A/N: Slightly off topic but... I was happy to discover that I'm not the slowest author to update here. What a relief. But okay, down to business. Last time, I was asked very politely to incorporate more "fluff". You are absolutely right... this is a romance story, after all. I would have done it sooner but... I suck at that kind of stuff. Why, then, would I write such a story? You got me. I have no idea. So here's my version. I didn't really like how it turned out, but... whatever.

I got a review from a history fanatic last chapter. Thank you for giving it a shot (if you're still following my updates). I was kind of offended when they questioned my knowledge of japanese detention camps. There actually were plenty of Japanese-Americans involved as soldiers during WWII. They were known as the 100th Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT). They won assorted awards for their courage and loyalty inside and outside of battle. As for any Japanese-Americans being generals... The history fan was absolutely correct. There is no way they would have had someone like Genma as a general, but... that's why it's called fan fiction. I hate to risk angering anyone but I don't think I need to take an "f-ing history class" to know that fiction means that the story is, well, NOT REAL. Now that that has been said, on with the show!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Ranma ½. I wouldn't dream of selling a story like mine for any profit whatsoever, and I hope Rumiko Takahashi would forgive me for butchering her creativity.

Chapter 8: The Man Can't Hold His Liquor

"I distrust a man who says 'when'. If he's got to be careful not to
drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does."

Sydney Greentreet, "The Maltese Falcon"

It had been... it had been a long time. Almost six months now, since they first arrived at their designated shacks. Akane had made a habit of waking up early each morning and watching the sunrise. She would sit quietly on the ratty porch outside their homely little rut in the dirt, breathing contentedly, sometimes humming. Occasionally, Ranma - er... Mr. Soatome - would appear to keep her company.Now, as Akane sat before the golden expanse of nature's masterpiece, her thoughts were in turmoil.

Nabiki would have her eighteenth birthday this coming week, and Akane desperately wanted to do something special for her. Ever since the tragic loss of their dearly departed father, Nabiki had become even more distant with her two suffering sisters. She spoke less often, her responses were cut short, almost snappish, and her facade remained a frozen mask of ice and steel. Her gaze left frost nipping at your stomach, and she was seldom approached by any of the other internees. Akane could say one thing to her sister's credit though, and that was her ability to make even the officers soil their uniforms under her vigil glare.

Kasumi, on the other hand, had become more concerned with the community as each day passed. She had already organized a small community of victims under her wing. They worked days and evenings to furnish each other's homes with makeshift tables and chairs, doctor the ill, and continue the teachings of American pride to the youngest of the prisoners.

Amazingly, through all of their trials and tribulations, these loyal citizens kept their faith in the United States. Things couldn't go on like this much longer. The Government would have to realize eventually that their wasn't anyone here willing to destroy the future they had in this foreign place - for themselves, let alone their future generations. And Akane admired them for that.

"Hey there, tomboy. Watching the sunrise again, hm?" A familiar voice drifted across the silence to fill Akane's ears. She grinned stupidly as a familiar giddiness overtook her senses at his nearness. Ranma hopped down from whatever absurd position he had been in moments before, and perched himself several feet off from her, balancing easily on the unstable railing connected to the rotting wooden stairs she sat on.

"Yeah." She said simply, her voice barely above a sweet whisper. Her former thoughts bombarded her in a rush, and nervousness replaced the warmth bubbling in her chest. She ripped her gaze from the mellowing fire in the sky, and set her intent doe-like eyes upon the young soldier before her. His hair was pulled back into a familiar braided pigtail. He wore faded cloth pants that were ragged from use, and his formerly white t-shirt had been stained an unflattering brown hue. Just where the loose fitting shirt came to tuck into his pant waist, a band of white peaked through, as the only unstained area of this monstrous shirt. His face was pale with the exception of the rosy patches of color blotting his cheeks. A thin sheet of sweat glistened on his forehead in the morning light. She figured he had been training before he made his appearance.

"...Ranma?" He jumped slightly. She wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't been studying the way he moved for the last six months. It was very subtle, a twitch at most, but she loved when she could catch him off-guard. He looked directly into her smoldering chocolate eyes, now a muddled mess of emotions. She kept her gaze timid as she wrung her idle hands viscously and without pause.

"Can I ask you a big favor?" His gaze darkened. He looked uncertain for a moment, debating wether to trust his mouth or not, should he decide to answer. He replied hesitantly, carefully.

"It depends... what is it?" He remained cautious as she sputtered a bit before whispering to him, as if she were afraid someone might overhear.

"It... it's my sister's birthday next week. She's been so uptight... I really wanted to do something special... something to make her smile. I know it's contraband, but can you... get me a camera?" She cringed at the concealed anger on Ranma's face.

"Are you insane? I told you already, even minute things like that could end up getting me kicked out of this place for good! It'd be a mercy if they sent me to jail until the war was over!" Akane watched her dirty feet as Ranma responded in a barely restrained voice.

"But, Ranma - it's only a little thing! It would mean so much to her..." Ranma shook his head resolutely, standing up and taking the steps three at a time. He replied in a final tone, "Absolutely not. I won't take the risk, even for you."

"Fine! I'll get one myself somehow! I don't need any help from you!" She huffed, her voice rising in anger. She could get one on her own somehow. There had to be someone in the camp that had a camera. She'd get one somehow.

"Fine! You do that, and don't come crying to me when someone finds out and you get yer damn ass whipped. You can't say I didn't warn you." His brow crinkled as his frustrations surfaced, his smoky eyes clouded with worry, and his chapped and chafed lips curved slightly downward. The only girl he really cared about in this camp was just about to put herself at risk, and there was absolutely nothing he could do besides sacrifice his own reputation and honor to stop her.

"Fine!" She shouted back, unaware of the violent scuffle his thoughts were in. She gave him one last, lingering look of childish hate and disappointment, before fleeing into the relative safety of the shack she shared with her two elder sisters.

"So... You know someone who can get me one?" Akane asked eagerly. The elderly internee nodded. Her crisply tanned face and arms almost entirely hid the dark splotches of black and brown dotting her skin that had developed through the numerous years she spent working in the fields. Her frail hands trembled with delicacy as her mouth turned up in a mass of distorted wrinkles - something Akane assumed to be a smile. Her eyes were nearly overcome with the sagging bags that were once her eyelids, and her stringy pepper-colored hair was twisted into a tight, neat, knot on top of her flat head.

"My neighbor back home is such a dear. A sweet young man. He's an artist - a photographer... it would be no problem at all. He'd even send over some film for free." she rasped slowly, torturing Akane in her haste.

"That would be wonderful, Mrs. Yasuo! Here, I can even give you the money now." She responded as soon as the old lady had finished. She pulled several bills out of her pocket, pushing them into her tiny withered hands. Akane smiled encouragingly as the old woman shuffled back into the confines of her shack, several small children giggling in a rowdy game of cat and mouse on the front steps.

"I'll do it without that jerk. I don't need him anyway." She mumbled darkly to herself as she walked down the dusty paths of the "prisoner's quarters", as was the popular name among refugees. To one side, Akane saw a young woman dressed in a ratty green dress and a dirty apron tied about her waist. Her hair was pulled into a long braid that reached down her spine like a silky black snake. She nodded a pleasant hello as she continued hanging laundry on a line reaching across the side of the shack. A man came up behind her and gave her a quick embrace and peck on the cheek before heading down the road, away from Akane. For some reason unbeknownst to Akane, that kind of intimacy made her stomach clench in a depressed sort of jealousy.

The young girl with the tabby cat that had ridden in the truck with Akane before this whole ordeal began was there as well. She sat quietly on the ground before a small wooden cross - a makeshift grave marker. Below the cross, the child wrote the name "Mitty" over and over again in the cracking dust, and placed what looked like an old gathering of yarn before the grave site.

Akane passed on. She came across a young man, no older than 19, cradling a delicate infant to his bosom protectively. She caught bits of an old lullaby, drifting across the hot still air to her waiting ears. On the porch sat a decrepit man, hunched over haphazardly in an old chair. His face was weary. Before him on the porch step sat a young girl, her face upturned to his, searching it worriedly as his chest began to shake with violent coughing before her. She clutched his hand, smiling encouragingly, "You're okay, Grandpa." Akane heard her soothe.

So many people, so many ages... how could a child possibly be responsible for treason in the U.S.A.? How could they treat American citizens like traitors? Infants who took their first breath in the confines of a homely shack under imprisonment by the government... people who took their last breath in those same lowly shacks, never to see the day they would be freed from this unjust confinement. But their courage and loyalty was admirable, and it brought the sting of tears to Akane's eyes to know that she was not alone here. At first she thought Ranma had understood her. Understood all of them, but... he was nothing more than a coward - a sniveling government lackey. And Akane had finally come to see that.

Ranma scrubbed his face viciously with his calloused palms and fingers. He shook his head from side to side, immediately regretting it afterward when his vision continued shaking long after his head had stopped. He groaned, and beside him, one of his buddies slapped him heartily on the back, chuckling mildly. Ranma groaned, " I t'ink I... drank... too much, fellas." He chuckled at nothing in particular.

"I... feel lick'... shit... already." He stuttered, hanging his head in defeat. Ryoga laughed loudly, jumping to his feet, stumbling to the side, and straightening himself up again. He slurred exuberantly, "No such... thing, Ranma boy!" The point of this little celebration was to welcome the new foreign female officer - an unheard of occurrence. Unfortunately, Ranma was never very good at holding his liquor - nor was he any good at regulating how much he drank. So now he was up a creak, and he dreaded what he would experience the following morning.

Those worries were quickly swept away, however, with the pleasant buzz that accompanies drinking. The only thing on his intoxicated mind was the cool, fresh, air, and the sweet smell of a certain spunky young female internee. Her pleasant scent filled his nostrils every time he inhaled, and when he closed his weary eyes, her beautiful face was plastered before his mind's eye. He was hallucinating - seeing, tasting, hearing, smelling - nothing but Akane.

At each passing moment, he became more and more antsy, his fingers twitching for her soft, pale, skin. He wanted to hear the natural melody of her voice, and the alcohol was just what he had needed to boost his courage, as well as do away with sanity and complete disregard for the law.

As his officers continued their bellowing sing-alongs and hearty laughter, Ranma stood, stumbling outside, leaving the raving mass of men behind as he followed the nagging feeling in his gut. He headed, slowly but surely toward the rows and rows of shacks, groaning and grumbling as the world around him spun. He chuckled. For a moment, he almost thought he had seen something peculiar. Something ridiculous. He chuckled again, figuring it to be only his intoxicated thoughts playing tricks on him, until he heard whimpering, and the stone-cold voice of the girl he couldn't stop thinking about.

It was some time around midnight. The moon was out, a crescent slice of shimmer, casting weak rays of silver upon the dormant camp. All of the occupants had long since gone to bed, for it was a known rule-of-thumb around camp that you shouldn't be out past ten. Besides the soldiers, who liked to give their charges a curfew, there were several less-than upstanding citizens that waited around in the shadows for a stray internee to scare, abuse, and even rape.

Not every Japanese-American that was sent to the camps was as innocent as others. After all, they were human too, and every human has a darker side that needs to be satisfied occasionally. These shadow-stalkers were normally young, indifferent, and in some cases, profoundly dangerous. Their was nothing the soldiers could do about them... they could never catch them. But Akane had every confidence in her abilities, and she wasn't easily frightened off by rumors of cowardly slime balls. So she decided to take a quiet stroll.

Part of her was hoping she would come across a villain or two. She was still carrying around a bucket full of frustrations, and she needed to take them out on something before her emotions got the best of her. She had been doing her best not to cry ever since her father's death, for the sake of her sisters. It wouldn't do for her to let the nasty attitude of one boy drive her over the edge.

Akane had been walking for some time now. When she looked up, the housing around her was unfamiliar, and the chilled breeze had begun to pick up. She hugged her slim arms to her, pulling the scruffy edges of her sleeves over her numbed hands, and shivering as goose bumps ran up the length of her stocking-clad legs.

She began walking at a slow, uneven pace, doing her best to identify what part of the camp she was in, but the shadows made everything around her appear so different. She was utterly, and hopelessly lost. Just as a welling feeling of panic bloomed in her chest, she barely caught the chilling sound of laughter. Her breathing stopped for a moment, as her ears strained to listen. Had she only imagined it?

"Lost, babe?" A sardonic whisper behind her. She whirled toward the direction of the voice, only to catch a glint of blurred metal. A man, half covered in shadow, stepped toward her tauntingly, a gun evident in his red and ruddy fingers. He was relatively young, somewhere in his late teens or early twenties. He wore a ratty baseball cap which served to conceal his vicious face behind shadow. She could only make out the whites of his eyes and a smug smile which twitched on his lips.

In a second he was behind her, pressing the stolen gun to the back of her neck. She barely had time to wonder how he had gotten in back of her so swiftly. He gently lifted a strand of her hair just above her ear, whispering soothingly, "I can make your worries go away. Just say the word and..." Akane shivered as his hot breath invaded her ear. He smelt like fish and oil.

"Don't..." She began, surprising herself with her own swiftness as she twisted the arm in which he held the gun, so that it was behind him while she kicked his wavering feet out from under him. They landed roughly on the ground, Akane on top of him with her knee pressed firmly into his spine. "...Fuck with me asshole." She let out her breath in a sigh of relief when she had safely gotten the gun out of his grasp. His hand was twisted behind his back in such an unusual direction that Akane was almost positive it was broken.

He let out a short yelping laugh that was somewhere between pain and amusement. She was thrown by surprise as he lurched his body to the side, sending Akane sprawling. The gun skidded away into the shadows as he climbed on top of Akane, who lay groaning on the floor.

"You're one tough bitch, aren't you? I love that in a woman." He leered as he pinned her arms to the ground. Akane lay still, frightened and unable to move. As he grasped both her wrists with one large hand, she squeezed her eyes closed in a short moment of panicked prayer. His hand wandered to the opening of her jacket. As he began to unzip it with a slow, taunting rhythm, Akane's eye's flew open, she growled menacingly, flailing madly and screaming bloody murder. During all the excitement, one of her legs slipped free of his weight, and she brought it up as hard as she could into her captor's groin. He hissed in pain, collapsing on top of her in discomfort.

Quickly, Akane pushed him off, barely shaking his hand free as he weakly attempted to hold her ankle. She raced into the shadows, groping for the stolen gun. It looked like one of the ones the soldiers used. Ranma always had one, but he had told her he hated using them. She found it immediately, and she slipped to her feet, kicking up pebbles as she broke into a sprint in the opposite direction.

She had finally reached a familiar part of the camp when she heard a disturbing sound coming from behind a shack. She followed it to find an eerily familiar sight. A shadowy figure hovered over a young girl. A flip-knife glittered in the moonlight, pressed against the back of her delicately throbbing neck, her corse brunette hair slick with sweat. She was crying, whimpering pitifully as her abuser's hands roamed her body. She let out a muffled scream and tried to shake him off, only to receive a sharp slap to the face. The first thought that entered Akane's shaken mind was, how many of these bastards were there?

It was more than just a coincidence... there was a connection somewhere. The girl abruptly stopped whimpering as she caught sight of Akane standing under the dim light of the moon. Her eyes turned wild for a moment... she pleaded, "Please, help me... please." Her attacker turned abruptly, one hand firmly gripping her arm. He spotted Akane in the same shocked position, and tossed the younger girl aside. She hesitated only a moment, giving Akane a gaze half frightened, half apologetic. The next moment she was on her feet, fleeing just as Akane had from her captor an hour ago.

"You couldn't possibly be that girl..." His voice trailed off and he smiled. He nodded to himself, "Your prettier than I thought." Akane remained unmoved while her instincts screamed at her to run. He wore a stocking over his head, where only his swollen lips and maniacal gaze were visible. There was something vaguely familiar about this boy, who was even younger than the man she had faced just a while ago.

"D-don't come near me." She cringed at the way her voice broke. She lifted her trembling hands and her foot slid back into a strained fighting stance. How much could one possibly take? It was miraculous she hadn't completely lost her wits already. It was almost as though... as though God had it in for her. Had she done something wrong? Did she do something to deserve this chain of misfortune? She couldn't answer any of these questions, and the more she thought of it, the more sorry she felt for herself.

"Yes, you are quite the little troublemaker, if the rumors are accurate." He was still speaking to himself, though he addressed Akane and looked directly at her. Or was he looking past her? She really couldn't tell. Without much effort, he was before her with his hand encircling Akane's wrist before she could utter a properly vulgar profanity. She gasped out in surprise at his speed, something that seemed to be a common trait amongst these villains. Unlike her previous captor, this man was eager to begin his dirty work. He shoved her against the wall of a molding shack, pinning her there by one rough and ruddy hand, and brought his face to hover just before hers.

Akane threw her weight back and forth, but the air in her lungs was limited - struggling only made her breathe harder. The man's eyes gleamed with viscousness as he clenched her wrists above her head. His hand was so large it could easily pin her two slim arms against each other. She wanted to scream - even went so far as to part her lips in anticipation - but the sliver of pleasure that shone in his dark eyes stifled her immediately. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. As her eyes clenched in terror, her thoughts reached one instinctive conclusion.

"Ranma!" She called into the otherwise deserted darkness. It donned on her that, despite her former high opinion and pride in being independent, there was one person that she could not live without. One person whom she held complete faith in, one man whom she called out to in her most hopeless and helpless times. But he was elsewhere, on the opposite side of camp, most likely not even thinking about the rat of a girl whom he had saved continuously in the past. The jerk didn't understand how much his kindness had meant to her in her depression.

But this train of thought dispersed into a feeling of utter hopelessness as another shadow made itself known. A dark frame lingering in the shadows. Her thoughts strayed to the man she had encountered earlier. If it was indeed him, Akane would have to subject to whatever it was they had in store for her. She couldn't compete with two of them.

Her captor picked her up before slamming her head back against the wall once more. "Pay attention, bitch!" Akane abruptly brought her gaze to his own darkened one. Her head throbbed in protest, but there was nothing she could do to free herself now. Feeling completely helpless, she could do nothing save spat in his face contemptuously. So she did just that, only to receive a sharp slap across her already abused face.

At the exact moment his hand made contact with Akane's face, the man dwelling in the shadows had come up behind the rapist's back, grabbing her captor's collar and simultaneously shoving the villain's disguised face into the knee of his brown pants. The masked man fell to the floor, grabbing at his face as her savior sent another kick into the coward's side. The man rolled several feet before cursing and racing into the shadows, a stream of maniacal laughter echoing all around the pair as Akane gasped for air.

"I thought you could take care of yourself." Came the slurred remark from the man who had just saved her virginity, and possibly her life. Akane's hand dropped from her throat and her gaze shot up toward the face of the man. There before her stood Ranma in all of his drunken glory. He was a mess - a confusion of violent fury, fear, relief, worry, and a glazed distant emotion which Akane could not easily read. For a long time they stood there. Neither moving, Ranma watching her with that mysterious glazed concentration as Akane struggled to keep her self from an emotional breakdown. Her knees shook with anxiety and tear tracks covered her dusty cheeks. Her eyes were red and her blouse was partially unbuttoned. The edge of her skirt was dipped in mud and sporting several tears.

"I-" Akane began as Ranma lifted his gaze to her. She swallowed hard, the knot in her throat causing fresh tears to burn hot in her eyes.

"I was so close to giving up... I felt like... like... there was no reason for me to struggle anymore ." Ranma's face screwed into an expression of anguish, or... Akane didn't know. His eyebrows knitted, his eyes turned to brilliant blue slits as they became glassy, and his lips parted ever-so-slightly. It only served to make Akane sob harder. She wavered on her feet, her strength draining out of her as her legs shook uselessly underneath her. She felt her legs give under her increasing weight. She could no longer hold herself up as she began to sink to the floor, her legs placed precariously about her, knees outward. Her eyes leaked tears and she watched the ground where her fingertips twitched.

Ranma was quiet as he made his way toward her. Wordlessly, hardly breathing, He crouched down beside her and placed one hand behind the back of her neck. She felt a shiver run down her spine at the warmth of his calloused hand. So much different from that other man. His hands weren't warm like Ranma's. Ranma's hands were... soft. Easy. Warm.

She swallowed her sobs, her head bending obediently to rest against his chest. Her breathing slowed until it was in tune with the steady beating of his heart. She brought her trembling hands up to clench the fabric of his shirt, and Ranma placed his other hand gently against her back, trailing his fingers up and down along her spine in a calming, hypnotic motion. Akane sat motionless, her body curving to press up against his warmth, inhaling deeply his sweet aroma of sweat and man, slightly altered by alcohol.

Here they sat for a moment, maybe minutes, maybe hours. After quite a long time, Ranma pulled away, reluctant to leave her delicate embrace, but more reluctant still to remain. He wanted nothing more than to be there with her constantly. He couldn't quite explain it... he just wanted to make sure he would always be there to protect her, hold her... just be there with her. It was enough to just look at her, listen to the soft whisper of her breathing, match his own breathing with the rhythm of her heartbeat. But these ... feelings just weren't possible. This was a war... not highschool. He threw that stage of his life away when he agreed to join his father.

"Ranma, you -" But she stopped, seeing the regret written on his features. This wasn't right. They both knew that whatever it was they were feeling wasn't supposed to be. But it just felt so... right. Akane stepped back against the wall she had been trapped against moments before. Her eyes clouded momentarily, until she lifted her gaze to his. Once again... there was a passion there in the depths of his beautiful blue eyes that she could not decipher. They held this unspeakable gaze for several moments until Ranma, yet again, took Akane by complete surprise. His expression clouded, he strode up to Akane forcefully, slamming one strong fist against the already abused shack behind her, and bent his head to hover just before hers. She looked into his eyes, noticing instantly their breathtaking ocean hue. Or... maybe not. Not the ocean, not the sky. The color of the rain clouds just before a storm. The shade clean cement turns once its been doused with a hose.

"Akane." He exhaled, and she shivered as his hot breath caressed her lips. Her eyes fluttered closed as he leaned into her... she felt a delicate kiss upon her forehead. As she opened her eyes in surprise, She discovered a jacket flung about her shoulders, and the stiff form of Ranma's back as he willed himself back to the soldier's quarters.