Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma or Inu yasha.
Chapter 15Just as Furinkan High had witnessed their fight against Shampoo, it now witnessed Ranma and Akane's fight against the whirlwind of blades that was Mousse. He made wide sweeping strikes with his twin scythes, sending out a chained weapon from the black holes of his sleeves every so often. Ranma and Akane could only weave in and out of the deadly objects and hope to get close enough to attack. The blows that they managed to land, though, didn't seem to affect their opponent and he took them without pause. What surprised Akane, was that she was able to keep up with Ranma and a full youkai at all.
"Why would – you wanna – prove yourself – to a – hunter – like Shampoo?" Ranma asked haltingly, between ducks and leaps. Mousse's attacks became more furious in response, and his blades began to catch on Ranma and Akane's clothing.
"There is no need to explain myself to the dead," Mousse said, "but I aim to win her heart." Akane and Ranma exchanged the briefest of glances and Akane put on a mocking face.
"What heart?" she asked. Her tone was condescending, and Mousse brought his blades together for a double-armed strike. Before he could swing Ranma dropped his disguise and swiped Mousse's back with his claws. The stench of his blood permeated the air and irritated their noses, as red seeped through Mousse's white robes. He whirled on Ranma, his eyes ablaze, and Akane caught him in the back of the head with her foot. Just as she leapt away, chained claws flew from his sleeve in her direction, and he sent a sword to Ranma's midsection. Ranma twisted to the side of it and it sunk into the tree behind him. Akane was not so lucky. She was nearly caught unawares, and the claw raked her side. She grimaced and placed a hand over it, but didn't back down, even as her mind howled in pain.
Her eyes met Ranma's, and she knew what to do because she could read him like none of his opponents. Ranma smirked and moved backwards and Akane got ready to fight.
"So, Mousse, you want Shampoo, is that it? Well, I think you might have a chance with her… " Ranma began. Mousse's eyes glinted strangely as he faced Ranma. Ranma only snorted. "If you weren't a half blind demon who couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag…" Mousse pulled a blade from his sleeve and marched towards Ranma, his face was twisted in anger. He brought the sword down on the hanyou swiftly, but instead of dodging, Ranma pulled Mousse's discarded sword from the tree and brought it up to block the strike. Their blades caught against each other for the moment it took Akane to knock Mousse's feet out from under him with a sweeping kick.
The sword in Ranma's hands tore into Mousse's shoulder and down his chest, pushing Mousse's blade away. Mousse raised a hand to his mouth, and coughed, spattering his fingers with blood. Crimson rivers flowed from his chest and his back and his mouth, marking the ground with his defeat. He stared at it all for a moment, and then looked up to Ranma, who was pointing the sword at him.
"How did you know?" he asked, his voice was thick with the rivers that trickled from his lips.
"I could tell," Ranma shrugged, "Now go. And don't come back." Mousse gave them a bloody smirk, and an egg appeared in his hand. He threw it to the ground, and their senses were stifled with a thick, putrid smoke. It didn't take long for it to dissipate, and Ranma and Akane to notice that he had disappeared.
"What could you tell?" Akane asked, sinking to her knees and clutching wounded her side. Ranma bent down to examine it as he answered.
"I think his eyes were injured somehow. He shields the wound along with his demonic features, though. Maybe it was Shampoo who wounded him." Akane made a noise of understanding and he told her not to speak as he gently pried her hands from the gashes in her side.
There were three cuts, the longest in the middle, and they bled swiftly across her skin and clothes. Akane watched as Ranma ripped up his shirt and wrapped it tightly around her middle. She winced under the pressure, but completely forgot about the pain when Ranma scooped her up a moment later. Her arms wrapped around his bare neck almost of their own accord, and the only thoughts that would surface in her mind were of his strength and his scent and his warmth.
"Akane, I don't think I should take you home like this," said Ranma, eyeing her bandaged middle.
"That won't be a problem."
Ranma and Akane glanced up to see Nodoka approaching them. With her flawless hair and spotless kimono the bloodied ground seemed unfit to bear her feet, but her eyes kept her on the battlefield. And to them both, she seemed more alive than she had been during her visit to the Tendos.
"I've spoken with Genma, and he has agreed to come home" – She shifted her ever-present katana at this point – "You can bring Akane to our house, and I will clean her wounds, but whether she remains there or not, Ranma, you must come home with your father."
Akane noticed Ranma's face harden just slightly as he nodded stiffly and followed Nodoka, leaving Furinkan with only bloodstains and the memory of a battle.
Ranma sat on the roof his… his mother's home and watched the sun fall behind the horizon, leaving him in cold darkness, imagining that it was not the sun, but Akane that was falling behind the gates of the Tendo shrine. She had not left just yet, but he didn't think she could bring herself to stay, when he himself could hardly stand it. With his distant mother, his cowering father, and the cold unfamiliarity of the house itself, it was a wonder he had not fled for the warmth of the Tendo home. He already missed the lingering smell of Kasumi's cooking, the quiet clacking of shogi pieces, and Akane's scent – along with the rest of the family's – blanketing the furniture.
Why did his mother want him here anyway? She certainly didn't act like she missed him. At the time he had been too nervous to notice – having come down to meet her purely in defiance of his father and the seppuku contract – but now that he thought about it, she hadn't seemed overly pleased to see him when he first appeared. He could understand that. There were some full demons that just did not love. And if his mother was one of them, only she could bring herself to change. I guess it's better if she doesn't love me. Chances are I'll be dead before the week is out if I stay here.
That his mother was willing to kill him, Ranma had no doubt. Whether it was because of the contract or not didn't matter. The fact was she was dangerous, and he was in danger if he stayed around her. So he had one more person out to get him. That didn't bother him. What did bother him was the fact that it was his own mother. And she would kill him if she found out about his curse.
"It hurts, doesn't it?"
Ranma looked at Akane, who had just climbed out a window and pulled herself to the roof, wincing in pain as she sat next to him. He could not see the bandages, but her scent was tinged with that of her blood. She wore a simple yukata, that he guessed belonged to his mother, and she looked so enchanting without her disguise in the near-moonlight that he doubted he would be able to part with her.
"Yes," he sighed and realized that she more than anyone could understand the pain his family brought him, and that he had not understood hers before experiencing it himself. "It hurts." And then the sun slipped below the horizon, and as Ranma's senses dulled and weakened his pain grew only sharper because he was human. And humans are weak. "Shouldn't you be resting or something?"
Akane gingerly placed a hand over her wound as if she could feel her skin mending beneath her clothes and watched him carefully. "It will be fine by tomorrow, but if you want me to leave, I will." Ranma looked to her and was sure she meant she would be leaving him and not the roof.
"Akane," he said, his voice low and hoarse, "I don't want you to go… Won't you stay with me… please?" Akane slid her arms around his waist and he pulled her into his lap without pause so that they were sitting in a tangle of arms and legs. Ranma rested his head between her ears, and they brushed the sides if his face as they twitched of their own accord.
"As long as you want me to," she said softly, leaning into him until it was impossible to tell where Ranma ended and Akane began. And he relaxed, watching the stars and knowing that he would hold her like this when she was human because she would need it as much as he did now. They stayed that way until morning, and when Ranma became a hanyou again he only held her tighter and hoped more than ever that she would one day be his in more than just his mind.
A/N: This chapter is sort of short, but it only took me a day to get up so I think it's okay. I think they beat Mousse kind of easily, though but I didn't want him to be really horribly injured, so… Well, I don't have much else to say, except, Please Review. Thanks for reading!