A Blessing and a Curse

Author's Note: This chapter contains depictions of graphic violence. Reader discretion is advised.

Genma Saotome stood, brushing off his gi as he assumed an aikido stance. "Very well. If that's the way you want it, boy. I'll drag you back to reality by that ridiculous ribbon in your hair."Gotta catch me first, you miserable old fuck, Ranko thought to herself, her mind racing with possible strategies. Can't let him hit me. Gotta end this quick.With a bloodcurdling kiai, Ranko raised her leg for a front kick, pulling her leg back at the last instant. Her father stepped forward to catch her ankle, but it was not where she'd telegraphed her feint. Snapping her leg upward at the knee without her foot touching the ground again, she struck him firmly on the chin, staggering him back."I see you haven't completely forgotten everything I taught you, Ranma." Genma rubbed his chin smugly. "Not a half-bad kick.""You're just lucky I'm not wearing heels, asshole!" Ranko retook her krav maga stance. "Come on, then! Come get you some more!"Laughing condescendingly, Genma launched a high punch at Ranko's face. She dodged it, but only just, rising from the crouch she'd taken to duck his fist with a punch of her own fired at his rib cage. She felt it connect. Now, to press the advantage. Don't think. Don't take time to think. It makes you slow. Just move.Ranko shot her fist up into his ribs again. This is for laughing at me when Mikado kissed me.Another punch, this one with her left hand, hit him in the kidney area. This is for selling me off to Ukyo.Her left fist crashed into the bridge of her father's nose. This is for making things weird with me and Akane all that time. As she pulled her hand back for another strike, she noticed that her attack had torn a little puncture in his skin, courtesy of the diamond solitaire ring that she'd been proposed to with in a fancy ball gown under the fireworks on Valentine's Day by her doting fiancee.She cocked her hand back for another punch. This is for Jusenkyo.But her hand was blocked, and Genma snatched her by the wrist, throwing her down to the ground and barring her arm behind her back. He ground her chest into the gravel, and Ranko yelped loudly as each pebble and grain of rock and concrete dust tore at her dress and scraped across any and every patch of exposed skin."Give it up, boy. You know you can't beat me. You've gone soft." Genma thrust her downward by her arm, slamming the girl who would be his daughter hard to the asphalt.Ranko coughed, dragging herself to her hands and knees. I don't understand! The Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire technique… didn't work? He blocked it? How?! Her elbows quivered with effort as she pushed herself back to her feet, still coughing in a vain effort to expel the gravel dust from her lungs as she retook her stance.Can't stop, no matter how much it hurts. I'm fighting for my life."Well, look at you! You got up! That's more than I expected from you, little girl." Genma assumed a kempo stance. "Let's see you do it again!""Why can't you just leave. Me. ALONE?!" Ranko kicked up at his shoulder, striking a glancing blow. The thousands of microabrasions from the gravel, amplified a thousandfold by the Full Body Cat's Tongue, made her feel like her skin was going to tear off of her bones every time she moved. She tried to put the pain out of her mind, but it distracted her enough to make her hesitate for just an instant. While she was still off balance from standing on just her right leg, Genma swatted her left leg out of the way and drove downward with another hammer fist to her right eye, the impact of which drove her to her knees."Just give up, boy! You know you can't take a hit, and you don't even have the spirit for fighting anymore. Those women have made you weak, and you know it. Your defeat is inevitable. All you're doing is making me hurt you more!"Using Crash's plastic patio chair for support, Ranko clamored to her feet again. "Those women taught me more about how to fight for myself than you ever did."Before she could fully re-establish her balance, her former sensei stepped forward, slugging Ranko hard in her ribcage. Sputtering, she crumpled onto the plastic chair, snapping it into several jagged white shards."You insolent, ungrateful, pathetic little girl! You don't know how good you had it! All you had to do was focus on martial arts, and everything would have been fine! Instead, you became… whatever the hell this is. I am disgusted. Give up, and if you're lucky, maybe there's still time for me to make something of you before you're ruined entirely!"Genma laughed mockingly as Ranko dragged herself to her feet. Her eyes were watering and she was nearly doubled over, bracing her ribs. The maddening thing was that knew there was no real damage, but the sheer agony of it radiated throughout her body as if she'd been shot by a grapeshot cannon full of razor blades at point-blank range, incapacitating her nonetheless.At least he called me a girl. That's progress, I guess."Is that all you got, old man?" Ranko coughed, pulling her left hand back up into ready position, her right still bracing her abdomen. "I've had cramps that hurt worse. I can do this all day."I don't think I can do it for another two minutes. Do I run? Fuck! I can't! Not with Mom and Aya inside with nobody to look after them."Is that so? Well, show me! Let me see the great and powerful woman you say you are!" Genma laughed, not even bothering to reassume a stance.Ranko roared, running forward at him as hard as she could, trying to let adrenaline and rage evict the pain from her mind. "I FUCKING HATE YOU!"Her father reached out to grapple her for an aikido throw, but Ranko ducked under his grasp, throwing her shoulder into his chest at top speed like a linebacker and slamming him back against the metal dumpster with a hollow, metallic thwump. Before he could react, she was raining blows down onto his sternum with both fists. The unhinged shriek that came from her throat contained no intelligible words, nor was it a battle kiai.Don't think. Just move. No thinking. Thinking makes you slow. Slow makes you lose. But her mind was a cacophony like a crowded subway station on a Monday morning, with thousands of indistinct fears and strategies and grievances and pains vying to be heard and becoming a muddled, unintelligible, inescapable noise.She drove her fist down into her father's chest with the force of a bag of hammers. Her mind flashed to a few nights ago, screaming Freak at her terrified fans on the Phoenix stage. You tried to take my singing away from me!The enraged redhead jackhammered downward onto his face with her left fist, catching him across the nose. She remembered Shiori and Tamiko, hugging her on the bench in the locker room moments after she and her fellow cheerleaders had won the All-Tokyo Cheerleading Invitational. You tried to take my friends from me!Her right fist caught him in the ribs, and Genma rocked on his feet against the dumpster. Trying to call yourself my family. You piece of shit. You don't know what family is. Neither did I, until I came here. And you tried to take that away from me, too. Tried to take them away from me.You can't have them, you son of a bitch.You don't deserve to breathe the same fucking air as them.She fired another punch downward at his throat, seeking to end the fight while she still could, but before it could connect, she felt her father's fist slam into her right eye again from above. She had not been fast enough. The Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire technique had failed her a second time when she needed it most. Her eye watering, she stumbled backward nearly a meter and crashed head-first against the brick wall of the Phoenix with an anguished cry.Why won't it work? Why can't I do it? I need it! Am I… am I going to lose? Am I really going to lose everything? To him? Again?Before she could push her back away from the wall, Genma was on her. He grabbed her by the neckline of her lavender dress, ripping it slightly in his fist as he rocketed his arm forward and slammed her spine against the wall again. And again."Give it up! I don't want to hurt you! I just want you to do what's best for both of us!" Genma pulled her a quarter-meter away from the wall, launching his elbow back to full extension and driving her head and torso backward onto the gritty red bricks again.Ranko cried out in agony. Her vision on the right side was getting blurrier by the second. Moving hurt. Thinking hurt. The pain alarms going off from every tiny cut and bruise overwhelmed her mind to the exclusion of any ability to focus. Weeks of poor sleep and worry left her sapped of energy. She'd already lost the battle to keep from audibly acknowledging her pain, and she was desperately fighting for the one patch of ground she still had not lost, even as she knew she was defeated.I don't care how bad it hurts. Nothing would satisfy him more than making the little girl cry. I won't give it to him. I'll claw my own fucking eyes out first.Genma slammed her limp body into the brick wall again. "You are such an embarrassment. Absolutely pathe… urk!"Ranko was dragged to the ground on her right side against the wall, feeling her father's grasp on her dress loosen as both combatants slammed to the gravel. She blinked up into the early afternoon sun at a tall silhouette she could barely make out with one watery working eye. The woman still held her fist cocked in the air as she widened her feet, bellowing at the interloper in the alleyway."TAKE YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF MY DAUGHTER!"Her glare locked on Genma's prone form, Hana reached down and forward for her little girl. "Come here, Ranko." The redhead took her mother's hand, and between the barkeep's support and the wall, she was able to scramble wearily back to her feet.Genma kick-flipped to his feet, chuckling darkly as Hana pulled Ranko behind herself. "Now, there's a true martial artist, cowering behind an old woman."Hana bristled, putting her arm out defensively between her daughter and her attacker. "Ranko, is that…"Hana's daughter nodded shamefully with a few quiet coughs as she braced herself against the wall and rubbed at her swelling right eye, unseen though it was behind Hana's back. She answered in a weak, gravely voice. "Yeah, mom. That's the piece of shit that calls himself my father.""Oh, ho, ho," Hana laughed grimly, shaking her head and clenching her fist again. "I've been waiting a long time for a lick at you, you honorless, heartless, thoughtless, soulless son of a bitch! After everything you put that poor girl through! Have you no shame, showing up here to disrupt the life she's made in spite of you?! How DARE you?""That poor girl?! Ha! You really have no idea who that is, do you?! All this time, and she still hasn't told you the truth?!" Genma laughed, placing his hands on his hips. "Let me help you out, lady."No, Ranko thought, her mind racing. Please, no. Not like this, Pop. Anything but this. She begged her body to move, to find some last hidden reserve of strength, but whether by pain, exhaustion or terror, she stood frozen behind the owner of the Phoenix. The woman who had snatched her out of hell itself. She opened her mouth to speak, and no sound would come.Hana growled deeply. She did not leave the interloper space to speak. "I know exactly who she is! Her name is Ranko Tendo, and she's an incredible young woman! She's a star singer! She's a high school senior and a champion athlete! She's a loyal friend! She's a loving and supportive aunt and sister! She's about to be the wife of someone she loves more than all the world! And she's the most perfect daughter a parent could ever hope for!"YOU haven't been here to hold her when she cries. YOU haven't been here to help her get back into school. YOU weren't here last year when she almost died in her sister's arms in that parking lot across the street! YOU didn't sit in a hospital room for four days praying she'd wake up after she risked her life and put her body between danger and a helpless little boy! YOU haven't watched her stand on that stage in there and sing her heart out with joy. YOU haven't seen her fight like hell for the things she wants and the people she believes in. YOU haven't been here to see her grow, and learn, and blossom, and thrive. To see her rise. So, mister, don't you fucking dare stand there and tell me I don't know my daughter! She's stronger, braver, smarter and kinder than you could ever know! I am in fucking awe of that girl every single day of my life!"She turned to glance down at her battered baby girl. "You don't know how lucky you were to have her, and how thoroughly you squandered the blessing you had. This is how great she is in spite of having no decent parents until she turned eighteen. Imagine how much further along she'd be if she'd had the love and support she deserved growing up? Not only can you not have her, you self-righteous, self-centered, arrogant, misogynistic pigfucker, you don't DESERVE her!"So, I don't give a shit what lies you want to tell me! I don't care what you think you could ever know about the person she is, or was, because I've seen that kid damn near literally kill herself trying to build a life better than what you tried to force her into, and she's done it with a smile on her face and a song in her heart every step of the way! And I'll be damned if I let a loser like you make it even the smallest bit harder for her than you already have!"Ranko blinked with her one working eye. Wow, Mom.She stood just a little straighter somehow, turning to watch her father's face contort. A single thought rocketed unbidden through her brain, sending a shockwave through her consciousness like a freight train crashing through a dynamite factory. It nearly knocked her off of her feet, not that it would have taken much in her current condition.He can't… he can't hurt me anymore.Her eyes widened as her mind roared with the epiphany rattling around in her ringing skull. Her jaw creaked open slightly, popping as it hung loose in her thunderstruck realization.He can hit me. He can insult me. He can embarrass me. But he can't hurt me. He can't take away my friends. My family. The band. Akane. Because they'll fight for me. Because they won't let him. Because I'm as important to them as they are to me. Because they're not just a part of me; I'm a part of them. Because it doesn't matter where he wants to drag me off to if they won't let me go.Ranko took a step forward to her mother's side. All the intrusive thoughts that rampaged through her head, all the doubts, all the fears, all the anguish and rage and shame, imploded into a single point of light in the back of her mind, as if a black hole swallowed it all and then somehow collapsed into itself and became a star. A single, all-encompassing, limpid truth burning with the heat of a thousand suns at the center of an otherwise serene void.I am wanted. I have worth. I have people who care about me.An overwhelming sense of tranquility washed over her, even as her heart pounded in her chest.I am wanted. I have worth. I have people who care about me.She removed her hand from her aching abdomen, her face erupting into the best smile she could manage with half of her face paralyzed by the swelling.I am wanted. I have worth. I have people who care about me.There was nothing else. Nothing else was needed. She had been saying it all this time, whenever she doubted herself or had a bad day. But now, the missing key ingredient was finally present.She actually believed it. She finally understood what it really meant."Get out of my way, lady!" Genma took a charging step forward, swiping at Hana with his open hand to push her aside.The world seemed to shift into slow motion. Ranko should have been angry. She should have been terrified. She should have been screaming in agony.She was not.I am wanted. I have worth. I have people who care about me. That's it. That's all I need. That's all I want.She smiled grimly in crystalline understanding as her father moved within arm's reach. She knew what she had to do, and her mind had finally quieted enough to allow her to do it.Don't think. Just move.Ranko ducked under her mother's arm and stepped between Genma and Hana, and her arms flew forward at lightning speed. Her father had no time to even notice her step toward him before the torrent of blows began raining down on his chest. She pressed after him, driving him backward with one blindingly fast punch after another. By the time the old man's back struck the open dumpster, she had struck him at least two hundred times.Chestnuts roasting in an open fire? Ha! Pandas roasting in the heart of a fucking phoenix!"I. Have. Had. Enough. Of. YOU!" Ranko uppercutted him once more in the chin, letting the unfathomable inertia her left fist had accumulated drive through his jaw rather than snapping her wrist back for another strike. She felt his bone pulverize under her knuckles as her father's feet left the ground and he fell backward, hitting the edge of the dumpster at waist height and careening headfirst into the receptacle with a hollow thwam that reverberated through the steel sides of the fetid enclosure.Before Ranko could blink, Hana slammed the dumpster lid closed, pulling up the steel bar to latch it. "Do you think that'll hold him?"With a shrill utterance that started as a kiai and ended as a pained yelp, Ranko spun her body with a velocity and torque only the first cheerleader in almost a decade to land a quadruple twist could muster, extending her left leg. The force of her kick bent the steel bar backward until it bit into the thick black rubber lid, lodging it tightly into place.Ranko turned her head to answer as her rotation came to a stop, but before she could say another word, Hana's hands gripped her shoulders tightly. She was glad of it, as the forceful spinning with her head ringing as it was had made her pretty dizzy. Hana turned her daughter's body this way and that to inspect the damage, gingerly brushing Ranko's disheveled hair out of her swollen face.. "Oh, baby girl, I'm so sorry I didn't come out sooner. Gods, look at you. Are you going to be okay? Do I need to take you to the hospital? Can I…"Hana's voice trailed off as her daughter threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around her mother's neck. Countless trickles of blood from the myriad scrapes and cuts on her forearms disappeared into the black of the barkeep's Ranko and the Dapper Dragons tee shirt. She squeezed like she was going to fall off the world. Like Hana was the only thing standing between her and oblivion. For a moment, she had been. Ranko's body shook weakly against her chest; whether it was from the pain, the adrenaline, the sobs of relief that had begun to pour from her eyes and rack her bruised body, or some combination of the three, Hana did not know."I've got you, baby. You're safe, Ranko. Let it out, honey. Nobody's ever going to take you away from us. Nobody's gonna let him hurt you, ever again, baby girl. Nobody's ever going to come between our family. No matter what, little star. No matter what. I promise."Only four intelligible words broke through the teenager's relieved wailing as Ranko fell limp in her guardian's arms."I love you, mom."