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The characters of the Ranma 1/2 universe are the creation and possession of the brilliant Rumiko Takahashi. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and her licensees (Shogakukan Inc., Kitty-Fuji TV, Viz Communications Inc.)

No copyright infringement is intended.

Akane grabbed hold of the boy's arm with a vice-like grip and yanked downward until she felt the sickening crack of bone.

The awful-awful wail died away leaving behind a terrible empty silence.

Everything faded to the background as the petite feminine figure collapsed bonelessly into her arms. It took Akane a moment to register her burden.

Cold. The body in her arms was very cold.

"Wake up," she whispered. "Please wake up."

There was no response.

Gently, she laid the unresponsive girl upon the ground. When Akane pulled away, she found something wet and sticky covering her hands. It was too dark to make out the color, but the unmistakable smell assaulted her senses: blood.

A great emptiness flooded her soul: no thought, no feeling, nothing.

All around her voices laughed, mocked, and sneered. Dark primal shapes circled, slowing spiraling inward like a pack of wild animals.

Stoically, Akane stood up and faced the circling mob. This wasn't the Furinkan school yard, this wasn't a group of horny idiots engaging in a never ending battle, and she was no longer that same doe-eyed girl. Cold fire coursed through her veins, yet she felt strangely distanced from herself. The world encompassing her tarried; like a movie running in slow speed.

The coppery tinge hung in the air, calling to the emptiness within her. No thought.

A feral smile spread across her face. No feeling.

Akane lifted her right arm lazily, palm down, until it was level before her. Her fingers curved naturally downward cupping a bright golden-red light that danced alluringly in her palm like fire in zero gravity.

There was a moment of silence, one last moment of peace. Nothing.

"Tenbatsu," Akane whispered powerfully into the night, releasing her 'Heaven's Wrath.' With a simple flick of her wrist the fight had begun.

'Two," Akane stated next in a dead voice, as her fist planted someone into a tree.

"Three" was a foot planted in the abdomen of another behind her.

"Tenbatsu" took care of the fourth, and so forth.

Akane's voice never reached the screams she was well known for. The entirety of her fear and anger was solely directed through her attacks. Punches, kicks, and living fire each delivered with the force of a jackhammer. Each hit punctuated with a face, some cast in shadow others grotesquely illuminated masks of pain and fear.

Akane's eyes sprung open. Faces of people she didn't know fell away to the darkness of her room. She wanted to panic, but the numbness she felt in her dream was only now beginning to fade. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, though the emotions behind them felt distant.

Ranma was alive! Ranma had a child! Ranma loved her! Ranma had been...!

Akane clutched her head as she fought against the emotional whiplash.

Slowly, after nearly passing out from holding her breath, she regained herself.

Sitting up, Akane took a few deep breaths. Her lungs burned while the room slowly spun. She raised a fist high above her, needing to punch - to hit something.

As she cast wildly about for something to vent upon, her tightly balled fist caught her attention. A memory from her dream flashed in her mind's eye.

She looked at her hand, poised to lash out. Looking at it like she had never noticed it before, she brought it gently down to her lap. Other thought and emotions began swirling around her still aching head. Memories of defending herself and of striking out flashed before her.

Picking one, she bowled both of her hands, as she had seen Ranma do countless times. Akane tried to will the light from her dream into existence.

Nothing happened.

After several more seconds of trying, she gave up.

'It was just a dream,' Akane thought with a mix of relief and disappointment. She could not remember much from that night, but she was not ready to deal with it either. She may have liked the thought of knowing a ki-attack, like Ranma; but, she was very afraid of the Akane in her dream.

'Two thirty-seven in the morning,' she thought with a glance at her clock. Slipping from her bed, she decided she needed a quick wash.

Downstairs, she found the furo empty, so she decided to make due with just a cold wash and rinse.

Akane was glad the day was over. It was, in her opinion, the worst day ever, and nothing even happened.

Sayuri, Yuka, and she were not speaking with each other. She couldn't deal with Sayuri, nor did she know where she stood with Yuka. While she gained a lot of respect from the other girls since her engagement to Ranma ended the morning beatings, she wasn't able to forget the animosity of the other girls during her ordeal. She forgave them, but only Yuka and Sayuri had earned the right to be called friends. Now even that seemed to be falling apart. She felt lost and just didn't know what to do.

At lunch, Ranma ran off with Hiroshi and Daisuke. She saw them later with Yuka and Ukyou having okonomiyaki like everything was normal. She didn't know which was worse, that Ranma could ignore everything that happened and act normal or, that to him, it might just be normal.

Ranma and she may have admitted their feelings, but that didn't mean they suddenly knew how to deal with each other. She loved him and he loved her, but just what did that mean? Would he really leave her if his father came back? What about Himiko?

An uncomfortable feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Something was coming, and she was not going to like it.

= = = = = = = = = =

Light from the kitchen and soft murmuring attracted Akane's attention on her way back from the furo. Puzzled, she decided to take a quick peek to see who else was up at this time of night.

Inside the kitchen, Kasumi sat in a chair slumped over the kitchen table. Ranma-chan stood behind her, shirt open, holding Himiko against a bare breast.

"Ranma?" Akane said tentatively.

"Uh, it's not what it looks like," Ranma-chan sputtered quickly. "I can explain, really!"

"It looks like your breast-feeding Himiko," Akane answered, still not quiet believing what she was seeing.

"Oh," Ranma replied uncomfortable. "I, um, guess it sorta is what it looks like then," she finished sheepishly.

"How...," Akane trailed off, not knowing how, or even what, to ask.

Ranma rolled her eyes.

"Well, ya see, when a person has a baby...," Ranma began.

"I understand that part!" Akane interrupted.

Both teens froze as Kasumi moved a little and mumbled something at Akane's outburst. After that, she settled back down, still asleep.

"Usually, changin' several times a day kinda messes it all up," Ranma explained quietly. "But over a week, it can sometimes add up, I guess" Ranma trailed off, obviously embarrassed about the topic.

Akane, equally embarrassed, just nodded.

"Anyways, spendin' the last two nights as a girl really got me full," Ranma said. Her face looked almost sunburned by the time she finished.

Akane winced at Ranma's explanation, then blushed as she remembered where Ranma spent those nights. She was finding whole knew levels of confusion regarding her emotions and her pig-tailed iinazuke.

Akane stood in the doorway for a moment just staring as Ranma continued nursing. Part of her wondered if this is what Ranma did on those nights she found a certain futon empty.

With that thought, Akane decided to continue with her part of the tradition and grabbed a bowl from the cupboard.

"Is that rocky-road?" Ranma asked as Akane proceeded to fill her bowl.

"Yeah, why? You want some?" Akane asked as she glanced sideways at her nursing iinazuke.

"Please?" Ranma asked cutely.

Akane glanced fully over at the half-naked arms-full red-head trying to act sickenly cute. While Akane had no doubt the half-naked part would get Ranma offers for more than just an extra scoop of ice-cream, she didn't think the whole picture worked quite the way Ranma expected.

Looking back at her bowl, she added a few more scoops before packing the ice-cream away.

Akane picked up her bowl and spoon, ignoring the pouty look Ranma was giving her, and took her first agonizingly slow bite.

"Hey, that's no fair," Ranma complained, but with her arms full, there wasn't much she could do at the moment.

"Here you go, you big baby," Akane responded with a smile.

She held out the next bite for Ranma. She giggled a little at the combined astonished yet confused look on Ranma's face before the smaller girl gulped down the offered morsel.

"I just thought it'd be easier this way, rather than let yours melt while you took care of Himiko," Akane explained; though it sounded weak to her as she said it.

Ranma just nodded.

Once, Yuka described sharing one drink from two straws at the same time as an indirect kiss. Akane felt her face warm when she wondered what her friend would call this.

= = = = = = = = = =

Akane quietly shut the door to Kasumi's room then took a deep breath.

A pleasant warmth spread across her as she considered their brief role reversal. It was kind of nice taking care of her older sister for once.

Akane turned as Ranma-kun with Himiko topped the stairs. The sight of male Ranma holding Himiko gently in his arms sent all sorts of fluttery nameless feelings coursing through her being.

"So," Akane said, starting herself as much as Ranma.

"So," he repeated softly.

Himiko yawned, then grabbed a fist full of Ranma's shirt and giggled.

"You're going to sleep with Himiko?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Ranma cast his gaze down, breaking the momentary spell. Akane wavered in the middle of the hallway as an emotional battle began within her. Now the image of Ranma's male form standing at his room holding Himiko brought other less pleasant things to mind.

Thoughts of Genma returning to steal Ranma in the night combined with all the overpowering emotions elicited by her earlier dream. She wanted him to hold her and chase away the shadows in her heart. She needed to feel his warmth promising that he would be there in the morning.

However, the alternative was just as frightening. What would everyone think? Sure they had already spent two nights together, but that was different. What would he think of her? Could she even handle it? The fights may have ended long ago, but the emotional scars were still there. Months of fighting; listening to the boys talk about what they'd do to her once they won; boys imagining what she'd be like in bed; and watching helplessly as they traded her pictures and measurements took its toll on her soul. She knew Ranma was vastly different from the other boys at school, but it didn't help when she always caught him acting like a pervert.

Since Ranma entered her life, he made a point of making her feel weak and inferior. Afraid of the next time he might decide to slip back into her room without an invite. He was better than her at everything, and he made sure she knew that. She couldn't help at times but to wish he would just go away. Those times she knew she would be better off without him.

Then there was her dream and the memory of life before Ranma. It wasn't exactly a bowl of cherries either. A girl with no dreams, no thoughts of the future, without hope. She was alone and drowning, and no one noticed or cared. It was only a matter of time before she lost in the morning fights, and she had already planned not to live past that day. If by some dark miracle she survived this long, she knew her anger, hate, and fear would have consumed her. It was hard letting it go and she knew she still had a long way to go. She'd like to think she was a lot better than when a certain pigtailed boy appeared in her furo; her ancestors knew how trying Ranma could be. A life without him looked very bleak.

"Ra- Ranma?" Akane squeaked out.

"Uh, yeah?" Ranma replied, as he looked up from the floor.

"Uh, do you want to - that is, um," Akane said as she looked everywhere but Ranma.

Himiko gave a fussy cry breaking into Akane's stuttering. Ranma smiled to Himiko while making soft cooing noises.

As Akane walked down the hall toward the two, she realized this was the first time she'd seen Ranma interacting with Himiko as a boy. The warmth she felt earlier returned at the almost sacred sight before her.

"Do you want to sleep with me?"

Ranma's eyes nearly jumped out of his head while Akane's words caught up with her.

"No! I mean wouldn't you rather be in my bed than your... no that's not right, I mean Himiko... Um, yeah, Himiko... she's use to sleeping with Kasumi, in a bed. She probably might get fussy if... well you know," Akane said trailing off. She gave serious thought to crawling under her bed and just dying.

After a moments silence between the two, Akane took a step back toward her room.

"Uh, here you go," Ranma stated in a rush as he quickly crossed the distance between them.

Akane blinked, then found herself holding one small adorable little girl. Glancing quickly back at her iinazuke, she found him once again at his door.

"Ranma, wait!" Akane hissed as he opened his door only to disappear within before she could stop him.

Akane blinked slowly, as she was not quiet sure what just happened.

Himiko made some soft bubbling sound and grabbed hold of Akane's chin. Akane turned her attention back to the precious bundle in her arms.

Part of her couldn't help drawing parallels between just now and what would come to pass. Would she wake up one morning to find Ranma gone, leaving both of them.

She wanted to barge in there and drag him back out here, but after her faux pas she just wasn't strong enough to do that. So she quietly slipped into her room.

She cooed and giggled with Himiko as she approached her bed. She tried not to wonder at the lonely darkness that flooded her room while she pulled back the covers and gently set Himiko in the center.

Himiko, for her part, began to fuss once Akane pulled away.

"Now now, there's no need to fuss little one. I coming, don't worry," Akane said as she adjusted the covers for Himiko.

Just as Akane climbed up on the bed, someone knocked on her door. Akane rolled her eyes and turned toward the door.

"Akane?" Ranma-chan whispered as she poked her head through the doorway.

"Ranma?" Akane queried just as quietly back.

"Uh, what you said earlier," Ranma began as she slipped fully into Akane's room.

"Yes, Ranma," Akane returned as she scooted closer to Himiko.

"Did ya mean it, that it's okay, I mean."

"You're not planning to try anything perverted, are you?" Akane hissed out, before she could stop herself.

Ranma visibly winced in the shadows near Akane's door. A soft click and Ranma was again heading through the door.

"Ranma, wait!" Akane barked out as loudly as she dared.

When Ranma hesitated at the door she pushed on.

"I'm.... Look.... Please...." Akane stated as best as she could.

Ranma turned toward her, but his expression was lost in the darkness.

Himiko gave a half hearted cry, stealing Akane attention.

"There there, little one. Everything will be all right," Akane said in her cute voice.

She heard the door shut, but did not look up until she felt weight added to the bed.

At this distance she could plainly see the uncertainty and reluctance written across Ranma's face. She wanted to say something, but she could not find the words. There was just too much to say, and she was afraid one of them would invariably mess it up again.

In the end, she moved over so that Ranma had room to lay down such that Himiko was safely nestled between them.