The Phoenix Saga Part II: Phoenix Ascendant

Chapter Ninety-Eight: Dark Clouds

With a sickening snap, the sandbag standing in for the head of the vaguely human-shaped wooden figure fell to the floor in time with a peal of thunder. The old martial artist sighed, drawing back his fist as he surveyed the decapitated dummy. It looked like training was over for today, but the short walk back to the house would not be pleasant in the storm.

He walked over to the shrine at the end of the training hall, sitting cross-legged on the floor and closing his eyes. It was the Tendos' shrine, but as he didn't have his own, it would have to do. He breathed deeply of the petrichor wafting its way through the open dojo door, letting it calm his thoughts.

It had been a day like any other. He'd woken, eaten his fill of Kasumi's cooking, and played a round of shogi with Tendo. The master was still traveling, so he'd not been called upon to assist in a raid on the girls' locker room of the local high school. He decided he'd spend his day walking around the shopping district. He didn't have much money to spend, but it was fun to watch the people go about their day. Sometimes, just to mess with folks, he'd splash himself with water and chase them around in his panda form.

Normally, he'd see people on the park benches feeding the birds. People gathered around the little street food stands for a quick bite. Maybe a well-dressed woman giggling as she darted from a department store with two full bags and her husband's credit card.

Today, though, had not been a normal day. Instead, the main strip of stores in the little shopping plaza was clogged with a single queue, stretching out the door of a shop he had never set foot in and blocking off the doors to several of the establishments nearby. Either there must have been a sale on or something popular must have gotten restocked, he thought, to get people that riled up. Huge speakers blared a catchy pop song at the shoppers as they waited to enter the building, and something sounded distantly familiar about it.

Curiosity got the better of him, and he approached the shop. He didn't want to ask any of the people in line what was happening; that would make him look uninformed. A true martial artist had to always appear in command of the situation, he always said. He craned his neck, and as a pair of girls in Furinkan high school uniforms exited the building, the line lurched forward. Between the heads and shoulders, he caught a brief glimpse of a poster in the shop window. It featured four young men – three Japanese, one American, maybe – standing in an alley flanking a woman in a leather jacket. She looked fierce. She looked powerful. She looked, he was disgusted to admit, pretty.

She looked exactly like Genma Saotome's son.

Genma had already known what Ranma was up to. Soun had told him. But it was one thing to hear about it, and another to see it. To see people lined up around the block to partake in his family's shame. Watching them drop their hard-earned yen to marvel at his boy, his legacy, dolled up in a pleated miniskirt and looking like a harlot as he sang about overcoming difficulty. As if the boy had any idea what he was talking about. Difficulty was to be overcome by standing and facing it, not running away in the middle of the night. Not by abandoning your responsibilities and your family.

Perhaps what bothered him the most about the picture wasn't the outfit or the makeup. It wasn't the four leather-clad men surrounding him, as if they were preparing to fight Ranma's battles for him. It wasn't even the fact that it was the cover of a disgusting pop single.

It was the smile.

Genma could bear his son taking on any shame, any hurt, to survive and win against impossible odds. He himself had done so more times than he could count. But to do all of this – and enjoy it? Even for an honorless fool like Ranma, there were limits.