Chapter 209: Ambushed
"I was wondering when you were gonna find your balls and show up, old man. Seriously? Ringing the doorbell and running? What are you, eight?" Despite her cocky exterior, Ranko's heart pounded in her chest as her eyes scanned the alleyway for options. What am I gonna do? Mom and Ayako are in there right now!
"Ranma, my boy, we need to talk." The figure of Genma Saotome emerged from behind the pallets, and he tightened the belt of his ivory gi as he approached her.
"Newsflash, asshole! Do I look like a boy to you? You ain't shit to me anymore! Get the hell out of here, man! I don't want you around me or my family!" Ranko dug her heels into the gravel beneath her feet, her eyes keenly watching her father's every breath for a telegraphed attack.
"Your family?" Genma laughed. "I'm your father, boy. I'm your family."
Ranko scoffed, taking a step back as he approached her. "Father? Please. Sperm donor, at best! You have no idea what family means, old man. No clue at all!"
Letting her insult go for the moment, Genma continued closing the distance between himself and his child. "I presume you've heard by now that your mother's looking for you."
Ranko's muscles shook with tension. Though she did not assume a fighting stance, every cell in her body was prepared to spring into action if necessary. She stepped forward, icily spitting her response as she pointed back toward the building. "My mother's right inside that door. Where she's always been, because she didn't fucking abandon me!"
"Abandon?" Genma laughed, slipping his hands into the pockets of his gi pants. "Pretty strong words, considering you're the one who ran away like a coward. Like a girl."
Ranko scoffed. "I do everything like a girl now, man. And I've never been happier. You say that shit like it's supposed to be an insult, and I guess it used to feel like one, before I knew better. But you know what? I'm proud of doing things like a girl. I like doing things like a girl. I sing like a girl. I dance like a girl. I dress like a girl. I talk like a girl. I fight like a girl. I think like a girl. I am loved like a girl."
Her sinister smile widened slightly as the discomfort evident on his face grew. A part of her almost wished she'd known in advance that he'd pick that Sunday to show up. She might have put on makeup or a cuter dress, just to drive the knife a little deeper into his heart.
"And let me tell you something else, old man. Damn near everybody in my life is a girl, and there's not a single one of them that doesn't have their shit together more than you do. That isn't stronger, and smarter, and more capable. Happier. Better. If being a girl means being like them, and being a guy means being like you, well, then it's the easiest choice I've ever made. If you're what a guy is supposed to be, and Hana is what a woman is supposed to be, Jusenkyo should have a waiting list four fucking years long!" It felt strange to even refer to Hana by her name; she hadn't been anything other than Mom to Ranko in months, but given that Nodoka Saotome was an unseen part of the conversation, she felt it important to clarify exactly whom it was she idolized. She wanted to leave no doubt.
"Yes, I can see that you think that way, boy. These women have tamed you, I suppose. Such a shame, how far you've fallen. I've seen you in the newspaper. The way you dress, the way you… perform like that. It's disgusting. Shameful." Genma shook his head. "Certainly nothing no son of mine would do."
"Look at that, Genma." She spat his name out at him as if it were acid burning her tongue. "Nineteen and a half years, and we finally agree on something, because I am no anything of yours. Not your son, not your daughter, not your student. Not nothin'. Not anymore. I'm your complete fucking stranger, man!" Not yours. Don't touch.
"I don't understand you, Ranma. You wanted to be the greatest martial artist who ever lived. Heir to both Schools of Anything-Goes Martial Arts. A man among men. You were so close! What happened?!" Genma shrugged in exasperation, sitting on one of the plastic patio chairs Ranko had placed out in the alley last month for Crash and Shinji's smoke breaks.
The teen's glare grew even icier. "You happened. You and your training. And now, Ranma Saotome is dead, and the last thought that went through his head was that he wanted to die. To be free of you. To make room for me. And now? People chant my name every day, and I know it's killing you that it's not Saotome they're screaming. It's the name of the family I'm going to marry into. The family that has honor. The family that actually wants me - the me that I am now, not the one I've spent the last two years running from. That ain't ever gonna be you. Your whole miserable bloodline is over, old man! Thousands of years of Saotomes, and it's all going to end because of you! So hurry up and die alone, and leave me be!"
"How can you…" Genma shook his head in disbelief. What have they done to you, boy? "How could you possibly say you're happy like… that?" He motioned with his hand to her dress. "This is nothing like you! Did you hit your head or something? What's gotten into you?!"
Ranko glared, shivering from the ice in her veins. How dare you even think what I am now is less than what I was then. How fucking dare you. "This is what I am. You know we tried everything we could to reverse what that Amazon bitch did to me. This was all there was ever going to be for me. I could choose to be miserable about it forever, or I could decide to try to make the best of it for myself. Relearn everything. Start over. Find a way to live. And along the way, the hardest thing I've had to learn wasn't how to put on makeup or make potstickers. It was coming to grips with the fact that basically everything you ever taught me about life was wrong, and figuring out how to dump it all out of my head somehow. That's what you don't get. You'll never understand it. I'm not just different than I used to be, man. I'm better. So much better. Better than Ranma. Better than you. If you brought me the Spring of Drowned Man in a jar right now, I'd dump it out in the fucking street."
She fiddled idly with the silver bracelet that concealed the scar on her left wrist. "Ranma followed your example, and so he deserved to be erased from all existence. The woman I am today is better than any man that a man like you could have ever made me, and I'm getting better all the time, to boot. I know it disgusts you. Good! If I had any doubt left I was doing the right thing, seeing how much it's killing you is all the proof I need that it is! Why can't you just deal with it? I. Am. A. Woman. Everything's perfect. Everything's normal. Everything works." Even a few things I wish didn't, a few days a month. "I'm not a freak anymore, man. I'm just a girl. Why can't you just let me have that?! Just let me go!"
"You should know me better than that, boy. We've got ourselves a problem, and I'm not leaving until you agree to come back with me and help me deal with your mother. You've had your fun, but it's time to man up and face your responsibilities now." Genma leaned back in the plastic chair, the back of his head gently bonking into the red brick wall.
"You do realize how dumb you sound asking me to man up, right? Like, even if I could go back - and I can't - why would I? I'm happy like this. I know you can't understand. I'm not asking you to. I don't need your understanding. I only need that from people I actually respect. Your wife doesn't know where to find me. She wouldn't recognize me if she saw me, and you can't tell her who I am without admitting how spectacularly you failed when you put me in this position in the first place." Ranko leaned on the brick wall of the building, crossing her arms and ankles confidently. "From where I'm standing, you're lookin' pretty fucked, old man. If I were you, I'd get the hell out of town and never look back!"
"You know it's not that simple, Ranma. She'll come for you, too, eventually. It's not just me. I'm trying to help you, boy." The singer's father stood, reaching for her shoulder. "Come home, and we can deal with this together. Maybe you can even come back here after, if you insist."
Ranko stepped aside, dodging his hand. Her calm facade finally gave way to the roiling disgust that churned in her guts like bad sushi. "That's NOT my name, and I'm NOT a boy! Don't you understand me? Ranma Saotome is dead! He's DEAD! He's never coming back, ever! Not for you, not for some bitch I don't even know, NOBODY! And, besides, I am home! The only real home I've ever known! This is my life! I have everything I want right here!"
I am wanted. I have worth. I have people who love me. I am wanted. I have worth. I have people who love me.
"You and I are done! For good! Goodbye, old man!"
Ranko started to turn her back, but Genma roared after her. "I said you're coming back with me, Ranma! Don't make me force you, for both our sakes! I'll fight you if I have to, and you know you can't win! Not like that!"
He reached for her shoulder again, but Ranko spun, swatting his hand away. Using the momentum from her spin, she propelled herself up off the loose gravel that blanketed the alleyway, continuing her rotation into a roundhouse kick that struck her father across the cheek and sent him sprawling into the broken cherry table that lay on its side near the dumpster. The aging martial artist's body snapped the square tabletop cleanly in half. Genma slumped to the ground on his stomach between the two pieces of wood as they rattled to a stop with a hollow clatter that echoed between the buildings that made up the alleyway.
The young woman stood over him as he rolled over onto his back, her eyes aflame. "My name… is… RANKO! TENDO! I am the youngest daughter of Hana Takahashi! I am a disciple of the one and only School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts, under Master Akane Tendo!"
Every cell in her body tensed to its maximum, quivering with potential energy and compounded fury, awaiting only the slightest excuse to explode. Ranko dropped into the krav maga active fighting stance, raising both of her arms in front of herself with bent elbows and open palms. She pulled her left foot behind her right, bending her knees with her heels off the ground. It was the most aggressive martial art style she knew, and by assuming that particular stance, she made her mind perfectly clear to the man who had once been her sensei. Who had once been her father.
She was prepared to kill.
"AND I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE!"
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