A night breeze flows through an open window, disturbing the sleeping figure
on the bed. The scent of cherry blossoms fills the room, carried on the
air currents. The figure slowly opens her eyes and notices with a jolt the
emptiness of the bed, the indentation on the pillow next to hers. A look
of confusion crosses her face. She looks around futilely as if searching
for something and then sits up with a wounded expression darkening her pale
features. Softly crying into her hands, she whispers two words.
"Ranma.... why?"
Akane looks toward the open window, curtains twitching in the gusts, and her face seems to be undecided as to which emotion to show—anger or rejection. 'He left me,' the young woman wailed inside her mind, confused and betrayed as she recalled the gentle lovemaking experience they had shared only hours before. Feeling on the whole quite dejected, she flops back onto the bed, turning her face into her pillow to stifle the tears running down her burning cheeks. "He left me," she sobs aloud, quietly, wondering what could be so offensive about her that he felt the need to abandon her like this.
Deciding that she must have been a revolting bed partner and that he had only made love to her in sympathy, she cries herself to sleep, clutching the pillow that smells strongly of her lover.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roughly five hours later, Akane twists under the sheets, stretching and blinking in the daylight. Something… something is missing from the picture, she decides, but cannot put her finger on what it could be. Rubbing the sleep-salt from the corners of her eyes, the young martial- artist sits up stiffly and swings her legs over the edge of the bed. Mind still groggy from slumber, she pauses there for a moment, making a vain attempt at remembering something… something important… She scrubs her face, stands up.
Her feet fall on something silky, thrown casually onto the floor. Looking down, several things occur inside poor Akane's brain at once:
1. She realizes that Ranma left his hair-ribbon lying there near her panties.
2. She realizes that her panties are lying on the floor.
3. She realizes that she is quite naked without her panties.
4. She realizes that she must have had sex last night.
5. She remembers the sex… Mmmmm…
6. She realizes that this makes her no longer a virgin.
7. She realizes that Ranma snuck out sometime during the night.
8. She realizes one of two things must have happened: either she was an awful lover, and he only slept with her out of pity, or he took advantage of her and left because he didn't care.
9. She realizes that this pisses her off.
Hearing noises on the first floor, Akane looks at her door. 'What if he is downstairs?' she thinks, a rush of fear overwhelming her like a trapped rabbit. 'What will I say to him?' Her mind reels from the deluge of emotions 'NOTHING! HE is the one that left me! That bastard came in here, used me for some cheap thrill and then left through the—through the damn window!' She has decided that being pissed off is the best way to handle things, as it is a sight deal better than feeling morose and heartbroken.
Akane gets her gi—a nice workout later would help cool her off—and heads down to breakfast, expecting to see the whole family around the table eating breakfast and arguing. She steels herself for an encounter with the asshole that deserted her. A slight twinge stabs at her heart with this thought, but she stifles it with logical self-righteousness and rejection—'He never really loved me! That bastard was only using me.'
Ranma is there sure enough, inhaling his morning bowl of rice as if nothing had happened, although his hair looks decidedly odd since it has fallen loose around his ears. 'Jerk,' thinks Akane, gripping the Shenlong ribbon between her fingers as she sits down across from him. 'Where is everyone?' She is curious as to the absence of the rest of her family, but doesn't feel in the mood to have any kind of conversation with the jerkoff sitting across from her. She considers the problem of locating of her family, and then remembers the reunion she had begged out of going to, saying she'd been sick. She hadn't been, not really, but she'd wanted the dojo—and the house—to herself for a while. 'So much for that idea.' Ranma continues to wolf his breakfast, barely giving her a casual glance.
'Well, I can play his game just as good as he can,' she decides, and picks up the large bowl of re-heated leftover rice from the middle of the table. She serves herself a bowlful, pours some steaming tea, and lifts her chopsticks to begin eating. The silence stretches, broken only by the noises of eating and drinking, and the occasional hidden glance. 'At least, I don't have to worry about everyone else to witness the way this bastard is treating me,' Akane thought, feeling the sharp jab of humiliation. She continued eating.
'Is it just me,' Akane wonders, 'or is he actually nervous about something?' She notices his taut muscles and the stiff way he handles his utensils. 'What could possibly be worrying him?' Several times, Ranma look up at her as though he wants to ask her something important, but each time he cowards out of it with a fidget or a sigh.
"Ranma..." Akane begins awkwardly, her voice breaking the oppressive silence like a hammer against glass. Reining in her anger to give the bastard the benefit of the doubt, Akane searches for her voice. She wants to question him about why he hurt her by leaving the night before, but doesn't know quite how to word it. The end result comes out shakier than she would have liked. "Ranma, why...why did you leave me?"
Ranma stops his chopsticks midway to his mouth and stares at them. He seems to be thinking over an answer or just hoping she will forget she even asked. Since the latter isn't looking too likely, he comes up with an answer. Quietly, while looking at his hands, Ranma mumbles, "I couldn't stay. I didn't have the control to stay near you..."
Akane's already stressed emotions take her a few steps further away from rationality and logical reasoning, but she doesn't seem to notice in the frenzied rush of anger and self-hatred. 'Control....? What is Ranma talking about? Is there something wrong with me? He is really implying he couldn't stand to stay in the same bed as me?' Akane's face starts turning red and her eyes fill with repressed tears.
She abruptly stands up, her thin figure looming over Ranma. "Are you saying I am too disgusting to stay with?!? I can't believe—how could you possibly think that? You said you love me, supposedly,", her voice starts breaking, "but then you leave without a word, right through the damn window!"
She grabs her ever-present, handy-dandy, really-angry-time-to-crush-Ranma mallet from thin air behind her back and knocks Ranma right through the damn door and into the pond, his black hair whisping in unruly tangles around him. "Let me explai—" he cries, but his voice bubbles and gurgles under the water, and the rest of the now-female-Ranma's plea is lost on the now-fuming Akane.
Akane runs toward the bathroom, rice and tea forgotten on the dining table. Without much success, she tries to hide her tears, which to her are a sign of weakness. She feels so pathetic, so disgusting! 'He never really loved me… I knew it was too good to be true!'
Inside the sanctuary of the bathroom, she strips her gi off, repeating, '.... used me.... he used me ....' Like Lady MacBeth in the fifth act, Akane takes out a wash rag and begins scrubbing feverishly at her skin. The only thing Akane can think of is getting herself clean, getting the 'dirt' off her body—Getting Ranma's touches off her skin and mind. "Bastard…" She fills the wooden bucket up with cold water and pours it over her naked body, sending shivers up and down her hide.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile… Ranma-chan jumps out of the pond ready with a standard retort, but Akane is no longer there. 'That stupid tomboy...' Ranma-chan, sinking onto a large rock, slumps her shoulders and lowers her head with a helpless sigh. "I love her," she says aloud, miserably, to the empty garden. "I always have and always will, but sometimes I think I will never understand her." Ranma-chan wrings out her unbound red hair, letting the large wet drops fall sullenly to drip down the sides of the stone.
'And now that I have to leave soon, she hates me,' she thinks dejectedly. 'I didn't mean to hurt her! And I don't think she is disgusting. If anything, I am the disgusting one. Couldn't even make it one night in a bed alone with her without wanting her for her blood.' She hops down, wishing she could punch something. 'I can't believe I ever thought she could love the real me. It's true—I am a monster—I can only bring pain to those I know.' WHAM! The force of the blow dealt by the young redhead sends an inch-wide crack along the circumference of the stone. Feeling marginally better, she gets up and heads toward the bathroom to change back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once inside the changing room entrance to the bathroom, Ranma-chan hears sounds within and leans closer to the sliding door. She hears Akane inside sobbing over the noise of running water, incoherently mumbling to herself. She leans in closer to the screen between them and makes out a few of the words. "...used me... why? The jerk used me and left me…"
'No, no,' Ranma-chan frowns. 'That's not right—She thinks I've used her. No... no... that could not be further from the truth!' She leans her forehead against the wooden frame. 'How can I possibly ever get her to see why I can't stay near her? I want her blood so badly—but no. If I give in, she'll hate me for the eternity it would give her. If I tell her, she'd be terrified of me. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. Well, I have to do something here….'
Ranma-chan slides back the panel to see Akane on a stool rubbing her skin with a sponge (the washcloth, with a few more holes, is a pinkish heap on the tiled floor.) Her chest is bleeding from her trying to rub and scratch her imagined 'dirt' off. Ranma-chan is frozen to the ground by the sight of blood and has to restrain herself from becoming the monster that she herself hates. She can see blood under the other girl's fingernails and that the once-porcelain skin before her is red and blotchy.
Akane's eyes, glazed with fury and humiliation, have not yet strayed to the entrance, where another young woman is stealthily approaching, moving fluidly across the tile. 'Just a little closer,' Ranma-chan realizes, wet hair dangling before predatory eyes. 'I know I shouldn't. I can't. I can't do this to Akane…' But unable to dampen the carnivorous instincts deep within her psyche, she moves forward, inch by inch. 'It's the blood that's doing it,' cries the rational part of her brain, 'don't think about the blood—focus on something else!'
And so she forces her eyes to trespass into other forbidden areas in a desperate attempt at moving from one hunger to another. 'Help her, just help her, and you can make it through this alive—and so can she.' Ranma- chan certainly hoped that voice within her head knew what it was talking about.
"Why am I so disgusting to you? Is it my body?" Akane demanded of the bathroom floor, pausing in her scrubbing to clutch the sponge with white knuckles until watered-down blood trickled down the drain. In her other hand, she gripped the edge of the stool and her fingernails dug into the wood. 'Am I really that…that… uncute to you? That's what you've always said, anyway. I was stupid to think any of it could have changed. Stupid to believe your lies. Tell me why you lied to me, you jerk.' Now she wrings the thing to death with both hands, tears streaming down her face—tears of lost love and heartache despite the angry words. Then, softly, more quietly, more bitterly, 'Anyway, who would love an uncute tomboy when you have cuter fiancées?"
"That's not true and you know it!" Ranma-chan points out in what she hopes is a sane-sounding voice.
Akane leaps up, whirling about to face the voice's source in a fighter's crouch. When she sees who it is and registers her words, Akane shakes for a moment and then crumples to the floor on her knees in a fit of confusion, relief and distrust. A new wave of tears overtakes her, and her face becomes a storm of emotions.
"I don't think you are disgusting or ugly. You are the most beautiful girl I know." Ranma-chan—jerkily, restrained—slowly approaches Akane and kneels beside her. It takes all her vampire's will-power to not notice the red welts rising up or the fact that she knelt in a pool of bloody water, or the very nearness and the very vulnerable state of the human before her. 'It's Akane, it's Akane—you love her, you love Akane,' was the running thought in her consciousness. With her hand, she lifts Akane's chin to look at her. "I didn't lie last night." The next comes harder, and so with more force. "I would never do anything to harm you. You are all I have to live for...." Both girls gaze at each other and wonder, not for the first time, what the other is thinking.
'I think it's dangerous how much I want to believe this man—it could get me into trouble some day, to be so trusting, but…" Akane turns to face him—no, she realizes belatedly, *her*. It is Ranma-chan who kneels dripping pond water before her, not the handsome teenage boy she had given her virginity to the previous night. The thought of how he must have used her makes Akane shudder with self- revulsion. 'He has to hate me,' she decides.
"Why should I believe you?" she demands, further disgusted with herself at the way her voice breaks into a sob. She controls it with her anger and continues, "What proof do you have…of, of your love? You could just be lying for all I know." Akane can feel that her eyes are puffy and red from her tears, and she looks away, her short, black hair curling in wet tendrils down the nape of her neck.
The buxom redhead inches closer. "Akane, think this through—why would I lie to you? I..." She looks down, for the next words had not come easily last night, and they are not much easier now. "I—I love you."
With that simple proclamation, Akane's heart swells, and while a small, dark part of her refuses to believe it, her hard resolve melts and she wilts into the other woman's kneeling embrace with more sobs.
"I just wanted to hear you say that so much all this time that (sniffle) when it actually happened, (sob) I couldn't believe it!" the young martial artist looks up through tear-blurred eyes into the face of her betrothed, and now, she realizes, her beloved. "I just, that is, I didn't mean any of those things I said, any of it. None of those times, really." The memories of past arguments threaten to push Akane over the brink of sobbing hysteria again, but Ranma-chan sees it written in her expression and forestalls the flood the only way she can think of—
The kiss catches Akane by surprise, as she sits there naked on the cold tiles, bleeding from self-inflicted wounds in the arms of another woman. It is an open-mouthed affair that lasts for ages, and by the time they come up for air, Akane decides it is sweeter than any candy or chocolate she's ever tasted, sweeter than any other kiss she's ever shared with any other person, and by far sweeter than anything they had shared the night before. They pull away, studying each other for a long moment until Akane just has to say something or burst from the pressure.
"You smell like the bottom of a pond," she blurts. And then, to her complete horror, Akane feels herself begin to giggle girlishly.
"Aw, girls," groans the redhead appreciatively, rolling her eyes. "And whose fault is that, anyway, my uncute little tomboy?" Placing a finger over Akane's lips to stop the inevitable indignant gasp, Ranma-chan gathers her fiancé up into her arms and walks over to the steaming bath Akane had begun drawing up earlier in her frenzy to get clean. Placing her beloved gently at the ledge, the bare-breasted goddess plunges into the tips of her fiery red locks and emerges the well-muscled teenage boy with glistening dark hair, and an even darker past.
Akane, seated on the tiled edge of the bath, blushes, becoming acutely aware of their nudity.
Ranma, who has been fighting the demons of his true nature since he first laid eyes on Akane, is finding it increasingly harder to deny the vampire's bloodlust. Seeing her face flush the deep pink, he is torn between his very honest love for her and his very carnal desire for that which flows through her veins. 'This is Akane,' the mantra repeats itself again through his mind, despairingly. 'This is who you love, this is Akane…this is the girl… this is a girl… this is a vulnerable girl…'
"No, no," he mutters under his breath, resisting the dangerous predatory force and instead submitting to a desire that is much easier to control, the same thing every teenage boy's body desires.
"What did you say?" Akane asks, slightly puzzled, shivering despite herself, unsure if it is because of the cold or the sight of Ranma's obvious arousal.
"Nothing, Akane, it's nothing." Ranma moves to help her slide into the steaming bathwater, kissing her hand. She submerges herself up to her knees, but then hisses from the contact of the hot temperature on the self- inflicted abrasive wound. "Oh, Kami," says Ranma, when he sees it is bleeding slightly.
He cannot restrain himself—just one taste; after all those countless nights of tasteless pig's blood from the butcher's, cold and lifeless... just one taste of something so alive and warm... it couldn't hurt—he bends down to her knee and kisses it lightly, allowing a few drops of the crimson liquid to pass to his tongue. He shudders with delight at this indulgence and at the same time self-disgust at his unquenchable monstrous need. She tastes *so* good... so, so good…
No. No! "NO!" Ranma cries out, thrusting himself away from her, even as every nerve and muscle in his immortal body practically shrieks for him to do just the opposite, to stay with her, to....feed. He could make it pleasurable for her, he knew. He had before, in the past. The previous night had been a clumsy performance, worthy of a clueless virgin, but he had far more experience than he cared to admit. Oh, yes, he could make it pleasurable for her. "NO, NO. This is Akane! This is my Akane! I'm not going to be like this with her, NEVER!"
Aware on some level that his fangs must be horribly visible to her, Ranma leaps from the bath, sloshing water everywhere, and gathers up some of his clothes, and bolts out the door before he can turn back for Akane, who is still seated half in the water, bewildered (why did he take the washrag?) and on the verge of tears again. One thought is running foremost through the vampire's mind, the thought of *blood*... Somewhere, somehow, he will have blood, and he will have it soon. Of that, he is certain.
"Ranma.... why?"
Akane looks toward the open window, curtains twitching in the gusts, and her face seems to be undecided as to which emotion to show—anger or rejection. 'He left me,' the young woman wailed inside her mind, confused and betrayed as she recalled the gentle lovemaking experience they had shared only hours before. Feeling on the whole quite dejected, she flops back onto the bed, turning her face into her pillow to stifle the tears running down her burning cheeks. "He left me," she sobs aloud, quietly, wondering what could be so offensive about her that he felt the need to abandon her like this.
Deciding that she must have been a revolting bed partner and that he had only made love to her in sympathy, she cries herself to sleep, clutching the pillow that smells strongly of her lover.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roughly five hours later, Akane twists under the sheets, stretching and blinking in the daylight. Something… something is missing from the picture, she decides, but cannot put her finger on what it could be. Rubbing the sleep-salt from the corners of her eyes, the young martial- artist sits up stiffly and swings her legs over the edge of the bed. Mind still groggy from slumber, she pauses there for a moment, making a vain attempt at remembering something… something important… She scrubs her face, stands up.
Her feet fall on something silky, thrown casually onto the floor. Looking down, several things occur inside poor Akane's brain at once:
1. She realizes that Ranma left his hair-ribbon lying there near her panties.
2. She realizes that her panties are lying on the floor.
3. She realizes that she is quite naked without her panties.
4. She realizes that she must have had sex last night.
5. She remembers the sex… Mmmmm…
6. She realizes that this makes her no longer a virgin.
7. She realizes that Ranma snuck out sometime during the night.
8. She realizes one of two things must have happened: either she was an awful lover, and he only slept with her out of pity, or he took advantage of her and left because he didn't care.
9. She realizes that this pisses her off.
Hearing noises on the first floor, Akane looks at her door. 'What if he is downstairs?' she thinks, a rush of fear overwhelming her like a trapped rabbit. 'What will I say to him?' Her mind reels from the deluge of emotions 'NOTHING! HE is the one that left me! That bastard came in here, used me for some cheap thrill and then left through the—through the damn window!' She has decided that being pissed off is the best way to handle things, as it is a sight deal better than feeling morose and heartbroken.
Akane gets her gi—a nice workout later would help cool her off—and heads down to breakfast, expecting to see the whole family around the table eating breakfast and arguing. She steels herself for an encounter with the asshole that deserted her. A slight twinge stabs at her heart with this thought, but she stifles it with logical self-righteousness and rejection—'He never really loved me! That bastard was only using me.'
Ranma is there sure enough, inhaling his morning bowl of rice as if nothing had happened, although his hair looks decidedly odd since it has fallen loose around his ears. 'Jerk,' thinks Akane, gripping the Shenlong ribbon between her fingers as she sits down across from him. 'Where is everyone?' She is curious as to the absence of the rest of her family, but doesn't feel in the mood to have any kind of conversation with the jerkoff sitting across from her. She considers the problem of locating of her family, and then remembers the reunion she had begged out of going to, saying she'd been sick. She hadn't been, not really, but she'd wanted the dojo—and the house—to herself for a while. 'So much for that idea.' Ranma continues to wolf his breakfast, barely giving her a casual glance.
'Well, I can play his game just as good as he can,' she decides, and picks up the large bowl of re-heated leftover rice from the middle of the table. She serves herself a bowlful, pours some steaming tea, and lifts her chopsticks to begin eating. The silence stretches, broken only by the noises of eating and drinking, and the occasional hidden glance. 'At least, I don't have to worry about everyone else to witness the way this bastard is treating me,' Akane thought, feeling the sharp jab of humiliation. She continued eating.
'Is it just me,' Akane wonders, 'or is he actually nervous about something?' She notices his taut muscles and the stiff way he handles his utensils. 'What could possibly be worrying him?' Several times, Ranma look up at her as though he wants to ask her something important, but each time he cowards out of it with a fidget or a sigh.
"Ranma..." Akane begins awkwardly, her voice breaking the oppressive silence like a hammer against glass. Reining in her anger to give the bastard the benefit of the doubt, Akane searches for her voice. She wants to question him about why he hurt her by leaving the night before, but doesn't know quite how to word it. The end result comes out shakier than she would have liked. "Ranma, why...why did you leave me?"
Ranma stops his chopsticks midway to his mouth and stares at them. He seems to be thinking over an answer or just hoping she will forget she even asked. Since the latter isn't looking too likely, he comes up with an answer. Quietly, while looking at his hands, Ranma mumbles, "I couldn't stay. I didn't have the control to stay near you..."
Akane's already stressed emotions take her a few steps further away from rationality and logical reasoning, but she doesn't seem to notice in the frenzied rush of anger and self-hatred. 'Control....? What is Ranma talking about? Is there something wrong with me? He is really implying he couldn't stand to stay in the same bed as me?' Akane's face starts turning red and her eyes fill with repressed tears.
She abruptly stands up, her thin figure looming over Ranma. "Are you saying I am too disgusting to stay with?!? I can't believe—how could you possibly think that? You said you love me, supposedly,", her voice starts breaking, "but then you leave without a word, right through the damn window!"
She grabs her ever-present, handy-dandy, really-angry-time-to-crush-Ranma mallet from thin air behind her back and knocks Ranma right through the damn door and into the pond, his black hair whisping in unruly tangles around him. "Let me explai—" he cries, but his voice bubbles and gurgles under the water, and the rest of the now-female-Ranma's plea is lost on the now-fuming Akane.
Akane runs toward the bathroom, rice and tea forgotten on the dining table. Without much success, she tries to hide her tears, which to her are a sign of weakness. She feels so pathetic, so disgusting! 'He never really loved me… I knew it was too good to be true!'
Inside the sanctuary of the bathroom, she strips her gi off, repeating, '.... used me.... he used me ....' Like Lady MacBeth in the fifth act, Akane takes out a wash rag and begins scrubbing feverishly at her skin. The only thing Akane can think of is getting herself clean, getting the 'dirt' off her body—Getting Ranma's touches off her skin and mind. "Bastard…" She fills the wooden bucket up with cold water and pours it over her naked body, sending shivers up and down her hide.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile… Ranma-chan jumps out of the pond ready with a standard retort, but Akane is no longer there. 'That stupid tomboy...' Ranma-chan, sinking onto a large rock, slumps her shoulders and lowers her head with a helpless sigh. "I love her," she says aloud, miserably, to the empty garden. "I always have and always will, but sometimes I think I will never understand her." Ranma-chan wrings out her unbound red hair, letting the large wet drops fall sullenly to drip down the sides of the stone.
'And now that I have to leave soon, she hates me,' she thinks dejectedly. 'I didn't mean to hurt her! And I don't think she is disgusting. If anything, I am the disgusting one. Couldn't even make it one night in a bed alone with her without wanting her for her blood.' She hops down, wishing she could punch something. 'I can't believe I ever thought she could love the real me. It's true—I am a monster—I can only bring pain to those I know.' WHAM! The force of the blow dealt by the young redhead sends an inch-wide crack along the circumference of the stone. Feeling marginally better, she gets up and heads toward the bathroom to change back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once inside the changing room entrance to the bathroom, Ranma-chan hears sounds within and leans closer to the sliding door. She hears Akane inside sobbing over the noise of running water, incoherently mumbling to herself. She leans in closer to the screen between them and makes out a few of the words. "...used me... why? The jerk used me and left me…"
'No, no,' Ranma-chan frowns. 'That's not right—She thinks I've used her. No... no... that could not be further from the truth!' She leans her forehead against the wooden frame. 'How can I possibly ever get her to see why I can't stay near her? I want her blood so badly—but no. If I give in, she'll hate me for the eternity it would give her. If I tell her, she'd be terrified of me. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. Well, I have to do something here….'
Ranma-chan slides back the panel to see Akane on a stool rubbing her skin with a sponge (the washcloth, with a few more holes, is a pinkish heap on the tiled floor.) Her chest is bleeding from her trying to rub and scratch her imagined 'dirt' off. Ranma-chan is frozen to the ground by the sight of blood and has to restrain herself from becoming the monster that she herself hates. She can see blood under the other girl's fingernails and that the once-porcelain skin before her is red and blotchy.
Akane's eyes, glazed with fury and humiliation, have not yet strayed to the entrance, where another young woman is stealthily approaching, moving fluidly across the tile. 'Just a little closer,' Ranma-chan realizes, wet hair dangling before predatory eyes. 'I know I shouldn't. I can't. I can't do this to Akane…' But unable to dampen the carnivorous instincts deep within her psyche, she moves forward, inch by inch. 'It's the blood that's doing it,' cries the rational part of her brain, 'don't think about the blood—focus on something else!'
And so she forces her eyes to trespass into other forbidden areas in a desperate attempt at moving from one hunger to another. 'Help her, just help her, and you can make it through this alive—and so can she.' Ranma- chan certainly hoped that voice within her head knew what it was talking about.
"Why am I so disgusting to you? Is it my body?" Akane demanded of the bathroom floor, pausing in her scrubbing to clutch the sponge with white knuckles until watered-down blood trickled down the drain. In her other hand, she gripped the edge of the stool and her fingernails dug into the wood. 'Am I really that…that… uncute to you? That's what you've always said, anyway. I was stupid to think any of it could have changed. Stupid to believe your lies. Tell me why you lied to me, you jerk.' Now she wrings the thing to death with both hands, tears streaming down her face—tears of lost love and heartache despite the angry words. Then, softly, more quietly, more bitterly, 'Anyway, who would love an uncute tomboy when you have cuter fiancées?"
"That's not true and you know it!" Ranma-chan points out in what she hopes is a sane-sounding voice.
Akane leaps up, whirling about to face the voice's source in a fighter's crouch. When she sees who it is and registers her words, Akane shakes for a moment and then crumples to the floor on her knees in a fit of confusion, relief and distrust. A new wave of tears overtakes her, and her face becomes a storm of emotions.
"I don't think you are disgusting or ugly. You are the most beautiful girl I know." Ranma-chan—jerkily, restrained—slowly approaches Akane and kneels beside her. It takes all her vampire's will-power to not notice the red welts rising up or the fact that she knelt in a pool of bloody water, or the very nearness and the very vulnerable state of the human before her. 'It's Akane, it's Akane—you love her, you love Akane,' was the running thought in her consciousness. With her hand, she lifts Akane's chin to look at her. "I didn't lie last night." The next comes harder, and so with more force. "I would never do anything to harm you. You are all I have to live for...." Both girls gaze at each other and wonder, not for the first time, what the other is thinking.
'I think it's dangerous how much I want to believe this man—it could get me into trouble some day, to be so trusting, but…" Akane turns to face him—no, she realizes belatedly, *her*. It is Ranma-chan who kneels dripping pond water before her, not the handsome teenage boy she had given her virginity to the previous night. The thought of how he must have used her makes Akane shudder with self- revulsion. 'He has to hate me,' she decides.
"Why should I believe you?" she demands, further disgusted with herself at the way her voice breaks into a sob. She controls it with her anger and continues, "What proof do you have…of, of your love? You could just be lying for all I know." Akane can feel that her eyes are puffy and red from her tears, and she looks away, her short, black hair curling in wet tendrils down the nape of her neck.
The buxom redhead inches closer. "Akane, think this through—why would I lie to you? I..." She looks down, for the next words had not come easily last night, and they are not much easier now. "I—I love you."
With that simple proclamation, Akane's heart swells, and while a small, dark part of her refuses to believe it, her hard resolve melts and she wilts into the other woman's kneeling embrace with more sobs.
"I just wanted to hear you say that so much all this time that (sniffle) when it actually happened, (sob) I couldn't believe it!" the young martial artist looks up through tear-blurred eyes into the face of her betrothed, and now, she realizes, her beloved. "I just, that is, I didn't mean any of those things I said, any of it. None of those times, really." The memories of past arguments threaten to push Akane over the brink of sobbing hysteria again, but Ranma-chan sees it written in her expression and forestalls the flood the only way she can think of—
The kiss catches Akane by surprise, as she sits there naked on the cold tiles, bleeding from self-inflicted wounds in the arms of another woman. It is an open-mouthed affair that lasts for ages, and by the time they come up for air, Akane decides it is sweeter than any candy or chocolate she's ever tasted, sweeter than any other kiss she's ever shared with any other person, and by far sweeter than anything they had shared the night before. They pull away, studying each other for a long moment until Akane just has to say something or burst from the pressure.
"You smell like the bottom of a pond," she blurts. And then, to her complete horror, Akane feels herself begin to giggle girlishly.
"Aw, girls," groans the redhead appreciatively, rolling her eyes. "And whose fault is that, anyway, my uncute little tomboy?" Placing a finger over Akane's lips to stop the inevitable indignant gasp, Ranma-chan gathers her fiancé up into her arms and walks over to the steaming bath Akane had begun drawing up earlier in her frenzy to get clean. Placing her beloved gently at the ledge, the bare-breasted goddess plunges into the tips of her fiery red locks and emerges the well-muscled teenage boy with glistening dark hair, and an even darker past.
Akane, seated on the tiled edge of the bath, blushes, becoming acutely aware of their nudity.
Ranma, who has been fighting the demons of his true nature since he first laid eyes on Akane, is finding it increasingly harder to deny the vampire's bloodlust. Seeing her face flush the deep pink, he is torn between his very honest love for her and his very carnal desire for that which flows through her veins. 'This is Akane,' the mantra repeats itself again through his mind, despairingly. 'This is who you love, this is Akane…this is the girl… this is a girl… this is a vulnerable girl…'
"No, no," he mutters under his breath, resisting the dangerous predatory force and instead submitting to a desire that is much easier to control, the same thing every teenage boy's body desires.
"What did you say?" Akane asks, slightly puzzled, shivering despite herself, unsure if it is because of the cold or the sight of Ranma's obvious arousal.
"Nothing, Akane, it's nothing." Ranma moves to help her slide into the steaming bathwater, kissing her hand. She submerges herself up to her knees, but then hisses from the contact of the hot temperature on the self- inflicted abrasive wound. "Oh, Kami," says Ranma, when he sees it is bleeding slightly.
He cannot restrain himself—just one taste; after all those countless nights of tasteless pig's blood from the butcher's, cold and lifeless... just one taste of something so alive and warm... it couldn't hurt—he bends down to her knee and kisses it lightly, allowing a few drops of the crimson liquid to pass to his tongue. He shudders with delight at this indulgence and at the same time self-disgust at his unquenchable monstrous need. She tastes *so* good... so, so good…
No. No! "NO!" Ranma cries out, thrusting himself away from her, even as every nerve and muscle in his immortal body practically shrieks for him to do just the opposite, to stay with her, to....feed. He could make it pleasurable for her, he knew. He had before, in the past. The previous night had been a clumsy performance, worthy of a clueless virgin, but he had far more experience than he cared to admit. Oh, yes, he could make it pleasurable for her. "NO, NO. This is Akane! This is my Akane! I'm not going to be like this with her, NEVER!"
Aware on some level that his fangs must be horribly visible to her, Ranma leaps from the bath, sloshing water everywhere, and gathers up some of his clothes, and bolts out the door before he can turn back for Akane, who is still seated half in the water, bewildered (why did he take the washrag?) and on the verge of tears again. One thought is running foremost through the vampire's mind, the thought of *blood*... Somewhere, somehow, he will have blood, and he will have it soon. Of that, he is certain.