane reply behind him on his way out of the dojo and to the main house.
After saying his goodbyes to his old friend and training partner Genma went out to the front to get in the family car and sat in the front passenger’s seat while his wife Nodoka started to take them home. It wasn’t anything fancy what with Genma’s meager salary as a kempo instructor at a more popular dojos downtown, but it got them around. Behind him his daughter of ten talked about how her day was and asked about Akane. Since Genma had been forbidden by Nodoka to so much as show Ranko how to kick properly, it seemed the redhead was trying to live vicariously through her idol.
Genma normally would have indulged his daughter with reports and such, but on nights like tonight he was just too tired for it. However the exaction was more mental than physical, hell what he had gone through today would of barely classified as warm up exercises in the old days under Happosai. Not for the first time, Genma was thinking that the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts was going to die with him. It was sad really. That youngest daughter of Soun’s did have some potential, as much as her father perhaps, but it was all just being completely wasted in her current environment.
Repressing a sigh, Genma thought back to how it had turned out like this. After Ranma’s training accident and death in the hospital, Genma had come back home to Nodoka in shame. Luckily, or unluckily depending on how he thought about it at the time, Nodoka decided not to follow through with the contract, and they put the past behind them and tried to follow through with their lives. It seemed to work for awhile, a year later their daughter Ranko was born, and Nodoka had taken it upon herself to try and raise her to be what she deemed a proper young woman.
Then, a two years later, after discovering Nodoka had no intention of letting her daughter go to train with Genma, as well as any other children they might have, Genma came to Soun in hopes to find an ultimatum in order to join the schools. What they eventually agreed upon seemed logical at the time, that Genma would train the youngest of the girls in martial arts since she seemed to be the only one who showed any interest in it.
But once again fate had conspired to throw a monkey wrench in Genma’s plans. This time the problem that had come up had been none other than Soun himself! Apparently after his wife’s death, he seemed to have… fallen from the man he once was. Other than the fact that the man seemed to cry at the slightest provocation, and was somewhat bi-polar when it came to moods, it seemed he was also quite over protective when it came to his girls. Training trips that Genma had planned to take Akane on were canceled, training exercises that would cause more than a little soreness and pain were stopped before they could even begin, and anything even slightly dangerous to Akane’s health was completely thrown out the window. It was bad enough that Genma had been stuck with a girl as an heir, and a somewhat clumsy one at that, but under these restrictions Akane was years behind what she should have been and would never actually get any higher if things continued without a miracle.
Well, maybe that was a bit much, but without his normal… inspiration methods, something to actually encourage Akane to improve –that Kuno boy had been okay when she started high school but after surpassing his limited abilities her will to increase quickly burned out- or some magical thingamajig, that girl wasn’t going to be leaving her rut any time soon; if ever.
Not for the first time, Genma wished he hadn’t been so foolish with his own son… or at least found a replacement boy before coming back to Nodoka.
(Posted Tue, 20 Apr 2004 13:03)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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