Chapter 11

"A.Akane chan?"

Akane had just automatically went to help the person who dropped their groceries, and hadn't looked at the person yet. When the female voice said "Akane chan", though, Akane's head shot straight up and so did the rest of her body.

"Do I know you?"

Akane was looking at a very handsome boy. He was wearing a chef uniform. His long chestnut hair was pulled back in a loose pony tale, his eyes looked at Akane with anguish. Akane also noticed the really huge spatula strapped to his back. That's when it hit her.

"Ucchan?"

"Akane!"

"Ucchan!"

Akane flew into the strangers arms, and was hugging him profusely.

"I can't believe you're really here! I haven't seen you in so long!" Akane started rambling on excitedly, until Ucchan decided to shut Akane up by putting his finger on her lips.

"Why don't we go to my place and talk? We have a lot to catch up on, plus it's more private than out here, Sugar."

Akane looked around, and realized that people were staring. She blushed deeply.

"O-ok."

Ukyou took Akane by her shoulders and led her off to her place, they were there in about five minutes. The place used to be a restaurant with living space upstairs. The place was a little dusty, and it appeared, considering the amount of boxes that were down stairs that he was still moving in.

"This is my new restaurant; I'll have to clean the place up a bit before it opens though."

Akane nodded and allowed Ukyou to lead her upstairs.

"And this is my room. Would you like some tea?"

"Yes, I would like that very much."

Ukyou went back downstairs to warm some water for tea. Akane scanned the room she was in, it was very Spartan indeed. The only things he had in his room was an old futan, including a worn pillow, and a light blanket. He had a dresser that was still dusty, and a luggage bag that was still full. The only decoration was a single picture frame sitting on the dresser. Akane went over to look at the picture. She smiled then she picked it up. The picture was of chibi Ukyou on a man's shoulders, Akane only assumed was her father. Something fell out of the picture frame and fluttered to the ground. It was a wallet sized photo graph, it hit the ground upside down. Akane put the frame back on the dresser and bent down to pick up the photo. Akane's eyes opened wide with shock when she realized what was in the picture. She just stood there with the photograph in her hand until she heard the door slide open, then looked toward Ukyou, whom was closing the door with his feet.

Ukyou turned around and saw Akane with the photograph in her hand, and smirked.

"I see you've made yourself quite at home."

"You still have this?"

"Of course I do, after all these years, you're still the only one."

... change scene..

A Soun demon head is something that nobody ever forgets, it's scary, quite frankly and a bit persuasive too. There is another technique, though, based on the same principles, but enhanced one hundred times by too much bad sake. This, my good friend, is what woke Ranma Saotome at one in the morning. Ranma was unable to defend himself against such a great attack. The fact the Tendo was slurring and wasn't exactly comprehensible, adding to the fact that Ranma was still half asleep. He got the jest of what Tendo was saying when he was standing outside the compound with his travelers bag thrown at his face.

"I guess I'm sleeping in the abandoned lot tonight."

Ranma tiredly dragged himself two blocks to the abandoned lot and made a VERY make-shift tent.

Xian Pu had been outside all evening keeping watch because her husband/rival apparently resided in the house. She had actually accidentally fallen asleep on the tree outside of Ranma's room. She had been waiting for the light to go off in the room next to her airen so that she could go inside and find her rival with out being detected, but it was just so peaceful, she couldn't help it. That all ended at one in the morning, startled by the sudden drunken noise emanating from the house, Xian Pu almost fell out of the tree. Fully awake, now, Shampoo followed her Airen who had apparently just been thrown out of the house. She watched him from a nearby roof, and waited a good half an hour, then snuck into his tent.

'Ohh. I think I'm supposed to seduce him now.. But I hardly know him, so I'll just sleep by his side tonight." ..

Ranma was having a "good" dream. In the absence of a certain somebody in his bed, his sub-consciousness allowed him to have a more "raunchy" dream than usual.

Though I'll spare ye innocent and pure children of the details of the dream, it went something like this:

Akane and Ranma were at the ice cream parlor, eating ice cream like they were earlier that day. Exactly, Except for the fact that she was sitting on his lap feeding him a cherry. Then he said some corny phrase like "You've got some ice cream on your lip." And kissed her. Then suddenly out of nowhere they were on this vast bed with red crushed velvet covers... I think you get the direction of this dream.

Ok, so back to reality, Shampoo was just getting into bed with Ranma, when he rolled over and grabbed Shampoo into a hug.

'Great I can get used to this' Shampoo thought as she made herself comfy. At least that's what she thought until about thirty seconds later, when Ranma whispered into her ear:

"Akane, make me your love slave!"

Shampoo immediately stiffened up. 'It is against Amazon Law to lay with another women's man. Maybe I go now..' Unfortunately for Shampoo, she wasn't quick enough; Ranma grabbed a tight hold of her. Unbeknownst to Shampoo, even though she struggled for all she was worth to get out of his grip, she was not quick enough for the change in the direction of Dreams.

Ranma's Dream

Meanwhile in Ranma's head..

Ranma had just imagined short glimpses of a man's version of true happiness on earth. :wink::wink:

Now he found himself standing alone in the darkness, and the sound crying seemed to be everywhere affecting his very soul. He blundered around the darkness until he saw a white light, then he started to run towards it. He finally caught up to the light, when he finally realized what it was. Akane was sitting there her head buried in elbows which were hugging her knees. Dramatized sounds of crying were heard in the background. Ranma ran as fast as over to the huddled form of Akane. He reached out his hand to touch her arm, but before he could she jumped up, and looked at him accusingly through the tears in her eyes.

"What."

"How DARE you? I thought you loved me. How, How could you sleep with another woman?"

"I never."

But then a picture unfolded before his eyes. He was looking down upon himself, laying there with Shampoo in his arms.

"I'll just have to find someone that will treat me better."

Ranma turned around just in time to see Akane running off into the distance with a shadowy man right beside her.

"NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Akane wait!"

Ranma jerked into consciousness just to find him staring into the face of Shampoo. Ranma was struck dumb for a couple of seconds, before he acted on instincts a bawled Shampoo over in his haste to get away from that place.

"Akane come back!" Ranma screamed down the street, trying to chase down the Akane of his dreams. The dream was too real, reality was too dream-like his sleep long mind couldn't take it, and forced him into searching for Akane until early morning light.

Meanwhile back at Ukyou's house:

"You still have this?"

"Of course I do, after all these years, you're still the only one."

"Yeah, that's true, what are the chances? Finding two girls at an all boys school."

The two childhood friends talked straight through the night and through the first light of the next day.

"Well, I guess it's time to get you home, they must be worried about you." Ukyou did a big dramatic yawn.

"Oh, well about that, I'm sorta lost." Akane looked sheepish, after all that they had discussed that night, she had forgotten completely about going home. Ukyou did a quick tired giggle.

"Then we'll have quick breakfast before we go!" Ukyou jumped up and ran to the kitchen. Mere moments later the savory aroma of instant Ukanomiyaki (Sorry for slaughtering the spelling, it's late/early.) seemed to have filled every particle of air within the house.

A half an hour after that the two friends were walking down the street. They hardly got a block down the road when Ranma ran up to them. He was exhausted, and the worry in him left in a big wave. Therefore he was left on his knees breathing heavily.

"Ranma?" Akane was surprised, her fiancée just ran up at them out of nowhere, and now he was panting on the ground. It was almost like he had been running all night looking for her..

"Ranma Saotome prepare to die!" Ukyou eyes saw red. Here out of nowhere her lifelong nemesis ran up to her and was kneeling on the ground. Too bad, this had to happen just as she was about to forget about her vow of revenge and start her life over again starting with the shop that was about to open. Now though, she could take her revenge AND start her life anew. She drew her oversized Spatula from her back and attacked Ranma.

Ranma was unable to defend himself, he was too physically exhausted. Thankfully, though, the attack never hit him. Akane was faster than Ukyou's eyes could detect. She merely shot out her hand and grabbed Ukyou's wrists. Ukyou was rooted to the spot with surprise that Akane had stopped the attack. Akane moved between Ukyou and her fiancée. The expression on her face was hard to tell, there was a mixture suppressed of confusion, anger, concern, and compassion.

"Ukyou, why did you attack my fiancée?"

"Your fiancée? You never told me you had a fiancée. Well, I guess you FIANCEE can walk you home, good-bye." Ukyou turned and stormed back into her store. Once inside, Ukyou fell to the ground and started to weep.

"Damn, My best friend is getting married to my worst enemy." Ukyou wept for the better part of the day while contemplating what to do about the whole situation.

back where we left Ranma and Akane

Akane was about to go after Ukyou, when she felt a tight grip on her wrist.

"Come. Akane. let's.. go . home." Ranma was still out breath, and he was wobbly standing up. He let his weight fall forward, so that as Akane turned to face him, he pulled her into a tight embrace.

Akane was surprised, she didn't think that Ranma had the energy to hold her so tight. It felt foreign to her to be touched at all with something other than a fist, but she decided after a second or two that she liked it and returned the hug. There they stood for several minutes until Ranma regained control of his breath, but they didn't actually let go of each other until an old man stuck his head out of a window and shouted "Get a room!" bringing them swiftly back into reality and putting a blush upon their cheeks. Ranma immediately grasped Akane by the wrist and ran full tilt toward home, dragging Akane behind him.

Back at the Tendo Dojo every one was still asleep when they arrived, so they went silently up to their room. Akane stepped in first, and Ranma closed the door after them.

"Whew, I'm tired I didn't get any sleep last night. I'm going back to bed." Akane immediately laid down in bed and stared at the ceiling.

"Um.. Akane.." Ranma was not looking at Akane, but rather out of the window, he took the chair out from the desk and sat down.

"What Ranma?" Akane turned her head so that she could see Ranma more clearly.

"What happened to you last night?"

"Well, after I left the ice cream parlor I got horribly lost. Then Ukyou found me and let me stay the night."

"What did you two do?"

"We talked, we're old friends. How do you know Ukyou?"

"I don't remember him, I'm horrible with names and places. He sure did seem pissed at me though. I'll ask dad later today, he might remember." There was a little pause, it was obvious that something was eating away at Ranma but I think it was even more obvious that Akane was on the verge of a very good rest.

"Akane, Do you love Ukyou?"

Akane rolled over so that she was facing Ranma and propped herself on her elbow. She scorned at him. "What are you talking about? Ukyou's a girl." Ranma made a visible sigh of relief and made to crawl into bed after Akane.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To bed."

"I don't think you should share a bed with me anymore. You couldn't even defend yourself from Ukyou. You no longer will be tolerated in my room."

Ranma stormed out of the room, and straight to the dojo. Thinking many dark and nasty thoughts of Akane, not allowing her to explain herself, and vowing to show her that he isn't weak and worthy of her.

Akane laid back down.

"That didn't go to well. Let's see, how should that conversation have really gone?... Ranma, I'm rather fond of you, but.. I've been thinking. My enemies, they're at my level of skill, you aren't. You have the potential, but you haven't gotten there yet because you were trained by someone who loves you. It would relieve me of much burden if I could profess that I'm beginning to have feelings for you. But I'm afraid of Sensei finding out. He seems to not like me growing fond of anything. So, If you were stronger I wouldn't constantly be worrying about you winding up like everything I have ever been fond of. Dead. Okay, that still makes me sound like a sadistic bitch, but maybe then he would understand. I'm only worried about him, about the future." With that Akane fell asleep.

End of Book I

The world is a darker place than what it used to be. Not really, I just got new transition lenses.

I really apologize for the delay in getting out this chapter, while I'm at it I apologize FOR this chapter. You would think that the amount of time I spend on my computer I would be able to whiz through these chapters like no tomorrow but NOOOOO.. Let's just say I have a life outside this fanfic, though it's been in my head for six years I don't think it's going anywhere.

Are you trying to learn Japanese? Do you have lots of time on your hands? Well I shown the coolest thing since sliced bread the other day. It's simple, just type in LRNJ .com as in learn Japanese. There you will see a RPG computer game called "Slime Forest" that you can download from the computer. It's a simple game really, Kanji attack you until you learn what they mean. It's really effective at teaching you, and it's fun too. I'm not really a computer game person, but I really recommend this one.

Hopefully my next update is sooner than this last one.

(I don't like to change my author's notes when I'm changing previous chapters, BUT if you are rereading this fanfiction you might notice that I took out some of the last bit… believe me it will make this better as a whole)

Ja ne!