Akane Tendo returned to her room with her head held high and a triumphant swagger in her walk. She’d done it again. She’d kicked Ranma’s butt without breaking a sweat! It was a flaw they both shared, pride in their ability, pride in themselves. It was part of why they argued so much, though obviously not the only reason.
She walked up the steps, smug and satisfied. The enchanted dogi fitting around her snugly, tightly seemed to emphasise her victory with every step she took. She gently tugged on the handle on the door to her room, strode inside, closed the door. Then, with a long and deep breath she let out out a rather excited sound that was rather similar to a train whistle.
“That was so cool!” she called, cartwheeling around the room, which it must be said is rather the opposite of ‘cool’ behaviour. Still pretty impressive given that it wasn’t exactly full of space for her to do this in, but that can hardly be helped. She flopped onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling.
“We sure showed him!” she said, not to herself but the dogi. “Always insulting my figure and my martial arts and my cooking.” She absently trailed a finger down the side of her neck, down her chest where the dogi obliged by splitting apart just enough to allow her finger to remain in contact with her bare skin. “He wants me,” she said, licking her lips. “And if he doesn’t want me, he will soon.”
Liberated. She felt completely liberated. It was as though all of the weights in the world were lifted from her shoulders, and all of a sudden she could think and breathe and feel all the things she wanted to but was too afraid to approach. And yet… Still not enough.
She wanted more. The dogi sent tiny ripples all over her body, making Akane sigh for reasons she didn’t understand nor even consider worth understanding. It was so strange. She had been liberated, passed out of one prison and struck another. It felt like she was stretching her wings for the first time, but she somehow understood that she could stretch them further still.
What was the best way to do that? What else? She would prove to Ranma and to herself that she was bubbling over with sex appeal. That way he wouldn’t be able to insult her anymore. It would shut him up for good, and make him take her seriously.
Which led her into her next line of thinking: Strategy. Now, it’s important to note that Akane Tendo is a martial artist by nature. For her, when she thinks in terms of strategy it is a tendency to think in terms of a martial artist. The best ways to attack and defend oneself, employ physical strategies suited for combat. It was this very reason that made her a lousy cook and (somehow, the mathematics should make this impossible but we double checked the results) an even worse swimmer. She was thinking in terms of the martial artist when these very tasks aren’t well suited for those kinds of things. When she had vegetables on the chopping board, she went at them with the same righteous fury as she might a roundhouse kick. When she dove into the water, she attacked the water in the same way as she might uppercut a straw dummy. In the case of the former, it meant that her vegetables came out with terrible presentation and of such different sizes that some would burn while others would be practically raw. In the case of the latter, she was not moving the water efficiently behind herself.
And now she was applying that same kind of mindset towards developing seduction tactics. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear! Fortunately this particular area has a little more in common with martial arts than one might expect. Both are very physical, there is a particular opponent to overcome, and it is an absolute necessity to understand the weaknesses of yourself and your opponent in order to “win”. So maybe things would turn out okay? After all, Akane was pretty enough to turn heads without meaning to. Now that it was her intention, no trouble. Right?
Wrong. Because if we were to summarise Akane Tendo’s martial arts style in a single word, it would be “aggressive”. If we were to use more words, it would be “defend only when necessary, strike like a hurricane made of pain.” Generally it worked pretty well for her, at least until Ranma showed up and overcame it with his style of “haha, you can’t catch me!”
So, on the one hand this could go very well and smoothly for her. On the other hand, given both Ranma and Akane’s respective histories, how likely does that sound? After all, if either of them were that lucky then they’d have gotten lucky with each other a long, long time before this.
“He probably doesn’t have the balls to show up,” Akane sighed, reflecting on her invitation. “I doubt getting his butt kicked is all that much of a turn on for someone like Ranma… Maybe I should be more like Shampoo and tackle him whenever I see him? Drag him off into a dark room and throw myself at him? Or…”
No. None of these were quite right for her “style of fighting.” Aggressive, yes. Not aggressive enough. She was going to go on the attack with her sex appeal but in a very different way. Unlike the other girls that wanted him, she lived in the same building as him which afforded numerous opportunities to flaunt her stuff. She would shove her sex appeal right into his stupid handsome face until he couldn’t take it anymore. Every time they fought or sparred, every time they talked she would remind him of how sexy she was, and that all he had to do was show up in her room and say “please”.
She slid off the bed and strode over towards her mirror. “Off!” she commanded, and the dogi complied. It was a funny thing, but as it came undone of its own accord her skin felt weirdly tingly. Like all the hairs on her body were standing on end in anticipation, like every nerve ending was being whispered sweet, gentle nothings. This might be why she was breathing a little heavier than normal by the time she was naked in front of the mirror.
“If I’m going to shut him up,” Akane began. “Then first I need to get the right… Equipment. This is a battle of seduction, and I should dress appropriately. Right, Do-chan?”
The dogi made a motion as if to nod its collar, prompting Akane to pat it cutely in the middle of that very collar. Such a cute piece of sentient enchanted clothing, yes you are! She returned her attention to the wardrobe and began flinging clothes aside, while behind her the dogi watched and, if it were possible to judge the body language of a dogi with nobody inside of it, then its posture suddenly became just a touch more sad.
Mon Dec 08 11:49:25 2014