Well, here it is, chapter 3! This is the first series I've actually gotten into writing. And I think it's pretty good.
I'm really happy that ff.n is back up and running. And next chapter, the WAFF (Warm and Fuzzy Feelings) starts.
**Selph**
"I have seen a lot of crazy shit since I came her, but that tops it all."
Ranma stood in the doorcase, now male and grinning wickedly.
"Ranma!!!" Ranma found himself plowed over by akane, who ran up and hugged him. Realizing what she was doing, she let go, and placed her hands on her hips. "Where the hell have you been, BAKA?"
Ranma, still recovering from Akane's bear hug, smiled. "Long story."
Akane glared. "I fell into a pond, Nuriko fished me out, Tamahome left, and now I'm traveling with Miaka and Nuriko to find the remaining three suzaku seishi."
Akane stared up at him. "Huh?"
Ranma smiled again. "I'll explain later. Now," he said, cracking his knuckles towards Genrou, "some dirtbag's gonna PAY for kidnapping two pretty girls."
Akane blushed. `Pretty?' Had Ranma, the fiancée with a reputation for calling her uncute, just called her `pretty'?
Genrou, still dancing around with Kouji, stopped. "Me?"
"Yeah, you."
Genrou stared blankly at him. "Who the FUCK are YOU?"
Ranma grinned. He loved doing this. It always made him look so dramatic. "I'm Ranma Saotome, of the Saotome School of anything-goes martial arts," he said, leaping into the air. He shrugged off his backpack somewhat gracefully, and chucked it at Miaka. "Here, hold my bag a sec."
The impact, combined with the weight, pushed Miaka to the ground. Miaka sat there for a few moments blinking, then attempted to push the bag off. Akane just rolled her eyes. How many times had she gone through with that? `I swear, he's such a show-off.' She thought. `A show off that just called me pretty.' She blushed again, and then mentally kicked herself. `Baka! That shouldn't affect me!' She turned back to the fight, just in time to see Ranma kick Genrou in the head. `Oh well, he's got a pretty thick head. That shouldn't hurt him.'
Genrou was about to unleash his phantom wolves when Akane stepped in. "Stop it!!" She cried. "You don't even KNOW each other!!!"
Both Ranma and Genrou stopped. Akane took a deep breath. "Ranma, Genrou. Genrou, Ranma." Ranma put his hand protectively around Akane. "MY fiancée. Touch her, and die."
Genrou nodded, and Akane blushed. Whenever Ranma called her `Mine' like that, it was like a thousand lightning bolts rushing through her veins. "Ranma…" She said quietly.
Ranma felt strange, having his arm being around Akane's shoulders. Quickly, he jerked it back, and dusted his hands. "Now that that's settled, would some one mind explaining?"
"Yeah," Akane said. "I'm STILL confused."
"Sho I'm the prieshtesh of Shuzaku," Miaka said, her mouth full of potato chips. She swallowed, the resumed talking. "My true love, Tamahome" -as she said this, her eyes gazed over- "is in Kutou, with Nakago. He's bad."
Akane nodded. So far, she was clear on the story. Miaka shoveled more food into her mouth. "An' N'riko, Ranma, an' I went to go look for the ozzer free sheishi of shuzaku. An' zen `oto'ori showed up, an' we went to the reshtarant, and theesh bandits capshured ush, an' den thish guy here" -she pointed at Genrou- " kinnapped me an' took me to thish plashe. Goddet?"
Akane, Genrou, and Kouji all nodded, cringing. `Man!' Akane thought. `This girl eats more than Ranma!'
Ranma turned towards Akane. "So now tell me what YOU've been doin', Akane."
"Well…" Akane started. "I landed here, and I saw Genrou's fangs, thought he was Ryoga, and he took me here."
"She poisoned me," Genrou muttered under his breath. "Damn `Instant Ramen'."
"Figgers," Ranma replied. "Dumb macho-chick can't even boil water." He was greeted with Akane's mallet meeting his skull.
Miaka smiled cheerily. "Genrou, you wanna be the bandit boss, right?"
"Hell yeah."
"O-kay! Let's launch operation let's-get-Genrou-back-as-boss!"
"Whee."
Ranma stared at Miaka. "She's going overboard, isn't she," he whispered to Akane.
"I think she passed that line a while ago," Akane replied. They were crouching in the bushes outside the hideout, watching Miaka do a little cheer. "I didn't know boss rhymed with hostage."
"It doesn't."
"Ah." Akane blushed. "Uh, Ranma?"
"Yeah?"
"What you said earlier, about me being pretty…" she paused, twirling her thumbs. "Did you mean it?"
Ranma was stunned. It wasn't fair for Akane to put him on the spot like that, but he didn't really feel like being malleted through the trees. "I guess."
Akane blushed. She certainly wasn't expecting this. She had expected him to say that she was an uncute tomboy, or that he had no interest in being engaged to a girl like her. She sat there, and began to play with a loose thread on her skirt.
Ranma watched her. *Did* he really mean it? He thought about it for a second. She was attractive, that was true. It wasn't her *looks* that made her uncute, just her personality. But then again, it was that violent, impulsive thing about her that he loved. `Wait a second. Did I just say `loved'? Akane *is* pretty, so that's not a lie, not really. But I don't *love* her, do I?'
His heart began to beat faster in his chest than it ever had before. He thought Akane could sense that, by the way she was now close to cutting off the circulation in her finger with the thread. "Stop it," he said. "It's bad to do that."
Miraculously, Akane stopped. She unwound her finger from the thread, then shook it a little bit. "Sorry, Ranma."
It was now Ranma's turn to blush. "I-I-I was just concerned, that's all."
Akane smiled. "Thank you, Ranma. Thank you for caring."
Ranma just stared at her. The way she was acting; sweet, and kind, was different. Instead of just looking cute, she was acting cute too. He wondered if she was doing this on purpose, or if this was just the way she acted when they were alone and not insulting each other.
Alone…
Or maybe not. Genrou popped up behind them, squishing their shoulders together. "Aww, look at the lovebirds."
Ranma moved as far away from Akane as he could without getting pricked by a thorn. "NO WAY!!"
"Shut up, BAKA!!" Akane yelled. Ranma couldn't tell if it was aimed at him or Genrou. He hoped it was at Genrou. `Two steps forward, one step back,' he thought. `Oh well, at least it's not our dads interfering.'
He crouched in anticipation of the mallet, but it never came. Instead, the next sound he heard was-
"OH, SHIT!" Genrou cried. "I left the fucking spell cards with Miaka!"
The bandit ran off, leaving the two teenagers from Nerima alone in the bushes again. For a while they just stared at each other, hearts beating rapidly.
"You idiot! Ya wrote all over them!"
"Oopsie." Miaka inched away from Genrou, who was becoming scary.
"My bad."
"Damn right your bad!" Genrou rolled up his sleeve, preparing to punch the lights out of a certain priestess.
"I said I was sorry!" Miaka cried, when she noticed a flash of red shining through one of Genrou's arm bandages. Instantly cured of her fear, she leapt onto him, unwrapping the cloth.
Genrou was strong, but not nearly strong enough to hold off the persistent miko on a mission. "Alright!" she cried, whipping off the bandage. "You're one of the Suzaku Seishi!"
"Fuck," Genrou mumbled. "Just got back an' I gotta leave again."
Miaka studied the symbol more closely. "You're Tasuki, right?"
"Yeah," he replied.
CLONK!!! Genrou, or Tasuki, swept the girl up in his arms, leaping over the fallen tree. He landed on it, and set Miaka down to find a purple-headed person (he couldn't figure out if it was a man or woman) flexing their muscles. "Watch where the fuck ye're pointin' that thing!"
Purple-head looked up. "Hey, Miaka! Good to see you're still alive! Hotohori-sama was getting worried!"
"Nuriiiiiiiiiiiiiko!!" Miaka ran off the tree and into the stranger's arms. "Guess what? We found the fifth seishi, and one of Ranma's friends!"
"That's great. Who's seishi no.5?"
"Tasuki." Miaka pointed to the bandit, still standing on the tree.
"This kidnapper's a seishi??!!"
"Hmph." Tasuki snorted. "I feel so fuckin' welcome."
Miaka smiled energetically. "So where's Hotohori?"
"Back at the hideout," Nuriko replied. "He had some…uh…unfinished business." He refrained from mentioning that one of the bandits had become a permanent attachment to the emperor's waist. Hotohori had refused to let anyone see him like this.
Tasuki had now hopped off the log and was standing next to Miaka and Nuriko, whose gender he was still questioning. "Izzat a guy or a chick?"
"Okama," Miaka replied cheerfully. "Hey, Tasuki, where's Ranma and Akane?"
"Doing suzaku-knows-what in a bush over there."
"That's nice," She replied.
"Hey," Nuriko said. "Ranma didn't say he had a girlfriend."
"Fiancée," Miaka answered.
"Well," Nuriko commented. "THAT just clears everything up."
"Sorry, Akane," Ranma stared at the earthen ground, trying to avoid eye contact.
Akane stood, brushing leaves from her hair. "Ranma…"
"Yeah?"
"This is a stupid question, and I understand if you don't wanna answer it, and if you don't, just forget about it…"
"Ask."
Akane swallowed. "W-Which fiancée do you like best?"
Ranma sat down again. "You," he said hesitantly. "I guess."
When Akane didn't say anything, he spoke up again. "Kodachi's psychotic, Shampoo's obsessed and over affectionate, and Ucchan's just a friend."
"What about me?"
"You…you're pretty much my best friend, Akane. With me an' Pop movin' so much, I never really had time to make friends. So you're my best friend…maybe more."
Akane blushed. "Thank you, Ranma. That… That means a lot to me, that you think of it that way." Brushing her bangs aside, she sat down next to Ranma. "I just wanted to thank you, again."
"For what?"
Akane laughed. "Well, ever since you came here, there's never been a dull moment. Plus," she said, slugging him playfully, "I needed a new punching bag."
Ranma smiled. "I wanna ask you something, too."
"Go ahead."
"If we had met, just us, without the whole curse thing, an' bein' engaged an' our pops an' all, would you have…" He paused, blushing.
"Liked you?"
"Yeah."
"Well," Akane said. "The circumstances would have been different, but that doesn't change anything."
"Oh," Ranma said, somewhat disappointed.
"I'd like you either way."
Ranma's eyes lit up. "Really?"
"Yes! Calm down. I like you, okay?"
"So I'm not a pervert?"
"It's kinda hard to get used to the whole curse thing."
"I'M the one that has to BE cursed."
"Yeah."
"Akane?"
"Yeah?"
"How- How *much* do you like me?"
"In what way?"
Ranma paused. He didn't expect her to ask that question. It would have been a whole lot easier if she hadn't. Summoning up his courage, he brought his face close to hers.
"This way."
///*sniff* so romantic… I hope ya liked it!///
Document created with wvWare/wvWare version 0.6.7
-->
