Title: Akane the Amazon
Author: ~*MissBunny*~
Email: akane_bunny_tendo@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Akane was running down the sidewalk once again next to Ranma. Well, "next to" wouldn't be wording it right. One could just well say he was walking far away from her, high above, on the safety of the fence. Ever since Ranma came into town, she found herself running for her life to get to class on time. "Stupid baka!" She muttered under her breath.
"What was that?" Asked Ranma as he looked down at the top of her head, then bringing it back up to spot the oncoming corner. As the fence ended, he casually leapt down in a single, swift motion, causing Akane's jealousy to mount.
"Nothing!" She replied hotly, just realizing she had been staring the entire time. "Just look at him," she thought. "He thinks he's so perfect! The epitome of a...of a..."
"...of a man?" thought another voice from out of nowhere. "A rather good-looking, attractive, man at that," continued the voice.
"Yeah, and a complete jerk!" continued Akane, countering the voice's words. "He's got all the bravado of a macho jerk! He's got..."
"Three other women tagging along beside him, which makes you jealous. Doesn't it Akane?" asked the voice with a wry smile.
"Jealous?! She screamed towards it, her mental mallet swinging violently in her mind, attempting to block away the hideous voice that was now bringing forth every thought she had let hide within the crevices of her subconscious.
"But, of course!" it continued. "I mean, surely you don't think he actually loves th..." Suddenly, Akane could picture the voice with its palm outstretched towards its mouth. "Oh, my! You really think he loves them, don't you?" It asked with a sad, almost sardonic look to its features. "My, my, my Akane. I thought you'd be stronger than that..."
"Oh, shut up!" yelled Akane, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. "You don't know...you can't possibly know how it feels, how he makes me feel when he does these things!" she shouted within her mind.
"Ah, yes. Well, I suppose when the love of your life is three times better than you at just about everything..." said the voice, waving its hand in the air signaling a nonverbal continuity.
"And just what is that supposed to mean?!" shouted Akane.
"Well...isn't it obvious?" asked the voice, nonchalantly.
"Isn't what obvious?"
"My dear, dear, Akane...you're so blind at times." At the sudden uproar of Akane's mental aura, the voice pressed on. "What I mean is, you just don't sit and analyze things. That's your flaw... You let things get the better of you. Especially when it comes to Ranma. Before he came along, you were almost the greatest at just about everything, weren't you, Akane?"
"Well...I...I guess. Yes." She answered, her head bowed in a dejected manner.
"Until he came along," continued the voice. "He came along highlighted over all your accomplishments, making them look petty in his eyes. You always thought you could become one of the greatest martial artists until he came along. Not only was he perfect at martial arts, winning over you on several occasions, but even those that were chasing you became infatuated with him. With his cursed form and his training."
Akane, not able to take anymore, shouted, "okay! Okay! Are you going to help me, or are you just going to state what I already know?!" she shouted, her arms flying violently into the air. "I know I could never be as superior as him or flaunt myself towards the wanting gender, but what can I do?! I couldn't even get him to say he loves me! Not even after my near-death did he want to admit it! So, tell me, oh, wise one! How do I get through to this macho-idiot of a fiancé?!" She finished, her face beaming a sarcastic smile.
"Akane, you know that Ranma will never allow you to be his superior, that I can tell you. And you might never will be." At fire rising behind her, she continued. "Remember, Akane, that Ranma has been training for YEARS with his father, while you have stuck within the confining walls of your Dojo."
"But..."
"Yes, I know you've been on training missions before, but Ranma has exceeded in that. You very well know that. You've seen how greatly his training is while in battle, especially knowing he doesn't go full-out with his opponents." As she saw the settling of Akane's aura, she pressed on. "As for his other fiancées, Akane, there is so much you can do. I know you'd rather him come out and tell you. But, would you really want to wait that long? You've seen what troubles waiting has brought you. Look at what happened in Jusendo, among other occurrences. What I can tell you though, is don't wait for too long...you just might regret it." Ended the voice as it turned to leave.
"I...but...how do you know so much about me? What I think, see, how I live?" but before she could get an answer, the voice had already vanished.
"Akane! Yo Akane!" Yelled a more masculine voice beside her.
"Wh...what is it?" Suddenly she remembered where she was and whom she was with. He was standing there with his usual cocky grin plastered to his face. The memory of the voice was quickly forgotten as the only aid she had with her at that moment was anger. "Baka! Baka! Baka" She shouted mentally, clutching her hands into two tight fists.
Meanwhile, a group of students spotted Ranma beside Akane and decided to join them.
"Hey, Ranma!" called out the first one. It appeared to be one of Ranma's friends. "Mind showing us that move you were talking about the other day?" asked the other.
Ranma, not hesitating for a second, leapt away from Akane's side to join the other classmates.
"That...that...BAKA!!!" She screamed to herself. "Doesn't he know we're going to be late?!!!" She asked herself, biting down hard on her lips. "Baka! Baka! Baka! BAAAAAAAAAAKKKKAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!" She screamed in her head, fists clenching painfully in her palms.
In the middle of a move, Ranma heard one of his classmates call out to him. "Hey, Ranma! What's wrong with your fiancé?" Turning his head slightly, he could see Akane's battle aura slightly trickling from her body. "Oh, man!" he thought. What's wrong with her now?"
"Oh, you mean, the uncute one?" asked another classmate, nudging Ranma in the side. "Really, Ranma. If you treated her better, you two could be so far by now..." he commented, bopping his head up and down in a "you-know-what" manner.
"Whadda ya mean by that?" asked Ranma, turning around, looking at the guy with a confused glance.
"Oh, come on, Ranma! If you treated her like you did Ukyo or Shampoo, even, she'd be in your b..."
Before he could finish his statement, Ranma was on him like a bat out of h... (an - a very bad place...) ;)
"What are you talkin' 'bout?!" He asked, his arms flaying wildly in negation. "An uncute, macho-chic like her?! Besides, I ain't done nothin' with those girls, they come to me!" He said, his body rising in masculine accomplishment. Inside, however, he was berating himself for even having their names mentioned. Why, whoever could tell when Ukyo, Kodachi, or even Shampoo might come along. Before he could let another thought cross his path, he heard that all-too well jingle of a bicycle bell approaching before something heavy collided with his head, making him fall to the floor with a thud. Then, he heard it...
"Aiyaa! Airen come take Shampoo on date, is good?" she asked with a smile, obviously with no intent on letting the prone Ranma escape one of her many versions of an embrace.
"Umm...aackkk..." answered Ranma, intelligently as he lay sprawled under Shampoo's bike. After Shampoo finally picked her bicycle off of him, he found himself gasping for breath as she tightened herself around his body, nearly crushing his ribs into his lungs. "Sh..shampoo! Would you let GO OF ME!?!" he shouted after the Amazon.
"Man, look at 'em go!" whispered one of the classmates. "Yeah," said the other. "And he said he doesn't lead them on..."
Nearby, Akane was practically radiating fire. Not even the Chinese Syndrome could compare to how completely furious she was at this very moment.
Ranma, trying to strip the tangled form around his body, could feel her aura even from the great distance that was separating them. "Oh, crap!" he thought as he prepared himself for the malleting of a lifetime. As he saw her shift her body, willing and ready to stomp on over towards him, he closed his eyes and began to count...
"...one"
"...two"
"...three"
After about the tenth second and no physical pain what so ever, he raised his head towards the spot he last saw her, immediately regretting it. He watched as she began to stomp past them, head bowed down, fists clenched ready to bleed if she closed them any tighter. "Oh, man!" he thought as he began to regret not listening to her battle aura before.
"Ahh...listen guys...I...umm...gotta go..." With that, he said his good-byes, disentangled Shampoo from his body (which is a fate best left to the more highly imaginative to deal with in picturing) and made a hasty exit towards the direction of the school.
As soon as Akane heard the jingling of a certain bicycle bell, she knew her day was just beginning to get worse, even after all those comments she heard being thrown casually across the border towards Ranma. She felt hurt, betrayed, and most of all, ANGRY! She stood there, contemplating whether to go over there and give him the malleting of his life, or to just walk away. She ended up choosing the latter, allowing her aura and the distinct taste of her anger to seep into the air where that baka could get a full taste of what was to come.
Clenching her fists tightly, she turned and walked away, stomping her feet into the pavement so hard, it left marks of her presence.
By the time Ranma caught up with her, her aura had seeped down a bit, but still blazing triumphantly around her.
"What's wrong Akane?" he asked noticing her flushed appearance and tight fists.
"Baka! Baka! Baka! BAKA!!!" she mentally screamed once again as they approached the entrance to Furinkan HS. "Nothing," she repeated as before with a slight edge to her voice.
"Woah, what's up with her?" asked Ranma to himself just as his fist made contact with the approaching Kuno, blocking his usual antics before they started. "Can't take that moron today," he said to himself as he caught up with Akane.
Entering the classroom, they both let out a sigh of relief as Miss Haruka had not yet arrived. They then both approached their assigned seats as they heard a fellow student yell out "she's coming!" and scurry off to his own seating place.
As Akane sat down in her seat, she quickly began to set her books, notepad, and pencil onto her desktop. Waiting for Miss Hinako to arrive, she decided to sneak a peak at Ranma. There he was lying back in his seat, balancing the tip of his book on his nose, oblivious to his surroundings. "Idiot!!!" thought Akane as she dug her nails into the palms of her hands.
"What's wrong Akane? Had another fight with Ranma?" asked one of her friends.
Not bothering to look up, she simply stated the same response she had been giving out all morning. "Nothing."
Miss Haruka chose this moment to enter the classroom. "Okay, class." She began in her child-like voice. "Let's get started on today's lesson plan." "I just hope one of those pesky students act up so I can finally get into my adult form again. Like it's not bound to happen here" she thought as she turned her face to the chalk board with a malicious grin, all the while fingering the coin hidden in the confines of her jacket pocket.
Going over to the side of her desk, she hefted up the giant step, which she recently started using to reach the board. Clutching it to her chest, she wavered as her body tilted back slightly due to the excess weight. Bringing it over to the board, she backed up a few steps. After gaining speed, she ran and hopped to the top of the step, her body limping slightly from the sudden impact. Straightening, she continued with her lecture, unaware of the goggled eyes penetrating her from behind. "Now, we last left off explaining the effects mentally deranged pandas have on their offspring..." she said, continuing her regular lecture of non-intelligence (at least to certain students in the classroom).
Akane, busily scribbling notes into her notepad, stopped and took a quick look to her right. "That..." she started as she saw Ranma scribbling something in his notepad while smirking. "No doubt drawing some non-sense!! Probably pictures of his cute fiancée!" she thought as she caught a glimpse of Ukyo staring lovingly in his direction with a dreamy expression on her face. "That insensitive baka!!" she yelled to herself as she turned back to her notes.
Meanwhile, that same voice was yanking at the hair on her scalp. "That child will never learn!" she said to herself. "Might as well give her a bit of help."
After five minutes of note-taking, Akane finally gave in, defeating into the fact that she could no longer concentrate with HIM in seeing-distance. Resting the side of her face in her left palm, she began to think of the same baka that would always rise up all her emotions, as her mind slipped into "away mode".
The scene fades to darkness. As she wakes up it clears to reveal a land far from the regular lands of Nerima. Looking around Akane found herself in the grounds of what appeared to be a highly forested region.
Where am I?" She wondered aloud as she continued to examine her surroundings. She stopped short and turned sharply as she heard a slight bit of movement coming from behind her.
"I...I'm sorry Mistress Akane!" said a voice from the bushes, its palms outstretched, sticking out onto the grassy surface of the ground. If that didn't startle her enough, the fact that this person appeared to be kneeling before her did!
"Wait a minute," she thought. "That voice...it sounds familiar. But...it couldn't be." She wondered as she stepped closer.
He sounded so incredibly weak. Not weak from injury but weak as in...pitiful.
"R...Ranma?" she continued aloud towards the figure kneeling before her.
"Ranma?" she asked again, bringing her body down to a sitting position over her feet. Just as she finished this motion, she saw a blur of red flash before her. Suddenly the figure bought her up by both hands to stand before him. Then, as quickly as he did so, he dropped to the floor, his face practically kissing the grass, palms outstretched. "O', please Mistress Akane! You ain't gotta lean down for nothin'! 'Specially for me." He said, his voice muffled between the blades of grass.
"Ranma!" Repeated Akane, louder this time. Her hands came up, clasped together to meet underneath her chin, completing her trade-mark pose of Kasumi's rendition of an "oh, my!"
The young man only continued his long, worth-less blabbering. "I'm sorry I ain't got the best verbal communi-whatch-ama-call-it, but I'm trying, Akane! I'll do anything for you!" he said as he crawled over to her, kissing the tips of her feet.
"Ucccckkk!" she grunted out, pulling back her foot. Only then, as she witnessed the incredible scene before her, did she take in the site of her clothing. She wore a tight blouse wrapped around her upper region, accentuating her feminine curves. Looking further, she could see tight tights strapped onto her legs, fitting loose directly under her knees, exposing her shins. It appeared to be something only Shampoo would wear. The thought caused her to tighter her fists in anger at the thought of the bonbori-carrying, cat-shifting, bimbo.
"What's wrong Mistress Akane?" asked the prone form before her, voice filled with worry.
Hearing the voice speak again brought her back to the situation at hand.
"Is there anything I may do for you?" he asked. "Anything at all?"
She suddenly recalled all the nonsense Shampoo would rant on about Chinese Amazon customs, no longer thinking them nonsense as an idea flickered brilliantly across her mind. "Anything...?" she asked to affirm herself of what she desperately hoped was before her.
"Why yes, Mistress Akane!" he said coming closer, intent on proving it to her by reaching out and grasping a block of wood from out of nowhere and quickly dashing his fist into it hundreds of times shouting for his Amaguriken technique.
As the cloud of dust and woodcarving settled, it revealed a small, intricately made, wooden figurine, in the shape of a rose. "Anything my love!" he shouted as he held up the object in one hand, the rest of his body still prone against the wet grass.
Akane could only smile with glee and...determination at the hilarious yet somewhat gratifying scene before her.
Back in the classroom, Ranma stopped his doodling long enough to stare a glimpse at Akane. The site of her struck him senseless as her face was lying heavily on the palm of her hand, staring up towards cloud 9, a grin plastered across her face. "Hmm...wonder what's up with her." He asked himself
Remembering her behavior just before class in the morning, a slight pang of worry began to tingle at the recesses of his mind. Taking out a piece of paper, he began to scribble something on it quickly. He then, wrapped it up around a piece of eraser and threw it up and over the class. It made a perfect landing on its target's head and quickly bounced off to finally sit in front of her, neatly laying on the surface of her desk unnoticed.
Back in the Amazons of China, Akane felt a sudden, yet brief object fall on her head, causing her to scrunch her nose in wonderment.
"Looks like it's starting to rain, Mistress Akane." Said the prone, now standing figure before her. "We better head off back to the palace." He said as he motioned for her to lead the way.
"The palace?" thought Akane, the smile reappearing to light up her features. "Shampoo never mentioned a palace in her hometown," she thought with a wry grin. After looking back at the now small figure walking minutely behind her, she thought "hmm...I could get accustomed to this place."
It took them several hours till they finally reached what appeared to be a city (to these people at least). There were small huts surrounding the vast land around them. People were gathered around selling small trinkets and other goods. As Akane moved on, she noticed that most of the hut owners were female.
"Looks like we're almost there," said Ranma from behind her.
About fifteen minutes later, they finally approached a large surrounding wall, with two large wooden doors awaiting their entrance.
Akane then stiffened as she felt Ranma waiting for her expectantly. "Umm...right." she said as she gathered herself together. "Open the palace doors!" she called out in a deeper voice.
Not a minute passed before they heard the pulling of chains followed by the creaking of the palace doors as they opened upon them.
As they entered, they passed several male palace maids. Akane looked upon this with a wry grin. She then had to suppress a gasp at the two figures approaching towards her.
"U...Ukyo...Shampoo?" she asked hesitantly. The first words that were emitted from their mouths put her into a shocked trance.
"Mistress Akane!" started the first. "You look completely distressed! I think you and Ranma hon...and Ranma," she corrected herself, after seeing the sudden tenseness in Akane's muscles. "...shoud go rest in your chambers now." She finished with a slight flush to her features.
"Yes! Violent Mistress-girl go now!" said the other as she started to fidget with Akane to take her to her room, unlike the first, not giving an ounce of distress towards the words she used upon the female.
Akane, however did not take liking to this at all. "Hey!" she called out. "I can go there myself, thank you very much!" she countered against the Amazon.
"Okay, you go then. We meet you back and give you bath." She said, not giving the girl enough time to retort as she made a hasty exit, followed closely by Ukyo.
"Okay, lead the way mi lady!" said Ranma as he approached from her rear.
"Umm...right." she said as she finally took notice to the fact that she really didn't know where to go.
"Isn't your chamber that way, Mistress Akane?" asked Ranma after seeing the dubious look on her face. He continued, "would Mistress Akane like me to carry her..." he asked uncertainly. "You...you appear to be ill." He finished, worry covering his features.
At this, Akane's mind was in a loophole. "Carry me?!" she thought, anger surging throughout her veins. "He really is the same idiotic pervert I always knew him for!" She thought, until she looked into his eyes. "Still...he appears to care...this time..." "That's okay," she concluded verbally towards the male before her. "Maybe you could just...lead the way. I'm not feeling my best today."
At that, the young man led the way towards their chambers.
Stay tuned for the concluding chapter....