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 5/?
|Beating a Dark Horse|
For all the theatrics of the morning, the rest of the school day went by almost entirely uneventfully. Almost entirely, because by lunch, the newly assigned Furinkan Student Council had to be fitted for their new uniforms, the first of what would be sweeping aesthetical changes to the student body of Furinkan High School. After having a look at the new digs, Ranma decided that a school uniform wouldn’t be too bad to wear. Kodachi had a sense of style, or at the very least enough fashion designers on her payroll to simulate a sense of style.
Speaking of Kodachi, Ranma was fairly convinced that he was developing a type in violent/evil/crazy chicks because of her… or perhaps because for the rest of the day she walked around in a leotard that looked more painted on than worn. That wasn’t to say that the other girls he knew so far weren’t lacking. Akane was built like an MMA brawler but in all the right ways, Katie was tall and slender but had flexibility rivalling Kodachi, and Nabiki easily had the most-banging body he’d seen since Misao and himself in the mirror as a girl.
Nice as the scenery was, though, he was still pretty annoyed about being engaged to someone he didn’t know because his old man wanted to mooch off the Tendo family for a bit. There was also the issue of his curse, which he at least wanted a way to reverse if his job as an internet personality didn’t pan.
It was going to, he had no idea how much.
Speaking of his job, there was the matter of making sure his old man got cut out of it as much as possible. Last thing he wanted was his Pop going around acting like he had something to be proud of with these shenanigans–in addition to making sure that he didn’t start living comfortably off his hard work.
“Hey, Katie,” he said to her as the foursome walked from the school and in the direction of the Tendo Dojo. Ranma wasn’t a rude douchebag, he was going to meet the rest of the Tendos before he went right back over to Misao’s to avoid being roped any further into the engagement.
“Yeah?” She replied.
“Think you can help me set up like a bank account or something? I don’t want my old man getting his hands on my income.”
Katie would find that weird, if meeting Ranma didn’t involve driving her heel into the top of Genma’s head at high speed after he beat his child over the head with a road sign. While one of them was a panda and the other a girl, because the panda was a dumbass.
“Shouldn’t be too hard, Misao hooked me up, she’ll do the same for you,” Katie said. “You really want him cut out of your cash, huh?”
“I don’t want him to get a single yen,” Ranma said.
As if he’d heard that, Genma was suddenly tearing across the backyard of the Tendo home, making a straight line for Ranma’s location.
“Club treasurer, huh?” Akane asked Nabiki. “That’ll be a comfortable gig for you.”
Nabiki agreed, especially once she got a look at the budget. The last time she saw that many zeroes line up, they were fighting to ask her sister out. “IT, engineering, and computer clubs, too. Soon as I’m done knocking this out of the park, I’ve got my foot in the door of every economics school in Tokyo.”
She eyed Akane, seeing that she was now carrying a shinai of her own on her back, and a bokken on her hip. “What about you, Kendo Club President? What else did she give you?”
“Girl’s athletics and the other non-athletic clubs, though Kodachi’s responsible for the Gymnastics Clubs.” Akane then hooked a thumb at Ranma. “Ranma’s pretty much in charge of all the Boy’s Athletics. And he’s head of the school’s karate club.”
Ranma folded his arms and nodded.
Nabiki then looked over at Katie. “What about you? Auto club? Shooting club?”
“Discipline committee,” Katie said, pounding her fists together. “I’m the one who busts heads if people act out.”
“When Kuno gets back, he’s going to be in for such a heartbreak,” Nabiki said, “And you know what? I’m fine with that.”
“Sheesh! I gotta meet this Kuno guy, just to see how bad he is for myself,” Ranma then spoke up.
“No you don’t,” Akane, Nabiki, and Katie said as one. This would prove prophetic.
At that moment, a large white blur fell from above, aiming not for Akane, Katie, or Nabiki, but for Ranma. Looking up, Ranma was quick to cross his arms and block the massive overhead chop Genma brought down upon his head. A shockwave spread out from Ranma’s braced feet, followed by the audible, rocky crunch of the sidewalk fracturing underneath him.
“You got a lot of nerve, trying to make a fool of me!" He bellowed.
“I don't have to try to make a fool out of you, pops,” Ranma replied, quickly lashing out with a crescent kick that made his old man back off so they could throw down properly. “You do all the hard work for me!”
Genma adopted a fighting stance of his own after landing. “Don’t think you can just run off and do what you want!”
“I know I can, because I already am!” Ranma said.
“Well I’m your father and you’re going to listen to me good when I say that you’re
not picking up this internet gig!” Genma declared as he attacked again, unleashing a barrage of punches, chops and other strikes that Ranma quickly began to counter while returning his own blows.
“Why? Cuz I gotta be a girl while I do it?!” Ranma fired back as he broke the barrage and attempted a spin-kick that Genma smartly dodged.
“Because you know what’s going to happen if word gets out about your damn curse!” Genma yelled back as he swung a punch down for his son’s jaw as he came back around. “No one’s going to take you seriously as a man, ever!”
He missed, because Ranma dove, tumbled between his legs, and hopped right back up on the other side of him, turning around quick and bouncing from one foot to the other.
“You mean the curse-” Ranma dodged another punch when Genma attacked “-that I got-” He avoided another one “-because you ignored the guide?!”
Katie clenched her hand into a fist, and her green eyes narrowed. She just remembered that was a thing.
He stopped Genma’s punch for his face with a kick and then moved it aside to go on the offensive, his blows being smartly defeated by Genma despite their incredible force.
“You don’t want me to make money off this stupid curse! You don’t want me to go back to China to get it cured!” Ranma shouted as he blocked another kick from Genma, his hair blown back by the displaced air. “What do you want from me?!”
“To join the schools!” Genma shouted as he put more force behind his leg, and pushed Ranma back. “That’s all you
need to do! Not running around showing off your goods online so people might question if you’re even a man or not!”
Ranma recoiled, before he bristled. “I’m a man! It doesn’t matter what I’ve got in my pants!” He reassumed his fighting stance. “Or on my chest!”
That just made Genma downright surly. "Ungrateful child! You have yet to see the true horror of-”
Katie’s kick connected to the side of Genma's soft head, and he went rocketing into the nearest most adjacent wall–which happened to be the front of the clinic of one Doctor Ono Tofu. The idiot even managed to stand up, dust himself off, take a deep breath and step out of the mess he'd made - but then a flowerpot landed on his head, causing him to land face down on a dropped ice cream cone.
Ranma lowered his hands, seeing the rather embarrassing, but hilarious display. “… 8.5 out of 10.”
“Gimme a second,” Katie said as she got ready.
Genma immediately got back up, pointing at her. “What the hell was that for?! And who are-?!”
Katie jumped and dove for him, prompting Genma to look up at her to see the angle of her attack. Except that this was what Katie was expecting in the first place, because she had deliberately jumped with her back to the sun. Genma was only momentarily blinded by the sun, because Katie’s knee provided all the shade he would need.
Akane and Nabiki both winced from the sheer force that Genma hit the ground after Katie had hit him. Landing next to the second Genma-shaped imprint in the ground, she dusted off her hands, and then her right knee.
“10 out of 10,” Ranma said flatly.
Genma, groaning, looked up as Katie stepped closer to him while speaking, “I don’t know where you think you are, but here in the civilized world we don’t start shit unless we want to get hit.”
“Hey Pop, you’ve met Katie, remember?” Ranma asked. "Her foot disagreed with the back of your head over the whole you taking me by force to the Tendos."
Getting back up, Genma rubbed the back of his head and glared at Katie. “Do you have a problem with how I raise my son, young lady?"
Katie glared at the man, feeling as if something stupid was bound to happen if she let him go unchecked. “If you have to ask, you clearly aren’t as smart as you think you are.”
Genma’s glare intensified, as he prepared to strike the impudent girl down. “Well to that, young lady, I’ve got something to say-”
He should have just attacked, as Katie’s jumping knee sent him flying over the clinic and out of sight, even parting a cloud over head and causing a twinkle in the sky.
“Dead.” Katie declared, making a throat slashing gesture. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“That’s a definite ten.” Akane said, looking at Nabiki with an arched brow.
“9.9, a point off for not breaking the sound barrier.” Nabiki commented, looking over at Ranma. “You keeping your score?”
“I’m biased but anyone who wallops my pop into the atmosphere deserves a ten.” Ranma said, nodding a little. They definitely had to finish that spar soon.
“Oh my, what is going on out here?” the owner of the clinic, the aforementioned Ono Tofu said, emerging from his office to conveniently miss the assault that broke one of his walls.
“Doctor Tofu!” Akane yelped, though she managed to control her usual blushing reaction to him.
He looked down at the Genma-shaped hole in the ground.. “It looks like a grown man fell quite a far ways and hit the sidewalk.” He then looked at the similar imprint on the front of his clinic. “And then in the wall.”
Turning, he scrutinized the group, looking immediately past Katie and Ranma, his calm gaze falling upon Akane.
“Did you do this, Akane-chan?” Tofu asked, his tone neutral and not as accusatory as the question. Akane recoiled, looking a bit hurt regardless of lack of intent behind it.
Katie didn’t like the implications of that question and decided to relieve Akane from the spotlight. “Hey Doc, you don’t have to look at the first person to speak and act like they did it. I did it.”
Akane breathed a sigh of relief and shot Katie a look of thanks. Nabiki, having hoped Akane would make a fool of herself and push herself out of Ranma’s favor, frowned slightly to herself.
“Yeah man,” Ranma said, deciding to back up Akane. “If you can’t look around and take a guess better than just shoving your finger everywhere, then you should keep it to yourself before someone takes exception to it.”
Tofu, taken aback by the double remonstration, studied Katie first and recognized her. That wild animal girl that became Akane’s friend a few weeks ago. He then looked at Ranma and found he didn’t know the boy. “I don’t know you, do I?”
“I just arrived in town the other day, so odds are good you don’t.” Ranma said, crossing his arms all boss like. “The name’s Ranma, Saotome Ranma. Remember it, you’ll be hearing it often.”
The doctor schooled his features well, but a little... something creeped into his voice. “Hmm… is that a fact?”
“Bank on it.” Ranma didn’t back down, staring the man down for a second before he snorted and looked away.
“Now, now,” Katie said, trying to defuse the strangely hostile atmosphere. “Sorry about your wall, an idiot decided he wanted to take a header into it.”
“Oh it’s no bother, damage to the clinic happens all the time.” Tofu said, doing his best to appear cheerful.
“Doctor...?” Akane whispered to herself, feeling out of sorts seeing the nice and cheerful man so... out of character from what she knew of him. Something about Ranma had set something off in the good doctor.
Nabiki saw her chance to look good and took it. “Yeah, it’s a shame but we gotta go. Ranma wanted to see the dojo and you two still got to go back to your place for business right?”
Four sets of eyes trained themselves on her and the differing reactions in each filled Nabiki with a nice sort of feeling. Akane was disbelieving that Nabiki wasn’t accelerating the issue, Ranma was all like hey I forgot about that, Katie was neutral with some kind of hidden emotion and the good doctor was… annoyed? Weird.
Anyway, that seemed to break the tension as Tofu reluctantly nodded. “Well as long as you don’t want to destroy my office, it’s fine. Have a nice day.”
The foursome heading to the dojo all said their goodbyes and headed on their way.
Akane pulled Nabiki back for a second. “What are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” Nabiki asked, smirk evident as she didn’t try to hide her ulterior motives.
“Just watch it will you?” Akane said, glowering at her sister.
“Watch what? You eat my dust?” Nabiki returned, smirk deepening into a grin.
“Oi, come on you two!” Katie called, preventing things from going further.
“Coming!” Nabiki answered, moving to catch up with Katie and Ranma.
Akane just glared at her sister’s back for a long second, before moving along to catch up.
|Demons and Killers|
“I don’t like that guy,” Katie muttered of Dr, Tofu the moment they were out of earshot of the clinic.
She wasn’t out of earshot of Akane, who seemed as offended by the stance as Dr. Tofu would. “Why, Senpai? He’s always been nice…”
Until today, at least, she couldn’t understand why he seemed so irritated by Ranma. It was just a miscommunication, that was all.
Ranma had an idea. “The first thing he did when he saw the damage done, he blamed it on you.”
“Well that’s because Akane has a reputation of getting into fights,” Nabiki informed.
“So do I,” Katie and Ranma said together.
“Heck, that jerk should’ve been blaming me from the start,” Ranma added.
“On top of that, he sounded like he was making a joke,” Katie said.
Nabiki did concede to that. “That is his sense of humor when it comes to property damage. Until you guys came along, Akane pretty much was the only one who could do that kind of stuff.”
Ranma looked at Akane, impressed. “Really?”
“Once, when she was twelve, she flipped a food truck because the guy stiffed her.”
Akane seemed to brood darkly with that. “That takoyaki was awful and he didn’t give me my change.”
Nabiki nodded. “On the bright side, he’d been scamming people all day with that, so everything worked out.”
“That’s fair, then,” Katie judged. “I’ve done more than my share of dispensing justice.”
Ranma agreed as he immediately recalled his own brush with vigilantism. “Yeah, me too. There was this one jackass, a grown man, who conned my friend and a bunch of other kids out of their money by beating them in card games. I rolled him up in straw and threw him in a river.”
He failed to mention that he lost all of his own money, his Dad’s money, his Dad’s belongings, his house, and his Dad’s marriage to his Mom in the process. But since Ranma beat him up and threw him in a river, it was nothing to be concerned about, he won, that was that. Forever.
“Serves him right,” Akane said.
“Did he die?” Nabiki inquired.
Ranma just raised and dropped his shoulders. “Hell if I know, he never came back after me an’ Ucchan were done with him..”
It must have been humiliating to be beaten up by a pair of children. Katie didn’t feel even the tiniest bit of sympathy for him. “Well if he did, he earned it.”
Akane looked ahead and could see the front of the dojo coming up into view. “Well, at least we’re almost home.”
Nabiki smiled a little in that sardonic fashion that made you feel like she was having a joke at your expense but you couldn’t ever prove it. “Such as it is. I’m sure our visitors will love to see the dojo.”
Ranma’s eyes lit up at the mention of the dojo. “Wow, it’s been… years since I last stepped foot in a dojo.”
Akane smiled before she sighed. “I’d like to say it’s a proper dojo but...” She trailed off, looking rather chagrined by that.
“Daddy hasn’t taught in years.” Nabiki finished, looking just as chagrined.
Katie interrupted before Ranma could speak. “You call your dad… daddy?” She expected it out of Akane but Nabiki? It just didn’t fit.
Ranma didn’t say anything because he didn’t really know anything about Nabiki or Akane or their father for that matter. But it did sound weird that such a cold girl would use such a sweet word. And funny, but he controlled his laughter.
Nabiki glowered but refused to rise to the barb, instead choosing to turn her nose up with a rather indignant “HMPH!”
Akane giggled a little. “Anyways, it’ll be good to have you over when you need to practice.”
“And someone to practice with huh?” Nabiki asked, tone arching like her eyebrow.
Akane didn’t rise to the bait, mainly because they were there. And also because that’s what Nabiki wanted. “Well, we’re here. Is Kasumi cooking right now?”
Ranma found his spot to get back into the discussion. “Kasumi?”
“Oh right, you haven’t met her yet. She’s our older sister.” Nabiki said, suddenly not seeming as hot to trot about everything.
“She’s very nice.” Katie said, as diplomatically as she could. “You’ll like her cooking, if nothing else.”
“A real homebody huh?” Ranma asked, not sure how he felt about that.
Akane laughed nervously, deciding it was time to change the topic before things made the two of them look really bad. “Well you’ll meet her eventually, but let’s get to the dojo. I’m sure you’ll want a tour!”
“Sounds like a great idea, Kasumi’s probably too busy right now.” Nabiki said, trying her best to keep her composure.
Katie arched an eyebrow, but after a few seconds of thought, she could understand how they were both feeling less than adequate with their smoking hot older sister looming in the wings. “We didn’t get to finish our spar and this might be our best chance to finish it.” She threw the sisters a lifeline, one that was sure to add any brownie points she might have already earned with them.
Ranma, sensing that there was no point in pursuing the Kasumi topic, went with the change. “Yeah, I really do want to see which of us is better.”
“Try not to obliterate the building please.” Nabiki said, her tone almost pleading. “You can break a few boards, crack a hole in one of the walls but at least try to leave it standing. Minor repairs don’t rock the boat but something major could sink us.”
Akane, remembering the mini-tornado from earlier, could only nod in agreement. “Yeah, that’d be real bad.” She may not have been greedy like her sister but she didn’t want to funnel any new found income into rebuilding the dojo.
Katie and Ranma just exchanged a short look and shrug. “We’ll try to be careful, but don’t be afraid to bill my roommate for any damages, for real.”
“Does she cover all of your shenanigans?” Nabiki asked.
Katie nodded. “She even paid for that clock I broke. That was like a drop in the bucket for her.”
“I see,” Nabiki said in a cooler tone than her usual.
“Still, try to keep it down, okay?” Akane said as they came in through the front door.
“RANMA!” An exuberant Soun Tendo greeted them, but specifically him, as soon as they were through the threshold. “Welcome to the Tendo Dojo, son!”
The patriarch of the Tendo family came right up to the foursome, beaming brightly when he finally got a look at the young man one of his daughters would certainly marry. “I see that you at the very least don’t take after your father in the looks department. Which is good, very good, right girls?”
“Uh, thanks?” Ranma replied.
Nabiki keenly nodded. “Not that I’m a shallow girl…”
“You absolutely are,” Katie muttered in English.
“… But at least be thankful that you might not grow up to look like your old man,” She went on to suggest.
Soun strolled up and hooked an arm around Ranma’s shoulder. “So, how about my daughters, eh? Lookers aren’t they?”
“They’re pretty nice people, yeah,” Ranma quickly corrected him.
“Just you wait until Kasumi gets home,” Soun went on, as if not hearing him. “She’s a darling girl, loves to cook, and is sharp as a blade. She likes to play humble, but I’ve caught her reading those medical books she picks up from Tofu time to time.”
Akane hummed. “Where is Kasumi?”
“She went out this morning as soon as you left to get some errands done,” Soun replied. “She said she’d be gone most of the day.”
Nabiki immediately narrowed her eyes. Kasumi
was pretty sharp, and if she was willing to vanish for the whole day that meant she had a plan of her own. A quick glance in Ranma’s direction made her pretty certain what she was up to.
“Well, that’s all right. I was here to check out the dojo, anyway,” Ranma said.
Soun nodded. “Of course, of course. Feel free to stay for dinner, as well! This is your home now, after all.”
“Actually… I’m just visiting, I have to go to work after this…” Plus he wasn’t keen on staying the night at the Tendos given that he might wake up at the altar the next morning tied down. Nothing against the girls, it was the whole Dad factor. “Plus I don’t want to be a strain on your food supply…”
Katie shrugged her shoulders. “Misao let you in the house at all, so our couch is your couch.”
Soun didn’t care for Ranma being in such close proximity to girls that weren’t his daughters about as much as Genma didn’t care for him working as a girl. “Nonsense, nonsense, you should stay here from now on. This is eventually going to be yours, after all.”
“Uh, thanks but…” Ranma stopped when he noticed that Soun was beginning to manifest a rather large menacing aura. It was downright demonic, dark and filled with an anger barely contained by Soun’s mockery of civility.
“Okay… that’s actually a little intimidating,” Ranma thought
“Is there something wrong with my daughters that makes you uncomfortable, Saotome? Is all that I am giving you not good enough? Is my generosity and hospitality lacking in some way?” Soun asked as he advanced upon Ranma a bit more, looming over him with an almost fully demonic air about him.
Ranma actually took a step back, hesitant to go onto his guard, but at the same time quick to seek out a way from being in this situation.
“Daddy, stop!” Akane said quickly. “If Ranma doesn’t want to stay, then that’s fine!”
Soun paid it no heed. “Well, Ranma?! What exactly is your problem with this arrangement-!”
He then stopped, and drew back from Ranma a full five paces. Directly behind Ranma, Akane, and Nabiki, Katie was staring directly at Soun, her eyes dull despite the murderous intent they drilled into him. He skin crawled, as if he could feel her hands clamping around his neck.
Reaching up, she then brushed some hair from her face. “Oi, isn’t that a bit rude? Bad enough he got dragged here by force, but you have to treat him like it’s his fault for not wanting to stay, too?”
Akane agreed wholeheartedly. “That’s what I mean, Ranma’s not going to want to marry anyone if you treat him like this, Daddy!”
Soun, a lot meeker (and suddenly extremely wary of the wild girl glaring at him), tried to put up a token defense. “It’s his responsibility to…”
“He didn’t even know it was his responsibility until yesterday! None of us knew!” Akane shot back.
“Akane has a point,” Nabiki pointed out. “We didn’t get any warning about this at all, nice as Ranma is.”
She looked to the side, feigning sorrow. “I mean, how awful is it? To be treated like a commodity to be traded and sold at our own father’s whim?”
She turned completely around, microphone in hand, and a spotlight shining down upon her. “With no say in our own destinies, we exist not as people but as mere trading stock! A resource to tap for wealth and prosperity and escaping a bill!”
Akane, who had a rather excellent history of stage performance, swooned and fell to her knees dramatically into the spotlight, just behind her sister. One hand rested on her knee, the other at her mouth as she wept. “How awful, to be betrayed by father…”
Soun was soundly defeated by this impromptu improv performance, the arrows of guilt having rammed deep through his body and into his soul. They were bigger, heftier arrows than they ought to be, though, as if there was some kind of unspoken and weighty validation behind them that was yet to be revealed… until right now: Picolet Chardin.
Bawling in contrition, Soun threw himself down to their feet. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please take your time to get acclimated to us! Don’t think us Tendo family as awful people!”
“Eh, all right,” Ranma said. “I’ll accept your apology if you show us to the dojo.”
Soun was his jovial self in a second. “Of course, right this way my boy!”
As he turned away to lead them down the hall to the dojo, however, Soun developed a more serious look and darted it out the corner of his eye towards Katie. His demonic aura of intimidation was one that only his master could really resist, but it was ultimately a bluff for scaring off opponents to buy time for an escape, a counterattack or both. That girl’s look… those eyes… there was no bluffing there.
“I should discuss this with Saotome, that girl has a killer’s eyes…” He thought to himself.
Katie stepped up to Ranma and gently nudged his shoulder. “Hey, Ranma.”
“Yeah?” He asked when he looked at her.
“Get ready,” she said with a noticeably smile now. “When we get in there, I’m going to give you a real treat.”
Well now Ranma was plain ol’ curious. “A treat, huh?”
Katie nodded and looked forward to the dojo. Her blood was heated up again already, and once they were out on the floor, it would be boiling.
|A Glimpse of Heaven|
In the dojo, Katie’s school uniform came off, revealing underneath a pair of red bicycle shorts and a black and red sports top. Cracking her neck, and stretching to pop her back and shoulders, she turned and looked across the floor of the dojo, where Ranma stood with Soun. The two were standing side by side, with Ranma doing his own stretches and limbering up for the fight. Between them, Nabiki and Akane sat on the sidelines, wearing face visors to protect from splinters.
“Well, hopefully it won’t be interrupted this time,” Akane said, quite eager to see how long Ranma could last against her senpai.
“We can only hope.” Nabiki was more interested in seeing Akane’s senpai being used as a mop to wax the floor with her blood.
Over by Ranma, Soun was still quite contrite as he spoke in a low voice. “I’m sorry for the manner with which I behaved before, but I think you should hear me out, son.”
“Don’t call me son, but what is it?” Ranma asked as he stretched to touch his foot to the back of his head, prompting Nabiki to bite her lower lip.
“Be careful against that girl, there’s something… unseemly about her,” Soun said gently, “She’s got a menacing air about her.”
“She just doesn’t tolerate nonsense,” Ranma deflected. “She punted Pops into the next town over for his.”
Soun recoiled. “She did what?!”
“But that’s okay. Besides, I’ve fought her before, I know what I’m in for.”
He actually didn’t, as he would find out in but a moment as Katie called over to him. “So! Since we were interrupted this morning right when it was getting good, I think we should change it up a bit to get right back into the swing of it.”
Ranma paused. “Oh yeah, what did you have in mind?”
Katie smiled and stepped up to the edge of the floor reserved for fighting. “I’m going to show you a little bit of my Uncle’s fighting style. The one I’ve been trained most in since I was four.”
That was unexpected. “… You mean you haven’t?”
This was news to Akane too. “Your Uncle has a fighting style?”
Katie nodded. “Yep, I’ve used it off and on, but I roll so much other stuff on top of it, that I never have a chance to go back to basics. And Ranma here is so good, that I wanna give him my best. ‘Course, that means we'll have to change the rules from first to hit wina to first to yield loses.”
Ranma was fine with that. “Depends on if you can hit me.”
“Oh, I will.” She looked to Akane and winked. “Pay close attention, you might learn a thing or two.”
Akane felt a little chagrined by the teasing but she let it slide. She would be lying hardcore if she said she wasn’t excited to see her senpai’s absolute best. “I will.”
Katie turned her attention to Ranma, and the smile on her face turn feral. There was no flirtation to the expression, just pure battle mania. As though the prospect of the fight alone was bringing her-
“
Pleasure, that’s what this spar is to her. Is she out for blood or what?” There was no worries in Ranma’s mind as he sauntered out to the floor. He had grown up in the wild and knew what to do when it came to beasts who lived to bite. “
If she thinks she can just sink her fangs into me, she has another thing coming.”
He stopped across from her, sliding down into a stance that was reminiscent of Jeet Kune Do. “Ready when you are.”
Katie threw a few more punches to the side, away from Ranma, before pulling herself up into the basic stance of what appeared to be Muay Thai. Her right leg was leading just a little, her right clearly intended to be her jabbing hand.
Akane raised an eyebrow. “Thai boxing...?”
Nabiki frowned, feeling like the tease wasn’t being delivered on. “That’s not it, is it?”
Ranma narrowed his eyes and studied his opponent for a long second. “
The more I look at it, the more it looks ever so slightly off. It’s not just Thai boxing... probably.” He kept his cool and smirked. “So? We doing this or what?” Deep down, he had already catalogued nearly all the ways she could attack him and how he could counter. If it
was just Thai boxing, this would be over quickly.
Katie just chuckled. “I’m ready now. Do you want first move?”
“Ladies first.” His face was filled with egotistical condescension, clearly spoiling his motive to irritate her.
“Don’t regret it now~
?” She replied, before firing off a right jab at high speed that sliced the air apart.
From Ranma’s perspective, it wasn’t so much a punch as it was a harpoon fired at him. From what he knew of Muay Thai, that was too fast and placed wrong. Still, he dodged it, looking like it required no effort. He fired back a left cross that was slapped aside, followed by a right front kick that was slipped. “
She’s already faster than earlier. Already revved up and going full throttle despite the long cooldown. What a monster.” That was okay, he was a monster too.
She dipped into a right elbow that seemed like it was trying to blow through Ranma and kill the guy that was figuratively behind him.
Ranma slid away from the elbow and noted again that the placement was wrong. In normal Thai boxing, that would be more towards the head, not towards the sternum. Such placement significantly increased the chance for an agonizing injury, if not death. “
The force and speed behind it are even more than usual. This isn’t the Thai boxing used for sport, this is the real deal.”
Soun’s eyes narrowed as the two teens circled each other. “
A killer’s eyes and a killer’s style. It is as I feared.” He thought, recognizing the style immediately. “
You’ve noticed, haven’t you son? She isn’t using Muay Thai, but its progenitor Muay Boran. A true art of violence, designed to reign supreme on the most savage battlefield known as war.”
Ranma nodded his head and went in, throwing a series of punches that left minute openings. They were all blocked or slipped, not a single baited hook reeled in a fished for counter. “
She’ll bite when she wants to, no amount of trying to get her to counter will work eh? Fine by me.”
Katie furrowed her brow in concentration. “
I get the feeling he still isn’t taking me seriously. Let’s change that.” She reared back and threw forth a bomb of a left that almost hummed in the air for his face.
Ranma jerked his head back just in the nick of time, feeling the puff of displaced air as her arm reached the end of its reach. Intriguing, she was throwing fast and hard without sacrificing either. “
Game on huh? Message received loud and clear.”
He shot forward, charging inside her reach and firing his own blow for her liver. It whiffed, and Ranma narrowly blocked a quick series of strikes, the offensive beating him back before an opening appeared in Katie’s guard that he decisively exploited, ducking down onto one hand while thrusting a kick up at her chin.
Katie weaved back from the kick, but her attempted roundhouse kick to punish her inverted opponent missed as Ranma sprung himself off his hands and directly above her, planting his feet on the ceiling.
“Oh!” Akane and Nabiki exclaimed, before Ranma came down on Katie, first seemingly tumbling to swing his own heel down onto her head. When she smartly raised her arms to block, he twisted his entire body like a cat avoiding falling onto her and getting the opening he needed to kick her in the chest as he caught himself on one hand.
“How did he do that?!” Katie thought as pain echoed through her chest. Those reflexes were incredible!
As she caught herself, Ranma hopped off his hand and landed on his feet. He could see Katie was smiling despite her taking a hit. That just compelled him to hit her hard enough to knock that grin off her face. “The Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling
specializes in aerial combat. It doesn’t matter what position I’m in, I can always attack!”
He demonstrated thusly rushing straight for Katie and lashing out with a kick that she blocked with her right arm. Rather than go back, Ranma went up, jumping off her raised arm and then rebounding off the ceiling to kick downward. Katie sidestepped the blow, and fired off a swift right hook that went through the speed lines Ranma left behind as he leaped past her, only to abruptly twist himself around and spin kick her in the back.
She was just fast enough to turn and bring her right shoulder and sloppily raised forearm to block the hit, but lost her footing as Ranma rebounded right back to the ceiling and this time dashed right over her head and towards the nearest wall.
“He’s all over the place!” Katie thought as Ranma kicked off it and fell upon her, the momentum helping his punch as she brought up both hands to block it. With even quicker leg work, he deluged her with a total of three kicks, the last one he used to spring off her.
“So fast, too!”
Ranma’s feet finally touched the floor, a smile of his own as he sized up Katie’s style. Defensively she was a fortress, nearly impossible to get off her footing, and fast in a straight line. However, she didn’t have much counter for his agility that he could see. It was time to hammer that weak point until it broke.
In the space of that assessment, Ranma’s full weight had yet to hit the floor, and when it did he was off again, every microsecond dedicated to plotting out potential routes for his next series of strikes and possible counters. Katie had a million ways to stop him, but he had a million and one.
Though in actuality, Katie had a million and two.
As he took off the ground again, this time to kick, he saw it: the Muay Boran stance shifted again, both feet planting as she adopted a stance more suited for grappling than striking. But what was most important, was that she opened her guard completely for the attack.
And it was at this moment that Ranma knew… he fucked up.
Ranma’s flying spin kick didn’t even connect, as Katie lunged into it and, as his leg grazed her side, snatched him out of the air by the front of his shirt at the shoulder with one hand. The rest of her arm went right across his chest, his own momentum turning the strike into a devastating lariat as his course reversed and then went straight down into the floor.
Akane gasped at the sight of Ranma being plucked clean out of the air and driven into the floor like an American Football in the endzone. Bouncing off the floor, Ranma caught himself on his hands and feet and sprang away from Katie, but as he attempted to set down she was closing in, her eyes locked squarely on him as she lashed out and caught his right arm in her right hand.
“Whoa…!” Nabiki gasped.
Akane leaned forward, amazed. “That grappling…”
Counter the grab, use it against her. That’s what he tried to do before he could even think it, but his footing was completely absent to do any of that as she pulled him into her, and they met at her knee and his solar plexus, the force of the blow knocking the wind out of him as he was raised higher off the floor.
Through the pain, Ranma realized something shocking.
“She’s… faster…!”
Soun narrowed his eyes.
“You need to escape her hold, Ranma!”
He attempted to regain his footing, but his arm was arrested, still clamped tightly in her right hand. It was time to go unorthodox! He immediately brought his whole body up, wrapping his arms around hers and hooking his legs over her shoulder, taking her arm and extending it into an armbar.
“He’s got her!” Soun said.
Nabiki threw forth a fist. “Yeah! Go get her, Ranma! Break her arm off!”
Surprised by Ranma’s counter, Katie staggered a bit, before she planted her feet, keeping her arm held out and Ranma held up above the floor. She could feel the strain and pressure Ranma placed on her joints and muscles.
Soun nodded as he observed the move. It was textbook, yet unorthodox, the very form of Indiscriminate Grappling.
“You’ve taught him well, Saotome. This boy is worthy to succeed us!”
Katie looked over at Ranma, who grinned defiantly, before she returned the smile. If he was good enough to get her in an armbar, then escaping it wasn’t going to be easy. However… if things were easy, she wouldn’t have him deemed him worthy of Heaven.
She crouched, bending at the knees while still holding his arm straight out, leaped upward, striking Ranma directly against one of the beams supporting the roof of the dojo. The blow shoved him into the ceiling, crumpling him against the ceiling and effectively freeing her from the lock. To his complete disbelief.
“She…!” Ranma thought as both began to fall.
“… Broke…!” Soun gasped, as Katie shoved Ranma below her and began to turn in the air.
“… Out!” Akane said right before Katie connected not her tibia, not her knee, but her elbow–driving it into his sternum.
The floor shattered in a wide circle from the force of the blow.
Ranma then rammed into the center of the circle, bouncing off it as it shattered and splintered from the second impact.
The last thing Ranma saw before everything went black was Katie hanging in the air above him, a murderous smile on her black-hair framed face.
The last thought he had… was that he
needed to know how to beat that.
“Ranma!” All three Tendos present cried, coming over to stand at the edge of the broken floor.
Katie landed just outside the edge of the hole, peering down at the fallen Saotome.
Akane knelt down, checking on the condition of the pigtailed boy. That blow had been tremendous, maybe even harder than Kuno had been struck when he was sent through the clock tower. Her body trembled at the sight of her senpai’s power but it wasn’t out of fear. She was excited to see someone so powerful, so skilled present in her dojo. It made her want to get good enough to fight Katie on the level Ranma had.
For the first time in years, she had a goal to pursue in the art and it felt amazing.
Nabiki stared at the black haired girl, disbelief evident on her face. She didn’t think Ranma was invincible but seeing him in action only to be swatted aside like that just shocked her all the more. It reminded her that this girl was
her age, her own classmate no less, and yet they were so far apart it was like they were polar opposites.
Was she invincible? Was that it? Could no one beat her? The spike of disbelief deepened itself into a burning flame of envy. Why was it that she was denied these gifts and talents? Why was yet another example of how feeble and weak she was staring her in the face, only it was someone who wasn’t entirely a goody little two-shoes about it?
She almost clenched her hands into fists but thought better of it.
“He’s alive, but out cold.” Soun announced, having been the one to go down in amongst the broken floorboards and tatami to check on the son of his dear friend. The boy was magnificent, but that girl... she was something else.
“I wasn’t trying to kill him and he’s too hearty for that to hurt him for long.” Katie said, schooling her features into a confident smirk at the Tendo Patriarch. “I could tell from hitting him that if I didn’t do something big, he’d just absorb my hits and keep coming. Can’t stop a charging elephant with love taps y’know.”
Soun narrowed his eyes in contemplation, before he let her words go. “I guess I can’t fault you too much for that. He was going to break your arm if you tried a more conventional attempt at escaping.”
Both of his daughters looked to their father, slightly shocked at that. They were both escalating the spar that much.
“We can’t fault her for fighting to the best of her abilities.” Akane said, looking down at Ranma, noticing that he was breathing if a little shallowly.
“Ranma-kun did seem to be going full bore too.” Nabiki allowed, doing her best to not look at Katie.
“Should probably leave him there for a little bit, just to let him recover.” Katie said, crouching down at the edge of the hole. “Moving him too soon is bad.”
“Let’s not dump cold water on him either. The shock might cause problems.” Soun added, still silently measuring this dangerous animal girl. Yes, animal, a good descriptor. She hungered to bite and tear at flesh, that elbow had surely shown that. That uncle of hers must have been a real monster to do this to her.
It would turn out that he had forgotten that lies exist because the truth hurts so much more.
|Some Kind of Woman|
Time had passed, but how much was not known to the waking mind of Ranma Saotome. What he did know was that he smelled food and now was the time to figure out the rest. He was sprawled out on a futon, a damp towel on his forehead to control his body temperature. His eyes cracked open, pain from the light stinging his eyes. He looked around and realized this must be the family room of the Tendo House, they must have moved him here after he had been knocked out.
Knocked out, which meant he had lost the spar. He hadn’t underestimated her at all, he just didn’t have enough data to ensure a proper measurement. He hadn’t ever really met someone who could match, if not surpass, him in speed. It was an eye opening experience, one he’d have to revisit as he started training again.
He did something ill-advised and sat up, the room swirling for a second as he gasped for air
“Oh you shouldn’t do that!” A soft voice called from just out of his view, from behind him. It sounded warm and comforting, like a sweater on a chilly day. He didn’t recognize this one, their mom?
“I’m okay, I’m used to this.” He bluffed, trying his best to be reassuring. He closed his eyes, as a pair of hands with well manicured nails gently took his shoulders and lowered his head back down not onto a pillow but to on a warm, soft lap.
“I grew up in a dojo and in this town and I know injuries when I see them.” The voice took on a sharper quality, she sounded peeved at his bravado. “But you’re already up so just stay still.” There was an edge of warning in her voice, one he decided to obey.
“Yeah, sorry. I’m not good at following the rules, y’know?” He replied, a rhetorical shrug and a verbal grin dancing merrily along the words.
The woman huffs in amusement, before she spoke again. Her voice was directly above him. “I can see that.”
Ranma opened his eyes and froze as if he had been ran through with a lightning bolt. If all the girls he had seen so far were all sorts of crazy hot, he had just tripped over a downright goddess of pure hotness. Her long brown hair started straight down to her chin, before it became a beautiful display of curls down to her mid back. She was wearing a pink sweater over a cream-colored button-down shirt and a pair of tight blue capris. She had such grace and style that stole the sarcastic quip right out of his mouth, crumples it up and feeds it back to him in the form of a fat tongue knotted up in amazement.
“Uh... hi.” It wasn’t shy in the least, he was just too stunned to form any kind of added emotion.
“Yes, hello.” She said, giving a little bow. “I’m Kasumi, Nabiki-chan and Akane-chan’s older sister.”
“
Sister!?” The word echoed in sheer disbelief through his mind, before he decided to speak. “I’m Ranma... Ranma Saotome.”
“It’s a pleasure, though I had hoped our first meeting would have been better.” Kasumi said, a brief pout crossing her face.
Ranma almost forgot himself for a second, but he caught himself. “Well, it’s better than me being drug her against my will.” He tried humor to recover, but this proved to be an unwise move.
Kasumi laughed and Ranma felt like getting put through the floor of the dojo was a small price to pay to witness such a thing.
Her laughter attracted company, as Katie popped up from somewhere else in the house. “Hey I, uh… wanted to check on him, see if he was okay and all...”
Ranma’s eyes narrowed at the bashful way Katie was acting, but being around Kasumi really did seem to excuse it a tiny bit.
“He’s apparently fine, Katie-chan.” Kasumi said, smiling at the girl. There’s a tickling warmth in the tone, which proceeded to melt Katie’s insides.
Ranma forgot all about excusing the bashfulness and focused on the swell of jealousy deep within himself at that moment.
“That’s... that’s uh, really great!” Katie managed, her face has turned a bright red at this point. She turned around and called back into the house. “Oi! You two, he’s awake!”
More footsteps followed and soon Akane and Nabiki joined them. Without prompting, he began to compare the sisters to Kasumi and found that it wasn’t quite as much as a wash-out for the eldest he had subconsciously been thinking. All three had their best sides that appealed to him in a fashion that outdid the others and oh lord he was about to become some kind of sick pervert.
“How you feeling champ?” Nabiki asked, trying to be neutral and hide her concern in addition to her contempt for Kasumi’s fantastic makeover. He couldn’t see it but the way she said it seems like she had been chewing on her lips right before she spoke.
“Like I got knocked through a floor.” He returned with a light bit of levity. He smiled to defuse any offense taken from the comment. “Nah, outside of my pride, I’m fine. I’m used to aches and pains by this point.” They usually took the form of his father after all.
“That’s good!” Akane said, all cute and bubbly. Her voice wafts through the room like a warm breeze, where upon it does a dance across Ranma’s brain. It reminded him of ingesting a sugarcube after having a lemon wedge. All fizzy and electric, leaving behind a dizzying rush that reminded you what it was like to be alive.
“Because it’d be bad otherwise right?” Katie teased, and Ranma found that he wasn’t as on guard around her anymore. He had finally quantified the discomfort and thus he could be passively aware of the danger she posed instead of actively alert.
“C’mon Senpai, you know what I meant!” Akane wailed in mock distress, drawing a laugh from both girls.
“Anyways,” Nabiki’s cool voice butted in now, serving as a soothing balm to the rising irritation at the by-play happening before him. “Katie called her roommate and explained things about the spar, so you have a little bit of a grace period to eat dinner before heading over.” From the angry squeak Akane gave, it was apparent she had been scooped on delivering the good news.
“Wouldn’t want to show up late to work without an explanation.” Ranma muttered, before looking down at the futon. “Is it okay for me to get up now?”
Kasumi nodded. “As long as you’re not dizzy anymore.”
He slowly lifted his head from her lap, and he was reintroduced to the lingering burn of pain where Katie’s elbow had met his sternum. Nothing else would have put him down for the count like that, something she had somehow determined over the course of their two spars. Interesting, something else to consider later. “So when’s dinner?”
“In just a few, there was a sale on beef today.” Kasumi answered and Ranma could feel a chill in the air at that.
“Well lucky me I guess.” He ignored the frostiness and sniffed the air. “Smells great!”
“It’s more western fare,” Kasumi said as she rose back to her feet. “Since Katie-chan’s come to visit, I’ve been curious to try it.”
On that note she looked to Katie. “I’m just about finished with it, but would you mind helping me out a bit with some finishing touches?”
“Uh? Sure,” Katie said, before looking over to Ranma and flashing him a smile. “Hey man, sorry for putting you into the floor like that.”
Ranma, though feeling the sting of defeat, brushed it off. “One of us was going through it, I just wished it wasn’t me.”
Reassuringly, Katie decided to pay him a compliment. “That armbar was brilliant, and I didn’t want to take any chances with the usual outs. I probably would’ve had my arm ripped out my socket ten different ways.”
“Twenty,” Ranma corrected, though it was actually one hundred and three at last count. One hundred four now, though–he would remember Katie’s creative counter.
Katie smiled, just before Kasumi called to her. “Katie-chan, I could really use a hand on this.”
Huffing in amusement, she turned for the kitchen. “All right, all right…” She looked back over to Ranma and smiled. “We’ll do this again soon though, that whole fight was too good.”
And with that she was gone, and Ranma turned to find Nabiki and Akane waiting for them to join him at the sitting table. Soun was just outside the room on the home’s patio, leaning against a post and smoking a cigarette. He appeared to be in deep contemplation.
“Geez,” he said as he rubbed his chest, “I expected great things… but that was something else entirely.”
“I don’t think any less of you for losing,” Nabiki revealed to Ranma. “You’ll get her next time.”
Ranma smirked. “You’re damn right I will.”
Akane then not so discreetly slid a glass of water that had been on her side of the table, right up to Nabiki. A quick look at it and the realization that followed granted the much more discreetly smirking Akane a brief glare of grudging respect from her older sister.
“I would temper your eagerness to fight her again, Ranma-kun,” Soun said.
Ranma looked over at Soun. “What?”
Soun took a drag from his cigarette, and exhaled a long cloud of smoke visible in the orange glow of the descending sun. “That girl… she’s not a normal martial artist. There’s so much anger and aggression there.” He turned and gave Ranma a dramatic look. “If you fight her again, and push her too far, she will kill you.”
"Daddy! Don't say that kind of thing about Katie-senpai, especially behind her back!"
Soun shook his head sadly. "I'm not saying anything terrible about her, but rather the one who trained her in the first place. Whoever it was, they have instilled within her a lust for battle and blood that is unhealthy outside only the most vicious battlefield. Lurking beneath your friend's exterior is a rabid wolf on a rusty chain. Ranma. If you fight her again, she will go for far more lethal blows without even meaning to."
Nabiki, while not a fighter, was certainly not ignorant of the world of fighting thanks to growing up in it. “Daddy has a point.”
Ranma folded his arms. “She won’t kill anyone, not on purpose or on accident.”
Soun couldn’t see that, not with the menace and brutality in her moves against Ranma, or what he heard of from her fight with Kuno.
“If she wanted blood, she could’ve gotten it,” he said, “All she had to do was drag out the fight until we beat on each other enough for there to
be blood.”
He gave Akane a reassuring look. “She ain’t no killer or a psycho or anything… she just gets off on fighting.”
Akane recoiled a bit, a blush appearing on her face at the very context of Ranma’s statement. “G-gets off…?”
Soun disagreed. “That wasn’t mere excitement for a fight, don’t mistake it as such.”
“She’s a hardcore adrenaline junkie,” Ranma assessed. “She acts really cool and detached, but I saw it both times we fought–the better her opponent, the more excited she gets, and I impressed her so much that she showed me something that I want to beat, and I’m
going to beat it.” He smiled. “I couldn’t call myself a martial artist or a man if I didn’t accept that challenge.”
Nabiki picked up the glass of water and took a sip from it, mostly to cool her face from Ranma’s boast.
Akane herself then remembered their very first spar, and the smile that was on Katie’s face after she had put her into the wall. Suddenly she found herself wondering what would’ve happened had Sasuke not interrupted the spar. Their spars after had been somewhat lower intensity after that, more exercise to keep in shape than pushing limits… but that was going to change.
Soun still wasn’t swayed, but unlike Genma he wasn’t going to fight the boy over his opinion. “Be careful then, Ranma. Whichever of us is right, I dread what sort of terrible thing she might do if she becomes too excited.”0
If there was anyone who had a good idea of what a motivated Katie could get up to, it was Kasumi of all people, who let out a giggle as she overheard Soun’s dread-filled statement over the eager kiss she shared with Katie, who was embracing her from behind at the counter next to the stove, where dinner simmered for its final minutes of preparation.
“Mm… what’s so funny?” Katie whispered as she broke the kiss.
Kasumi smiled vibrantly as her right cheek was nuzzled tenderly by the foreigner’s left. “That I’m doing such a terrible thing.”
Katie, who had also heard it, grinned back and nuzzled lower, towards Kasumi’s neck. “You could do so much worse.”
She emphasized that by sliding her hands, which had been at her trim waist, down to her hips and giving them an appreciative squeeze. Kasumi responded with an excited sigh, and slipped her own right hand up to caress the right side of Katie’s face. “Sounds like fun.”
Katie giggled herself, and went right back to helping Kasumi with some finishing touches.
|How to Girl… Period|
“BansheeDeadSix here, and welcome to the Debrief, where I spend ten seconds of a two minute news report introducing the two minute news report.” In her now studio-style lit living room, Misao stood, rather than sat, in front of a camera tripod, her back to a mural featuring a P-47D Thunderbolt with a rainbow haired blue pegasus painted on its fuselage slashing through the air past an exploding Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter, the former plane’s wing-mounted eight machine guns blazing fire.
She, dressed more professionally in a black top and blue jean skirt, looked at her watch. “And that’s it.”
Looking back up at the camera, Misao spoke. “First off, Pokémon. The Pokémon Company released images of the starters for Pokémon Sun and Moon, and already I don’t care for the grass and water starters because CUTE FIRE CAT OH. MY GOD. Game of the Year, and I say this with confidence after playing SuperHot, Souls 3, and Overwatch.”
She then brightened. “Speaking of, the Overwatch Beta was a smashing success! With thousands queueing for hours to enjoy thirty seconds of getting fucked by Bastion players before the connection drops. Your very own Banshee spent the entire first day of the Beta making Zenyatta her handsome robo husbando, and Widowmaker her ice cold waifu–and every Tracer salty. You can see clips of that in the link to my right!”
A smirk appeared on her face. “But I already know who you all want me to cosplay as, and a certain generous fellow has already shipped the parka my way. Once it arrives, patrons are in for a special, frosty treat!”
She then put her hands together. “In more somber news, Disney has shuttered its Infinity line, and withdrawn completely from publishing video games in house. With Activision’s Skylanders seeing a downward trend in sales in the toys-to-life niche over the last two years, Disney’s lack of confidence in its knockoff Infinity line drove them to make the decision to close things down. Disney is still committed to the video game industry, with Kingdom Hearts 3 set to release after Square Enix finally runs out of ways they can milk Kingdom Hearts 2.”
Misao then produced a cup of tea with a Lipton label hanging from the teabag string and took a sip as she looked to the side. Lowering it, she carries on. “China’s new console, Fuze’s Tomahawk P1, is a blatant ripoff of the PS4 and Xbox One. You’ll probably see it soon in the west, when a smarmy British commentator reviews it on a comfortable looking couch. And you’ll see it even sooner here in Japan, collecting dust just behind all the Xbox One on store shelves.”
Misao made finger motions, as if firing guns. “Hashtag Shots Fired! The staff here at BansheeDeadSix is probably
not going to do a first look at the console, not because I insulted the company, China’s pride in ripping things off, or the fact that it’s literally a knockoff of two consoles I already reviewed–but because China has banned streams of girls eating bananas from their glorified intranet–and I need my potassium intake while gaming guys, you know this.”
From behind her back she produced a peeled banana and erotically plunged it into her mouth, taking it further than was safe, withdrew it slowly, pushed it in again, and–after giving a pouty look to the camera–bit through it.
“Don’t worry,” she said coyly, “I swallowed.”
She opens her mouth and sticks out her tongue as proof. “Finally, in a bit of good news, that a call to boycott against yours truly in defense of a certain vidya gaems writer, regarding the viral spread of certain comments on a stream about a certain party of women whom may or may not be related to said writer, evaporated as said party of women confirmed the veracity of statements made by yours truly.”
She grinned. “Filming for projects related to those statements is due to begin once schedules align… and divorce proceedings pan out. And that’s it for the Debrief. Like, comment, subscribe, always check your six and remember that the number one rule to combat is survive. BansheeDeadSix, over and out!”
Producing a remote, she shut off the camera and pumped her fist. “One take, flawless. Yes!”
She performed a pirouette where she stood, stopping when she saw on the kitchen wall-mounted digital face clock. It was 19:40, which meant that her roommate and houseguest were going to be here. “In three, two, one…”
The door opened, just as she predicted. In walked Katie first, a light spring in her step as Ranma brought up the rear. He was still not used to having a regular place to return to that wasn’t a tent in the park or hiding in a bush, it showed in his footsteps. Ready to bolt if he needed to, the mark of a wild animal feeling like it’s wandered into a cage.
Misao nodded, she was used to the skittish behavior. After all, Katie had been like that at first, aggressively stamping around while looking out for the moment someone was going to fall from the sky and try to kill her. She knew she had to work with what she was given, the coal to be pressed into a diamond.
Time to move.
“Hey you two!” She called, her voice bubbling along the walls. Katie’s pace immediately slowed down into something of a more measured gait, while Ranma’s relaxes into something more flat footed. Her voice has done its job in making sure that they won’t be assaulted. “
Martial artists...” She rolled her eyes but it wasn’t in scorn or mockery.
“Hey, already done with the Debrief?” Katie took point, letting Ranma continue to bring himself down.
“Just finished!” Misao replied, slipping out to see the two of them still walking towards the studio. It was a slight bit later than she wanted, but they were going to put Ranma’s girl form on the internet and watch it explode in a wave of otaku tears and money. “One take is all I needed, bae!” She looked past Katie and shot Ranma a wink, just to see what would happen.
“Good job boss.” Ranma said, his tone even and respectful. It’s slight, but his face had faintly turned a shade of red. He was still adjusting to the sudden shift in his life where he traded in his Panda Dad for a bunch of hot girls. Not that he was about to complain, mind you, whoever made that deal got hosed something fierce.
Pleased with the reaction, Misao got down to brass tacks. “All right, go grab some cold water and a towel. We got enough time for me to give you a crash course on how to do this thing without too much issue. Once you got it, we’ll be doing a quickie first time stream to get your face out there to the general public.” She watched as his face soured and waited.
He didn’t defy her expectation. “I still don’t get why I gotta be a girl.” That was mostly a lie, he knew enough that a pretty girl could survive for days without cash and eat like a Queen. He was a guy, damn it.
Misao smirked, sidestepping the usual arguing in favor of shutting everything down. “Don’t worry, that’s part of the lecture.” Her smirk ditched the edge and softened down into a smile. “You’re going to places few boys ever will. That makes you pretty special in my eyes.”
The buttering worked, as Ranma’s neck suddenly felt hot at his employer’s words. “All right, I’ll go get the water.” He slumped away, shoulders hunched with embarrassment. It’ll be a while before he got used to a pretty girl telling him all the sweet things in the world.
Misao turned to Katie, eyes narrowed a little as she observed her roommate with a cool gaze. “All right,” she said in English, just in case. “What has you about to start breaking out into song today?”
Katie took a moment to consider her answer, before her face twisted into one of those infuriating smiles that make you wanna try and punch it off their face. She had a great day and is flaunting it at anyone dumb enough to ask. “Oh not much, me and Ranma had it out in a fight. I won just so you know.”
Misao snorted, as she could read between the lines enough to see the truth of the matter. Fighting alone would never ever have made her this chipper, the only other thing that had Katie walking on air like this was a successful hookup. “
Must be her...”
That girl in the photo Katie had texted her a week or so ago. Not her Kouhai, but that girl’s oldest sister. Damn, she still couldn’t think about that girl without being consumed by lust. Couldn’t even be jealous, she’d be all up on Kasumi too if the opportunity knocked.
“So yeah, I’m golden tonight so you two have your NEET initiation or whatever.” Katie replied, all innocent like.
“
You bitch.” Misao only thought it because Ranma returned before she could verbalize it.
“Got the water and the towel, now what?” He already knew what, he wanted to know where it was supposed to happen.
“Follow me to the couch,” Misao said, pushing whatever thoughts she had about Katie and what was going on with the girl from her mind. Time was now to get ready to put up another huge revenue stream, one that didn’t even realize the potential at its fingertips.
She turned back to the couch in front of her huge entertainment setup and led him to where he was going to make his stream debut. As a
she but there wouldn’t be any smoke and mirrors. With real, legit actual magic on their side, she was going to turn this slab of beef into the tenderest lamb. All before dangling her before the wolves of the internet.
It was almost sick but you didn’t get anywhere in this world with a weak stomach and no convictions. They were right outside the chair he was going to sit in when they stopped. She turned to him, eyes full of authority. “Transform and dry off. Once you’re reasonably dry, you can sit down and I’ll begin our lesson for today.”
Transform, like he was some kind of Henshin hero, only with water and sex-changing instead of wind and bugs. So simple, yet so complex.
Ranma lifted the glass of cold water over his head before it’s turned upside down, upending its contents onto his head.
Misao’s eyes are glued to him, taking in every detail, to study and dissect later.
The change is never the same two times in a row, never has, never would as far as Ranma knew. This time, he felt the chill of the water shoot through his entire body before it hit. Ah, that tingle which signified his transition from him to her. Inches from his body are melted off in seconds, as he visibly shrinks before his audience. The shirt that was just the right size has swallowed the girl he has transformed into. At the same time, her breasts push and strain against the fabric, all at once too big and too small.