A/N: This is the first chapter in my new fic, Eternal Moments. It is an experiment on my part, to see how much I can describe single moments. It is to work on my descriptive skills and story skills. Unfortunately, as a side effect, the chapters will be rather short. As with this one. The word count without the Authors Note was 561. But I still hope and ask you to read and review my story. Pretty please?

Moment one – A Drop of Melted Ice

Ranma was in the process of running. Most likely from Kuno, but it could have been any number of other people. Ryoga, Akane, Shampoo... you name it. His number of erstwhile fiances and rivals were so numerable that it would be impossible to know how many where after his body and or life at any one moment.

One foot was on the ground, steadying his body. The other was in the air, preparing to hurry forward to continue with his break neck pace.

His muscular body and black hair made girls swoon, his clearly perfectly fit body the ideal of any man.

At this moment, however, none of that mattered.

At this moment was what mattered was the scene that he saw through a door that was cracked open. Just a small crack, but it was enough to see through.

Through the barely cracked open door, Ranma could see everything that was going on. His perfectly honed senses assured that. And what he saw through the door shocked him.

He saw Nabiki, the middle sister of his so called fiance's family, staring out of the window. He could see in the distance what looked like five girls 'escorting' in a violent manner a member of the male populace of Furikan high school off of the grounds. He couldn't tell, but judging from their uniforms and the way that Nabiki's head was trained towards them, he assumed that they were her henchwomen.

He saw what looked to be a finance booklet, most likely owned by Nabiki, opened. He couldn't make out everything that was on it, most likely some numbers (which he wasn't any good at anyway), but he could make out two words in bright red, underlined and circled. 'NO PAYMENT'.

So that's what it was. One of 'Furikan's Ice Queen's' 'client's' couldn't pay off their debt.

A rather unusual occurrence, to be sure. Nabiki only lent out money to those that she was sure would be able to pay back, at a rate they would be able to afford. And she was always sure to take something valuable as collateral, just in case.

Well. Something valuable to the borrower, at least. However, there was the occasional case when a person managed to pull one over on the resident money master, and give her something of absolutely no value to her or them. It was rare, but it happened. It was even rarer when a person that clever wasn't able to pay her back.

This lead to only one option: Force. The only way to get through to the idiots out there that money isn't free.

And Ranma, as of this moment, knew that Nabiki didn't like this method.

Many people call Nabiki heartless. They call her cruel. They say that she is ice with human flesh.

But Ranma knew they were wrong. As of this moment.

She acts like she doesn't care. Her face showed that she didn't care.

But Ranma knew that that was just an act. As of this moment.

Because, halfway down from her face to the ground, with the sunlight shinning through it revealing a miniature rainbow, was one thing.

Just one thing.

A single drop of salty water.

A single drop of melted ice.

A single tear.

And then Ranma rushed pass, and the moment was over.