Thanks to everyone that reviewed my last chapter. I have a new proof reader... he hasn't actually read my story yet but that is no big deal, just a meager detail.

His name is Kalen Darkmoon and he's my new friend!

Anywho, please enjoy the latest installment of Choices Not Given!

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Chapter 5

Racing Delinquents

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Akane sat completely bored in her desk. She had finished the day's assignments the night before so while her classmates sweated and cursed silently she passed time by staring numbly at the sky.

When she was a child the sky had fascinated her. The way the clouds piled together and formed gargantuan piles of crystal white puff... it always unleashed her imagination.

She could find castles and princesses and dragons simply by pretending with her eyes. She wondered if she could still call on her imagination the way she used to. But before she could try a fellow student dropped their bag and startled her from her reverie.

It wasn't the thud of the bag that caught her attention, but the tinkering sound from the zipper that distracted her. It sounded like a very familiar jingle that she had grown to hate.

Well she hated the sound, not really the person. The sound always seemed to bring the situation that gets her into trouble with Ranma. She idly wondered if it was normal to hate some random sound more than the actual cause of the sound.

She sighed and returned her gaze to the sparkling blue sky outside the window. 'I don't hate Shampoo. I just wish she wasn't so much to handle.' Akane had been rather reluctant to admit it at first, but she counted the Amazon as one of her friends. 'An annoying, competitive, pain in the ass... friend.'

She smirked at the thought before her slight amusement turned bitter. 'It doesn't really matter what I think. Everyone knows Shampoo hates me.'

It had bugged her for some time now. If she liked someone, wasn't it fair that they like her back? The Amazon had shown some kindness, but it seemed that it was always some ploy to steal Ranma.

Akane silently reprimanded herself for looking for friends that simply weren't there. Her eyes lazily followed another string of clouds across the window. She peeked over her shoulder to catch a quick glance at her fiancé.

Ranma had... changed lately. She thought Ranma would leap at the chance to train her. 'I don't know why... he's so damn lazy.'

However in her hindsight she could see that there was no way Ranma was going to train her. His impossible request of a strike had done nothing to comfort her.

She frowned at where her thoughts were taking her. An audible click resounded in her head and depression flooded into her heart, 'another mood swing... how nice.'

It felt as though black sludge was filling her entire body with sadness. Horrible memories concerning her and her fiancé bounced around her head.

From dark recesses she involuntarily called upon her memory bank of fights and arguments between her and her fiancé. The clock rolled backwards and pulled on things she had buried and hoped to forget.

Malicious words shared between the two. Horrible scream fits that only ended in her slamming him into the sky.

All her years of tears... torture... and restless nightmarish dreams rushed back into her.

The clock continued to count back and when the flashback ended, Akane felt the sudden urge to throw up the little breakfast she had managed to eat that morning.

'My mother died thirteen years ago.'

"Oh, shit."

Before Akane realized she said it, the entire room was staring at her. Swearing in school was a giant taboo when there was a teacher present. She nervously looked at her instructor, hoping that Ms. Hinako wasn't paying attention.

She wasn't that lucky.

"Miss Tendo."

"I am so sorry! I don't know what came over me, I never swear! I am so sorry, please forgive me!" Akane quickly withdrew from the depression and began to panic.

Her teacher scoffed, "You can be sorry all you want, but you still acted like a delinquent. Do I have to teach you a lesson on acting right?" The pre-adolescent voice was still quite menacing, even in her youngest form.

Ms. Hinako climbed onto her desk and pulled her coin from the front of her dress. The child flipped the small piece of metal in the air and caught it with a rather snazzy flip of her wrist.

Ranma jumped out of his seat, "Don't you dare! She said she was sorry, what more do you want?" Agitation laced itself through his words. He clearly wasn't in the mood to save his fiancé.

The young girl looked at Ranma with a somewhat bemused expression. "Your fiancé acted like a delinquent. She swore in school. You defend her, you share the punishment," she closed her eyes for a second's concentration and called upon her attack.

"Happo Go-en Satsu!" As the prism of chi hastily approached the unprepared pigtailed martial artist, Ranma soon realized that he couldn't get out of the way.

He scrunched his eyes shut and waited for the horrific attack to take his energy from him.

He waited... and waited... and continued to wait-- because no attack robbed him of his strength.

Ranma opened his eyes to find Akane standing in front of him. 'Stupid tomboy— what did you do?'

Akane took the drain that was rightfully meant for her... for Ranma.

Everyone waited for Akane to fall and to admit defeat to Hinako. However Akane never felt anything short of normal. Her voice sounded slightly disappointed, "Was that it?"

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Ranma was impressed.

Before him stood a child left void of energy and his fiancé with a full supply.

"What? Why didn't it work? Fine Akane, if you want to play hard ball I can do that too." The child pulled out another weapon to use against the so called "delinquents" of Furinkan High.

"Happo Goju-en Satsu!" The fifty yen coin spun between her fingers.

Ranma watched the interaction between the two with great interest. Gone was the concerned fiancé, Ranma was now the martial artist. He was going to find out what happened, and how to do it himself.

The blast hit Akane just like it had done him several times in the past. However where he had been drained, Akane looked bored and uninterested.

The young Ms. Hinako was livid.

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"Ha! How you like them apples?" Hitomi Tendo thrust a victorious fist into the air. "Couldn't get my daughter, could ya? Damn Succubus..." She did a proud victory dance before sitting back down on her chair.

"You know you gloat horribly, Hitomi." A silver haired man shared Hitomi's smile. He was the same person who had greeted her at the gates of their kingdom the first night of her death. "You need better coordination."

She cast him an annoyed look. "I don't care Icky-tan. The art of gloating shamelessly is a powerful form that I feel I mastered. My daughter and I defeated that madwoman and her damn coins," she looked back at the crystal ball at the young Ms. Hinako's distraught expression, "so I am going to gloat."

"My name is Ickariiya", the distaste of his nickname was evident, "for the millionth time, not Icky-tan. By the way, your daughter and who defeated that 'madwoman'?" He cracked his fingers leisurely in front of him and leaned back in his chair.

"You expect me to give you credit for that? I opened the link. I was transferring energy. I placed the drain block in her. What exactly did you do?" She ticked off her accomplishments on her fingers.

He gawked at her a moment as if the answer was obvious. "Hitomi, it was I that told you to do all that. All the credit lies within me." He grinned at her before dodging a fist.

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Ranma walked to the gym after school. There was an after school athletic meet that everyone was forced to go to. Those that weren't actually in the meet, would still have to be there as spectators.

After the incident with Ms. Hinako and Akane, he had to find some way to force himself to quit thinking about it. It seemed that the more he dwelled on Akane's victory, the more he found himself jealous that Akane had somehow deflected the attack.

The more jealous he got, the angrier he got... with Akane. He could feel the anger welling inside of him.

He had to make himself forget to think.

He entered the gym room and changed out of his school clothes and put on his athletic uniform. Besides being a great distraction for him this was the perfect excuse to show off and get some extra recognition for his skills.

That always put him in a good mood.

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On his way to the track, Ranma could hear the coaches talking in their office. He wasn't particularly interested and was content to mind his own business-- until he heard his name being mentioned.

"What do you mean? I don't believe it. If Ranma can't do it, she sure as hell can't." Ranma recognized it has being his coach. He leaned closer to the door, careful not to make too much noise.

A sultry saccharine voice answered haughtily at him. "Well, Akane laughed at Hinako's face when she tried to drain her," it was the girl's coach, "let's see your precious Ranma do that."

"I don't believe it. Ranma is twice the athlete your precious Akane is. I don't know what you're getting at with your lies but if it is a bet you're after," Ranma's imagination allowed him to see his coach wearing a snide expression, "then you got it."

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"Wow, go Ranma!" He smiled.

"That was amazing!" He beamed.

"How many flips was that? Two?" He loved every minute.

Laughter and clapping constantly erupted from around Ranma. He was on the balance beam and was performing to the best of his ability.

'This is too easy. If Akane's coach thinks that I am going to lose, she has another thing coming,' he greedily thought to himself. As if on a punctuation to his thoughts, Ranma increased the speed of his form.

Ranma was basking in something he loved almost as much as food- the admiration and adoration of the ones around him. He loved being the center of attention.

The only other student that could hold a candle in this school was Akane. Ranma smirked to himself, 'but she'll never be as good as me.'

He cast a glance towards his coach. Even from his constant movement on the balance beam, Ranma could still make out the proud smile adorned on his face.

Ranma was brought back to the task at hand by a very loud cheer from far away. Shortly after that, Ranma flipped off the end of the beam to get a closer look at what was happening.

At first he was annoyed to see so many people had left the gym. 'They all have to be somewhere, where is everybody?" Ranma wandered through the doors to the track in just enough time to see a tiny figure pole-vaulting in the distance.

The closer he got to the field, the more bored he seemed to get. Pole-vaulting was a boys only sport at Furinkan. No girl had ever seriously decided that they were interested in the sport so the administration had never even conceived of starting an all girls team.

This fact in mind Ranma was having trouble trying to figure out what the large fuss was over a simple pole-vaulting match. 'What's the big deal? Oh... I suppose that's it.'

That is when he saw Akane high jump the bar... by quite a bit. There were "ooows" and "awwws" erupting from all over the crowd.

Ranma felt the disgust consume him. Competition and jealousy masked any memory of him and his fiancé. A slight headache washed over him as he watched her add flourishes of flips and spectacularly clear the bar.

Ranma overheard some boys watch Akane in amazement, "Did you know that she's one of the first girls that have ever cleared that thing? It is set at its highest level. She is so great! I think I love her. Think she'll marry me?"

Jealousy consumed Ranma. Over whether it was the boys gawking at his fiancé or his fiancé giving the boys another reason to gawk in the first place... he wasn't quite sure.

What he did know was that he wanted justice. He wanted the crowds to recognize the superior martial artist. He wanted their love.

Once again, without anyone noticing, where once stood beautifully deep diamond blue eyes, callous emerald green shown with contempt.

'You want to go girlie? We can go.' Ranma ran into the crowd and disappeared.

After flying over the bar one last time, Akane wiped her sweat covered brow and wove to the crowd that had gathered around her. She found herself looking for Ranma, but when she didn't see him she did not let the disappointment show.

'He would be so proud of me too...'

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Akane took her position on the white line. It was time for cross country and the coaches had arranged for an extra long run. She felt she was ready, even though she had been unable to find Ranma.

While she stretched she looked around the group of girls that also prepared for the run. After performing so well at the pole vault, Akane had a burst of confidence that told her that the competition would not be fierce.

When the referee signaled it was time to go, Akane immediately jumped to the front of the race. 'Keep a steady fast pace and win. If I do this, maybe Ranma will change his mind and train me. I have to do this, I need to win!'

Akane broke free of the competition shortly after. She wasn't getting tired. She smiled, 'this race is going to be a piece of cake.' She allowed her legs to take her faster.

Ranma ducked in and out of runners. Her red pigtail bounced against her as she ran. She was fortunate to find one of the girl uniforms in the bathroom.

The redhead looked frantically around for Akane, but when she wasn't to be found, Ranma knew that she was in the lead. 'Damn it all! Get back here! I will not lose to you.' Ranma's green eyes shimmered again with greed.

She ran faster. Her new speed seemed to double the sprint to the school that morning. Soon the competition faded far behind her. She was running on a quiet mountain trail that was located behind the school.

It seemed that she was running by herself. The trail was empty ahead of her and the other runners were far behind.

'Nah, Akane has to be up here. I know that girl is running full speed. Probably knows about the bet. I will show you—I am going to win.' Ranma soon found his fiancé. She had a good distance advantage on him.

'Ranma Saotome never loses and I am not going to start now.' Deep green pools glinted with something akin to retribution. She never even noticed the moodshift.

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Hi! I hope you all like it. I am kind of unsatisfied with it... if anyone has a suggestion towards my grammar or my tense- speak up!

I'm not too confidant with this chapter... but here it is.

I have some kinda good and kinda bad news regarding "Guiding the Fallen Angels." I am going to rewrite it. Not near what I am doing to this but, I think I need to bring the grade level up closer to me. I don't think it is written well enough to satisfy me.

I am going to change some smaller things in it. Say goodbye to Katie!

Ja Ne – Lady Mokodane