“Akane! Stop this! I forbid it!” Soun snatched up the letter from his dining room table, scouring it for any flaw that could be used to invalidate it. He found none. It was even written on a heavy ivory parchment paper, as befit such a formal document, and the calligraphy was immaculate. His daughter had left nothing to chance. How did she even learn to do this so well? I don’t recall having ever shown her how to write a formal challenge letter…

Nabiki scoffed, leaning over her father’s shoulder and speaking softly. “Daddy, you might want to stay out of this one. She looks pretty pissed.” She glanced over at her sister from behind Soun’s back, a puzzled expression painted across her face. She had the letter in her pocket before she came downstairs for breakfast. She had to have already had this planned. What the hell are you up to, Akane?! And does your secret girlfriend have anything to do with it?

Kasumi bustled through the door from the kitchen in her favorite frilly pink apron. She bent down to the table for the empty teapot and Akane’s dirty plate, blinking in surprise to find only one lacquered chopstick resting next to it. Huh. That’s odd.

“I asked you a question, Saotome!” Akane’s chest heaved with rage, her hateful glare locked on the father of her once-fiancé and current girlfriend. She entirely ignored her father’s protest. “You have been challenged. Do you accept, or do you yield?!” 

“I, uh…” Genma Saotome crossed his arms over his torso defensively. His eyes rocketed to those of his best friend, a desperate plea for aid unspoken in them. When no further assistance came, he chuckled nervously, turning his eyes back to his young challenger. “I… I don’t think you really want to do this, Akane. I won’t go easy on you, like Ranma did, just because you’re a girl!” 

Akane smirked darkly. “And I won’t go easy on you just because you’re a washed-up, sexist jerk! Now, are we fighting, or what?!”

Genma’s bluff having failed, his eyes darted around the room in a frantic final attempt to find a distraction. He considered actually turning and running through the open door, but he knew the laws of challenge would consider physically fleeing as a forfeit. Not even Genma’s all-but-brother would be able to deny Akane’s claim of victory in such a scenario. His shoulders slumped with a heavy sigh of resignation. “I suppose I have no choice.” 

“Alright! Let’s do it!” Akane dropped into a taekwondo forward stance in her beige gi, having charged around the dining room table toward her opponent.

“If you’re going to practice, would you mind going out to the dojo, please? I need to dust and mop the floor.” Her message delivered, Kasumi leaned down, resting her weight on the dining room table with one hand as she checked the floor under it. Her confusion only grew as she failed to find the missing chopstick. Oh, well! I suppose it’ll turn up eventually, she thought with a perplexed little hmm. 

Akane rolled her eyes, but nodded. Got a little caught up in the moment, I guess. “Of course, Kasumi. I’ll see you out there, Saotome. Don’t run away.” She walked out into the side yard, glaring at the bald man as she passed him, and headed across the cobblestone path toward her father’s dojo. 

She slipped through the open door, proceeding to the far wall. The youngest of the Tendo girls folded her hands, offering the small shrine on the wall overhead a deep bow. Mom, if you’re watching, I could really use a hand right about now. I’m scared, and I can’t let him see it. I don’t know how you’d feel about me being with Ranko - with any girl, really - but… I wish you could have met her, Mom. She’s really something special. I’d like to think you’d understand, and you’d even come to love her. I hope so. I don’t want to think that you wouldn’t approve of my decisions. 

Her silent prayer was interrupted by the sound of creaking footsteps on the cypress floor, and Akane straightened her back, a mask of resolve on her face. Her father also made a rigid bow to the shrine before taking an observer’s position against the wall near it. Nabiki joined him, though she did not offer a gesture of respect to the shrine, eliciting a quiet sigh of disappointment from her younger sister. I know you don’t go much for the traditional stuff, Nabiki, but you could at least do the basics for Mom’s sake. 

Akane bowed formally to her father, doing her best to ignore the shudder climbing up her back as she heard her opponent enter the room behind her. She waited for Soun to return her bow before rising and turning her back to him. She shivered at the sight of Genma, and wasn’t sure if it was her fear causing it, or just the ice coursing through her veins. 

“You’re sure you want to do this, Akane?” Soun pleaded. “There is no dishonor in withdrawing a challenge, you know.”

“Maybe not, Dad,” Akane said, her piercing glare still trained firmly on her opponent. “But you always taught me it’s the duty of a martial artist to stand up for the honor of people who can’t defend themselves, and Ran-” She swallowed hard. “Ranma isn’t here to defend herself from him. Someone has to.” I don’t even care that I called Ranko a her. They knew she was stuck as a girl before she left. They don’t have to know she accepts it now. Kinda wish I didn’t have to use her old name around them, but I’m sure she’d understand.

Soun frowned, his brow furrowed. Damn. Can’t really argue with that. “What if he withdrew his comments? Please, Akane.”

Akane shrugged, scoffing up at the bald man in the ivory gi. “He’ll just make new ones tomorrow, and the day after that. It’s what he does.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, staring accusingly at her girlfriend’s father. “He is without honor.”

“Akane Tendo! You can’t just say things like that about another martial artist! Not in here!” Soun protested. Please, Akane, let this go. Let’s just have peace.

“I can if they’re true, and if I can back up my words.” The young challenger gave Genma a shallow bow, not taking her eyes off of him for even long enough to blink. “And I intend to.”

Genma barely nodded in response. “Last chance to back out, Akane,” he blustered as he assumed a zenkutsu ready position, his left leg back and his right knee bent. Gotta end this quick. I’ve seen what she does to the training dummies when she hits them, and… 

“Not gonna happen,” Akane insisted, dropping into a wide heng dang bu stance with her right hand held high overhead and her left extended in front of her. This is for you, Ranko, she asserted in her mind as she tensed her muscles and prepared to strike. A slight shudder crawled up her back at the sound of a loud pop that echoed from the wall behind her in the empty room, but she dared not turn to identify its source. 

Nabiki clawed her bubble gum back into her mouth with her tongue, looking up to her father. “I’ve got five thousand yen on Akane. Whaddya think, Daddy? Wanna make this interesting?”

“Nabiki!” Soun’s eyes widened as he turned to his middle daughter. “This is a challenge for a man’s dojo. It’s already interesting!” Still, he gave a resolute nod of acceptance as he spoke, hoping Akane didn’t turn at that exact moment to notice his silent bet against her in favor of his friend.

With a dismissive smirk, Genma scoffed under his breath, maintaining his ready stance. “What’s the matter, Akane? Don’t have the courage to strike first?”

That son of a… I’ll show him! Akane leapt forward with a flying kick and a loud kiai, but her opponent easily swatted her leg away. While Akane was the stronger of the two combatants, Ranko’s father was undoubtedly the faster. 

Her bare foot had barely contacted the wooden dojo floor to land before Genma stooped low, sweeping her legs out from under her. 

Akane crashed hard to her back, yelping as her tailbone struck the floor. Fuck! Stupid! Let him goad me into… oh, shit! She rolled to her right just in time to avoid Genma’s downward heel strike, kick-flipping to her feet as his foot landed harmlessly where she had been lying a split second earlier. 

I can’t let him taunt me into making mistakes. He knows I’m angry, and he’s using it against me. Akane assumed the dwi kubi back stance from her taekwondo training, standing with her feet spread wide and her left fist extended at eye level. Her right arm was cocked back at the elbow, her fist hovering near her navel. Stay on the defensive, she reminded herself. Make him come to me. “Is that all you’ve got?! The boys in the Furinkan chess club hit harder than that!”

The old man assumed a loose muay thai stance, bouncing on the balls of his feet with both fists raised at the level of his temples. “You want more?! Alright!” Genma advanced, grunting with effort as he launched a flurry of punches at his young challenger. 

Akane was able to block the first three, but the third knocked her arms out of position, and the following two both connected with her rib cage. She slumped to her side, bracing her torso. The move also had the effect of ducking her head under Genma’s final punch, which flailed wide left of its mark. Genma had thrown the haymaker with all of his force, and the wild miss lurched him off-balance. Akane seized the opportunity, grabbing a fistful of the back of his gi shirt and driving her knee up into his midsection with something between a primal roar and a battle kiai. 

Genma coughed and sputtered, staggering backward. He was still scrambling to pack air back into his lungs when Akane’s roundhouse kick crashed into his cheek. He spun with its momentum rather than falling, and by the time Akane’s rotation brought her around for another kick, he had righted himself. Genma caught her ankle in his hand, thrusting his arm forward and tossing her backward. “Just stop this, Akane. You know you can’t beat me. I’ve been training longer than you’ve been alive!”

You smug bastard! Hold still for a minute, and I’ll fix that whole ‘alive’ thing for you real quick, Akane thought as she righted herself. “Keep telling yourself that, Saotome! I’ll finish this!” Come on, Akane! Think! Ranko beat him almost every day before breakfast. What would she do right now? 

“Those are some big words, but you’re putting up even less of a challenge than my embarrassment of a son.” Genma crossed his arms, laughing mockingly at the teenager.

I know what Ranko would do. She’d beat the living snot out of you. And that’s exactly what I’m gonna do, Akane resolved, gritting her teeth. “You take that back!” She charged forward at nearly a dead run, making no attempt to take a stance. Akane fired her fist forward with all the power she could bring to bear.

It’s so easy when they haven’t learned to control their emotions, Genma thought with a sneer as he launched himself upward into her path. He leaped forward, driving downward with a hammer fist that struck Akane square across her cheek. His own force, coupled with her momentum, sent his young challenger sprawling to the dojo floor. 

It is interesting, though, how much it seems to rile her up nowadays when I disparage Ranma. It never used to. A devious smirk crossed Genma’s lips. I can use this. Pressing his advantage, he darted forward, throwing a hard kick to Akane’s ribs as she lay on the dojo floor. Her agonized cry echoed in the empty room as she curled up to protect herself. 

“Let her up!” Nabiki gasped, lunging forward. 

Before her back had fully broken contact with the dojo wall, Nabiki’s father pulled her back with a firm grip on her wrist. “Nabiki! We can’t interfere!” Soun looked down, the battle between his duty as a martial artist and his care as a father seeming to age him twenty years in the space between heartbeats. “She issued the challenge. Honor dictates that she has to win, or lose, on her own.”

Please let this go, Akane, Soun pleaded wordlessly as he watched his youngest daughter roll to her hands and knees. For both your sakes. I don’t know what got into your head to make you want to do this, but you’re outmatched, sweetheart. Please. Honor or no, I can’t stand here and watch this much longer.

Akane struggled for breath, the kick to her ribs having knocked the wind out of her. I told you I couldn’t do this, Ranko, she thought to herself. You shouldn’t have had faith in me. She barely got her feet under her before Genma swept them out again, and she went down hard face-first onto the unforgiving cypress floor. She cried out, rolling onto her back and looking up into the eyes of her opponent looming over her.

“Do you yield?” Genma demanded in an almost sing-song tone. 

The teenaged martial artist lay still and prone, watching him for any sign of further aggression. Ranko’s going to be so disappointed when I tell her I lost, Akane despaired. She was so confident in me, even when I wasn’t, and now I’m going to have to let her down. I wish she’d have given me some more useful advice. “Don’t get tickled?” What the heck am I supposed to do with that, Ranko? 

Akane’s mind raced, becoming lost in memories of the last night she’d spent with her girlfriend, earlier that week. She and Ranko were roughhousing, and Ranko wouldn’t stop tickling her. Yes, it was cute, but not very much help, you idiot! Akane recalled how Ranko kept daring her to keep up with the speed of her pinches and pokes. Maybe she was just trying to teach me to believe in myself even if it seems hopeless at first? Gods, she was fast, but I managed to block her anyway! I mean, the only way she could have been faster was if she… 

She gasped audibly, and Genma stepped closer. Akane chuckled to herself. You sly little minx, Ranko! You were teaching me without me even knowing it, she thought as she clamored to her knees. Glaring up at her girlfriend’s father, she spat a bit of blood on the floor between his bare feet. He jumped back to avoid it, giving her space to drag herself the rest of the way to a standing position. But can I really do it? She seemed to think I could. 

I believe in you, Ranko. And you believed in me. If you think I can do it, then I can. I have to.

Flashing a confident grin despite the trickle of blood still dripping from the corner of her mouth, Akane swept her left leg far behind her, her knee bent deeply. She extended her right leg out as far as it would go, her right palm matching its length as she cocked her left over her midsection in a wide kempo stance. “Alright. Get ready.” 

Genma chortled dismissively as Akane tightened her stance. “Ready for what?! You can barely stand, Akane! Give it up. I don’t want to have to hurt you any more.”

Here goes nothing, Ranko. Akane rocked on her left leg, taking a final deep breath before emptying her aching lungs entirely into her scream. “Tendo School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts – FINAL ATTACK!” 

Genma blinked, panic overtaking his face as he turned to Akane’s father. “Final… Tendo?! Did you teach her a final attack?!”

Soun waved his hands, shaking his head frantically in fervent denial. 

Nabiki, meanwhile, rose from her position leaning on the dojo wall and stood up straight, renewed hope both for her wager and her sister’s well-being welling in her eyes. Ranko, did you…

Akane let a sadistic smile crack the corner of her mouth despite the taste of iron still lingering in it. No, you son of a bitch. It was a Tendo who taught me, though. Just not one you’re ever going to get to know.

Akane charged forward, bellowing as she cocked her fist. “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, revised! SWARM OF HORNETS!” Her hands flew without thought or aim, buffeting her opponent with a combination of fists and open-handed strikes at a speed almost too fast to see, let alone defend against.

Genma put up his hands to try and protect himself, but there was no hope. Blow after blow rained down on his chest and then his face, and he did not have enough real estate on his arms to defend both. 

Soun stared with wide eyes full of shock and awe as his youngest daughter and star pupil pummelled his best friend without pause or mercy. How did she manage to learn such a deadly art?! Especially with the Amazon women having returned to China? 

Nabiki, meanwhile, wore a goofy, ear-to-ear grin. There’s only one person she could have learned that trick from. And if she got you ready for this, then it stands to reason she put you up to it. She snickered loudly, unable to keep quiet regardless of what her father might have said about decorum and honor in such serious situations. To hell with the bet. Kick his fucking ass, little sister!

Akane hammered away at her opponent’s face until both his eyes were swollen, and at his chest until he gasped for air. When her arms began to shake from exertion, she grabbed the front of his gi and drove him downward hard into her raised knee, dumping his nearly rag-doll form to the floor in a crumpled, quivering heap. She stood over him, her chest heaving in anger and exhaustion both. Stooping down, she grabbed a fistful of his gi and locked her elbow to pin Genma’s back to the ground, cocking her right fist over his nose. “Now, do you yield?!” 

Genma looked around for a way out, some dirty trick he could employ. He thought back to all of the lessons of Master Happosai. He recalled the hundreds of times he and Soun had been ordered to do sneaky and disreputable things to help the founder of their art steal womens’ unmentionables or a bite to eat. His mind frantically searched for some shady technique, some smokescreen he could hide behind, anything. He was coming up empty.

With a tear forming in the swollen slit that was barely recognizable as his right eye, he slowly nodded.

Soun gasped, covering his mouth in shock. It was drowned out by an excited whoop rising from Nabiki to his left. 

Akane grinned. “Good.”

The youngest of Soun Tendo's daughters leaned down until her mouth was just a few centimeters from Genma’s ear, still pinning his body to the floor with her stiffened arm. She whispered dangerously in his ear, her voice quavering as she spoke just a few words that made his eyes bulge in shock. 

“If I ever hear your daughter’s name come out of your mouth again, so help me gods, Saotome…”

She lifted him a few centimeters off the wooden floor by the lapels of his gi, slamming his body down onto the boards once more for emphasis. 

Soun dropped to his knees, overcome with grief as he was to see the state of utter bewilderment and despair painted across the face of the man he all but considered a brother. “Akane, why?! How could you?!” 

Akane whirled to face him, wiping a trickle of blood-tinged saliva from her mouth on the sleeve of her gi. “I had to. Now, tell me: why did you want to make me get engaged to Ranma in the first place, Dad?”

Soun blinked. What does that have to do with anything? “A… Akane, you’ve always known! It was so we could merge the Tendo and Saotome schools.” 

The battered but victorious teen nodded. Halfway there, Dad. “And I’m still going to inherit the Tendo school from you when you retire, right?” 

Nabiki shook her head and threw up her hands as Soun looked to her in stunned dismay. “Don’t look at me, Daddy. I’m going to business school.” 

Their father turned back to Akane, nodding slowly. He wore a mystified expression as if he was trying desperately to understand her motivations, and failing entirely to do so. “Of… of course. But…”

Akane grinned. Checkmate. “Well, I am now master of the Saotome school.” She snickered down at her vanquished opponent. “I’d take his dojo sign, if he had his shit together enough to even have one. So, when you retire, the schools will be merged without me having to marry anybody. Right?!”

Soun gasped, opening his mouth to speak, but his youngest daughter continued, and he paused to hear her out. 

“So, I want you to break my engagement to Ranma. You’re gonna get what you wanted either way. Now I need to hear you tell me I can date anyone I want.”

Soun nodded dumbfoundedly, but Akane shook her head in reply. “I need to hear you say it, Dad!”

“I… Very well.” Akane’s father sighed in despair and pity as his eyes fell to his defeated friend. All our dreams, as parents and martial artists, destroyed. And for what? “You and Ranma, wherever he is, are no longer engaged. Saotome, I’m sorry.” 

Akane nodded sharply, crossing her arms over her heaving chest. “And?! What else, Dad?!” 

Soun’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “And… you have my blessing to date whomever you choose.”

Akane beamed, pumping her fist with an excited grin. How about that? I got permission to leave Ranma… so I can go date the girl she turned into! “Thank you, Dad.” She turned and strode out of the dojo without so much as a second glance at the distraught and broken man that still lay prone on the hardwood floor. I gotta get changed! I need to get to Minato right away. She’s gonna wanna hear everything!

“Don’t sweat it, Daddy!” Nabiki called over her shoulder, waving as she stepped over the battered old man on the dojo floor as if he were a puddle of mud. “I’ll put the five thousand on your tab.”

AnneOminous

So sorry I missed Tuesday's drop. I don't know what I did to my body, but I can barely move my left arm. It's in constant throbbing pain that no amount of painkillers, heat, ice or massage will touch. It's hard to concentrate or sit still long enough to write, and it's keeping me from getting good sleep which is the biggest factor in managing my ADHD.

I'm seeing a massage therapist tomorrow and hoping they can put it to rights. In the meantime, I'm doing the best I can!