Thanks to those who reviewed! Lol, I was so surprised by the one today (11-20-04) that it inspired me to go ahead and write the next chapter. Sorry it took me so long but I have had soooo much homework to do, it's bad, but I have to start to study…haha…yeah ryte! I'd rather work on my fanfic…so I think I will… so…Ahemz…here we go!

The figure above Ranma then, after realizing that he had passed out, took his arms and threw him on her back and gave him a piggyback ride outside of the now burning building. Outside of the building, the hundreds of martial artists stood outside questioning the recent event. Amongst them was a still figure, her short hair waving in the wind, some strands sticking to her face from the warm tears that had run down her face. ((I…I couldn't save him… All of the times he has fought for me and defended me and I couldn't even save him once… maybe some of the others were right…maybe we don't need to be together… Well Ranma, I guess this is good-bye then… wait a minute, how am I going to get back to Japan without Cologne and Shampoo and….without them!? Great!)) Akane put her hand on her head to put pressure on the oncoming headache to hopefully repress the pounding starting in her head. Just then a cough came from behind her; it was Francois.

"May I ask Cherie where you are residing tonight." He asked politely and tilted his head slightly to the side to let her know that this was not a rhetorical or a facetious question.

"I uhh, I don't…" She was then interrupted by cologne.

" We have no sleeping arrangements for the night. We had planned to find some place to stay once we arrived here."

((How did she get over here so quickly?)) Akane thought to herself. But just as quickly as the thought had come into her mind, she had dismissed it.

"Oh, well then I must insist that you come to my residence here in China. It is a fairly comfortable house. It is only 15 bedrooms though so you will have to forgive me for the inadequate size of it. I am sure that it is nothing compared to where you both come from I'm sure. You may stay the night here and leave in the morning if you wish, or stay longer. It will be no burden for me." He turned his head from facing the elder to facing Akane and started to speak again, " Although I would prefer that you stay longer." He said than gave one of his captivating smiles followed by a very confused one. Akane was standing there dumbstruck by the alleged size of his house. Cologne pushed her with her staff and then spoke for the both of them.

"Yes, thank you. That would be most appreciated. Akane, get your stuff, may we leave immediately?"

"Yes, I have transportation around in the front of the building as we speak."

"Cologne, what about shampoo?" Akane asked.

"Shampoo has many friends here, I'm sure she will either find out where we are or find someone to stay with. No quickly Akane let's go."

"But I don't know where my things are."

"Go into that room behind the hall, that is where our belongings are."

Akane walked into the small dark room to find her belongings in a corner. When she picked up her bag the contents fell out on the floor. ((Just GREAT!…wait a minute, why did they fall out?)) Akane pulled her bag around to her front and saw that the zipper had been undone. ((Was someone going through my stuff?!?! Wait till I find out who it was, did they take anything)) Akane started to go through her possessions on the floor and to see if everything was still there, until Shampoo walked in.

"Great-Grandmother said for violent girl to hurry up NOW." Shampoo said then walked out of the room and slammed the door so hard that the noise made Akane flinch. With that said she gathered the rest of her things and left the room.

Ranma lay on the ground with the young lady leaning over him stroking his face. He was still breathing so she decided it was best to wait until he became conscious. ((I kind of see what that Akane girl sees in him. He IS kind of cute. But he is nothing compared to my Mousse. I wonder what he is doing now…)) underneath her hand she heard a groan; Ranma was starting to wake up.

Ranma opened his eyes to see a young woman there; her hair shoulder length loose blonde hair was elegantly flowing, falling to the side that her head was tilted as she stared into Ranma's deep blue eyes. Her Green eyes were the same emerald color as her dress.

((Who is this… oh yeah, that's right, it's Anastasia. Wow, she sure is beautiful especially with the red flames behind her…WAIT A MINUTE! FLAMES! THERE'S A FIRE!)) Ranma said through his teeth, "Akane…" as he tried to pick himself up off the ground. But his mind was somewhere that his body was not and he couldn't force himself to stand to go save her.

"Don't worry Ranma. Akane is fine. She's staying with someone I know very well. Now, I must insist that you stay here in China at least for a few days until we can be sure that you will be okay. Now let's go I have someone waiting outside to pick us up."

Akane pulled up to the mansion and stepped out the car onto the large stones that were all next to each other to form a walkway. This was a very American style house to be in China, but Akane said nothing of the sort.

"My maid will show you to your room" Francois said and pointed to a short child. ((HIS MAID! She must be like…. TWELVE!))

"May I get your bags ma'am?" The young girl said and held out her hands to hold them.

"Oh, no thank you, I will carry them myself." Akane said. ((I can barley carry these bags myself how would she be able to carry them?))

The young lady showed Akane through the mansion giving her basic knowledge about where everything was. But the odd thing was that there were two parts to this house and it seemed as though everything was on this side of the house, which made Akane wonder what exactly was in the other side. So she asked.

"Excuse me, but what is in the other side of the house." Akane asked. The girl stopped walking.

"I'm not able to tell you. But I have been instructed to tell you that you are not to go over there because if you do, some VERY bad things will happen." With that said she turned to her left and used her key to open a door and waved for Akane to follow her into the chamber.

Akane walked in after her to see the room was decorated beautifully in a cream color. Everything seemed to blend into one large cream essence. She set her things down in the corner and walked over to the vanity and ran her fingers along the polished wood.

"Okay ma'am. I'll be leaving you to unpack now." She sniffed after that.

((Is she crying?)) Akane thought.

"Wait!" Akane called after her. And walked over to the door where the young girls back was facing her. Akane kneeled down and placed her hand on the little girls shoulder and used her hand to turn her around and have her face Akane. ((Aw, she is cringing))

"Would you like to tell me what your name is?" Akane asked the little girl and smiled gently at her.

"My name…:: sniff:: is Emerald."

((What a gorgeous name…)) "That's a beautiful name. My name is Akane. Now Emerald, May I ask why you are crying?"

"I wouldn't want to bother you with my troubles."

"Trust me, it would be no trouble at all, please, I would like to know what is troubling you."

Emerald hesitated, then the tears began to flow more heavily and she started to really cry hard. Akane grabbed the little girl and wrapped her in her arms and hugged her tightly as the young girl started to tell her story.

It all ended with them both sitting on the extremely large bed that was in the room for Akane.

"Oh that's horrible, so it's your first night here being by yourself then huh? It must have been a hard decision for your parents to make, but I'm sure they had good intentions."

The young girl nodded. "Would you like to stay in here with me while I'm here. I wouldn't mind; I would actually enjoy the company." Emeralds eyes opened wide. ((Oh my goodness, her eyes are sooo pretty!! Now I know why her parents name her emerald.))The little girl then reached over and hugged Akane tightly thanking her over and over.

"It's really no trouble at all!" Akane said laughing, "Now, go get you pajamas quick and come right back!"

"Okay!" Emerald said in an excited whisper.

After Emerald had left the room Akane though that it would be best to put up her things before she got changed. She took out all of her clothes and put them away except for one pair of yellow pajamas. Then at the bottom of the bag she found a photo, the photo was face down so she wasn't sure which one it was. When she picked it up and turned it over to see what it was she stood there in shock. It was the picture that Nabiki had taken of her and Ranma the night that he left. ((Oh Ranma, you dummy)) She went and placed the photo in the mirror on the vanity and sat down in the chair staring at it. She then had an itch on he wrist and went to scratch it, but found that it wasn't working because of the elbow length gloves that she had worn tonight of her mother's. She removed the gloves and placed them one over the other on the vanity. ((Oh mother, I wish you could be here now, I bet you would know what to do.))

"Whose the guy in the picture with you Akane!? He's CUTE!!" Emerald had walked into the room when Akane had been distracted by the picture so Akane was unaware that she had entered and nearly jumped out of her skin at the shock.

"Oh, this is Ranma. He's my ex-fiancé." Akane replied then looked back at the picture.

"Why is he your ex-fiancé instead of you fiancé now?"

Akane turned to her with her eyes teary, "Do you really want to hear?"

Emerald nodded. "Of course, you listened to what upset me, so I would be glad to listen to what is upsetting you."

"What do you mean upsetting me!? I'm not upset!" Akane said half in shock of the girl's statement. Emerald said nothing, but caught a tear that was running down Akane's cheek and showed it to her and smiled. Akane smiled back and started her story. They must have been up for hours as Akane explained about the engagement, several times in which Ranma had saved her, all of the other fiancés, the breaking of all the engagements, Ranma's curse and the alleged cure and everything else there was to tell straight through the ball and her not being able to save him.

"OH MY GOODNESS! How romantic! Where is he now?" Emerald asked.

"I…I don't know."

"Well, I go down to the market pace often so I'll ask around and see if anyone knows where he is. Meanwhile, we had better go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a big day!"

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't I tell you!? Tomorrow is the Annual Karaoke party! It always follows the ball. This whole thing is just one big competition to see the who the best martial artist is, but now only do they test you in fighting, but in other skills such as dancing and singing. Do you have a song that you will sing tomorrow?"

"Umm, I don't know. Should I sing tomorrow? I have a song that I like but I don't know if I should sing it." Akane said unsure of her self and ability to sing the song right.

"Well let me hear you sing some of it then and I'll tell you"

"Okay" Akane said then cleared her voice.

Oooohhh…. oh, oh…. Here.., sitting in my room… silence fills the space…. where I once held you… She continued to sing through the chorus.

Emerald sat there captivated by Akane's voice and interrupted her half way through the song. "It's PERFECT! Who knows, maybe even Ranma will be there to hear it too! But let's go to sleep now okay? You don't want to fall asleep up on stage do you?"

Akane yawned. "No, I guess I don't." And as soon as their heads hit their pillows, both of them had fallen asleep.

Meanwhile, in the other section of the house, another visitor was residing in their room.

A/N HAHA!!! my separation bars are pink! when did they have it so that you could change the color?...well i would have updated WAY earlier but FFN was 'upgrading' i guess you could say, so i wasn't able to.Okay's, this chapter I think is one of my longer chapters, and it was fun to write. Incase you don't know, I love karaoke and I love music too, I believe that it gets emotions across better than words can a lot of the time so I'm sorry if it sounds like a song fic sometimes but I like the effect that it has on the story. Well, this is it for chapter 11, PLEASE REVIEW and tell me if you liked it or not. Thank you!