Here it is, the culmination of 24 hours of work to create a story where Akane gets a female friend. I expect the usual reactions in short order, so for anyone who cares, please enjoy it.
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 1/?
If there was one thing that Katie Izland didn’t like, it was a bully. Back when she was in grade school, she’d been bullied by kids in her class by the common grade school thugs who stole lunch money, shoved kids in lockers, and dumped pencil shavings on heads. It wasn’t a good time for her at all, especially at that point in her young life–but don’t get it twisted at all, while her experience wasn’t great, theirs was awful when she was done with them.
A lesson Katie took from that traumatic point in her life was that when you knowingly messed with and provoked someone stronger than you and you got your ass handed to you on a silver platter for it, it was no one else’s fault but your own. If you could learn your lesson and change your ways though, you had a chance at being a better person. If you kept doing it? You were beyond pity. It was this lesson that brought Katie to the following conclusion:
98% of Furinkan High School’s male student body were irredeemable subhumans.
It was the fourth day in a row that the American transferee had to watch this sad display of lust and desperation take place in the front yard of the school–of a literal army of boys from first to third year armed with any weapon they could find getting ready to attack and be destroyed by a girl who the jackass top dog of the school said would date any of them provided they could beat her.
Apparently that wasn’t exactly what he said, but these desperate losers interpreted it as such. Not that it stopped him, of course; apparently he got off on said walking war zone’s brutality and would try to flatter her with praise of her prowess–before she destroyed him too. In fact, there he was at the back of this latest round of rabble, practicing the line he would try to woo the girl with after she demolished this crowd.
The object of their collective obsession had not arrived yet, but she was coming. Despite her being constantly at odds with these guys and having to crush them all every morning, she wasn’t going to let them get in the way of her getting an education. Why would she? Even on the first day of this she mowed them all down before the bell could ring. She was either that good, or these guys were that weak. Either way, it was embarrassing to watch once, and yet here they all were for the fourth time, ready to do this again.
Four times was too many, the rule was after the third time you rethought your life choices and maybe tried something other than the same stupid thing. Unfortunately, the wrecking ball of a girl who tore through them, for all of her strength, was clearly too nice to leave them with lasting injuries. Which obviously translated to her opponents thinking that if they just worked a little harder, they’d win. It was the wrong lesson to take from it.
Katie had no qualms against the girl for going easy on ‘em, she understood why she wouldn’t want to actually maim any of them perfectly, but she also knew that if this kept up these idiots would probably be willing to go at this for weeks until it just became some twisted tradition that would never stop. Something had to be done before it came to that, she didn’t come all the way to Japan just to be stuck in a shitty school full of guys who don’t realize how rapey they were acting.
So, with that in mind, the tall, black haired girl with bright green eyes rolled her shoulders and began to make her through the crowd of spectating girls and somewhat smarter boys–the precious 2% who knew better–towards the front of the group of malcontents. It was pretty easy for her to move through the crowd, at 179cm she was taller than a lot of the boys, and the moody, intimidating aura of her foreignness combined with the flat, disinterested look she had on her face most of the time parted the more timid and polite without her having to ask.
Once past the onlookers, she made a line straight for the front gate, walking along the wall until she reached it. A glance to her left allowed her to catch sight of the girl in question, a cute girl with long dark hair walking with her slightly taller, bob-cut sporting older sister. Even from this distance, she could see that the girl of the hour was looking pretty agitated.
A glance to her right saw the slavering crowd, of young men from various clubs and groups readying weapons and psyching themselves up. Today was the day, some of them told themselves, one of them would do it. One of them would beat her and get to go on a date with her, it was the easiest way to a girl’s heart they’d ever dreamed of!
Katie sighed and stopped, turning to face the group of idiots. Seeing her step forth, the horde of boys grew confused and stared at her. It wasn’t like they didn’t know who she was, the foreign transfer student from northwest America stood out like a sore thumb, being almost as tall as Kuno and emanating an aura of “Fuck off” that intimidated even the “AFY” wankers who worshipped everything red, white, and blue.
“Hey, you guys,” she said in eloquent Japanese unexpected of a foreigner, “Don’t you think this has gone on too long?”
Akane Tendo woke up as she did every day for the last three days, ready to punch every boy on Earth. Over the course of them, she had to fight almost the entire male student body of her school because that idiot Tatewaki Kuno had mouthed off that only a man who could defeat her would be able to date her without getting his shit kicked in by Kuno.
Of course, a bunch of guys who were hot for Akane literally took that as “If you can beat Akane, then she HAD to go on a date with you” and here she was, with her knuckles still kind of raw from all the punching she had to do yesterday, getting ready to work over the same crowd of idiots again just so she could go to class.
Her morning routine, once such a pleasant thing, was now corrupted with her unbridled anger at immature boys who would gladly take any shortcut to get a girl to date them that didn’t involve actually asking a girl out. She got dressed, knowing that these guys saw her as property to win, rather than a human being. She ate her breakfast, comfortable in the fact that these boys were content with physically harming the same person they’d want as a girlfriend. She walked to school, understanding that if it weren’t for the fact that she was 100% straight and in love with a kind, if somewhat silly man over twice her age, she would dive into the first lesbian relationship offered to escape boys forever.
“Ugh, there they are, the stupid boys,” Akane growled angrily at the sight of the waiting crowd.
Beside her was Nabiki Tendo, who totally did not harbor resentment towards her younger sister for turning the boys she once happily flirted with and dated off and on into slavering idiots who wouldn’t give her the time of day because of “easier” odds in her younger sister.
“Well, you can’t fault them for being determined,” Nabiki pointed out.
“Yes I can,” Akane shot back, not noticing the tall dark-haired girl who walked out in front of the crowd. “They’re just going to keep coming, and coming, until one of them actually beats me.”
Which would be never, even holding back Akane could lay them flat one-by-one with a one-hitter quitter and still be done with a crowd of over seventy in under a minute and a half. More to the point, even in the highly unlikely chance of one of those randos landing a lucky knock out blow, she wouldn’t date him at all. In fact, the moment he showed up at her figurative or literal doorstep to cash in, she’d stomp him even harder.
“Why are they even obsessed with me? It’s not like someone’s selling pictures of me to give them something to work for.”
“Oh my, someone would have to be a stone-cold money-loving bitch with a jealous streak a mile wide to be so petty,” Nabiki dryly said.
Akane looked ahead, ready to take on the horde, when she saw that a different situation was brewing at the gate to the school. The tall dark-haired girl she hadn’t noticed before was now fully noticed, and she seemed to be saying something to the boys. “What’s going on there?”
Up ahead, Katie continued right from where she left off at the break. “It’s been three days of this, and it’s pretty obvious you’re not gonna beat her. So why don’t you give it a rest?”
She was expecting a more hostile response to her intervention–maybe someone calling her a filthy foreigner and telling her to mind her own business, maybe someone brusquely shoving her aside so they could get to the object of their desire. However, they all did neither; the only response she got from them was a slack-jawed stare that told her they were all having difficulty comprehending the words she said.
At the front, a boy in a karate gi was the one to finally say what was on all of their minds. “You want us to… stop?”
It was Katie’s turn to be confused, how could they not understand her? Ten years of Japanese lessons did not let her down. “Yeah, she’s not going to want to date any of you.”
“Not until we beat her!” One enterprising young man said.
“Yeah!” A few others chorused.
“No, I mean, even if you beat her-” Katie tried to emphasize.
“Well, she has to. That’s what Kuno said,” an enterprising young boxer pointed out.
“No, if we beat her, then we have permission to ask her out, that’s what Kuno said,” a fencer clarified, receiving quite a few nods of agreement.
Katie needed the moment to process that one, this time around. “Wait, what?”
“You have to understand,” said the boy in the gi, “Kuno-senpai is way stronger than all of us. If any of us tried to date Akane without his clearance, then he’d beat the crap out of us.”
Katie stopped for another moment, before she resumed. “So let me see if this scans… the reason you’re all lining up to get your shit pushed in is because you think you have better odds of beating her than you do Kuno?”
There were a lot of nods from the group.
Oh, this made this so much easier. Here she thought she was going to have to beat up all of these losers, it turned out she only had to bust open one asshole. Taking a deep breath, she called out. “Hey! Kuno!”
The crowd of boys parted immediately, Old Testament Biblically, revealing the tall and suave figure cut by one Tatewaki Kuno. He had heard the voice of a woman call him out, in a tone more befitting of a lout seeking challenge, and when he saw that it was the new foreign girl who’d darkened the halls of his school just days before, his intense eyes narrowed… intensely.
“Is there something that you request of the undisputed and undefeated champion of the High School Kendo circuit, I, Tatewaki Kuno?” He said as he began to walk towards the her, the wooden sword he carried in his right hand held low.
“Yeah,” Katie said, “I’m going to ask you to leave that Akane girl and all of these guys alone, or I’m going to break your arms.”
Kuno stopped, his eyes flying wide at the threat leveled at him by this foul-toned woman. “I beg your pardon?”
The threat similarly surprised the gathering students. Did the transfer really think she was going to go up against the strongest guy in school?
“I said: I am going to break your arms if you keep this shit up,” Katie said. “These guys don’t need your permission to ask anyone out, and if you’re going to terrorize them into terrorizing some girl, then you need your arms broken, asshole.”
Behind Katie, Akane and Nabiki came to a stop when they saw that the foreigner was getting into an escalating exchange with Kuno.
“That’s the transfer in your class,” Akane said, “What’s she doing.”
“It looks like she’s calling Kuno out,” Nabiki said.
“Why?” Akane frowned. “He’s going to beat her to a pulp…”
“Maybe,” Nabiki murmured as she pulled out a camera phone. “I wonder if I’ll be able to upload this to that American site, Worldstar.”
Kuno closed his eyes and let out a smooth laugh. “I see… your ignorance of our noble culture shall be forgiven, as you are from America. However, your insults towards my person shall not pass so easily! Apologize for your insolence!”
“Culture?” Katie replied. “I don’t think even from a cultural standpoint that it’s okay for a piece of shit with a sword to start telling total strangers who they can or can’t date. You’re not some shogun, you’re just some guy with middle school fantasies that he didn’t get over.”
The other students winced, while one whistled, and another went “Oooooh…” in sympathetic pain. If there was one thing anyone didn’t address, it was the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room that was Kuno’s self-styled delusions of being a noble samurai that would be pathetic if not for the fact that he could smash through concrete with the air displaced by a swing of a wooden sword.
A nerve was deeply touched with Kuno, naturally. “Even when shown mercy, you continue this foolishness. Well, let it be said that I, the Shooting Star of Furinkan High School, did not give you fair warning!”
“Welp, she’s dead,” Nabiki quipped.
Both hands gripping his bokken, Kuno shot straight for Katie, sword raised above his head. “I STRIKE!”
“Oh no,” Akane murmured as she tensed to act. She could handle Kuno just fine, she was stronger than most nearly everyone in the school, but Kuno was still a monster. She dropped her bag aside and prepared to dive in to intercept the attack, block it, or something–but it was too late, as a very loud crack sounded that silenced the schoolyard.
A well-known myth of Muay Thai is that practitioners of the sport increase the power of their devastating kicks by repeatedly kicking a sturdy tree over and over, until their legs were so strong that the tree eventually succumbed to the power of the practitioner’s mighty tibia. The truth is far more mundane, with the so-called sturdy tree being the soft and malleable wood of the banana tree, which eventually evolved into the heavy kicking bags more popularly known inside the sport.
That said, with repeated kickings of a training bag, eventually through ossification repairing tiny fractures created by the impact, one’s leg bones do get tougher, harder to break. This is important, especially in the case of Katie, who had delivered a roundhouse kick that connected her tibia into Kuno’s left arm with tremendous force.
The crack that silenced schoolyard was the Shooting Star of Furinkan High School’s humerus snapping like a dry twig on impact.
Kuno didn’t even get flung that far. Heck, he didn’t even get knocked off his feet. When he missed, and she landed her kick, he just stumbled on his feet, his eyes wide and watering as the pain of having his arm clearly smashed to pieces registered through even his thick skull.
Unharmed entirely in the exchange, or rather oblivious to the pain of hitting someone that hard with her leg–another well-known benefit of the kicking training–Katie lowered her leg as the students all around her recoiled to a chorus of “EHHHH?!”
“Did… did she just break Kuno’s arm?” A very much disbelieving Akane asked as she stared, stunned at the violence.
Nabiki, ever the unflappable, continued to film. “Either that or the reader’s suspension of disbelief just broke.”
Akane looked at her. “Huh?”
“What?” Nabiki replied quickly.
Katie turned to Kuno, who had let go of his sword with his left hand and–to his merit–was holding in that overwhelming impulse to start screaming and crying in pain. He kept his head bowed, his well groomed hair hiding his face, as he tried his ardent best to play cool the pain he was in… it was not working.
“So, that’s one arm, asshole. Ready to lose the other one for a while?” She asked.
“You… you…!” Kuno spat out, as he focused all of his energy, all of his pain, into gripping his trusted bokken so tight the wood splintered. He then took a deep breath and turned around, his face streaked with tears, snot, and sweat but still looking completely calm and composed.
“You think that merely crippling an arm will stop the majestic ace of Furinkan High School?” He said coolly.
“Not really,” she replied as she entered a loose fighting stance, “That’s why I said I was going to break them both.”
Nabiki looked over to Akane. “So uh, weren’t you going to stop this?”
Akane had picked up her bag, and was just watching intently now. “No, this is fine.”
Panting loudly, trying to focus on anything but the pain, Kuno was just too stubborn to cut his losses, and brandished his sword. “The only thing being shattered, is you… you… American… harlot!”
He staggered towards her, each shift of his arm causing flashes of pain that blurred his vision momentarily, either from the agony or the tears that were forced out. “I am the chosen hero… of this school… the strongest sword…”
“Whatever,” Katie said with a casual eyeroll.
“I will not… fall this day…!” He declared as he turned his stagger into a lunge, bokken held up and behind him to swing down with maximum force. “I WILL SLAY YOU, INVADER-!”
Katie watched his sword come down as she moved out of its path to catch him by the forearm, which she guided down, down, and down, so that her rising knee met his arm right at the elbow. After the immediately following snap, even Nabiki winced.
“Oh, arms do not bend that way,” she said.
Akane looked a little green. “That one does.”
Katie let Kuno go, and stepped back, letting him stand there, his whole body shaking. In his agony he foamed at the mouth, trying his darnedest to try to focus on his opponent and having little luck. Due to the pain he could only really do one thing at a time, and what he was trying to do now was not scream and break down crying.
Other students, not at all expecting this outcome, actually began to feel sorry for Kuno. Not surprisingly, most of them were from the Kendo Club, as one such young man called out to him in clear distress. “Captain! Oh no!”
Another student, a girl, called Katie out. “Y-you didn’t need to do that to Kuno-senpai!”
“Ew… he looks like he’s going to pass out standing up,” a third student called over the growing rabble.
“You… you’re going to pay for this!” That was certainly another member of the kendo club.
Katie snorted, and turned away from them to Akane. “Hey, uh… Tendo, right?”
Akane jumped when she suddenly had her attention. “Eh, yes?”
Katie hooked a thumb at Kuno. “Do you think I went too far?”
Akane stared at the foreign girl, then looked at Kuno still foaming at the mouth, and then back to the girl. She did this a couple more times, almost calmly contemplating her answer, before she stated it succinctly.
“No.”
Katie nodded and rolled her right arm, to loosen kinks that probably weren’t even in it. “Great. That’s all I wanted to know.”
She turned around to face her audience, ostensibly to lay down the new law as it were, but instead found herself facing Kuno as he was in the middle of picking up his bokken in his teeth and standing upright. As he stood tall, he took in a deep breath and began to scream, howling loudly as he bit down on the bokken like one would a strap of leather while being amputated in the old days.
“OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Katie blinked. “… Uh.”
She looked back to Akane and Nabiki, who were staring at this new development with matching blank expressions. “Hey, does he think he can turn super saiya-jin or something, too?”
“This is new, actually,” Nabiki admitted. Hilarious, too.
“He’s just trying not to give away that he’s crying. He did this when I beat him in a kendo match, too,” Akane flatly added.
The same kendoist who promised revenge to Katie gaped in awe at the Kendo Club Captain’s sudden rush of determination. “Captain… even in his state, he’s showing his true power!”
“Go Kuno-senpai!” Another kendo club member called out, as others began to cheer him on.
“I! FIGHT! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!” Kuno screamed in pain, going for as loud and forceful as he could to not sound like he was bawling his eyes out like a child. “I WILL SHOW YOU… THE TRUE POWER OF THE PROUD KUNO BLOODLIIIIIINE!”
Katie watched him with a mix of bemusement and disinterest. “Okay.”
Digging his heels into the ground, and his teeth into his bokken, Kuno crouched and sprang off, to charge straight for this evil, vile woman and plunge his bokken square into her heart with the power of his love, his anger, and all of his sorr-
Katie’s knee collided full force with his chin, snapping the bokken, shattering his jaw, and interrupting completely the narrator’s dramatic description of Kuno’s intent.
“Why don’t you just,” Katie said as her kneecap ground against his smashed face, “FUCK…!” She then released the pent up potential energy, completing the full motion of her knee and launching Kuno. “OFF?!”
The recoil of her blow caused her to perform a backflip, as Kuno–a trail of condensation rings around a trail behind him–smashed into the clock at the center of the school’s tower and hitting the bell behind it with a loud, warped clang followed by an uncomfortable grinding of gears.
The schoolyard was quiet again, as Katie landed on her feet and dusted off her uniform’s skirt. Letting her hands hang limp at her sides, she looked at the group of students staring at the hole in the building where Kuno had gone, and waited. Sure enough, one by one all eyes returned to the foreign girl who just made an embarrassment out of who had been once the undisputed lord of the school, and this time around nobody talked shit.
“She… she put him through the school’s clock,” a student in the crowd murmured in amazement.
“Is he dead?” Another student asked.
Everyone waited and listened. Sure enough, they could hear a high-pitched whine of pain from a man too durable to avoid being knocked unconscious, but not durable enough for when it it counted.
“Oh okay, he’s not. This is still a comedy!” The same student said in relief.
Akane walked over to Katie, cautiously entering her field of view. When she noticed her, the taller girl turned her head and glanced down at her. “Sup?”
“You’re really strong,” Akane stated.
Katie shrugged her shoulders. “I’d better be, ‘else all that martial arts training was a huge waste of time and money.”
She looked back up at where Kuno’s legs dangled out of the school. “Like with that guy; he should really start looking for a refund.”
“Wait, hang on,” one of the boys part of the horde of Akane’s would-be suitors said, “Does this mean we can ask Akane out on dates like normal people now? We don’t have to do this fighting thing anymore?”
Katie shrugged her shoulders. “I guess? It’s not like he’s going to be kicking anyone’s ass anytime soon, but uh… I don’t think that’s even going to help you at this point.”
Before any of them could ask, Akane laid it out quite plainly for them. “I wouldn’t go out with any of you if my life depended on it!”
Almost every boy in the group suddenly turned titanium white with Akane’s words.
“Why would I want to date any of you, after you guys attacked me every morning for the last three days?!”
A bit of color actually appeared, a faint blue shade appearing on their foreheads and descending down their faces.
“You think that I’d give you the time of day, when I had to put up with you shouting at me to go out with you, while you were swinging for my face?!”
A dark, gloomy cloud now appeared over their heads, weighing down their shoulders and forcing their heads down in shame.
“None of you are even that strong! Even if I did like boys–which I don’t–I WOULDN’T DATE WEAKLINGS LIKE YOU!”
Katie immediately looked in Akane’s direction her eyes lighting up with interest at her declaration. On the other end of the verbal assault, what had once been a fair large percentage of the male student body were now extras for a zombie apocalypse film. Realization had properly dawned, that in their desperation to get Akane’s attention and be able to ask her out without being killed by Kuno, they had poisoned the well that was her opinion of them, ensuring that none of them would ever get a chance to date her… or perhaps any girl if word got out that their idea of courtship was to physically assault someone.
“Now get out of my sight, you losers!” Akane yelled at them.
They obeyed, completely cowed, and one by one began to listlessly walk towards the front doors of the school. There was no hope for them, no light. Any and all romantic aspirations for all of them were dashed with their irrational decisions. There would never be a springtime of their high school days, or real love and companionship to look forward to. All that was lost forever, in lieu of a dark, lonely future surrounded by plastic figurines and posters of unattainable fictional representations of women, warmed only by the light of computer generated wives programmed to worship them but feel nothing.
And Akane couldn’t imagine a more fitting punishment for them.
Nabiki sighed in annoyance. Either this was going to be very good, or very bad for her business, and she really didn’t like economic uncertainty.
“Well, that’s all squared away,” Katie said as she dusted off her hands. “I can now go back to enjoying some peace and quiet.”
As she began to walk away, however, Akane called to her. “Excuse me, Izurando-san?”
Katie stopped and looked back at Akane. “Sup?”
Akane bowed deeply to the foreign transfer girl. “You didn’t have to do it, but you stepped in and helped me with these guys. So, thank you.”
Katie waved it off. “Nah, it was no big deal. You’re a really nice girl, and those boys had no business picking on you.” She shrugged her shoulders after. “Besides, it’s been a while since I got a chance to actually fight a dude, so…”
“Um, I’ve seen slaughterhouses that gave the cows a fairer fight.” Nabiki hadn’t actually, but the sheer one-sidedness of that beating warranted the comparison.
Akane was a little flattered by Katie’s compliment. “Oh, um… thank you for that as well, uh…” She then brightened a bit. “Did you want to have lunch together? I want to know how you were able to kick Kuno that hard.”
Nabiki raised an eyebrow, as Katie gave Akane a probing glance, and then put on a small smile herself.
“Sure, you don’t mind eating lunch on the roof, do you?” She asked Akane.
Akane shook her head. “No, that’s fine.”
Katie smiled, a little broader and reached out to give Akane the V-sign. “Cool. I’ll see you then.”
With that, Katie turned and began walking back to the school along with the rest of the dispersing students. As they watched her go, Nabiki looked over to Akane, who was now looking a lot happier than she had for a few days.
“She’s really cool, isn’t she?” Akane asked Nabiki.
Nabiki shrugged her shoulders. “Eh, she’s all right I guess? Let me know when a hot guy comes along.”
Akane huffed noisily at that. “A hot boy? Here? If I ever meet a hot boy, that’ll be the day I’m engaged to one!”
“ACHOO!”
The sneeze of a sixteen year old Japanese boy in a karate gi with brown eyes and dark hair ending in a tightly-braided pigtail made his father and their tour guide, both middle aged, folically challenged men, jump.
Sniffling loudly, Ranma Saotome brought his fingers to his nose. “Aw geez, I hope I’m not coming down with a cold.”
“Don’t you worry, son,” his father, Genma Saotome, declared, “These springs will cure all that ails you even as we train.”
Ranma sniffled again and shivered. The air here was kind of chilly, for a place that was supposed to be a spring. “I hope so, it don’t feel like no hot spring though, Pop.”
“It not hot-spring, honored guests, it cursed spring. Very dangerous, you no want to fall in,” their tour guide warned them in his very basic Japanese.
“Whatever,” Genma said, dismissing the tour guide. “Even if they’re not hot springs. There’s nothing that a good workout won’t cure!”
Ranma, however, had caught that last bit. “Wait, what about not falling in?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Genma insisted. “Besides, that’s the whole point of this training, you won’t fall in.”
The two of them looked ahead, at the cursed pools of the Jusenkyo Springs spread out before them.
“Trust your old man, son. Nothing will go wrong.”
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 1/?
|Right and Wrong Lessons|
If there was one thing that Katie Izland didn’t like, it was a bully. Back when she was in grade school, she’d been bullied by kids in her class by the common grade school thugs who stole lunch money, shoved kids in lockers, and dumped pencil shavings on heads. It wasn’t a good time for her at all, especially at that point in her young life–but don’t get it twisted at all, while her experience wasn’t great, theirs was awful when she was done with them.
A lesson Katie took from that traumatic point in her life was that when you knowingly messed with and provoked someone stronger than you and you got your ass handed to you on a silver platter for it, it was no one else’s fault but your own. If you could learn your lesson and change your ways though, you had a chance at being a better person. If you kept doing it? You were beyond pity. It was this lesson that brought Katie to the following conclusion:
98% of Furinkan High School’s male student body were irredeemable subhumans.
It was the fourth day in a row that the American transferee had to watch this sad display of lust and desperation take place in the front yard of the school–of a literal army of boys from first to third year armed with any weapon they could find getting ready to attack and be destroyed by a girl who the jackass top dog of the school said would date any of them provided they could beat her.
Apparently that wasn’t exactly what he said, but these desperate losers interpreted it as such. Not that it stopped him, of course; apparently he got off on said walking war zone’s brutality and would try to flatter her with praise of her prowess–before she destroyed him too. In fact, there he was at the back of this latest round of rabble, practicing the line he would try to woo the girl with after she demolished this crowd.
The object of their collective obsession had not arrived yet, but she was coming. Despite her being constantly at odds with these guys and having to crush them all every morning, she wasn’t going to let them get in the way of her getting an education. Why would she? Even on the first day of this she mowed them all down before the bell could ring. She was either that good, or these guys were that weak. Either way, it was embarrassing to watch once, and yet here they all were for the fourth time, ready to do this again.
Four times was too many, the rule was after the third time you rethought your life choices and maybe tried something other than the same stupid thing. Unfortunately, the wrecking ball of a girl who tore through them, for all of her strength, was clearly too nice to leave them with lasting injuries. Which obviously translated to her opponents thinking that if they just worked a little harder, they’d win. It was the wrong lesson to take from it.
Katie had no qualms against the girl for going easy on ‘em, she understood why she wouldn’t want to actually maim any of them perfectly, but she also knew that if this kept up these idiots would probably be willing to go at this for weeks until it just became some twisted tradition that would never stop. Something had to be done before it came to that, she didn’t come all the way to Japan just to be stuck in a shitty school full of guys who don’t realize how rapey they were acting.
So, with that in mind, the tall, black haired girl with bright green eyes rolled her shoulders and began to make her through the crowd of spectating girls and somewhat smarter boys–the precious 2% who knew better–towards the front of the group of malcontents. It was pretty easy for her to move through the crowd, at 179cm she was taller than a lot of the boys, and the moody, intimidating aura of her foreignness combined with the flat, disinterested look she had on her face most of the time parted the more timid and polite without her having to ask.
Once past the onlookers, she made a line straight for the front gate, walking along the wall until she reached it. A glance to her left allowed her to catch sight of the girl in question, a cute girl with long dark hair walking with her slightly taller, bob-cut sporting older sister. Even from this distance, she could see that the girl of the hour was looking pretty agitated.
A glance to her right saw the slavering crowd, of young men from various clubs and groups readying weapons and psyching themselves up. Today was the day, some of them told themselves, one of them would do it. One of them would beat her and get to go on a date with her, it was the easiest way to a girl’s heart they’d ever dreamed of!
Katie sighed and stopped, turning to face the group of idiots. Seeing her step forth, the horde of boys grew confused and stared at her. It wasn’t like they didn’t know who she was, the foreign transfer student from northwest America stood out like a sore thumb, being almost as tall as Kuno and emanating an aura of “Fuck off” that intimidated even the “AFY” wankers who worshipped everything red, white, and blue.
“Hey, you guys,” she said in eloquent Japanese unexpected of a foreigner, “Don’t you think this has gone on too long?”
|Good Grief…|
Akane Tendo woke up as she did every day for the last three days, ready to punch every boy on Earth. Over the course of them, she had to fight almost the entire male student body of her school because that idiot Tatewaki Kuno had mouthed off that only a man who could defeat her would be able to date her without getting his shit kicked in by Kuno.
Of course, a bunch of guys who were hot for Akane literally took that as “If you can beat Akane, then she HAD to go on a date with you” and here she was, with her knuckles still kind of raw from all the punching she had to do yesterday, getting ready to work over the same crowd of idiots again just so she could go to class.
Her morning routine, once such a pleasant thing, was now corrupted with her unbridled anger at immature boys who would gladly take any shortcut to get a girl to date them that didn’t involve actually asking a girl out. She got dressed, knowing that these guys saw her as property to win, rather than a human being. She ate her breakfast, comfortable in the fact that these boys were content with physically harming the same person they’d want as a girlfriend. She walked to school, understanding that if it weren’t for the fact that she was 100% straight and in love with a kind, if somewhat silly man over twice her age, she would dive into the first lesbian relationship offered to escape boys forever.
“Ugh, there they are, the stupid boys,” Akane growled angrily at the sight of the waiting crowd.
Beside her was Nabiki Tendo, who totally did not harbor resentment towards her younger sister for turning the boys she once happily flirted with and dated off and on into slavering idiots who wouldn’t give her the time of day because of “easier” odds in her younger sister.
“Well, you can’t fault them for being determined,” Nabiki pointed out.
“Yes I can,” Akane shot back, not noticing the tall dark-haired girl who walked out in front of the crowd. “They’re just going to keep coming, and coming, until one of them actually beats me.”
Which would be never, even holding back Akane could lay them flat one-by-one with a one-hitter quitter and still be done with a crowd of over seventy in under a minute and a half. More to the point, even in the highly unlikely chance of one of those randos landing a lucky knock out blow, she wouldn’t date him at all. In fact, the moment he showed up at her figurative or literal doorstep to cash in, she’d stomp him even harder.
“Why are they even obsessed with me? It’s not like someone’s selling pictures of me to give them something to work for.”
“Oh my, someone would have to be a stone-cold money-loving bitch with a jealous streak a mile wide to be so petty,” Nabiki dryly said.
Akane looked ahead, ready to take on the horde, when she saw that a different situation was brewing at the gate to the school. The tall dark-haired girl she hadn’t noticed before was now fully noticed, and she seemed to be saying something to the boys. “What’s going on there?”
Up ahead, Katie continued right from where she left off at the break. “It’s been three days of this, and it’s pretty obvious you’re not gonna beat her. So why don’t you give it a rest?”
She was expecting a more hostile response to her intervention–maybe someone calling her a filthy foreigner and telling her to mind her own business, maybe someone brusquely shoving her aside so they could get to the object of their desire. However, they all did neither; the only response she got from them was a slack-jawed stare that told her they were all having difficulty comprehending the words she said.
At the front, a boy in a karate gi was the one to finally say what was on all of their minds. “You want us to… stop?”
It was Katie’s turn to be confused, how could they not understand her? Ten years of Japanese lessons did not let her down. “Yeah, she’s not going to want to date any of you.”
“Not until we beat her!” One enterprising young man said.
“Yeah!” A few others chorused.
“No, I mean, even if you beat her-” Katie tried to emphasize.
“Well, she has to. That’s what Kuno said,” an enterprising young boxer pointed out.
“No, if we beat her, then we have permission to ask her out, that’s what Kuno said,” a fencer clarified, receiving quite a few nods of agreement.
Katie needed the moment to process that one, this time around. “Wait, what?”
“You have to understand,” said the boy in the gi, “Kuno-senpai is way stronger than all of us. If any of us tried to date Akane without his clearance, then he’d beat the crap out of us.”
Katie stopped for another moment, before she resumed. “So let me see if this scans… the reason you’re all lining up to get your shit pushed in is because you think you have better odds of beating her than you do Kuno?”
There were a lot of nods from the group.
Oh, this made this so much easier. Here she thought she was going to have to beat up all of these losers, it turned out she only had to bust open one asshole. Taking a deep breath, she called out. “Hey! Kuno!”
The crowd of boys parted immediately, Old Testament Biblically, revealing the tall and suave figure cut by one Tatewaki Kuno. He had heard the voice of a woman call him out, in a tone more befitting of a lout seeking challenge, and when he saw that it was the new foreign girl who’d darkened the halls of his school just days before, his intense eyes narrowed… intensely.
“Is there something that you request of the undisputed and undefeated champion of the High School Kendo circuit, I, Tatewaki Kuno?” He said as he began to walk towards the her, the wooden sword he carried in his right hand held low.
“Yeah,” Katie said, “I’m going to ask you to leave that Akane girl and all of these guys alone, or I’m going to break your arms.”
Kuno stopped, his eyes flying wide at the threat leveled at him by this foul-toned woman. “I beg your pardon?”
The threat similarly surprised the gathering students. Did the transfer really think she was going to go up against the strongest guy in school?
“I said: I am going to break your arms if you keep this shit up,” Katie said. “These guys don’t need your permission to ask anyone out, and if you’re going to terrorize them into terrorizing some girl, then you need your arms broken, asshole.”
Behind Katie, Akane and Nabiki came to a stop when they saw that the foreigner was getting into an escalating exchange with Kuno.
“That’s the transfer in your class,” Akane said, “What’s she doing.”
“It looks like she’s calling Kuno out,” Nabiki said.
“Why?” Akane frowned. “He’s going to beat her to a pulp…”
“Maybe,” Nabiki murmured as she pulled out a camera phone. “I wonder if I’ll be able to upload this to that American site, Worldstar.”
Kuno closed his eyes and let out a smooth laugh. “I see… your ignorance of our noble culture shall be forgiven, as you are from America. However, your insults towards my person shall not pass so easily! Apologize for your insolence!”
“Culture?” Katie replied. “I don’t think even from a cultural standpoint that it’s okay for a piece of shit with a sword to start telling total strangers who they can or can’t date. You’re not some shogun, you’re just some guy with middle school fantasies that he didn’t get over.”
The other students winced, while one whistled, and another went “Oooooh…” in sympathetic pain. If there was one thing anyone didn’t address, it was the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room that was Kuno’s self-styled delusions of being a noble samurai that would be pathetic if not for the fact that he could smash through concrete with the air displaced by a swing of a wooden sword.
A nerve was deeply touched with Kuno, naturally. “Even when shown mercy, you continue this foolishness. Well, let it be said that I, the Shooting Star of Furinkan High School, did not give you fair warning!”
“Welp, she’s dead,” Nabiki quipped.
Both hands gripping his bokken, Kuno shot straight for Katie, sword raised above his head. “I STRIKE!”
“Oh no,” Akane murmured as she tensed to act. She could handle Kuno just fine, she was stronger than most nearly everyone in the school, but Kuno was still a monster. She dropped her bag aside and prepared to dive in to intercept the attack, block it, or something–but it was too late, as a very loud crack sounded that silenced the schoolyard.
|The Breaker|
A well-known myth of Muay Thai is that practitioners of the sport increase the power of their devastating kicks by repeatedly kicking a sturdy tree over and over, until their legs were so strong that the tree eventually succumbed to the power of the practitioner’s mighty tibia. The truth is far more mundane, with the so-called sturdy tree being the soft and malleable wood of the banana tree, which eventually evolved into the heavy kicking bags more popularly known inside the sport.
That said, with repeated kickings of a training bag, eventually through ossification repairing tiny fractures created by the impact, one’s leg bones do get tougher, harder to break. This is important, especially in the case of Katie, who had delivered a roundhouse kick that connected her tibia into Kuno’s left arm with tremendous force.
The crack that silenced schoolyard was the Shooting Star of Furinkan High School’s humerus snapping like a dry twig on impact.
Kuno didn’t even get flung that far. Heck, he didn’t even get knocked off his feet. When he missed, and she landed her kick, he just stumbled on his feet, his eyes wide and watering as the pain of having his arm clearly smashed to pieces registered through even his thick skull.
Unharmed entirely in the exchange, or rather oblivious to the pain of hitting someone that hard with her leg–another well-known benefit of the kicking training–Katie lowered her leg as the students all around her recoiled to a chorus of “EHHHH?!”
“Did… did she just break Kuno’s arm?” A very much disbelieving Akane asked as she stared, stunned at the violence.
Nabiki, ever the unflappable, continued to film. “Either that or the reader’s suspension of disbelief just broke.”
Akane looked at her. “Huh?”
“What?” Nabiki replied quickly.
Katie turned to Kuno, who had let go of his sword with his left hand and–to his merit–was holding in that overwhelming impulse to start screaming and crying in pain. He kept his head bowed, his well groomed hair hiding his face, as he tried his ardent best to play cool the pain he was in… it was not working.
“So, that’s one arm, asshole. Ready to lose the other one for a while?” She asked.
“You… you…!” Kuno spat out, as he focused all of his energy, all of his pain, into gripping his trusted bokken so tight the wood splintered. He then took a deep breath and turned around, his face streaked with tears, snot, and sweat but still looking completely calm and composed.
“You think that merely crippling an arm will stop the majestic ace of Furinkan High School?” He said coolly.
“Not really,” she replied as she entered a loose fighting stance, “That’s why I said I was going to break them both.”
Nabiki looked over to Akane. “So uh, weren’t you going to stop this?”
Akane had picked up her bag, and was just watching intently now. “No, this is fine.”
Panting loudly, trying to focus on anything but the pain, Kuno was just too stubborn to cut his losses, and brandished his sword. “The only thing being shattered, is you… you… American… harlot!”
He staggered towards her, each shift of his arm causing flashes of pain that blurred his vision momentarily, either from the agony or the tears that were forced out. “I am the chosen hero… of this school… the strongest sword…”
“Whatever,” Katie said with a casual eyeroll.
“I will not… fall this day…!” He declared as he turned his stagger into a lunge, bokken held up and behind him to swing down with maximum force. “I WILL SLAY YOU, INVADER-!”
Katie watched his sword come down as she moved out of its path to catch him by the forearm, which she guided down, down, and down, so that her rising knee met his arm right at the elbow. After the immediately following snap, even Nabiki winced.
“Oh, arms do not bend that way,” she said.
Akane looked a little green. “That one does.”
Katie let Kuno go, and stepped back, letting him stand there, his whole body shaking. In his agony he foamed at the mouth, trying his darnedest to try to focus on his opponent and having little luck. Due to the pain he could only really do one thing at a time, and what he was trying to do now was not scream and break down crying.
Other students, not at all expecting this outcome, actually began to feel sorry for Kuno. Not surprisingly, most of them were from the Kendo Club, as one such young man called out to him in clear distress. “Captain! Oh no!”
Another student, a girl, called Katie out. “Y-you didn’t need to do that to Kuno-senpai!”
“Ew… he looks like he’s going to pass out standing up,” a third student called over the growing rabble.
“You… you’re going to pay for this!” That was certainly another member of the kendo club.
Katie snorted, and turned away from them to Akane. “Hey, uh… Tendo, right?”
Akane jumped when she suddenly had her attention. “Eh, yes?”
Katie hooked a thumb at Kuno. “Do you think I went too far?”
Akane stared at the foreign girl, then looked at Kuno still foaming at the mouth, and then back to the girl. She did this a couple more times, almost calmly contemplating her answer, before she stated it succinctly.
“No.”
Katie nodded and rolled her right arm, to loosen kinks that probably weren’t even in it. “Great. That’s all I wanted to know.”
She turned around to face her audience, ostensibly to lay down the new law as it were, but instead found herself facing Kuno as he was in the middle of picking up his bokken in his teeth and standing upright. As he stood tall, he took in a deep breath and began to scream, howling loudly as he bit down on the bokken like one would a strap of leather while being amputated in the old days.
“OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Katie blinked. “… Uh.”
She looked back to Akane and Nabiki, who were staring at this new development with matching blank expressions. “Hey, does he think he can turn super saiya-jin or something, too?”
“This is new, actually,” Nabiki admitted. Hilarious, too.
“He’s just trying not to give away that he’s crying. He did this when I beat him in a kendo match, too,” Akane flatly added.
The same kendoist who promised revenge to Katie gaped in awe at the Kendo Club Captain’s sudden rush of determination. “Captain… even in his state, he’s showing his true power!”
“Go Kuno-senpai!” Another kendo club member called out, as others began to cheer him on.
“I! FIGHT! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!” Kuno screamed in pain, going for as loud and forceful as he could to not sound like he was bawling his eyes out like a child. “I WILL SHOW YOU… THE TRUE POWER OF THE PROUD KUNO BLOODLIIIIIINE!”
Katie watched him with a mix of bemusement and disinterest. “Okay.”
Digging his heels into the ground, and his teeth into his bokken, Kuno crouched and sprang off, to charge straight for this evil, vile woman and plunge his bokken square into her heart with the power of his love, his anger, and all of his sorr-
Katie’s knee collided full force with his chin, snapping the bokken, shattering his jaw, and interrupting completely the narrator’s dramatic description of Kuno’s intent.
“Why don’t you just,” Katie said as her kneecap ground against his smashed face, “FUCK…!” She then released the pent up potential energy, completing the full motion of her knee and launching Kuno. “OFF?!”
The recoil of her blow caused her to perform a backflip, as Kuno–a trail of condensation rings around a trail behind him–smashed into the clock at the center of the school’s tower and hitting the bell behind it with a loud, warped clang followed by an uncomfortable grinding of gears.
|Senpai|
The schoolyard was quiet again, as Katie landed on her feet and dusted off her uniform’s skirt. Letting her hands hang limp at her sides, she looked at the group of students staring at the hole in the building where Kuno had gone, and waited. Sure enough, one by one all eyes returned to the foreign girl who just made an embarrassment out of who had been once the undisputed lord of the school, and this time around nobody talked shit.
“She… she put him through the school’s clock,” a student in the crowd murmured in amazement.
“Is he dead?” Another student asked.
Everyone waited and listened. Sure enough, they could hear a high-pitched whine of pain from a man too durable to avoid being knocked unconscious, but not durable enough for when it it counted.
“Oh okay, he’s not. This is still a comedy!” The same student said in relief.
Akane walked over to Katie, cautiously entering her field of view. When she noticed her, the taller girl turned her head and glanced down at her. “Sup?”
“You’re really strong,” Akane stated.
Katie shrugged her shoulders. “I’d better be, ‘else all that martial arts training was a huge waste of time and money.”
She looked back up at where Kuno’s legs dangled out of the school. “Like with that guy; he should really start looking for a refund.”
“Wait, hang on,” one of the boys part of the horde of Akane’s would-be suitors said, “Does this mean we can ask Akane out on dates like normal people now? We don’t have to do this fighting thing anymore?”
Katie shrugged her shoulders. “I guess? It’s not like he’s going to be kicking anyone’s ass anytime soon, but uh… I don’t think that’s even going to help you at this point.”
Before any of them could ask, Akane laid it out quite plainly for them. “I wouldn’t go out with any of you if my life depended on it!”
Almost every boy in the group suddenly turned titanium white with Akane’s words.
“Why would I want to date any of you, after you guys attacked me every morning for the last three days?!”
A bit of color actually appeared, a faint blue shade appearing on their foreheads and descending down their faces.
“You think that I’d give you the time of day, when I had to put up with you shouting at me to go out with you, while you were swinging for my face?!”
A dark, gloomy cloud now appeared over their heads, weighing down their shoulders and forcing their heads down in shame.
“None of you are even that strong! Even if I did like boys–which I don’t–I WOULDN’T DATE WEAKLINGS LIKE YOU!”
Katie immediately looked in Akane’s direction her eyes lighting up with interest at her declaration. On the other end of the verbal assault, what had once been a fair large percentage of the male student body were now extras for a zombie apocalypse film. Realization had properly dawned, that in their desperation to get Akane’s attention and be able to ask her out without being killed by Kuno, they had poisoned the well that was her opinion of them, ensuring that none of them would ever get a chance to date her… or perhaps any girl if word got out that their idea of courtship was to physically assault someone.
“Now get out of my sight, you losers!” Akane yelled at them.
They obeyed, completely cowed, and one by one began to listlessly walk towards the front doors of the school. There was no hope for them, no light. Any and all romantic aspirations for all of them were dashed with their irrational decisions. There would never be a springtime of their high school days, or real love and companionship to look forward to. All that was lost forever, in lieu of a dark, lonely future surrounded by plastic figurines and posters of unattainable fictional representations of women, warmed only by the light of computer generated wives programmed to worship them but feel nothing.
And Akane couldn’t imagine a more fitting punishment for them.
Nabiki sighed in annoyance. Either this was going to be very good, or very bad for her business, and she really didn’t like economic uncertainty.
“Well, that’s all squared away,” Katie said as she dusted off her hands. “I can now go back to enjoying some peace and quiet.”
As she began to walk away, however, Akane called to her. “Excuse me, Izurando-san?”
Katie stopped and looked back at Akane. “Sup?”
Akane bowed deeply to the foreign transfer girl. “You didn’t have to do it, but you stepped in and helped me with these guys. So, thank you.”
Katie waved it off. “Nah, it was no big deal. You’re a really nice girl, and those boys had no business picking on you.” She shrugged her shoulders after. “Besides, it’s been a while since I got a chance to actually fight a dude, so…”
“Um, I’ve seen slaughterhouses that gave the cows a fairer fight.” Nabiki hadn’t actually, but the sheer one-sidedness of that beating warranted the comparison.
Akane was a little flattered by Katie’s compliment. “Oh, um… thank you for that as well, uh…” She then brightened a bit. “Did you want to have lunch together? I want to know how you were able to kick Kuno that hard.”
Nabiki raised an eyebrow, as Katie gave Akane a probing glance, and then put on a small smile herself.
“Sure, you don’t mind eating lunch on the roof, do you?” She asked Akane.
Akane shook her head. “No, that’s fine.”
Katie smiled, a little broader and reached out to give Akane the V-sign. “Cool. I’ll see you then.”
With that, Katie turned and began walking back to the school along with the rest of the dispersing students. As they watched her go, Nabiki looked over to Akane, who was now looking a lot happier than she had for a few days.
“She’s really cool, isn’t she?” Akane asked Nabiki.
Nabiki shrugged her shoulders. “Eh, she’s all right I guess? Let me know when a hot guy comes along.”
Akane huffed noisily at that. “A hot boy? Here? If I ever meet a hot boy, that’ll be the day I’m engaged to one!”
|Qinghai Province, China|
“ACHOO!”
The sneeze of a sixteen year old Japanese boy in a karate gi with brown eyes and dark hair ending in a tightly-braided pigtail made his father and their tour guide, both middle aged, folically challenged men, jump.
Sniffling loudly, Ranma Saotome brought his fingers to his nose. “Aw geez, I hope I’m not coming down with a cold.”
“Don’t you worry, son,” his father, Genma Saotome, declared, “These springs will cure all that ails you even as we train.”
Ranma sniffled again and shivered. The air here was kind of chilly, for a place that was supposed to be a spring. “I hope so, it don’t feel like no hot spring though, Pop.”
“It not hot-spring, honored guests, it cursed spring. Very dangerous, you no want to fall in,” their tour guide warned them in his very basic Japanese.
“Whatever,” Genma said, dismissing the tour guide. “Even if they’re not hot springs. There’s nothing that a good workout won’t cure!”
Ranma, however, had caught that last bit. “Wait, what about not falling in?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Genma insisted. “Besides, that’s the whole point of this training, you won’t fall in.”
The two of them looked ahead, at the cursed pools of the Jusenkyo Springs spread out before them.
“Trust your old man, son. Nothing will go wrong.”
