Wow . . . I don't honestly know how to respond to all of your reviews so far . . . please note this authors notation is being written on 1/24/04 . . . when I just discovered I had more than eight review notices in my email account I was stunned. Granted the hyperactive comment is quite accurate I'd agree . . . but I'm quite surprised this fan fiction piece is being received so well.
So I'd like to thank everyone for their support . . . I thank you all . . .

Anyway on with the good stuff!

Takahashi-san owns Ranma ½ and I simply write humble fan fiction.

Yum . . . forbidden intellectual property

Oh yes. Now I, Phantom Crossing now present to you the third chapter of the Ranma ½ fan fiction "She Likes to Hit Ranma"
Chapter title: Shocking Intrigue

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Chapter 3: Shocking Intrigue

"I . . . I think I get off on hurting you Ranma,"
These words echoed through the head of Ranma Saotome for the better part of what seemed to him as an eternity in a black inky void. As his consciousness lie semi dormant there, questions he was not aware he was asking were being considered within the confines of his mind. He was not aware he was asking these questions, asked on the deepest levels of his aware subconscious. Questions he would dare not ask himself or anyone else while awake for reasons of personal embarrassment in matters of his heart and the woman he had known for so long named Akane Tendo. In this level of his mind, he could hide nothing from himself. Within its confines he was aware and willing to admit as fact his feelings with no presence of embarrassment or fear.
This fear . . . a fear that so long held this feeling in check, keeping from openly breaking the surface. Here it had no power over him, and its lack of influence gave his stagnant mind time to drift all the while those words echoed in his head.
"I . . . I think I get off on hurting you Ranma,"

"Oh no, Ranma!" she cried shaking his prone and surprisingly limp form.
The actions of Akane Tendo seemed to have no affect on the pigtailed martial artist as he lay in a heap of his fallen body. His body felled not by a blow of strength or skill, but by the simple words spoken with some discomfort from the lips of Akane Tendo. Her simple statement had caught him so off guard that it seemed to have caused him to faint in shock.
Assessing the situation the best she could, Akane took Ranma's school bag in her left hand, having put her on bag on via its rarely used shoulder straps, and grabbed one of Ranma's ankles with her right hand. Her goal was the clinic of Dr. Tofu Ono. She trusted in her family doctor and his ability to help her now void fiancé. It wasn't until a block into her run to the clinic that she realized the manner she was dragging him had him facedown against the street and had probably partially dislocated the leg she was pulling by. Looking before her current position she noted that on the pedestrian rode ahead of them there was a knocked over recycling bin with shattered glass in the middle of the way.
Taking the time to do such, she turned Ranma over and inspected his face which for the better part of a block had been face down on concrete. Despite this he looked no worse for the ware, a few nicks, bruises, and scratches but nothing serious. The most interesting thing about his face was that the eyes and mouth were still wide open. Akane looked down at Ranma, then forward at the path littered with shattered glass. Taking note of the scratches and bruises on his face, knowing she had been directly responsible for them began to spark something within her.
She bit her lower lip and shut her eyes tight as she considered the glass in their path and what it would entail for Ranma. She was aware that she suddenly really wanted to keep dragging Ranma face down through the street all the way to Dr. Tofu's, she knew that the notion of dragging him through the broken glass made her heart beat with sudden urgency.
From her shut eyelids strayed a few tears. She questioned why she was suddenly even thinking about subjecting Ranma to this while he was unconscious. The thought even crossed her mind that since they were heading towards Tofu Ono's that he could patch him up before he awakens from his stasis and be none the wiser. She felt suddenly sickened and exhilarated at the same time for even thinking of that. Her teeth were pressing harder against the epidermal layer of her lip.
A shot of inspiration in the darkness and confusion of the mental battle she seemed to wage against herself appeared. Raising her own hand and bringing it down hard across her face she hoped to slap herself out of this train of thought. Though this train was indeed derailed by this powerful strike, it seemed that the action started the engine of another locomotive.
When the impact came her entire body tensed up and then immediately relaxed. She had gotten halfway through taking a breath in response to this strike, prompting a curious and high pitched sound whose utterance tilted her head slightly back. Besides the side of the cheek which bore the red hand mark from her mighty swing, her cheeks themselves became rosy with a blush.
With the same hand she had just used to strike her own face she lightly toughed the spot where her open palm had impacted. She started tracing out the area on her face which still was tinged with a stinging sensation.
Her eyes were wide with wonder and realization as it dawned on her that she had just thrown gasoline onto an already raging fire. Inside she was screaming to remind herself that Ranma needed help now. That he, for lack of consciousness, was helpless and needed now more than ever for her to focus and bring him to Dr. Tofu's. She heard her own mental cries and shook herself out of her near trans fascination with her new interpretation of sensations which before had meant so little when compared to their current incarnation.
Snapping back to herself she took Ranma around the waist and hefted him over her shoulder and returned to her mad dash towards the clinic. They would most certainly be late to school, and at this point she did not care. All that mattered was that she had the chance to finish her talk with Ranma, that she got everything she could out in the open.
"Please Ranma . . . please be okay," she sighed against the wind.

Dr. Tofu Ono sat silently before his desk. As with most mornings in Nerima he had woken up early enough to do the morning sweeping out in front of the clinic. He rarely expected Mr. Saotome to show up until much later in the morning to sweep after the late morning pedestrian traffic. Going over the day's appointment schedule he let out a sigh. Only one appointment in the late afternoon was on the ledger. This would prove to be a boring day then unless the usual unexpected happened into his lap. He laughed to himself remembering how the unexpected usually did find its way to him in the form of Ranma and all the chaos that seemed to have followed the youth to the district.
His training and knowledge of the ancient and often obscure matters and mythologies of folklore and now thought archaic ideas had gone from a simple hobby to amuse him on slow days when he could not train in he back yard workout area was now part of his main practice and profession in Nerima. No longer was it archaic knowledge and information, but poignant and relevant to the situations that seemed to be at hand from one time to another.
Ancient curses, magical tomes, obscure and almost laughable forms of martial arts, and the ever present and almost always careless usage of powerful martial arts techniques meant for combat in true life and death situations degraded to adolescent squabbles whose importance pales in comparison to some of the real problems that exist in this day and age. Pointless vendettas, silly contests, and most impossibly is how all of it always finds a way to position itself in a manner which makes one boy, who spends half his time as a girl, in the center of it all. Though being a physical representation of one of the concepts of yin and yang, balance as two halves of a whole to the human species in the form of both male and female genders, his aura and everything around is in a constant state of flux and chaos. All the more to make Dr. Tofu chuckle as he sat and sipped his tea.
Things had seemed to progress so far in this nature that instead of buying some new books on psychology and human behavior for his personal library, he decided to spend the funds on some old texts on matters ranging from the topics of Ki Influenced Love Potions and Antidotes to So You Have a Mythological Creature Camped Out in Your Back Yard. The irony and humor in a serious doctor in this day and age possessing such books with intention to use them should the situation arise made him shake his head while smiling as he nursed the still warm cup in his hands.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door of the clinic being flung open and impacting against the side wall before the sound of the chime could ring and alert him to the potential patients.
"Dr. Tofu, Dr. Tofu are you in!?" sounded a loud, panicked, and distressed voice.
As Tofu emerged from his back office and into his reception area he saw Akane Tendo standing with Ranma thrown over her shoulder. She was obviously in a state of bewilderment and out of breath. He quickly noticed that Ranma was not only slung over her shoulder, but unconscious as well.
"Akane, what's wrong?" the doctor inquired with the full seriousness and dedication of his chosen craft.
"It's Ranma Dr. Tofu. He . . . he collapsed after I told him something that may have been a bit much for him to handle," she explained as the doctor led her to the back examination room, where she unloaded the unconscious aqua transsexual onto the examination table.
"I see," commented the good doctor as he checked Ranma's pulse and dilation of his eyes with ease and understanding, "Might I ask what you told him to send him into such a peculiar state of shock?"
He had cocked an eyebrow with this question, all while maintaining his happy and pleasant demure.
Akane took a step back from the table as the doctor continued to examine and check Ranma. She didn't know if she should answer truthfully or try and keep this between the two of them. She quickly scratched that thought when she remembered she had earlier told everything to Ryoga, but that was to a friend she trusted, a friend she had the utmost faith in.
Then again Akane realized that this was Tofu-san. A man she had trusted since she was a young girl, someone whose loyalty to her family was deep and rooted in years of friendship and patronage. Who could she trust more with this besides the family physician?
"I . . . its not very easy for me to talk about this. Its rather personal," Akane brought a hand to her face while blushing slightly.
"I see," replied Tofu whose perception seemed otherwise focused on finding a way to bring the young man before him out of his state of shock but were in truth fully cognoscente of everything around him, "well if you aren't comfortable then you don't need to feel compelled to tell me,"
His voice was comforting, calm, and reassuring to Akane. As it had always been since she was a child.
"No, I can tell you . . . its just I was hoping to talk to Ranma about it further before I talked to anyone else about it first," she said lowering her head slightly, "Dr. Tofu, Tofu Ono . . . have you ever learned something about yourself that you aren't completely comfortable with because it seems both taboo and against your normal way of thinking and speech in a manner that it makes you a hypocrite?"
"No, but I am beginning to have some inclination as to what the topic may be," he again responded while checking a few shiatsu points on Ranma's back.
"Well . . . as you know a few days ago I gave Ranma a very large beating over nothing," she began.
"I know indeed, I treated the wounds myself,"
"Well . . . I had no idea what exactly was happening during the whole thing at the time. You see, after the first strike he normally goes flying, but this time he hit a wall and was just lying there on the ground. I saw him there just," she gulped, "just twitching in pain and I found myself compelled to continue striking him. With each hit I, well, came closer to something until I . . . I think that I hit Ranma until I had an orgasm,"
This caught the good doctor off guard, causing him to slip in hitting the shiatsu point he was currently aiming for and in turn hitting another point which caused Ranma to convulse suddenly and twist his arms and legs into an odd and irregular geometric pattern or sorts that didn't look too comfortable. Of course Tofu Ono didn't notice this as he immediately turned around to face Akane to more fully understand the situation.
"Would you care to run that by me again Akane?" he said rather sheepishly.
So Akane retold what she had already and explained how she had found herself to be sexually aroused by causing, the thought of causing, and witnessing pain in Ranma and more recently discovered, herself. And it was her first telling this to Ranma which caused him to go into the current state of shock he was in.
"I . . . I see," said Dr. Tofu holding his chin in deep thought.
"Dr. Tofu, I'm still very confused by all this and I don't really know what to do. I mean this hadn't happened before until yesterday and I just don't know what to do, I don't know what to think, and I don't know how this affects any feelings I may have or feel towards Ranma," she sighed in an almost defeated manner.
"Well, this is a peculiar situation," he began as he suddenly regretted not buying those books on psychology and human behavior, "But it would appear that this means that you've had lingering and pent up feelings for Ranma, and at the same time with the sexual tension between the two of you, you began experiencing a mental linkage between your clouded emotions and desires with your usual method of interaction with Ranma. The way you'd been arguing with each other as of late has been much different from when he first arrived in Nerima I can tell you that, almost as if the small arguments the two of you almost constantly have are indicative of a form of flirtation between the two of you,"
Akane nodded. A day earlier she would have feverishly denied any feelings for Ranma. On the grounds that she would never be involved with a perverted freak like him, however her recent experiences and desire to hear more of what Dr. Tofu had to say staved her usual tongue.
"Your arguments though flirtatious have been growing slightly more charged, and if I may say, violent since the incident of the failed wedding and with the tensions between the two of you its easy to see that since your most common interaction with each other, the action you both seem to communicate through best, is violence," the doctor marveled at how easily the pieces fell into place, "that you're mental linkage with your most common form of expression with Ranma has turned to a sadomasochistic fetish of sorts. Coupled with your early high school experience of boys trying to show their affection for you through acts of violence only seems to support that theory as it would have affected you during a formative time,"
Akane just sat there wide eyed at the doctor's blunt and direct explanation. In a few sentences he spelled out and rationally explained what was wrong with Akane and what led up to it. He perfectly diagnosed her condition.
"So . . . that's what is wrong with me," she sighed, "thank you Tofu Ono. May I ask if you can prescribe me with a good psychiatrist to help me leave this perversion in the past?"
Dr. Tofu blinked a few times while looking at Akane. He wondered what she meant before it clocked in his mind what she was talking about. Quickly he went to work to try and dispel her misconceptions.
"No, no Akane," he said waving the palms of his hands, "This isn't an illness. It is a part of you that has developed as per part of a series of events in your life. I mean it isn't unusual at all for a person to have a fetish. This is something that came about because on some level of your mind, you wanted it; you willed it to be in your situation,"
Akane was still, for lack of a better description, confused. She understood what the doctor was saying but didn't quite grasp how she could be normal if she was a sexual deviant in her perception of herself. All of this was becoming too much for her. In the past two months since the disaster of the failed wedding she had been locking horns with Ranma with more frequency. It could be said that she had been blaming the failure of the wedding solely on him and was taking it out on him in such a manner. Yet this made sense. It was a linkage of their already, dare she call it as Dr. Tofu had, argument based flirting that brought so much more sexual tension into her life. So much more tension without a stable release, even her usual vigorous workouts and exercises couldn't help her release all she had pent up. She needed something that released those tensions and gave her peace in the same sense.
"So . . . so it's okay for me to feel this way?" she inquired meekly.
"Akane, as long as you're being true to yourself then there isn't anything wrong with you," Tofu Ono again reassured her, "All you are doing is growing and experiencing something that is new and different to you. It also means that you have very deep and confusing feelings regarding Ranma that I think the two of you need to talk about further before the next time he passes out,"
"Then . . . then I have something to ask of you Dr. Tofu," she began gathering her confidence.
"And that would be?" he inquired with a smile.
"When Ranma wakes up . . . I want you to help me explain everything to him as you did me,"
"Well that won't be a problem at all Akane," the doctor began as he turned around to return to work on Ranma, "Once Ranma is awake - what! What happened?"
Dr. Tofu was trying to undo the shiatsu point he had accidentally pressed on Ranma. To his dismay in his frenzied searching of individual muscle relaxation points, he hit one that jarred him from his state of shock and into an uncomfortable world of pain.
"Is he okay Dr. Tofu?" Akane called out in a loud worried voice when her eyes fell upon the disfigured positioning of Ranma's body as his eyes slid closed and then flew open in full awareness of their surroundings, "Is Ranma okay?"

Within the mind of Ranma Saotome very little seemed to exist as he floated for a moment devoid of thought, only listening to memories as they blurred by.
Void . . . emptiness . . . echoes . . .

"I . . . I think I get off on hurting you Ranma,"

"I love you Ranma! Love you lots!"

"Ranma . . . is it true . . . do you . . . do you lo . . . love me?"

"Hi, I'm Akane. Let's be friends,"

"Ranma, I baked you some cookies. Please try some,"

"I could never get married to a pervert like you!"

"FROM YOU I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT!"

"I . . . I think I get off on hurting you Ranma,"

Suddenly the void began to crack and shatter. Ranma felt as if his form was suddenly stuck in an industrial grinding machine of some kind. The sudden angles and positioning of his limbs shot like lighting through his nervous system as he was seemingly shot back into the real world from this mindscape. Within this flurry and storm of pain he was confused.
What he saw made no sense to him as he could feel only the intense pain of his disfigured and awkward body position. In everything though, he could distinctly hear one set of words from a distinct voice he had once killed for to assure he could hear it again.
"Is Ranma okay?"
Then again he suddenly felt void, but not the void he was in before, but this time peaceful and calm slumber.

Akane watched as Ranma convulsed and say it when his eyes fluttered back to their state of awareness and then slid closed again. She was making direct eye contact when she spoke and saw the look in his eyes. It showed that he could not see, as the pain he was in was most certainly blinding. Her face reddened as she watched him writhe in pain before Dr. Tofu was able to reset the damage and put him to peaceful slumber.
Once Dr. Tofu had finished he rose and walked over to Akane.
"Akane, would you mind watching Ranma for a few minutes," he began, "I have to go out and pick something up if I want to be able to help him after that little shiatsu mishap. When I get back and after he wakes up, I'll start it off but I think after that I should leave you to alone to talk about the current situations,"
Akane nodded, and as Dr. Tofu left she took a seat besides Ranma who was still on the examination table. She propped herself up so her hands were holding up her face as her elbows rested on the table. She was starring at Ranma while he slept. She noticed today that his sleeves were rolled up. She shifted herself to only prop herself up on one elbow as the other arm reached out and pinched the prone martial artist's arm.
Continually just lightly pinching that one spot and releasing, not tightly of course. In a way she was testing her control over the subject. Right now she was just taking the time to sort through her existing feelings for the boy. Granted she knew she had obviously been physically attracted to him, she could admit that thinking along the lines of logic that Dr. Tofu had presented, but otherwise she had to bring reasons for her to personally believe she actually loved Ranma.
Despite what she wanted, it's like on the surface she really wanted to feverishly deny any emotion towards Ranma at all besides contempt. In her search she was for once reaching deeper, she could easily admit that she liked and was comfortable with Ranma, that the engagement was becoming less and less of a problem for her, and that she felt betrayed after the wedding disaster.
When everything seemed like for once she would have a fairy tale ending to the story of her cursed prince, everything went to hell. Yes she thought of Ranma as a prince, her ever in practice prince in shining armor who always raced to her rescue to save her and punish her kidnapper with extreme prejudice. She let out a pained sigh as she actually thought about everything that had happened in the span of time she had known Ranma.
"Maybe . . . maybe this could be a good thing," Akane thought aloud while a smile crept onto her face.
It was the kind of smile that she gave Ranma every once in a while, the very thing that could make the young martial artist before her melt at the sight of.
"Maybe this is my chance to start over with you . . ." she said warmly looking at Ranma's peaceful face.
Suddenly an image flashed in her mind of her and Ranma standing before a beautiful sunset, slowly their bodies drawing closer together the view closes up on the space between their faces. Time slows as their lips draw closer, nearly touching. In the last possible instant before they meet the view pans out revealing Ranma strung up in an elaborate array of chains and straps. As Akane, still in her usual sundress, kisses him and wraps her arms around his neck, tightens the grip of gloved hands upon his shirtless back. The gloves quite visibly spike palmed.
Akane shook her head vigorously shaking the daydream from her mind. Blinking loudly she looked around the examination room and then back down at Ranma. During the daydream she had obviously been pinching that spot on Ranma's arm a bit more forcefully than earlier.
"That . . ." she sighed, "was different,"
Starring into space a moment longer she came to a conclusion.
"Was I just . . ." she paused as she considered the day dream she had just experienced, "Damn it why does this have to be so confusing,"
With those words she tilted her head sighed.

End Chapter Three.

Authors Notes, notation, rant, ramble, and general explosion of pointless crap
WOOT!!!!!!!!!!

Teh winnar is me!!!!!!!!!!!

Well so far so good . . . I hope!

Tell me what you think, and beyond opinions I need some critiques of this and the past few chapters, any errors to cannon, spelling, or anything at all.

By errors to cannon I mean if I reference something incorrectly, I assume all references to events from the canon have been accurate but that is just me. Again thanks to all who've reviewed and I'll address all your individual concerns once I start writing the chapters on the same computer I'm posting them online with . . . because right now there are not one in the same . . . Don't want to subject my precious baby of a computer to the horrors of 56k while I'm back home . . . nope, once I'm back at college my baby will be back on the Ethernet connection lan . . . oh yeah, faster than fast connection

I can already taste the illegally downloadable music waiting for me

Anyway I've finished this chapter, its late, I'm hyper, and probably won't be able to post till morning,

Did anyone else catch the new Chappel's show, truly a comic genius . . . I realize for some unknown reason that nothing offends me anymore, I mean Chappel's show just makes me laugh, Excel Saga made me feel like eating a sandwhich, and Poni Poni Poemi . . . well that was fucked up but it didn't offend me . . . well maybe a little, but not in the grotesque must burn it kinda way, more like the, wow that was like watching a train wreck so I think I'm gonna go eat some cheetos and forget I saw it. And here's the thing, I don't even like cheetsos. If anything, Poni Poni Poemi made me wonder what kind of drugs they have in Japan, for they must be far superior to anything we have stateside to insight such vulgar insanity.

Oh, for future chapters, what does everyone think of this little notion: Neko nine tails ken . . .

Come on someone has to get that joke. Anyway I'm gonna try to stop myself from typing now until