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Clogged Sink Press Presents:

The Crow/Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction:


                             As the Crow Flies


By Plunger

      All characters copyright of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan Inc. and
              Viz Communications, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah...
      The Crow is copyright of James O'Barr or whoever else owns it...  
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[Story begins...]

[Chapter #2 The Coming Storm]

Ranma walked to school alone. Akane had gone ahead to meet some friends, which
annoyed him somewhat. He did not show it however, beign unwilling to give her
the satisfaction. 

He strolled aimlessly along, neither hurrying nor dawdling. As he hopped up
onto the fence by the river, he could see a man pulling down one of the signs
on the other houses on the Tendou's block. 

The man's behavior was curious in that he seemed both rather overdressed and
very nervous. 

Ranma shrugged, the whole property thing was Akane's paranoid fantasy, not 
his. In his experience, the world was a place filled with bizarre and incom-
prehensible strangeties that one was usualy best off staying out of. He knew 
quite well, that if you looked for a fight, you would find one almost without
exception.

He sighed, he must be growing up, he decided. He was getting philosophical. 
He cursed himself and his fool luck that had lead him to Jyusenkyou, and, 
indirectly, to Akane...

Akane. She had changed the way he felt about the whole world. After admitting
that he wanted to marry her, a great weight had lifted off his shoulders. 
Sure, he knew that he still had to explain it to everyone... But that suddenly 
didn't seem like such a scary thing anymore.

He walked on, thinking about Akane. After their night together, he knew he 
wanted to marry her, having discovered that she was not nearly as uncute as 
he had thought. He smiled to himself. Here he was, sixteen years old and he
was thinking about getting married. Fate had thrown him a strange hand...and
he was a lousy card player... 

Still, he mused, he'd survived thus far and was pretty content with life as 
it was. Sure there were fights and arguements, but none of that really seemed 
to matter to much. Real feelings seemed to gloss all that stuff over. He 
walked on and soon arrived at Furinkan High.

Ranma sat in class looking over at his fiancee. He'd never really seriously
thought of her as that before and it ammused him to think of her that way.
She was sitting across the room and talking to Sayuri and Yuka. From their 
body language and childish laughter, Ranma guessed that they were talking 
about him...or maybe their night together...or something... It didn't really 
matter. Akane seemed happy.

Ranma shrugged to himself. If Akane wanted to talk about it, that was fine
with him. He didn't care too much about opinions as long as Akane still liked
him. It was surprising, he thought, that she did like him at all, when he 
considered the way he had treated her for most of their engagement. He felt a 
momentary sense of guilt and a pang of regret that he had wasted so much time.

At lunch, Ranma sat under the large oak tree and looked out at the grounds.
As usual, Akane had made him one of her thermonuclear lunches. He couldn't
help but wonder if it would register on a Geiger Counter. 

Akane saw him smile and said, "You can't be happy about eating something coo-
ked by me, Ranma."

Ranma raised an eyebrow, "Who says?"

"I do. You hate my cooking. Why aren't you running away?"

Ranma shrugged, "I've fought Herb and Saffuron and all sorts of other weirdos.
Compared to that, your food ain't so daunting..."

Akane frowned, "Thanks... I think..."

Ranma sat back and looked at the lunch. It looked like it could burn its way
through concrete if it wanted to.  He gulped and grabbed a bit. As he tasted
it, he keeled over. Akane caught him and helped him sit up.

"I'm sorry, Ranma..." she said in a small voice, "I guess I got it wrong 
again..."

Ranma put his hand to his dizzy head and said, "It's okay. You'll get better."

"Really?" she asked hopefully.

<You've only got one way to go!> Ranma thought sarcasticly, but then said, 
"Yeah... I just hope you get it right for our wedding...or it might be a very 
short marriage. You could end up and widow awful quick if you're not careful!"
He said the last with a wry smile and was most surprised to see Akane glaring 
at him. "What?" he stammered.

She looked down and said, "Don't make jokes like that, Ranma. I know what 
it's like to lose someone you love. I couldn't bear to lose you now." Ranma 
could see a tear slip down her cheek and knew he'd put his foot in it again. 
He berated himself again, telling himself that he'd have to give up trying to 
make jokes. He was obviously no good at it.

He put his arm around Akane and said, "Hey... It's okay. You know that no-one
can beat me. Right?"

Akane looked up and forced a smile, "Yeah..." she whispered. "That's right. 
No-one can beat you..."

Ranma sat back and then looked up at the clock. He got up and said, "Time to 
go. We got class."

Akane nodded and reluctantly got up to follow him to class. She smiled as she
watched his broad back move as he walked. So much had changed in such a short 
time, and she couldn't remember being as happy as this in all her memory. She 
didn't think there had been another time where everything had seemed to right. 
After so many months of doubting whether Ranma would ever be hers, everything
had finally just fallen into place... Just as Kasumi had always said it would.

That afternoon, Ranma and Akane walked out of the school and headed for home.

"Say... Do you want to stop and have snack?" Akane asked, turing to Ranma
midstep.

Ranma nodded in agreement. He had a policy to never reject food when it 
was offered. Of course, that in itself had gotten him into trouble a fair 
few times.

Akane grabbed Ranma's hand and ran off, dragging him down the street, "Come 
on!" she called.

Ranma smiled a little and let her drag him along. 

A group of men sat in the office of the man at the desk. He was once again 
sitting at the head of the table observing.

"Are you sure about this, Boss?" one of them said.

The man looked up and shrugged, "They haven't really given us much choice now, 
have they? You know what will happen if we don't get the whole lot. We'll lose
everything!"

The other man blanched at the leaders words and subsided. One of the others
got up and pointed to a roughly drawn map. "Okay... This is the deal... There
are seven people living in the house. There are four teenage girls, a teenage
boy and two old men, the fathers of the kids. We'll grab the kids and them 
make the fathers sign it over to us."

The leader shrugged, "What's our financial position?"

One of the others spoke up, "We'll have to pay them out or it'll look suspic-
ious."

"I see..." said the leader, "What about killing them all?"

The man standing over the map looked surprised, "That's not a good idea. It'd
make far too big a mess to tidy up... Better to just threaten like we did with
the others. They'll go, I'm sure..."

The leader got up and walked to the window, "I hope so... I don't want this 
to get unneccesarily messy if I can avoid it."

The others nodded their assent. 

"Well..." the leader added, "We best get ready, then!"

The other men all began pulling out large bags and removing various assault 
weaons from them. Within a few minutes, they were all loaded and ready.

The leader looked over them as he slid a clip into his .45, "Okay... Let's 
TRY not to make too much of a circus out of this! I don't want the cops down 
on us! That's too expensive! We go in, get the deal and get out. Got it?"

The others nodded agreeably.

The leader frowned slightly and walked out, "Right. Let's go..."

The others all followed him out and got into two black cars. A moment later,
they pulled away from the curb and headed away.

Ranma and Akane sat in a booth in the local cafe. They were both eating large 
icecreams and talking.

"When are we going to tell our Otousan and Ojisan about...us..." Akane asked, 
looking nervously at Ranma. 

Ranma frowned and, wearing an uncertain expression, said, "I'm not sure... 
Your dad is gonna go absolutely nuts if he finds out what we did. And Oyaji
would just love to have us married as soon as he can."

Akane frowned, "Don't you want to get married?" she chided.

Ranma smiled, "Of course I do, but you know what our dad's are like. They've
tried to get us married before and it ALWAYS ends in disaster. I think we 
should handle it for once. It's obvious that they're no good at it!"

Akane laughed a little, but had to agree. When it came to arranging things,
Souun and Genma were well and truly out of their depth. She smiled and decided
to change the subject. "How come you're a guy at the moment?" she asked, cur-
ious that he should be in such a place in male form.

Ranma shrugged, "I dunno... It didn't really seem too important... I guess 
things have a different perpective now..."

"When you're in love?" Akane added. 

Ranma chuckled, "Something like that..." 

Akane smiled at his sheepish expression and looked at her watch, "Damn." she
mutttered, "It's getting late... I guess we'd better get home."

Ranma nodded, "Yeah... It's nearly dinner time."

Akane rolled her eyes, "You just has a huge icecream! How can think about 
eating so soon?"

"Easily..." Ranma replied, "I'm helping Oyaji lose weight!

Akane grinned, "Oh you are are you? And what about you?"

"What do you mean? I don't need to lose weight!" Ranma said defensively, 
"Now you on the other hand..."

Akane rounded on his in a rage and hammered him into the ground. He stumbled
to his feet as she stormed off. 

He caught up to her and said, "Sorry, Akane. I didn't mean that. I like you
the way you are... I just...couldn't resist..."

Akane turned and scowled at him for a moment and then seemed to calm down, 
"It's okay... At least you appologised. It's an improvement..."

Ranma gave thanks for good luck and wiped the sweat off his brow they headed
home.

[End part 3]
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