Chapter 3

Ranma struggled against the panda as he was carried to what he considers his doom. His stupid old man had waited until the last moment before telling him that the friend they were visiting had three daughters and that he, Ranma, was to marry one and carry on the Anything Goes School. This was the first Ranma had heard of any engagement and he did not like it one bit. He already had someone he wanted to marry one day. If he could find her, that is.

And he certainly couldn't find her if he was stuck here in Nerima being forced into a marriage neither he, nor he was sure, the girl wanted. After all, who would want to marry someone with his unique . . . abilities.

But oyaji-baka would not take no for an answer. When Ranma had tried to flee, the panda had uprooted a street sign and bashed him in the head until he was unconscious. Ranma's training, and his powerful curse allowed him to sustain a great deal of physical damage. It had taken nearly two dozen blows and several blunt objects to knock him out.

When he had awoken, he had found himself in his original form, bound and gagged. He also saw that he was slung over the panda's shoulder like a sack of rice. He tried to loosen the bonds, but the panda was smarter than he looked, in either form. He had used that special 'unbreakable' golden rope that they had found in that Amazon village. Ranma sighed as he remembered what had happened only a few days after he was twice cursed. ********************************************************* Ranma was angry. Angry at himself and at his stupid father. 'How dare he?' he thought to himself. 'What gave him the right to drag me away from her like that? And while she was still sleeping!' A small smile, all that his new body would allow, crossed his face at the memory.

He had been extremely surprised to see that the girl fighting on the poles was one that he recognized. He had just managed to knock his father away when he noticed that the old man was heading on a direct course towards another person fighting on the poles. He could just make out that the second figure was a dark haired girl when his idiot father, in an attempt to save himself, knocked the girl off the pole she was standing on towards one of the pools.

He had felt a shock of fear and recognition pass through him as he watched the girl falling towards one of the pools. He ignored the splash created by his father as he dove after her, desperate to save her. It had been almost a year since the last time he had seen her. He felt her terror and horror as she slipped beneath the surface. He knew from previous encounters that she could not swim and that she was terrified of the water.

He felt her black out as the water closed over her head. Angling his body to increase his speed, he hoped he would be able to save her. He knew that it was already to late to protect her from the curse. He also knew that by diving in after her, he was adding her fate to his own. But, as the old woman had explained 7 years before, their fates were already joined. As he had known when they met up again occasionally over that period of time until that fateful night a year before. A night neither would forget. Or remember.

The shock of the freezing cold water ended his reminiscence. He looked around, trying to spot her. He could dimly make out a figure a few feet away. Kicking his feet, he swam towards her. Reaching her, he tried to wrapped his arms around her but couldn't. All he could do was grip her with his teeth. He did what he could and kicked his way to the surface. As he did so, he noticed that something felt different. Both with himself and with her. He decided to ignore it for the moment as he struggled with her surprising weight.

Breaking the surface of the water, he clawed his way to the shore. Dragging her onto dry land, he noticed what was different. And began to scream in terror. Only his scream came out as a roar. ********************************************************* Shuddering, Ranma decided that perhaps it was best not to go much further. He knew that the rope rightfully belonged to the Amazons and that it was but one of several reasons that they had chased him and his father half-way around the world for the last two years. Until finally, only two months before, in a small town in Australia, they had lost them by tricking them into heading into the Outback.

Ranma hoped that they were still searching for them in the land Down Under. Briefly, it crossed his mind to wonder where his father could get the money to afford plane fare around the world. Grunting, he decided that his father must have stolen the money and hidden it during his own training trips with his master. Whoever the hell that was.

He looked around with his eyes, all that he could move thanks to the rope. As he did so, he thought of another effect of the rope. Truth. Whoever was held by it was compelled to speak nothing but the truth. He had tried several times to use it on his father, but the old man had some kind of protection against it. Something that cancelled its magic with its own.

He blinked as his transformed father held a sign before his eyes.

Relax, boy. Everything will work out. Trust in your father.

'Yeah right. As if I'll ever trust you again, oyaji.' he thought. With a smothered sigh, he resigned himself to his fate. 'If I'm lucky, the girls will hate me. Then I can leave and go find Akane. No more listening to oyaji. He wants me to be a man among men, then I'll have to start by being a man.' ********************************************************* Tendo Soun looked proudly at his three daughters as they sat at the table before him. He had called this meeting to announce the imminent arrival of his friend Genma and Genma's son Ranma. The two, knowing their children very well, had choreographed and timed their arrival to the second. Soun had delayed Akane enough that by the time she thought to get angry at him and to attack him for his actions, Genma, likely with Ranma slung over his shoulder and tied up, would arrive at the door. Due to the rain, Genma would be in his cursed form which, thanks to his and Akane's own visit to Jhusenkyo, would only startle them for a few moments. Akane and he had also fallen into the pools and its magic worked on them as well as on any other hapless victim.

In his case, a side effect of the curse was that he was almost totally in control of his emotions. Though he still mourned his deceased wife greatly, he knew that he could live the remainder of his life out before he joined her in the next. Hiding a grin, he explained what was about to happen, carefully avoiding mentioning that Akane and Ranma were very familiar with each other. Proof of their familiarity rested upstairs in Akane's room.

Akane had been feeling unusual for a few hours now. She hadn't understood it while she was at school because of Kuno and his idiotic proclamation. Now, she was beginning to think that she recognized the feeling. 'It can't be.' she thought to herself. 'He hasn't been around for nearly two years. How could he be nearby now, of all times?' Her scowl deepened. 'It has to be him. I can feel him. He's nearby. And getting closer. Very close.' She suppressed a growl. Ever since the nekoken, she had had trouble with her emotions and her damn curse just made it worse. 'I miss him so much, it's all I can do to keep from running off and looking for him. What's otousan waiting for?'

Kasumi smiled gently as she poured tea for her family. Though her outwards appearance was calm, her insides were in turmoil. She knew what her father was doing and had done. She had even helped him in some ways. She knew that Akane would eventually calm down once she realized what their father had done to her. She only hoped that Akane would be able to forgive them all. Considering what she was going to gain, Kasumi was very hopeful.

Nabiki lazily checked herself in a small mirror. She also knew what her father had in store for her sister. She had been in charge of preparing everything for today. She had arranged for the paperwork and paid for the other preparations. She had less faith in her sister's control than Kasumi, but she was deathly curious to meet this Ranma. She wanted to meet this paragon of manhood that her younger sister had been pining away for since they met. She knew that part of this was likely due to the nekoken, for unlike her father, she had read the entire manuscript and knew of most of the side-effects.

Tendo began. "Today is a great day, daughters. I have received a letter from my oldest friend. Saotome Genma and I trained together under the same master. Twenty years ago, before any of you were born, we promised that should we ever have children, we would marry them in order to continue the school."

Akane reacted first. "What the hell are you talking about? I can't marry some stranger! I'm marrying Ranma. If I can ever find him again after his idiot father ran off with him." She ground her teeth in frustration. "And you let them go! How could you? How could you let them go and claim that you love me? Especially after what happened?"

Soun began to worry. This was not going according to plan. Yes he had expected her to be angry, but still. This was anger mixed with sorrow. He wasn't sure how to deal with a sad Akane. Anger he knew how to deal with. He would simply wail like a baby and Akane would become so disgusted with him, that she would storm off in a fit.

He opened his mouth to try to explain, but there was a knock at the door. He hid a grin, knowing full well that it would be Genma. Kasumi looked questionably at him and he nodded. She rose gracefully to her feet and glided out to the room to answer the door.

A startled cry sounded from the direction of the doorway and Kasumi came backpedaling into the dining room. She was closely followed by an eight foot tall panda carrying a struggling form. Upon further inspection, it became obvious that the form was bound by a glowing golden rope.

The panda sweatdropped at the sight before him. He pulled out his magic sign. Hello. My name is Saotome Genma. Is something wrong?

"Ah, it's good to see you my friend. I see that you got caught in the rain. How was the trip?" Soun stated easily. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Akane go white as she stared at the panda. Or more precisely, at who the panda was carrying. 'It is true,' he thought to himself. 'She can feel when he is nearby.' "Is that your son you are carrying? I see he didn't take the news of his upcoming wedding too well."

Indeed, Tendo. He was quite upset. The panda flipped the sign, and strangely enough, an almost apologetic expression appeared on its face. I had to damage quite a lot of city property in order to be able to bring him here. My son has a very hard head.

Kasumi decided that it was time to say something. "Oh my. Mr. Saotome, did you and Ranma visit Jhusenkyo as well? Would you like some hot water?"

Hai, arigato. Indeed we did. We were there a couple of years ago. The sign flipped again. We've been travelling the world searching for a cure ever since. He dropped his burden onto the ground beside him before sitting at the table. Kasumi poured some water over them both, triggering the transformation.

Ranma felt strange. He could almost swear that his Akane was nearby. But that was impossible, wasn't it? Come to think of it, Mr. Tendo's voice sounded vaguely familiar. And hadn't Akane once mentioned something about Nerima? If it was true, his pop was in for the beating of several lifetimes. It would mean that he had known all along that Akane was Tendo's daughter and that the two of them had likely set them up. At least, after the first meeting anyway. Oyaji had probably given Tendo the idea to train Akane in the Nekoken in the first place, leading to their first meeting.

Wriggling around, he managed to turn himself over. Using all his strength, he managed to get up into a sitting position. And froze. It was her. Akane. Sitting at a table with two other young woman who could only be the sisters she had told him about. The oldest of the two, with long brown hair and a serene expression had to be Kasumi. He watched as she poured a kettle of hot water on his father, transforming him back into his human form. The other, with shoulder length brown hair and a calculating expression had to be Nabiki. Akane had told him about how she was always doing all kinds of things to make money.

And sitting at the end of the table, her long hair tied in a loose version of his own pigtail, sat Akane. His best friend and the only person he cared about in the whole world. Staring at him, her face as white as a ghost, almost as if she couldn't believe her own senses.

Ranma took in a deep breath, catching a whiff of the assorted smells in the room. He could see her do the same. He smelt the strong odors of the tea, and the pungent odor of the garlic Kasumi had added to her spaghetti. He caught Kasumi's scent and was amazed to find no trace of any negative emotions within her. Nabiki's smell was much different. He could smell the greed and lust for wealth that came off her in waves. Yet beneath that, he sensed a deep and driving concern for her families welfare. This told him a great deal about her nature.

Yes, without a doubt, she was greedy, manipulative and hard, but before all else, she took care of her family. The money she made with her betting pools, the pictures, the information, all of it, went into an account in the dojo's name. Only she and Kasumi had access to this account. It was used to pay the bills and to put food on the table. She used only a small portion of the money she made to spend on herself. The rest was used for the good of the entire family.

His senses nearly overloaded and his heart nearly burst as he caught Akane's scent. It had been two years since he had last been near enough to sense her in this way, but he knew her scent better than his own name. Everything about her was burned into the deepest recesses of his soul. Without a doubt, this was the Akane he had met as a child after his first decent into the nekoken. This was the Akane he had woken up to four years before, only to learn that he must leave her laying there on the cold ground. This was the young woman he had saved from the pool two years before, after his idiot father knocked her off of her pole towards the water. This was the woman who shared his curses, both of nekoken and Jhusenkyo. This was the love of his life and the only woman who could ever understand a tenth of what he was. She was the other half of his soul. And she was crying.

Whether in joy or sorrow, he didn't know. All he knew was that suddenly, tears he didn't know he had inside of him were streaming down his face, matching her own. And that because of his stupid father, he could do nothing to comfort her. ********************************************************* Akane sat frozen. She stared at the figure before her. She knew it was him. She had known the minute the panda walked into the room. Ranma. Her best friend. The only person in the entire world who understood her. Who could understand her. She had known from the moment she opened her eyes and saw him looking at her that he would play a big role in the rest of her life. She had not known then how big.

It had been very hard for her to let him go that first time. She knew now why that was. Even at her young age, she had been in love with him. They had so much in common. They were both martial artists. Their fathers were both idiots who had trained them in the nekoken. And neither of them had a mother. How could she not love him? Despite her first thoughts, she soon learned that he was not a pervert (whatever that was) and that he was much better than her. It hurt her to admit it then, and it still did. But she could not deny that he was much more skilled than her.

When his father came for him two days later, she had cried. The two of them had tried to talk his father into letting him stay, or letting her go with them, but he had refused. Tearfully, she had bid him farewell, kissing him on the cheek. He had been amazed at the action. It seemed that the only affection he got from was father was an occasional "Not bad" after he mastered a difficult technique. It had been painful for her to hear that. How could any parent, even one stupid enough to throw a child into a pit of starving cats, not realize how much a child needed to hear the occasional word of encouragement?

She had watched them walk off, tears rolling down her face. Not five minutes after they left, she saw her own father walking towards the small building the old woman who had been their hostess lived. She had run to him, sobbing and thrown her arms around his neck. He had asked her if she was okay and she had explained about her new friend. How his father had also tried to train him in the nekoken. And how much she had come to like him, once they both had some clothes on.

She had met him a few more times over the next few years, usually in strange places around the world that her father claimed to have heard of from a good friend of his. Most of the time, she would not know he was nearby until she woke up next to him after slipping into the catfist. Usually, they would be in a normal state of dress, but when she was eleven, she awoke to find them both naked. She had been sore in her private place, and something Kasumi had told her about not too long before had entered her mind. She woke him and asked him what he remembered.

He explained that he could remember no more than she could. The only thing he knew about the episode was that he felt strangely pleased with himself. Hearing this, she examined her own feelings and found a deep well of satisfaction and . . .satiation. The realization that they had indeed done that, had caused her to blush. He had asked her why she was blushing and she shook her head, unable to answer. He tried to press her for a response, because he could feel her distress, but she had silenced him with a kiss. He had been startled at first, but soon he was responding. Eventually, the feelings inside of them needed a release and this time, they knew what they were doing.

When she awoke again, he was gone once more. She cried for a little while before grabbing the remains of her clothing and donning them. As she did, she found a slip of paper in the pocket. Taking it out and reading it, she found that it was a note from Ranma. It explained that his idiot father had somehow managed to find him and had tried dragging him away. He knocked his father away, giving himself time enough to write a note. He told her that he did not want to leave her and that he loved her. He told her that he would find her again, and that one day they would be together forever.

She met him more times over the next three years. They would often awaken to find themselves curled around each other after episodes of the catfist. The last time was at Jhusenkyo. Where they were cursed for the second time. This time, the curse was physical, not mental like the nekoken. This time, the consequences would be longer lasting and more apparent.

With a shake of her head, she started to move towards him, but found that Kasumi was already there, untying him. She watched silently as he stretched out his cramped muscles. The last two years had been good for him. He had always been fit, but now, there was a sleekness to him that had not been that before. Gone were almost all traces of the boy he had been. Sitting there, slowly flexing each muscle group, it was obvious that he was all man. Even when he was a girl.

Finally, he finished loosening up and turned his head up to face her. Tears were wearing a track down his face. Bowing low, he spoke "Akane. Suki da, anata. It has been much too long. I only hope that one day you can forgive me for allowing oyaji-no-baka to take me away from you. Gomen nasai, my friend."

Akane was unsure how to react. On one hand, she was filled with anger. Both towards Ranma and towards their fathers. On the other, she was extremely happy that he was here. Making a decision, she nodded. With no warning, she launched herself towards him.

She hid a grin as he flinched and braced himself for an attack. She wasn't sure what she was going to do until she did it. She was almost as surprised as he was to find her arms going around his neck in a hug as her lips descended towards his. The kiss was almost as good as she remembered. Once Ranma got over his fear and returned it, it got even better. ********************************************************* Ranma, though surprised, responded eagerly to Akane's kiss. It was filled with the pent up emotions both of them had kept hidden for the last two years. Eventually, Akane pulled away. Ranma stared into her beautiful, expressive eyes, hoping that she had forgiven him for his weakness. So enthralled was he by the emotion in her gaze that he never saw her hand coming.

SMACK!!!! The slap was loud enough to startle Kasumi into dropping her teacup. Luckily, it was empty and somehow managed to fall into her lap where she was able to grab it and keep it from breaking.

Ranma meanwhile saw nothing but stars. Akane's slap was so strong, it knocked him head first into a nearby shoji door.

Akane struggled with her anger, a different type of tear coming from her abused ducts. She watched as Ranma recovered and pulled his head out of the door, returning to his seated position beside her. He kept his head down and Akane could easily make out the red imprint of her hand on the side of his face as it swelled visibly.

That he deserved the panda signed. Everyone ignored him except Akane. Seeing the cause of so much of her suffering blaming his son, her anger surged to the forefront.

"YOU!" she screamed, leaping to her feet. "HOW DARE YOU! WHAT KIND OF A FATHER WOULD DO THAT TO HIS SON!? YOU BASTARD, YOU TOOK HIM AWAY FROM ME!!! YOU LEFT ME ALONE AND SCARED! AND YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO BLAME HIM!!! PANDA NOOOO BAKAAAAAA!" Akane's battle aura flared into existence as did a large wooden mallet she used to repeatedly pound the panda. Eventually she stopped and the mallet disappeared, leaving a much bruised and slimmer panda pounded several inches into the ground.

Grabbing Ranma by his pigtail, Akane turned to her sister. "Oneechan, can you keep otousan and panda oyaji here. Ranma and I have a lot to talk about."

Kasumi smiled. "Hai, imoutosan."

Pulling on the pigtail, Akane dragged Ranma to his feet and towards the stairs.

Kasumi looked towards the injured panda, who had pulled another sign from nowhere.

Itetetetete! ********************************************************* Chapter 4

Ranma allowed Akane to drag him up the stairs and into her room. Before the door closed behind them, he saw a duck shaped sign with Akane's name written in the English manner. There was also a second, smaller sign underneath, but the door closed too fast for him to see what it said.

Akane tossed him onto her bed and dragged a chair from her desk over so that she could sit facing him. Since she didn't say anything right away, Ranma decided to look around a bit before he opened his mouth and said something stupid. He had forgotten how hard she could hit when she was angry.

The room seemed to fit an almost American design. There were no tatami on the floor. Instead there was a thick carpet. She had a western style bed with a thick mattress, which he was sitting on. There was a desk over in one corner of the room. The chair was currently being sat on by Akane as she stared at him, a strange almost eager look on her face. Not to far from the bed, away from the window was a crib. In the crib, a baby lay sleeping peacefully. Next to the crib was a small plastic container wich was overflowing with baby toys.

'Wait a minute.' Ranma thought to himself, halting his scan of the room. He turned his head and checked what he saw. 'Yup. That's a crib alright. Baby and all. I wonder where Akane got a baby?'

"So what do you think?" Akane asked casually.

Ranma stared at the baby. He felt a part of himself dying as he looked at it. There was only one explanation. Akane had found someone else.

Standing swiftly, he bowed deeply to her. "I'm sorry Akane. I didn't know. I guess. . . I guess I'll be going now." He started to walk towards the down, struggling to hold down his tears. 'Goodbye'. he thought silently. 'I'll never bother you again.'

Akane stared at him in shock. He was doing it again. He was leaving her. 'Not this time. Not now and not ever again.' she vowed to herself. Leaping to her feet, she grabbed his pigtail and tossed him onto her bed. He looked up at her with a surprised and hurt expression on his face.

"Just where the hell do you think you are going, you baka? You think I'm going to just let you leave again? What are you scared of?"

Ranma tensed. "Me? Scared? I ain't scared of nothin'"

"Oh? So you take one look at my daughter and you start to leave me and you say you aren't scared? Who are you trying to convince, Ranma. Me or yourself?"

Ranma was starting to get confused. Akane had a baby. For her to have a baby, she must have another boyfriend or something. But Akane still wanted him to stay. Maybe the baby's father pulled an oyaji and ran away? But why?

"Akane, I'm confused." he stated. "All I know is that when pop took me away from you that last time, I promised myself that if I ever found you, I would never leave you again unless you wanted me to go. Now here it is, two years later, and I found you. But you're not alone. You have a baby. Now I know I'm not the smartest person and that I've missed a lot of school, but even I know that it takes two people to make a baby. It's obvious to me that you've found someone else. Baby's are born after nine months. That baby looks to be about less than a year old. That means that the father is someone from here."

Akane stared at him. A rush of emotions flooded her, chief among them relief. 'He didn't want to leave me because of the baby. Well, he did. But not for the reason I thought.'

With a tender smile, she pulled him into another deep kiss. Just as he started to respond, she pushed him away. "Ranma no baka." she whispered to him.

"Nani?"

"It's not a full two years since we last saw each other, anata. It's been exactly 19 months 5 days. Makoran was born 10 months ago."

Ranma frowned, starting to get a headache. "So?"

Akane giggled. "She is _your_ - no. She is _our_ daughter, anata. I am her mother and you -" she poked him in the chest. "You are her father."

Ranma stared at her silently for a moment. Then he looked over at the sleeping baby. After a few moments he returned his gaze to her. He repeated this several more times before shaking his head. He got to his feet and opened his mouth to say something and froze.

Five minutes later, seeing the he hadn't moved and seemed to be barely breathing, Akane got up from her chair and moved towards him. She reached out with a finger, and pushed him gently on the forehead. He toppled over like a house of cards on a windy day.

Ranma was surprised to come out of his daze to find himself staring up at the ceiling. "Atamai ga itai desu. Did I hear what I thought I heard, or was I hearing things?" he asked.

Akane moved over to the crib and looked down. She studied her daughters face. It was, in her opinion, a very beautiful little face. Heart shaped, with wide expressive eyes. Strangely, she had green-gold eyes and her hair had an almost reddish tint. Akane was certain that it must have been from Ranma's family. Especially considering the coloring of Ranma's cursed forms. She looked up from her contemplation of Makoran and saw that Ranma had moved to stand beside her.

"She's beautiful, Akane." he whispered, awe filling his voice. "She looks just like you."

Akane smiled tenderly and placed an arm around Ranma's waist, leaning her head on his shoulder. "Actually she takes after both of us." she stated. She reach out a hand and moved the blanket a little. She finished with the motion by brushing a tiny lock of hair from her ear.

Ranma had thought he could not be any more surprised than by his daughters existence. Akane had proved him wrong.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asked, reaching out a trembling hand to touch that which had so surprised him.

"Yes Ranma. It is a tail. And her ears are pointed."

"But . . .but.. . how?"

Akane smiled. "It seems that I became pregnant while we were in our cursed forms while under the nekoken. I know how that must seem, but Makoran proves it."

"But how could that happen? Both of our cursed forms are . . . are . .. "

Akane arched an eyebrow in a manner that would make Nabiki proud. "Are what Ranma? Are both female?"

Ranma nodded. "Well yeah. Don't it take a guy and a girl to make a baby?"

"Yes Ranma, it does. But you," Akane squeezed Ranma's waist affectionately. "are a guy, as you so often pointed out. Even in your cursed body, you are all man."

"Hell, I know that. It's just that when the guide told us about the springs we fell in, I never thought that I'd even be able to . . .you know. Then when we both transformed and that strange, extremely powerful . . . feeling hit us, I wasn't really able to think until I woke up and found pop draggin' me away from you. I could just make you out as you slept there, oblivious to oyaji's betrayal."

Akane moved around so that she was facing him, her other arm joining her first around his waist. "I remember." she said, looking into his eyes.

Ranma stared into her beautiful brown eyes, familiar, but long absent feelings stirring in him. He wondered however, if either of them were truly ready to do this again. Soon though, another person made the decision for them.

"WAAAAAH! WAAAAAAAH!"

Akane let go of Ranma's waist and reached into the crib, lifting the precious burden. "Shh. Shhh, Makoran." Quickly and surely, she checked to see if something was wrong and found that Makoran was fine. She was just upset to have awoken. Cradling the baby in her arm, she looked at Ranma. who was looking at her worriedly. "It's fine Ranma. She's just being cranky about waking up." Makoran, sensing that her mother's attention was divided decided to see what was distracting her. She turned her little head and looked in Ranma's general direction.

Ranma was amazed at the feelings that were now stirring inside of him. They were so different from what he had been feeling just a few seconds before that he had to double check to make sure that they were still his own. 'Yup.' he thought. 'I've only known her for less than a few minutes and I already love her. She is my child and I will do anything to keep her safe and to make sure that she knows that I love her.' He looked questionably at his soon to be wife. He had lost all reservations about the marriage when he had seen her. He had known that marrying her was something he was eager to do and seeing Makoran only added to his intentions in that direction.

Akane smiled gently. She slowly held out the baby towards Ranma. "Mako- chan, meet your daddy. He's home now and we're going to be a real family."

As Ranma took his daughter into his arms for the first time, he was mildly surprised at how light and fragile she was. He felt his heart swell with love as she looked up at him with her green-gold eyes and cooed in happiness. Somehow, he knew that she recognized him for who he was, despite have never seen him before. He strongly suspected that it was a side effect of the nekoken mixed with the double Jhusenkyo curse that had allowed her to be born. And looking at her catlike eyes, pointed ears that were higher on her head, watching her snub nose twitching as she took in his scent, and feeling her tail rubbing against his arm, purring as she tried to grasp his fingers, he knew that he would not have it any other way. He glanced up at Akane, his lover and . . . his mate, tears streaming from his eyes. He was finally home. *********************************************************