Yay, I'm here again. Trying to write a new chapter. There was nothing really interesting new to read on FF.net so I thought I might go on with this. According to my plot there's a looooong way to go.

Thanks for all the reviews you sent. God, I love you all soooooo much! I mean, over a HUNDRED! I can't believe it. Oh, by the way, a couple of words to some people who had questions or comments that needed answers are to be found at the end of the chapter. I don't want to take too much of your time with this.

So, on with the story.

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"Of Loose Gi's and Lost Focuses"

Chapter 10

She lost herself in that kiss, forgetting about everything except those lips pressing hard on her mouth, those arms that were not holding her still any more, but caressing her face, her shoulders, her arms, that body that was lying on top of her, and her hands, suddenly free and almost with a mind of their own – hers was too overwhelmed to give any coherent instruction to the body – roaming on his back, accidentally finding their way under his loose shirt and touching his skin. She felt him shiver and heard him moan as the kiss grew more passionate. She could do nothing but kiss back, react to his every touch, her essence changed into a knot of emotions and instincts.

Eventually, though, as it usually happens to all of us humans, they both had to get some fresh air in their lungs, so reluctantly they broke the kiss, looking in each other's eyes.

The passion Akane saw in those blue-black eyes took her remaining breath away. She thought she would never be able to breath normally again. She caressed his cheek with her hand, smiling a little.

He couldn't resist, he knew somebody could come to the dojo any minute and find them on the floor, in a very compromising position, but he just had to kiss her again. Her soft smile, her beautiful eyes full of love and passion… When had he learnt to recognise those feelings inside them? He was glad he had.

Akane closed her eyes as she saw him close the distance between their faces again and immersed herself in that magical feeling once again. This time, though, her brain registered other stimuli besides the touch of his lips on hers and his hands on her arms. She became aware of the thumping of his heart, matching hers, she heard his ragged gasps for air through his nose, she felt his hand on her hip, squeezing gently, while the other one was slowly caressing her skin around her waist… A quick question of how he had got under her blouse formed in the back of her mind but she forgot it as she noticed something hard pressing on her thigh. A rush of desire went through her whole body. She slid her hand deeper under his shirt and reached the soft skin between his shoulder blades, scratching her nails almost obliviously on his back.

Ranma was in heaven. He felt her passion, and felt his own passion grow and he caressed her skin, moving his body a little so as to be able to reach more of her. His fingers met the soft lace of her bra.

"Ranma, Akane, lunch is ready!"

They froze like deer, staring at the door, expecting to see Kasumi walking in on them or – even worse – standing there already. She wasn't there, but they were still motionless, not sure what to do for a whole five seconds, Akane's hands tucked deep under Ranma's shirt and his hands in turn caught under her blouse. After the initial shock, they both thought 'Thank kami Kasumi decided to call us from outside!'.

"Coming!", they finally remembered to yell back.

They looked at each other, noticing each other's deep blush. Ranma lifted himself to a seated position, Akane followed suit and tried to make herself presentable.

Feeling a little embarrassed, Ranma watched Akane tucking her blouse back into her skirt, remembered how she had looked during their sparring session earlier, and let his mouth fill up the silence without connecting it to his brain first.

"You know, you shouldn't fight in those clothes. I guess now I know why all those perverts wanted to fight you every morning. The view gets rather interesting when you start the kicks and jumps…"

Oops. Ranma's brain awoke at the sight of Akane's change of expression.

"What do you mean?" she asked suspiciously, ready to get angry again. Akane was always Akane, after all. And her temper was always just a step away.

Ranma punched himself rather hard mentally, arguing with himself on how he always found a way to ruin a perfect moment with a stupid comment. He tried to connect his brain to his mouth again and it actually worked.

"I mean you really do look hot, your skirt flies around and we get a pretty good view of your legs."

Akane just stared, not sure how to react yet. So Ranma went on.

"And earlier, when we were sparring", he blushed, remembering how the 'sparring' had ended, "your blouse came undone a little and I really couldn't resist…" he trailed off, looking at his knees.

Akane stared, surprised. So that was what he had been… And she had looked… hot?

She blushed, looking down too.

Minutes passed, till Kasumi's voice was heard again.

"Well, are you two coming or not?" The little shade of impatience in her voice made them jump to their feet and rush out of the dojo.

After lunch, they went to Akane's room to do some schoolwork. Akane decided that he had beaten her as far as coming to the dojo first was concerned, but she insisted on the fact that he had cheated on the push-ups, so she didn't have to do his homework for him. Ranma protested loudly for a long time, and in the end they found a compromise: she would help him with the homework, but wouldn't do it for him. Ranma grudgingly accepted, knowing he would never get his way with her.

'Besides, I like spending time with her, even if it's doing homework', he thought, blushing a bit.

They were sitting on the bed, with their notebooks on their laps. Ranma tried to move closer to her without her noticing, but she did notice it of course and she just smiled, trying to concentrate on the questions, while leaning a little on his shoulder.

He grinned inwardly, feeling her shoulder against his and put his left arm around her back, while balancing the notebook on his legs and writing down the answers with his right hand.

The exercises took them twice as much time as they should have, but they didn't mind.

Later, Ranma decided to train a little, so he told her he was going down to the dojo. He remembered his plan of training her just as he reached the door.

"I've got to keep up my shape if I want to be the best. You wouldn't know what that means, would you?" he teased on purpose, hoping to coax her into another sparring session. Not the lying on the floor etc. session, he corrected himself, real sparring this time.

"What?" she jumped to her feet. "I practice a lot too! And I'm in perfect shape!"

"Then you won't mind sparring with me a little, I could use a partner, even though you're clumsy and slow as a slug…" The last words were pronounced from the stairs: he knew she would get really angry at that so he ran to the dojo.

"Ranmaaaaaa… I'm not clumsy and I'm not that slow!" He could get her so angry! She knew she wasn't as fast as him, but she wasn't that bad either, was she? He was touching a very sensitive spot there, and he knew it. And she knew that he knew. So why was he doing it? And after they had had such a wonderful time studying together like that…

She reached the dojo and looked around and he wasn't anywhere.

"Ranma, where are you?" she yelled. She was sure she saw him come inside.

"Right here!" he exclaimed as he jumped behind her and made her fall on her but sweeping her feet off the floor.

"Waaahhhh!" Akane yelled, landing hard. "You…! What do you think you're doing?" she screamed, getting up in a second and running toward him. Of course by then he was on the opposite side of the dojo and as she approached him full speed, he just ran away in another direction, thinking about how to improve her fighting abilities. She was strong, no need to work on that. But she was slow and clumsy. Well, not clumsy, more like she lacked the right balance. That was it! He would start with balance. Now, for balance practice… What better way than running on a fence? His father taught him that way, and it had worked. Sure it would work for Akane too. The only thing that was left for him to figure out was how to make Akane actually run on a fence. Hmmm…

While Ranma was coming up with his brilliant ideas on how to train his fiancée, the said girl was growing angrier and angrier. She couldn't lay a finger on him, of course, but she could tell he wasn't even paying attention. That infuriated her.

"Ranma, you jerk! Come here and fight me for real! Stop running around like a mad cat!" she yelled, among other things.

A certain word caught Ranma's attention.

"C-c-c-cat? Where…?" he said, looking around, his irrational fear awaken.

Incredibly enough, it so happened that a stray cat chose that exact moment to meow loudly outside the Tendo dojo. Just as Akane was about to punch Ranma in the head, he screamed and jumped to the ceiling, attaching himself to the wooden beams.

"Make him go away! Make that… that… furry thing go away!" he screamed in panic, his plans totally overridden by his fear.

Akane blinked at him, still for a moment. Then she went rather calmly to the door, opened it and looked outside. She turned back towards her hanging fiancé and plainly informed him that the cat was gone.

"Are you sure? I mean, he was…" Ranma babbled, still hanging on the ceiling.

"Yes, I'm sure, you idiot. A great martial artist you are… afraid of cats…"

She knew it was unfair to tease him about his phobia, but she was still rather angry at him so she did it anyway.

"Wait a minute!" he yelled back, jumping back to the floor and walking up to her. "I am a great martial artist, I'm the best! And you…"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," she said, turning around, her eyes glinting in a strange way. Too bad Ranma couldn't see that glint. He would have been able to see what was coming.

"I am! And don't tease me about c-c-c… You know it's all my dad's fault!", he went on, so absorbed in his little speech… "he threw me in that pit," …that he never saw her leg… "and left me wooooahhh!" … sweeping his feet under him.

Akane turned her head and showed him her tongue and ran off laughing. Ranma was so stunned for a moment that he forgot to get up.

'You never know, maybe there is hope', he thought, 'this is Anything goes, after all.'

Of course the balance training would have to wait until tomorrow. Kasumi would be calling everybody for dinner in no time. But maybe, just maybe he got an idea that would do the trick.

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It's not a real cliff hanger, is it? I didn't mean to have one but… Oh, well, I'll try to write the next chapter as soon as I can.

Ok, about the reviews. Now, I don't usually respond to them because most of them just state an opinion about the story (not that I mind that, of course). Some of them, though, are different, so I decided to react to them.

Thor: Is that a kind of blackmail? Post the chapter or no translation? I mean, I could be even nastier you know, writing the chapter in MY language instead of English and then say 'translation in a few weeks'… But I'm not evil and of course I won't do it. Thanks for the encouraging words anyway. Hope to get the translation soon. ~__~

Azurite: Don't worry, Ukyo is going to appear, and so are Kodachi and Tatewaki. I don't want to say too much about it right now though.

Dogbertcarroll: He IS Genma's son. Keep it in mind. And he's a man (no offence meant there – almost ^_^), so he sees things differently. And Akane is sometimes a little… how should I put it?… dense? Oh well, we'll see.

Minakane: Thank you thank you thank you! You're my saviour. I mean, thanks for all the compliments of course, but mostly thanks for pointing out that mistake with the push-ups. I couldn't decide if Ranma was going to do a hundred or fifty of them, so I mixed everything up. I fixed it, fortunately. Thanks again. And for the other corrections too!

To all the rest of you who reviewed: THANKS! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

If anyone notices any mistakes (I repeat, I'm not a native speaker of English, so don't get too upset when things look funny – some of them weren't really meant to be that way…) and has actually the time and patience to let me know about them, I'll appreciate it and be grateful forever. Thanks again for reading and if you have something to tell me, just hit that button below. Ja ne!