Disclaimer:

See chapter 15

Oh, and when I say that Ranma is laughing, I don't mean a normal laugh. Imagine what it would sound like if Ranma laughed like Alucard does during a fight. Yeah, like that.
Happosai managed to find the time to roll his eyes as Ranma jumped towards him, tearing the blindfold off as he did so. He simply stepped to the side, taking a puff on his pipe as he did so. He yawned, stretched up his arms, and closed his eyes in disdain that his "student's" attacks were both so predictable and slow.

"Ranma, my boy, if that's all you've got, you might as well give up now and save yourself the- AHHH!!!" The diminutive martial arts master found himself flying through the air towards the outer wall, face-first, and with a horrible pain in his back that bore a strong resemblance to Ranma's left foot. With a loud crunch be was buried a good six inches into the wall, leaving a crater and a great deal of cracks in the wall. He fell out, dropping to his hands and knees on the ground.

"All right, boy, now you've asked for it. I'm gonna break you in half," he snarled. "This time you're gonna-" The only sound Happosai made next was a hollow whuff as Ranma's foot drove itself into the old man's belly. Happosai's eyes widened as he felt a rib crack under the pressure. It took a lot, but he managed to jump back, off of Ranma's foot, and sucked air back into his lungs.

Dragging himself back to his feet, and fully enraged, Happosai's battle aura flared out, drawing several loud gasps from their audience. "That's it, Ranma, you're going to pay!"

Happosai threw himself back from Ranma, his hands diving into his robes, and pulling out-

"HAPPO-FIRE BURST!!"

Several bombs raced across the yard, and Ranma, for his part, didn't even seem to pay attention to them at all. And for the first time, Happosai managed to get a look at Ranma's face since the beginning of the fight. Instead of what Happosai was expecting, nervousness, determination, smugness from having hit the master, all there was on Ranma's face was a rage beyond anything that Happosai had ever seen before in all his many years.

Ranma seriously looked like he wanted to kill him.

Then the bombs went off in Ranma's face.

Happosai winced, putting a hand to his cracked rib. Since when does Ranma pack that kind of power? No matter, a couple of fire bursts still puts him down.

A ball of ki shot out of the inferno that the fire-bursts had made, flying towards Happosai faster than he could blink. It nailed him in the ribs, and launched him towards the outer wall again like a miniature rocket. Happosai yelled in pain at the additional hit to his ribs, and the newest impact into the Tendo's wall.

"Dammit, boy, what is it with you and the body blows?!" he snapped. Flecks of blood came from his mouth as he spoke. "And how did you get that shot off before you were knocked out?!"

Then a battle aura roared out at him, and Ranma himself stepped out of the fire and smoke, looking very much like the demon he had claimed to be to scare Kuno, with the same look of pure rage on his face, untouched except for some charring on his clothes.

In the very small quiet that followed, lasting only seconds, the only sound was that of Nabiki, gleefully taking bets on both her cell phone and the house phone, with the longer odds on Ranma, as usual when he fought Happosai, and happily filming it all. She was going to make a fortune on this!

Then there was nothing Happosai could see or hear except for the fight, as Ranma charged at him faster than he could believe. He's not that fast! Happosai mentally objected. He's not that fast! I'm not that fast! He tried to jump away from the oncoming fist, and managed, only barely, to get away. Any celebration he might have had over that, however, was crushed when Ranma's right hand closed around his ankle, and Happosai found himself being pulled back through the air. Happosai felt his face collide with Ranma's other hand. Pain blossomed.

"You-"

Ranma jumped into the air. Even Kasumi, with almost no formal training, could see where he was heading.

"Talk-"

Ranma descended, bringing Happosai down from over his head, accelerating Happosai's descent faster than his.

"To-"

Some dim part of Happosai's mind, that used to be the proud martial artist when he was young, so very young and ideal, screamed at the rest of his perverted mind, Killing blow, Ranma's using killing blows!! His eyes widened in this horrible realization.

"Much!!"

There was a crash, brought by the crushing of stone, as Ranma slammed Happosai head-first into the rocks on the edge of the koi pond. Happosai screamed in pain. He felt the concussion in his skull more than sensed it. In desperation, he put everything he had into a blow aimed at Ranma's grinning face, all the power he could summon.

Ranma caught it with an open palm, and drove his knee into Happosai's side in return. He gagged on blood as he felt the cracked rib break fully under Ranma's hit. Then Happosai knew pain, tremendous pain, as Ranma's fists descended on his, driving with incredible force into his left side, right side, left side, right side of his face, knocking a tooth out, left side of his face, breaking skin, back to the right side of his ribs, left side, right side… any unbroken ribs gave out any pretense of holding together under the eight-blows-per-second onslaught.

Without a pause, Ranma's hand enveloped Happosai's head, and starting smashing him against the rocks, like he was trying to crack him open. After the fifth strike in as many seconds, Ranma stood, towering over his father's master, laughing. "You're no fun. You break too easy." He held his right hand over his head, pulling his ki into his palm, and snapped it downwards, flinging the ball into Happosai's belly. His eyes bulged as he tried to yell for the pain, but no sound came out. Pure survival instinct won out over the pride that Happosai had of being the grandmaster of his art, and he tried to choke out "I give," but no sound came from his mouth, only a slight gurgling, and a hacking cough as he tried to breathe again. Happosai watched in horror as Ranma held his hands in front of his chest, and summoned a massive ball of ki, swirling with enough raw power as to make the very air crackle. Then, as Ranma lifted it up over his head in a two-handed grip to throw it at him, he knew nothing but darkness.

Akane drove herself between her father and Cologne, intent on stopping Ranma from killing Happosai as she watched him throw the one-handed ball of ki into the ancient man's stomach from over his head. She broke through them, and ran as fast as she could for the discarded and forgotten blindfold. She scooped it up from the ground, and ran as fast as she could towards her fiancée, momentarily awestruck at the second ball he was now holding, the size of a basketball, and looked so powerful that Akane thought that he had somehow managed to catch a ball of lightening. He brought it up over his head, clearly to deliver the final shot to kill Happosai. Akane realized that she was not fast enough to reach him in time to stop him, but ran for him anyway, hoping that somehow, something would slow him from killing Happosai, and thereby breaking Ranma's already damaged honor by having killed a second time in his life.

The urge to throw herself at him seemed to come from nowhere, overriding the original impulse to run up and try to slip the blindfold over his eyes. She dove for him, and for a moment, thought she felt someone push at her feet, giving her more speed as she crashed into Ranma's side, sending them both into koi pond. She felt her fiancée's waist shrink in her arms, and yanked the blindfold over Ranma's eyes as they both stood back up.

"Are you… normal, Ranma?"

"Yeah Akane, I'm fine," she replied. "I'm… I'm barely winded. Could you finish tying that on me?"

"Mm," was all Akane said as she secured the blindfold's ties. "C'mon, Ranma, let's get out of the water." But as they both pulled themselves from the pond, Akane wondered how on earth she ever got the idea to dive-tackle Ranma, and where that speed boost had come from. Neither she nor Ranma noticed the white rose floating in the water, which vanished from sight when they both were back on the ground.

Cologne pogo-sticked her way to the couple, and cast a speculative eye on Akane. "For someone who claims to hate 'the pervert,' you sure do take some insane risks for him."

Akane stuck her tongue out. "Even I know how much Ranma hates killing, you dried up voodoo doll." Akane yelped as the voodoo doll knocked her one over the head.

Cologne reached for Ranma's hand, then saw that the gloves had suffered a great many burn holes from the bombs, and pushed her walking stick into Ranma's palm instead. She raised it up high in the air and said:

"By way of full knock-out of his opponent, I present to you, Grandmaster of Anything Goes-Style of Martial Arts, Ranma Saotome!"

And what a fine catch you will be for the Amazon tribe, son-in-law!

Nodoka was, not surprisingly, crying. It can be said, however, that any tears previously shed over her son's 'manliness' were nothing compared to the flood that threatened to top anything Soun had ever accomplished, even at his worst.

It embarrassed the new Master of Anything Goes like you wouldn't believe.

"Aw, c'mon, mom. Stop it, please?" he asked for the fifth time.

And for the fifth time, his answer was, "SO MANLY!!" followed by many sobs and tears. At least this time, she managed to hand him a new set of gloves in place of his burned ones.

"Urgh," Ranma groaned, and slumped his head against the table. Mousse snorted.

"Some master, can't even handle his own mother."

"Go soak your tail feathers. When my mother can form sentences that don't involve the word 'manly,' come let me know."

"Where are you going, Ranma Saotome? I feel we have many things to discuss."

"Upstairs, ghoul, not that it's any of your business. Whatever it is, it can wait. Unless you want to shake hands on some sort of deal…"

Not missing the implied threat, Cologne narrowed her eyes. "I'll be waiting for you later, then."

As Ranma headed up the stairs, Kasumi intercepted him at the top step.

"Ranma-san?"

"Yeah, Kasumi?" Ranma-san? What happened to Ranma-kun?

"I just wanted to… to… apologize for… my actions in the dojo."

Eh? I thought we got passed this… "It's ok, Kasumi-san. Don't worry about it." For some odd reason Ranma couldn't figure out, Kasumi blushed the moment he said –san.

"I know we… discussed it, but I thought… I mean, it's not proper… I, um, someone of your… um, title, and…"

Understanding flashed through Ranma's sometimes-slow brain. Oh, ok, I get it… "Kasumi-san?"

"Yes, Ranma-san?"

"Hey, just because I have the title, doesn't mean I want ya to go and start doing all the bowing and scraping and stuff that some people do! I mean, if I'm teaching class or something else martial arts, that's one thing, but the rest of the time, it's still just me, ok?"

Kasumi seemed to brighten and straighten up. "H-hai, Ranma…"

"-kun." It'd just be weird to hear Kasumi callin' me Ranma-san.

"Hai, Ranma-kun." Much relieved, Kasumi began to walk down the stairs to prep dinner.

"Hey, Kasumi?"

"Yes?"

"Could I get something to snack on in a couple of minutes? The fight left me kind of hungry."

"Of course. I'll have something waiting for you in a little bit, ok?"

"Thanks, sanjuu shunkan onna." (Literally translated: thirty second girl. If there are any syntax errors, it's because my Japanese sucks)

Kasumi giggled and blushed, but went on her way. On a whim, she asked Mousse to help her with dinner, on the condition that he would leave his contacts in to do so, and was quite happy when he agreed.

An hour later.

knock knock

"Come in."

The door opened.

"Oh, I thought it would be you."

"Yeah, it's me. Um, can I…?"

"Mm. Sit down."

The sound of cloth ruffling as someone sat down on the bed, and the owner of the bed joining them.

"I know what's bothering you, Ranma."

"Yeah, I thought you might."

"It was necessary."

"Yeah."

"And you did good."

"Yeah."

"I'm proud of you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"It's just…"

"I know. You almost killed him. I was there. I saw."

"Yeah."

"And you hate to kill."

"Yeah."

Silence.

"Ranma?"

"Yeah?"

"Come here."

More shifting cloth, and Ranma found himself in an embrace.

"Can you tell me something?"

"Sure, Ranma."

"Tell me it's not really me."

"I'm sorry?"

"When… when I took of the blindfold, it was just like when I was fighting Ryoga that night. I was… I was happy that I was hurting him. It thrilled me that I could kill him. And it was like… it was like it was the only thing I wanted in the world. All I wanted was him dead. Everyone fighting me was just in the way, and if they died because of it, I didn't care. And when I fought Happosai…"

"It was the same."

"Yeah."

"Any other martial artist would be just about bouncing off the ceiling at having won the title of Grandmaster of his art, you know."

"Yeah."

"And yet, here you are…"

"Moping about it."

"Yeah."

"Ain't that my line?"

"Yeah."

Silence.

"Ranma?"

"Yeah?"

"It's not you."

"It's not?"

"No. It's the potion, Ranma. If it was really you, you wouldn't be here right now. You'd be downstairs, celebrating. Or in the dojo, planning out your next move. Or you'd still in the tub, soaking, and just thinking about how things will be different now that you have control of the art. I know you were in there and you were upset over how you won the fight. It's not you, Ranma."

"… I'm not so sure."

"What do you mean?"

"I could have tried to fight him without the blindfold first. I could have tried, and if I couldn't do it, then I could have pulled it off. Instead, it was the first thing I did, and I knew what it would be like."

"No, Ranma. I know you better than that. You're lying to yourself. You and I both know that you could be twice as powerful, and not have beaten Happosai blindfolded. You only did what you had to in order to win, nothing more. And you know that you would have been stopped, or at least distracted long enough for him to get away, so that you could go back to 'normal.' That was proven when you were blindsided and knocked into the pond."

Silence.

"Thank you." It was barely a whisper, but it was still there.

"Ranma?"

"…"

"Ranma?"

"…"

"Ranma, are you…?"

"No," sniff "'course not, Pops said-"

"IF YOU SAY THAT YOUR FATHER SAID IT'S NOT MANLY TO CRY, THEN I SHALL HAVE A PANDA-SKIN RUG DECORATING MY FLOOR BY TONIGHT!! ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE LISTENING TO HIM STILL!!"

Silence.

"Thank you." Barely a whisper.

"For what."

"Everything. Listening, and all. Making me see that I was wrong."

"You're welcome, Ranma."

Silence.

"YOU'RE SO MANLY!!"

"AW, JEEZ, NOT THAT!!"

"MANLY!! HE'S SO VERY MANLY!!"

"CUT IT OUT, PLEASE!!"

"MANLY!!" sob "MANLY, MANLY, MANLY!!"

"STOP IT, I CAN'T TAKE IT!!"

Giggles. "Sorry, Ranma, I couldn't resist."

"You're going off the deep end, you know that, Akane?"

"Yeah, I know. I love you, don't I?"

"Tomboy."

"Baka."

Silence.

"Ranma?"

"Yeah?"

"Say it."

"Say what?"

"…"

"I love you too, Akane."

A/N

For the long time between the last chapter and this, I must apologize yet again. I have found the cause of my writer's block. It's not that I can't think of what to write, it's that I'm constantly coming up with ideas for all the other fanfics I'm planning to write, and I can't make them go away. A lot of them are downright funny. I'm not telling, but one involves an insane Harry Potter, an angry Dumbledore, one locked door, one white ferret, the DA group, and 30 singing rats.

In addition, I want to thank a person unknown to me, but whose name I know is Elizabeth Kirkindall, for her AMV (Anime Music Video) to LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out" because watching it helped inspire the fight scene. Also, for those of you out there who either watch the fanfic list page or have me on your author alert list because you want to see when I update, you should take a nice five or ten seconds in your next reviews to add an additional line to thank LunaticChic88, whose review was what finally got me moving on chapter 18 (no matter how appallingly short it might be). I just left it in my inbox, and whenever I felt writer's block standing in my way, I'd just reread it, and keep going.

Gobstopper,

The following review has been submitted to: Ranma's Morning Confession Chapter: 17

From: LunaticChic88 ( )

this is possibly- no-it IS the best Ranma fic i've read in a long time. i almost cried at the end of this chapter, cause there's nothing left to read. so, on that note, i just wanna say, update, update, UPDATE!

Thank you very much for the compliment LunaticChic88 (blushes slightly), but while I admit that I like my own story, I don't think that it's that good.