Chapter 11

 

“That is because you were with the one who helped her trap me in this cave Tenma," The demon said as it lifted its huge paw and pointed at the now transformed Akane. "Or should I call you Ranma now?” the voice growled. All the blood in Ranma’s body seemed to freeze as the thing, a demon stepped into view. The only thought that came forth was, "Oh SHIT!"

"Oh kami" Ryoga whispered as he beheld the sight before him. The demon's body and features were somewhat catlike, the claws the creature sported were two feet long, and the tail had pointed barbed structures that oozed a green acidic substance. As the stuff struck the ground it left smoking craters. The most startling feature on the demon was its size. The thing was as big as a house. Ryoga swallowed nervously, reached for his battle umbrella
to prepare for the fight of his life.

Mu-Tsu and Shan-Pu gazed at the creature and started to pray in their native tongue. They remembered a tale told by their village elders of a demon lord that had almost destroyed the world. They remembered how it had almost annihilated the whole continent of China before it was banished back to the Realm of Demons, and this they remembered was before their time, before the time of the Amazon nation’s existence. Most of all, they remembered the tales told of the children who had disappeared and were never seen again. Marshaling their courage and suppressing their emotions, the two Amazon warriors readied themselves for a battle that they knew that it just might be a battle to the death. . .their death.

Ranma stood frozen as he gazed at the demon that stood before him. Then he glanced in the direction that the demon was pointing and gazed at Akane who was now transformed into a cat. Ranma gazed into her eyes trying to get a hint of recognition, anything that would let him know that she was conscious and in control of her actions. He tried to see if she still had a human personality and not that of a cat. Nothing but a faint glimmer existed within the depths of her eyes. Eyes that constantly flickered in color as an inner battle was being waged.

Ranma decided to help her by giving her some encouragement. "You can do it Akane! Its me Ranma! You can beat it!" he called to her as he reached out his shaking hand to coax her closer. Akane-cat gazed at his hand and took a hesitant step closer as she growled a warning for him not to make any sudden moves. Ranma turned his attention back towards the demon and yelled, "What did you do to her?"

"I have begun the first half of my revenge upon you and yours. The first half is already almost fully complete. When I release my control of the barrier on Akane’s mind after she kills your friends. She will slowly loose her humanity and become the cat that she is now. With her humanity gone I will be free to rule the Earth as I almost had done at the beginning of time. No one will oppose me after you are dead," the demon said darkly as it took a threatening step closer to Ranma and raised its clawed limb in preparation to decapitate the pig-tailed boy.

Akane-cat hissed threateningly at the demon, taking a step closer to Ranma as her instincts to protect made itself known. "Mate...in danger...must protect...Rannn..ma" she thought as she stepped in front of Ranma and crouched, bunching her muscles-ready at a moments notice to attack or defend.

"Ah. Now it seams the kitten has claws, but you are not going to break my hold on you so easily my pet." the demon said as it locked its gaze with Akane-cat's, entering her mind it took control once again. This happened in a split second, but didn't go unnoticed by the Nerima gang.

Akane-cat’s eyes flickered to red again and this time they didn’t change back. Relaxing from her defensive stance she turned around and faced her would be rescuers and roared a challenge before she charged. This time she headed straight for Ryoga and tried to disembowel him with one swipe of her paw. “Shit,” Ryoga said as he raised his battle umbrella and blocked it at the last instant. The force of the blow tumbled him to the ground. As Akane-cat soared over the lost boy, Ryoga used her forward momentum to his advantage and kicked her so that she tumbled end over end to smash against a boulder with enough force to knock out a bull. Unfortunately for Ryoga, Akane was no normal cat. She was partially a product of magic and therefore more resistant to damage.

“Ryoga! Are you ok man?” Ranma called to his friend as he watched them through the corner of his eye while still keeping most of his attention on the demon as it crouched in preparation to attack.

“I’m fine Ranma! But…what about Akane? I don’t want to hurt her!” Ryoga yelled back as he struggled to his feet.

“Ryoga, Akane is no longer in control of her body right now. It’s the Demon who has her in his control. We need to defeat the demon in order to free her, and when the demon is defeated, I think Akane will be able to change back,” Mu-Tsu said as he slowly made his way over to Akane as she stood back up on unsteady legs.

“Mu-Tsu is right. Shan-Pu think this only way to get kitchen destroyer back to old self. Ryoga go help Ranma take care of demon while Shan-Pu and Mu-Tsu try distract Akane-cat,” she said as she slowly circled to the other side of Akane.

“Ok Shan-Pu, got it,” Ryoga said as he inched over to Ranma’s side. As Ryoga got within five feet of the pig-tailed boy, he could hear the demon start to laugh as if it was amused by what they were saying.

“Waahahahahaha….You think that by defeating me that your friend will change back to a human?!” the demon roared as it bared its fangs in a parity of a smile. “If you defeat me and manage to banish or kill me, she will remain as she is now. She will be humanly conscious once again, but as time passes, she will loose herself and become more animal than human. There is only one way for her to change back and you!”-- the demon gloated as it turned its gaze towards the pig-tailed boy-“won’t be able to do it, since you can’t even admit it to yourself. Your fear and your denial work against you!”

“YOU ARE DEAD!” Ranma yelled in controlled anger as he powered up his ki. As his ki built in strength, the others could feel the wind start to pick up as well as a red aurora around his body. The demon wasn’t impressed by the display of power but it also didn’t give the pig-tailed boy enough time to fully power up. Snapping its tail around, the demon tried to impale Ranma on its poison spines. Ranma sensed the attack and jumped straight up to avoid its tail. At the height of his jump he released the built up ki in one massive blast. “MOKO TAKABISHA!” he yelled as the ki ball left his hands and raced towards its target. As it neared the demon’s position, the demon didn’t move or even blink as it casually lifted one massive paw and batted it away like a kitten would play with a ball of yarn.

“Feh! Is that all you’ve got human? You are just another weak human only fit to feed on. Oh well, I had hoped that you would let me have a little fun before I killed you,” the demon said in a disgusted tone of voice before it sucked in a breath of air and spat a glob of acid right at Ranma’s face.

Ryoga saw that Ranma couldn’t avoid whatever the demon spat at him because he was still coming down from his jump, so he opened his umbrella and threw it to intercept. Ranma noticed what the lost boy had done and smiled as he quickly tried to think of another way to defeat the demon. “Thanks Ryoga!” he yelled as he finally landed a few yards away.

“Don’t mention it!” Ryoga replied as he dodged to avoid a flying spike from the tail of the demon. Grabbing a few bandanas, Ryoga twirled them to build up enough speed while infusing them with his ki to make them sharp as knives. When they started to make a low buzzing sound, Ryoga knew they were ready, he threw them all at once. As they left his hand, the bandanas spread out to cover more ground but flew exactly where the lost boy wanted them to go. The demon dodged the first one but failed to avoid the other two and roared in pain as the bandanas cut into its flanks deep enough to draw blood and show the bone underneath the skin.

“You die first human!” the demon roared as it quickly turned towards Ryoga and swiped its paw across Ryoga’s stomach, sending the lost boy flying high into the air to disappear into the bushes. Ranma saw Ryoga get hit and go flying into the bushes. “Noooo! Ryoga!”

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They were trying to circle her, to trap her in-between them. But they wouldn't find their prey so easily caught the demon-controlled Akane-cat thought as it eyed the two humans as they neared. In one swift motion she scraped her paw along the ground, kicking up dirt to send it flying into the eyes of the one in white. Not pausing to see if her attack had any affected, she turned and tried to knock the legs out from the other one, the one that smelled like a female. Roaring in challenge, Akane-cat charged once again missing by centimeters, as Shan-Pu jumped out of the way.

"Arrrg!" Mu-Tsu yelled as the dirt hit its target. Luckily the male Amazon had been practicing blind fighting for quite some time since he knew that he couldn't always depend on his site. Reaching into his robes once again he pulled out a length of chain, coating the end liberally in sleeping powder. Raising his arm he twirled the chain and let it fly straight at Akane-cat hoping that it would hit its target without hurting her much. Mu-Tsu didn't want to kill Akane since she was a good friend but he wasn't against knocking her out.

Sensing danger from the other Amazon, Akane-cat leaped to the side as the chains passed through the spot where she had been and rebounded off of the boulder. This took Mu-Tsu by surprise as she slammed into him with enough force to stun. Mu-Tsu knew how to take hits, so he only lost a bit of air as they hit. But unfortunately the rebound of their two bodies flung him high up into the air. This left Akane-cat enough time to turn her attention back towards Shan-Pu.

Shan-Pu tensed her body; ready to attack or avoid anything that Akane could throw at her. Narrowing her eyes, she watched as Akane-cat stalked closer with a look in her eyes that said that this time she would kill. Shan-Pu flipped to avoid a claw swipe aimed at her belly. Then bringing her bonbori into play she slammed them down on the limb as it made another try to remove her innards.

Akane-cat hissed in anger as each attack missed its intended target. Then in pain as the bonbori hit hard enough to crack bone. Roaring once again Akane-cat feinted a claw swipe to make Shan-Pu leap into the air. As Shan-Pu leaped she realized a few seconds too late that it was a trick as she saw Akane-cat leap to meet her in the air with claws outstretched and mouth agape.

Seeing her death heading straight for her, Shan-Pu screamed out the only name she could think of. "Mu-Tsu!" Then Shan-Pu and Akane-cat collided in mid air. Claws raking one arm, teeth flashing as they reflected the moonlight, Akane-cat moved in for the killing bite as they soared through the air to slam into the ground. Rolling, each fought to be the victor. One fought to save her life while the other to kill. As they rolled to a stop Shan-Pu on the bottom, arms outstretched and grasping Akane-cat's neck to keep her deadly teeth away from her neck Shan-Pu began to panic as her wounded arm began to give out. Closer and closer Akane-cat's deadly teeth neared Shan-Pu's throat, her breath
hot as she opened her mouth wider to engulf the Amazon girl’s neck to end her life.

"M...MU-TSU!" Shan-Pu screamed once again only this time loud enough to reach the Amazon male and bring him back to consciousness. Shan-Pu felt the saliva drip onto her throat and lifted a leg to kick Akane-cat's underbelly hard enough to knock the breath out of her but apparently not enough to throw her off. Akane-cat roared in pain, then eyes narrowing in extreme anger she raised a hind paw to rake it down the amazons legs, but she was knocked off by a weighted chain that wrapped itself around her body as she rolled a few feet away. The chain was followed by a makeshift bomb, exploding the sleeping gas as Mu-Tsu threw it into her face, knocking her out cold.

"S...Shan-Pu! Are you all right? You’re bleeding! Here let me bandage that for you," Mu-Tsu said as he examined her wounds after checking to make sure that Akane was unconscious and no longer a threat.

"Shan-Pu fine Mu-Tsu, is only scratch. It will heal after great grandmother give salve so Shan-Pu no have scars," she said even as she held out her arm to be bandaged. "How you get Akane knocked out?" she asked the blind martial artist as he wrapped her arm.

"I used a sleeping gas bomb," Mu-Tsu replied as he tied off the end of the bandage and stood up. Turning one more time towards where Akane lay, Mu-Tsu said, "We better hurry and go help Ranma defeat that demon before Akane wakes up. If the demon isn't defeated by that time, we will have to watch our backs for two attackers instead of one."

Holding out his hand Mu-Tsu grasped her hand and helped her stand. "Shan-Pu thank you Mu-Tsu for saving Shan-Pu. We go now to help Ranma," she said as she stood and glanced towards the fight that raged on over by the cave. The amazon gasped as she saw Ryoga get hit and fly into the bushes. She didn't think that he was hurt too badly since she didn't see any blood splatter as he landed, but from the force of that one blow Shan-Pu knew that the lost boy was out of the fight. Getting Mu-Tsu's attention, she motioned for them to hurry and help Ranma. Nodding his head in understanding, Mu-Tsu took off in the direction of the fight with Shan-Pu two steps behind.

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Ranma watched in stunned horror as Ryoga, his longtime friend and rival got clawed across the stomach with enough force to sever a normal human in half. Ryoga had noticed the coming blow and managed to twist out of the way just a second before impact. Barely managing to avoid having his guts spilled all over the ground. Unfortunately for Ryoga the force of the blow knocked him into the air and out of site. Ranma saw all of this but had failed to see Ryoga twist a fraction of a hair away from the lethal claws, and having his guts spilled onto the forest floor. The pig-tailed boy watched, as Ryoga flew at an alarming rate of speed out of the clearing and disappear into the woods.

Assuming the worst had happened to his friend. Ranma turned his attention back to the threat standing in front of him. Growling low under his breath, Ranma glared at the demon as he assumed a ready stance. "First Akane, then Ukyo and now Ryoga! I'll kill you for what you've done!" he said as his voice rose a notch with every name he spoke until he was yelling at the demon. "You won't get away with this! I'll make sure of it!"

The demon turned his attention back towards the pig-tailed boy and casually lifted his paw to lick away the blood from his claws while feigning disinterest. As it finished cleaning its claws, the demon casually flexed its massive paw to display the nine-inch razor sharp weapon for Ranma's inspection. Glancing up from its ministrations the demon spoke in a disinterested tone of voice meant to fool the pig-tailed boy. "If you wish to defeat me, than come human, come try and kill me." Then taking a step closer towards Ranma, the demon crouched, tail lashing back and forth, ready to throw its poison spikes or acid from its appendage.

Narrowing its eyes the demon started to circle Ranma slowly. "I think you will find that I am not that easy to kill. For as you will be trying to free your friend, I on the other hand will be trying to kill you...I think I will toy with you a bit to make it more...interesting," the demon said just before it moved with blinding speed towards its target.

Ranma watched the demon, watched as every muscle in its body told of when the demon would spring to the attack. He had only seconds warning before the demon rushed him, for any other martial artist this wouldn't be enough time to get out of the way. But for a martial artist of Ranma's caliber, that split second's warning was enough for him to backflip out of the way.

Ranma remembered the damage that Ryoga had manage to inflict on the demon. Then he remembered his father’s vacuum blade attack. His father had sealed it away for a reason and Ranma knew that he had promised to never use this attack unless he was in extreme danger. “Sorry pop, I gotta use it now since the demon can be cut."

While in mid air, Ranma powered up his ki. "My ki blast didn’t do much damage to it but maybe if I combine my blast with the vacuum blades…” he muttered to himself as let lose one of his fathers vacuum blade attacks mixed with a new technique he had been working on after his battle with Saffron. This new technique of his enabled him to generate enough heat, heat hot enough to melt stone, to cover his ki blades.

"Flaming Sword Blast!" he yelled as he threw them towards the Demon. As the attack traveled towards its target, the demon noticed the blast and with the agility of a cat, managed to avoid it at the last second. As the Demon skidded to a halt, it snapped its tail around with enough force to send one of its poisoned spikes in Ranma's direction, while continuing to swing the tail in a wide arch spewing acid along the way. Ranma jumped straight up and threw another Flaming sword blast to incinerate the deadly projectiles. As his attention turned away for just a spilt second, the demon sprang from behind Ranma, swatting him with the force of a freight train traveling at one hundred miles an hour. The force of the blow sent him flying to smash into a boulder fifty yards away, knocking the breath from his lungs and stunning him for an instant.

As Ranma hit the boulder, a popping sound echoed throughout the clearing. The pain hit seconds after he regained his wits. Ranma could feel the fire that raced down his chest every time he took a breath. "This is not good," he thought to himself as he tried to stand up. Only to fall once again as pain shot throughout his torso and then from his shoulder as he tried to prevent himself from falling onto his face. "This is soo not good," he muttered as the pain shot through his shoulder.

Apparently he had dislocated it. In a normal fight this would be concluded with a rematch after the injured party had recovered. But in a fight to the death like the one he was in now, this meant that he was a dead man. "I can't get close enough without a distraction. I need help, just enough for it to not be watching me so I could get off a good shot, enough to kill it," he muttered under his breath as he managed to stand while ignoring the pain of his shoulder and ribs. Glancing up, Ranma noticed that while he had managed to stand, the demon had gotten too close for his liking so he threw a Hiryushoten Ha horizontal blast. This pushed the demon back a good ten feet. Giving Ranma enough time to think up a strategy to defeat it, and giving Mu-Tsu and Shan-Pu enough time to arrive to help their wounded friend.

"Ranma, are you alright? Can you still fight?" the blind martial artist asked him as he got close enough to talk with the pig-tailed boy without the chance of the Demon overhearing their conversation. Shan-Pu had stopped a few yards behind Mu-Tsu and was currently distracting the demon to give the blind martial artist a chance to see if Ranma was all right.

"I'm not hurt too bad Mu-Tsu, but...possibly broken few ribs...maybe six and a dislocated shoulder... I need you and Shan-Pu to distract it...keep it in one spot...but avoid the head and tail. The thing can spit acid from...its mouth and shoot...it and those spikes from...its tail," Ranma gasped for breath in-between the pain. Ranma smiled as Mu-Tsu placed a comforting hand on his un-injured shoulder.

Nodding his head while secretly admiring Ranma's bravery, Mu-Tsu moved off to help Shan-Pu, who was having a hard time fighting the demon. Even with her agility and amazing strength; the Amazon was no match for the demon. But by some amazing form of luck, she barely managed to avoid all of its strikes.

Just as Mu-Tsu arrived, the demon spat acid directly at Shan-Pu's midsection. "Shan-Pu! Look out!" he yelled as he quickly flung one of his chains to wrap around Shan-Pu’s waist, then with one hard tug, he pulled her out of the way just before the acid would have eaten through her stomach. She landed with a grunt and glared at him. Even though Mu-Tsu could barely see her glaring at him, he could feel Shan-Pu's ki spike while generating an aurora of extreme annoyance.

“Shan-Pu thank Mu-Tsu but next time no pull so hard. Now tell Shan-Pu Airen’s plan,” she said while watching for the demon’s next move.

Mu-Tsu quickly informed her of Ranma’s problem and what he wanted them to do. Then when Shan-Pu nodded her head in acceptance of the plan, Mu-Tsu reached into his robes for some weighted chains. Then twirling them he watched as Shan-Pu jumped back into the fight with the demon, waiting until he built up enough speed to entangle the demons legs to give Ranma enough time to do what he wanted. He had to avoid a few claw swipes and the poisonous spikes that came his way, but he never stopped swinging the chain.

After about five minutes of this non-stop game of tag, Mu-Tsu saw that Shan-Pu wasn’t getting anywhere and decided that he’d need to help. So, he reached into his robes once again and withdrew a handful of throwing knives. Just when Shan-Pu reached another arch of one of her jumps, thus taking her out of the way for a few precious seconds. Mu-Tsu threw the knives in quick secession. As the knives left his hand, they flew true to their aim. One struck the demon just below the jaw, sinking deep into its throat. Another penetrated the demon’s left eye, wrenching a scream of pain from the Demon. "ARRrrg! When I remove this from my eye you will be the first to die!" The demon said as it shook its head while it tried to remove the knife. This was the distraction that both Mu-Tsu and Shan-Pu were waiting for.

"Shan-Pu catch!" Mu-Tsu yelled as he quickly threw the chains towards Shan-Pu. She caught the chains just as she landed. Without a second to spare, Shan-Pu took off running around the demon, binding its legs as tight as she could. Judging that she had the chains wound around the demons legs enough times to make it virtually impossible for it to break free, Shan-Pu raced back towards Mu-Tsu pulling the chain taunt and sending the demon crashing to the ground while yelling at the top of her lungs. "NOW! Airen, Do it Now!"

"Right!" Ranma yelled as he slowly made his way towards the demon, watching it struggle to break free, Ranma knew that he had little time to do what he needed to do. Quickly he centered himself and started gathering all of his ki. Holding nothing back Ranma crossed his arms in front of himself. Mu-Tsu and Shan-Pu watched as a glowing nimbus of ki surrounded Ranma. His ki aurora was larger than anyone of them had ever seen before.

Judging that he had gathered as much ki as he could handle, Ranma opened his eyes, uncrossing his arms he made quick slashing motions at chestnut speeds. "Flaming sword strikes!" he yelled as he released his ki and combining it with his father’s vacuum blade attack, to surround the airwaves that he sent towards the demon.

The attack hit just as the demon broke free of its chains. Hitting it dead center and slicing it to pieces while cauterizing every piece separated. This prevented the demon from healing itself but left a huge mess behind. Ranma wasn't concerned with the dead demon as he was already making his way towards Akane. "She didn't change back," he mumbled while staring at the huge panther that was his fiancée. Falling to his knees, Ranma shakily reached out his hand to touch her, but before he could she started to stir.

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Darkness was the first this Akane became aware of as she slowly fought her way towards consciousness. The last thing that she remembered before everything went black was extreme pain and a voice that echoed through her mind. Slowly, Akane took stock of her body, noting all of the aches and pains. "Oh, I feel so strange. I wonder what happened? The last thing I remember is a few bits and pieces just before I blacked out.” Akane began to panic when she tried to open her eyes, but found that to be an extremely difficult task as her body refused to obey her commands. She felt so tired and weak. So she gathered her strength again while she thought to herself, “Ok, one more try, its time to open my eyes and find Ranma."

With that decision made Akane opened her eyes and saw Ranma kneeling next to her with an expression on his face that scared her. It was an expression that held tightly controlled terror, mixed with worry. As Akane glanced into his eyes she was another expression deep within those blue-gray orbs. It was hard to read but it looked like caring.

The one thing that made her wonder was the expression of fear on his face. "What is he afraid of? I don't see any cats around here," Akane thought to herself as she glanced around the clearing. The only thins she saw were bits and pieces of demon scattered all about and Shan-Pu and Mu-Tsu, who were slowly making their way towards them. "I'd better ask Ranma what's going on or I’ll be here all night before I find out anything," Akane thought. Then turning her head around to face him she opened her mouth to speak but all that emerged was a low rumbling growl. This startled her so much that she jerked her head back in surprise. She also noted that Ranma jumped back when he heard her growl. Deciding to find out why she made that noise, Akane slowly lowered her head to stare at herself.

What she saw frightened her so much that she froze for a few seconds. Blinking, she slowly lifted her right arm, “No that’s a leg,” she thought a bit dazedly as she watched a huge paw rise into the air as she thought of raising her arm. “This can’t be happening to me!” she thought as she gazed at the rest of her body. Her emotions in turmoil, Akane tried to stand up, but stumbled a few times before she made it to her feet.

When she glanced towards Ranma, the expression on her face could only be described as shock. It was amazing that he could tell what Akane was feeling right at this moment just by the slight shift of her facial muscles even when she was in that form and not in her normal human body. Ranma slowly took a hesitant step towards Akane, reaching out to her with a shaking hand he tried to offer a bit of reassurance. “Akane, can you understand me?” he asked her as he kept telling himself that this was not a cat, but his uncute violent tomboy… Akane. This helped him control his fear but only by a small margin.

Akane slowly nodded her huge head. She opened her mouth to try to speak again, but closed it with a click of her teeth. “Gwrrrrlll,” she said in annoyance when she remembered that she couldn’t talk.

“Good. Give me a few seconds an I’ll explain what happened after you came to get me back at the clearing near camp,” Ranma said as he centered his thoughts, then he began to speak. “Well, after you ran away we all heard you scream. I ran as fast as I could to see what was the matter, but by the time I got there, all I found was this,” he reached into his shirt and pulled out part of her shredded gi top. “When I found it, I was really worried because of the condition I had found it in. To sum it all up,” he said while pointing at the mess that used to be a demon. “That thing…that demon had a grudge against us…you and me to be exact.”

Mu-Tsu walked up behind Ranma and pointed towards the cave. “It wanted to destroy you specifically because it said that you had imprisoned it in that cave over there,” he said.

“Shan-Pu no understand…What violent girl do to demon in past life?” the amazon asked as she came over to stand just behind Mu-Tsu.

Akane really hated being called that so since she couldn’t tell the amazon girl to stop calling her that, she decided to tell her in her own way now. Akane slowly made her way to stand in front of Shan-Pu, staring her directly in the eyes, she curled her lips back, displaying her large teeth and hissed at her.

Shan-Pu gulped and took a step back before she regained her composure and glared right back at Akane before she apologized. “Shan-Pu sorry she call you violent girl.”

“The demon said that Akane had trapped it in this cave a very long time ago. He also called me Tenma, said that it used to be my name and that I had helped Akane defeat it. Now I don’t know if that’s true but this area sorta looks familiar to me. How bout you Akane? Do you recognize any of this?” Ranma asked her as he glanced around the forest.

Akane looked around herself and started to shake her head no, but then the pendant around her neck started to glow faintly. Akane seemed to freeze in place as her eyes took on a far away expression. No one noticed the glowing pendent as her back was turned to them. Memories from the distant past flashed before her minds eye. The one memory that she was most interested in was the one where she had imprisoned the demon. When that particular memory came forth, Akane tuned out everything around herself, and concentrated on learning what she could.

Ranma saw her freeze and thought that the demon had managed to come back to life. He quickly turned around to see what she had been staring at. It wasn’t the demon but the cave that had caught Akane’s attention. “Hey Akane?" No response. Ranma tried to get her attention once more by waving his hands in front of her eyes and calling her name.

“Akane! Come-on snap out of it ya macho chick!” he yelled in her ear. “That was not one of my better ideas to get her attention,” he thought as her head snapped around. Then she lifted one of her huge paws and swatted him on the top of his head.

“Oww!” he mumbled as he rubbed his head. “Whatcha do that for?” he whinned while he glared at her.

“Grrr,” Akane growled in displeasure as she narrowed her eyes and thought. “It wasn’t that hard a blow I usually hit him with. I’m not sure of how hard I should hit the jerk for calling me that! If I hit him any harder I might seriously damage him with my claws.”

Ranma cringed as he recognized that tone in her voice. It was the one she used when she was about to mallet him. So he decided that he should shut up for now. “Geeze! I was just tryin to get your attention since you seemed to be off in another world!” he said to her as he totally forgot the shape she seemed to be in. As he got as close to her as possible to stare her directly in the eyes to continue their usual argument.

Mu-Tsu and Shan-Pu watched in amazement as Ranma stuck his face right into Akane-cats face. They watched as he started to yell at her like when she was human. He didn’t seem to realize that he was standing right next to a huge panther. Of course the panther was Akane and would probably scare him witless once she opened her mouth to argue back. Shan-Pu was just about to make this point known when it happened.

“Roarwlll…Grrrr….Rannmaa!!!” she argued back at him as she shoved her face closer towards his.

“Ack!” Ranma said as Akane roared in his face. He backpedaled a few steps before he got himself under control. “D…don’t do that Akane! Y…ya know I’m scared of cats. I’m having a hard time right now just trying to not be scared of ya,” he said while he tried to get his shaking under control.

”Oh Ranma, I’m sorry I forgot.” Akane thought as she realized that she had scared him. Akane lowered her head, stepping closer to him while unconsciously making a deep rumbling noise that sounded like she was purring. She wanted to apologize for scaring him like that so she watched him for any signs that he would jump back again as she got closer to him. As she brushed up against his body while purring loud enough to wake the dead. Ranma seemed to relax and started to breathe easier. Taking a deep breath, Ranma opened his mouth and said, “I know you’re sorry for scarring me like that, Akane. I know you didn’t mean to. But ya gotta remember that you’ve got the body of a c..c…c…feline now. Don’t worry we’ll get ya back to normal just as soon as we can.”

“Oh yes! I want to be normal again!” Akane thought purring louder as she bumped her head against Ranma’s chest causing him to grunt in pain.

Akane froze when she heard him grunt. “Mrrworw?” Akane questioned Ranma as she raised her head she stared down at him directly into his eyes. Then she lifted one massive paw and poked him gently in the ribs. Ranma gasped in pain, grabbing his ribs he bent over while he tried to regain his breath. “D…don’t worry Akane. I’ll be ok. It’s just a few cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder from when the demon slammed me against the rock that Ukyo was laying on,” he said.

Suddenly he remembered about their friends and was about to tell the two amazons about it, when he noticed that they had already started to make their way over to them. Mu-Tsu was heading for the spot where Ryoga had landed and Shan-Pu, he saw, had already gotten Ukyo down from the boulder and was dragging her towards them.

Ukyo seemed to be fine except for the large bump on her head. Ryoga on the other hand, Ranma noted as Mu-Tsu returned carrying him. Looked to be badly bruised. He had a few cuts and scrapes mostly located on his chest but other than that Ranma couldn’t see any serious damage like he had thought the lost boy had received. But Ryoga wasn’t awake, and didn’t seem to be waking up any time soon.

“Lets get back to camp,” Ranma said as he started to walk back in that direction.“Now the only problem we have is how my parents are gonna take this,” he muttered as he saw the campfire in the distance.

“Akane! You stay out here until I explain the problem to my parents. I’ll call ya when I’m done. Ok?” Ranma called to his fiancée as they were within sight of the camp but hidden in the shadows.

“Growl.” Akane nodded her head and started looking for a spot where she could stay out of sight but where she could watch the proceedings with out hindrance.

“Oh man. Well, wish me luck,” he said as he saw her lie down. Just as they was about to leave to return to camp he heard Akane’s low rumbling and turned to face her to see what she wanted. What he saw made him chuckle because Akane was deliberately sticking her tongue out at him. When she saw that he noticed her doing this, she grinned as best as she could but it came out to look more like she was baring her teeth at him.

“Ha, you think you’re funny don’t ya?” he asked her as he pointed his finger at her.

Akane nodded her head and did it again with an innocent expression to her face. This caused Ranma to start laughing again. “I know what you’re trying ta do. It’s working ok. I admit that I’m worried and I appreciate it that you’re trying to cheer me up,” he said and then is a lower tone of voice so the others couldn’t hear. “Akane…Thanks.” Then he quickly spun around on his heal and walked into the campsite. Shan-Pu and Mu-Tsu, carrying their friends, followed him into camp.

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