Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Ranma?" Akane looked into the eyes of the guy she was in love with.

"Yes Akane?" Ranma took her hands in his warm, strong ones and leaned closer to her; she could feel the warmth of his breath as she said quietly,

"Ranma, I love you." There wasn't even a change in his breathing as Ranma replied,

"I know" Akane's eyes widen slightly, but her voice was very calm when she asked, almost without realizing she was doing it,

"You do?" Ranma smiled, smiled in that way that made this space somewhere in the area of Akane's stomach pulse with a strange feeling, then he said,

"Yes, and I love you too, Akane." Akane's face brightened even more and slowly, the two leaned towards each other, their lips almost touching, then she heard,

"Akane." She paused, the vision of Ranma's expectant countenance fading just the smallest bit, and then much more when again she heard,

"Akane." It was in a very different voice from Ranma's. It was a girl's voice, something wasn't right here, something defiantly wasn't right. Akane Tendo stirred in her sleep; her dreams of Ranma slowly disappearing as her conscious mind reasserted itself. Kasumi sat on the edge of her bed, her eyes full of relief that her youngest sister was finally waking up.

Akane blinked, opening her eyes slowly, they gained some focus and looked at Kasumi. Akane's expression was puzzled. 'Kasumi?' she thought to herself. 'Where's Ranma? Why is Kasumi here?' Akane tried to remember what had happened why, as she suddenly realized where she was, she was laying in her room. Wasn't she just…

"Kasumi, where's Ranma?" Akane's voice was slightly panicked. She remembered bits of the fight now. Had someone hurt Ranma? If they had they were going to pay. She would make them pay. But no, no one can touch Ranma. He's too good, whereas she, on the other hand… "Oh." And Akane remembered.

Kasumi sighed, looking at her sister's face, knowing that this conversation was going to take some time. Akane looked at her again, when she spoke, her voice was quite surprisingly calm, at least for the moment,

"Which one knocked me out?"

"It was Ukyo, she um… got you with that big spatula," Kasumi replied, trying to make it sound like no big deal. Akane was still for a moment, digesting this piece of information, then unable to contain herself she asked,

"And what about Ranma?" Kasumi looked away, not wanting to answer this question, knowing what would happen if she did. "Kasumi you have to tell me." There was an edge in Akane's voice, but there was more then that, she was sounding almost anxious.

"Oh my."

* * * * * * * *

"Ranma you jerk!" The expletive rang out with a resonant sound; it was the same sentence Akane had been shouting over and over again for the last fifteen minutes. After Kasumi had told her where Ranma had gone, Akane had been shocked into silence, for a few minutes at least. She was now smashing cinder blocks with her hands. Still frustrated and all out of cinder blocks, she stood in front of a twisted tree, wrapped around with a covering. She kicked the tree so hard it shock, Akane caught her breath for a second, and almost immediately cursed herself,

"Fool! Did you really expect him to be in the tree?" She hissed to herself, but she knew the answer, no. She hadn't expected it, but she had been hoping, with a part of herself that she never admitted was there, if she could help it, she had been hoping. She had somehow come to think of this tree as Ranma's tree, after the number of times he had fallen out of it. In fact, as she looked around her, everything she saw reminded her strongly and painfully of him.

* * * * * * * *

A long ways away, Ranma wasn't any happier. He had just left the one place in the world where he had ever felt, content. No, he admitted with a sigh, not just content, happy. He had left behind the one person who he had ever thought of as more then 'just a friend'.

"But it's not like I had any choice," he snarled. "If I had stayed, if I had told her… she wouldn't have lasted long." He knew that the sentence didn't make much sense, but neither did the emotions flooding his mind. If he hadn't left his other 'fiancées' would never have left her alone. Sure Akane was more or less able to protect herself against one, but so many at a time? And if that's what had happened after a kiss… well, Ranma didn't want to think about what might have happened if he had done something like, telling her his real feelings, the ones he had never before been able to express out loud, even to himself. Or what if they got married, he could just see the battle now, Akane in a wedding dress, fighting with three seriously pissed off girls.

Ranma almost smiled at the mental picture this conjured up, but he didn't. There were so many things in the way of the two of them. Even forgetting for the time being the other love interests, there was always the curse. Ranma shuddered, he always hated thinking about his curse, but he knew that the curse was another aspect of his life that would make living normally virtually an impossibility. Yet even with all of these reasons for staying away, leaving Akane to find someone who wouldn't make such a mess of her life, there was, in the other half of the scale a reason so powerful to go back, that he stopped and halfway turned back. He loved Akane, he knew that now. Why hadn't he ever been able to… well, it was too late now. But just the thought of her face, the memory of her lips pressed against his, the feeling of loss that was slowly creating a hole inside of him made him almost sick with grief, regret, and self-hatred.

Ranma set up camp in a forest, miles away from Nerima. He had come to train, so he did. Training was the only thing that could keep him from succumbing to the despair that filled his heart. He found this out violently one morning; Ranma had woken up, but instead of immediately heading out to start his training, he had sat for a moment, thinking. He quickly regretted this as images of Akane, memories, past conversations, all the reminders of all the times he had been so close and botched it, filled his mind. And with them came physical pain; curled up in a tight ball in his tent, Ranma was unable to move for several minutes as grief and regret pounded at him from all sides. It stopped almost as abruptly as it had started and Ranma quickly left the tent and spent the rest of the day training. When he returned, past dark, he was so tired out he was asleep almost as soon as he had lain down; and the dreams, which usually haunted his mind at night, left him alone.

So Ranma quickly fell into a pattern, he would get up and work himself into exhaustion, and then do the same the next day. And if any unpleasant memories of the life he had left behind came to him, he simply pushed it out of his mind. He worked hard, each day pushing himself more then the last, wanting to believe that if he worked hard enough, he would be able to rid himself of the empty feeling inside. It was surprising to him how easy it was to leave everything you cared about behind, that is if you didn't pay much attention to the pain slowly gnawing a hole inside your soul.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Akane sat in class; she too had tried to block the horrid thoughts that entered her mind at the smallest opportunity. She worked out even more than she had before; not surprising really, and she put a lot more effort into her studies. She had thought, had hoped that the pain would diminish after time; it was certainly painful to recall the first few days when everyone had been talking about Ranma's disappearance, about what had happened. Lucky there were only a few people tactless enough to actually ask her about it. There had been a few, but it was really amazing, the effect of a mangled body, laying in the dirt after Akane had finished with the noisy person, had on the rest of the school's population.

Still after all these weeks… 'no' Akane told herself sternly, 'I will not think about it. This is not the time to think about him.' But she found she couldn't help it and she slowly sank into a stupor as the blackboard in front of her went out of focus and images of that pig-tailed martial artist, her pig-tailed martial artist danced inside her head. She was snapped out of her self-induced coma when Ukyo poked her in the shoulder.

"What?" Snapped Akane, but she noticed that the rest of the class had already left. Ukyo was about to reply with a biting remark, when she saw the thinly veiled pain underneath the annoyance in Akane's eyes.

"You miss him too," Ukyo said quietly. Akane looked at her, she wanted to say something mean; this was the person who had started the whole thing, she was the one who had delivered the attack that had made up Ranma's mind after all, but she didn't. Then she suddenly had the urge to say something to tell her about the pain inside; she knew that Ukyo hurt too, but she didn't. She didn't say anything, and Ukyo understood all the same.

After that moment of understanding, the two entered into a careful friendship. They were more alike then either had wanted to admit before. Akane now walked with Ukyo to and from school and after school the two usually sat together in Ukyo's okonomiyaki restaurant. They talked about so many things, pretty much everything but Ranma. One day Ukyo tentatively asked Akane a question,

"Do you love him?" Akane looked up and Ukyo braced herself just in case of an attack, Akane just looked down again and Ukyo relaxed. Akane didn't speak for awhile and Ukyo was about to start on another topic when she said,

"Yes."

The definite tone of voice Ukyo heard gave her a very small shock. She was slightly taken aback,

"How long have you known?"

"In my heart," she paused for a moment and let out a small sigh, "I've known since I met him. But I didn't let myself admit it out-loud." Ukyo looked at the floor for a minute and asked another question that had been weighing on her chest for some time now,

"Why, why didn't you ever tell him?" The question was said quietly and hesitantly. Akane smiled slightly and gave a very small laugh. "What's funny?" Ukyo asked immediately, looking up.

"Well," began Akane, "you remember what happened after just kissing him don't you?" It really wasn't a question exactly, Ukyo looked back down at the floor in shame, why had she reacted so violently, was she that insecure about herself?

Her musings were interrupted as Akane began to speak again, "I shudder to imagine everyone's reaction if I had said… that." Ukyo looked at Akane, seeing her in a different light, she realized for the first time that Akane was more then a horrible cook, a macho un-cute tomboy, as Ranma so often put it.

"Akane," she said. "This is enough, Ranma can't be this selfish, let's go find him." She paused, then added, with a wretch in her heart, "together." Akane stared at her, bewildered, then a smile broke over her face and she nodded in agreement.

"All right."