Under the dimlight of the sunrise, Ranma was staggering down
a randam street in Nerima.  The flowing hair was once again
braided.  His legs were shaking, but not because of the fact that
he hadn't slept for the entire night, and was now carrying his
heavy backpack.

     Rather, it was because of the fact that he had spared Ryoga,
the one who had tormented him for over a year with his fanatic
challenges.

     When he, or rather, she, bit into Ryoga's neck last night,
she had expected the latter to freak, to push her away, to attack
her, to do anyting that could have given her a reason to torture
him to death.

     Instead, he bore it in silence.

     And that, had cut through Ranma-chan's rage, and slapped her
back into her rational self.  Blood was gushing out in a
fountain.  Should she continue?  Or should she stop?

     Ryoga's pulse was weakening at a frightening rate.

     Conscience that she always thought of as a burden kicked in,
and she released him.  The lost boy fell, his blood straying in
all directions.  His eyes were still open, reflecting
Ranma-chan's stunned expression as she tasted the blood on her
lips.

     Her eyes looked up and away from that face, and saw a cross
on top of a pointed top of a distant chapel that looked blurry
under the sunset.  

     Ranma-chan looked down at Ryoga again, saved him without a
second thought, and took him back home.     

     And Ranma thought he was cold enough to get his revenge.
     
     Why did that baka had to choose that particular moment to be
so damn honorable?  It was almost like fate was purposely working
against his revenge.  

     And why did he felt so strange after seeing that cross?

     Ranma silently berated himself as contrasting feelings
rushed over him.  <I guess he really didn't owe me THAT much.  
After all, I was kind of using him myself. . . even though it had
developed into something else afterwards.>

     Had it?

     <Great.  After all the pain that I've been through due to
him, I still haven't got enough of a reason to blame things on
him as he did to me.> Ranma-kun muttered aloud as he turned a
corner.  "That wasn't fair-"

     His sentence was cut off as he became face to face with one
person that he thought he wouldn't have to see ever again.

*         *         *         *         *         *         *    
     Akane was in a crabby mood as she was going through her
ritual of morning jogging.  <That insensitive jerk!  How dare he
not come back home without telling us?>

     Her anger colled down somewhat as she remembered how Ranma
HAD been staying behind at the Nekohanten.  <Maybe he was
mind-controlled by some kind of Chinese artifacts . . . DAMMIT! 
Why
did he have to stay behind at that freakish place anyway?! 
Perverted baka!  Probably having spent the night with that little
whore!  Ohhhhh!  Just wait till he shows up->

     "That wasn't fair-"  A familiar voice, followed by a
familiar face, appeared right in front of her.  

     Akane was startled at first at seeing Ranma's backpack. 
Then her face hardened into a scowl.  "You pervert!  Where were
you last night?!"

     Ranma looked at this girl who had walked all over him for
over a year.  Strangely, as if her spell over him had been
broken, Ranma could suddenly handle this once fatal question with
surprising calmness..   "You need not worry about that, Akane." 
He said in an even voice.

     Akane was stunned.  This wasn't Ranma.  This COULDN"T be
Ranma!  The Ranma that she knew could never sound so cold, so
distant.  He should be paralysed by her anger, franticly making
some incoherent retorts that could only serve to give her even
more reason to trash him.  

     "What. . ."

     Ranma cut her off with politely restrained impatience. 
"Because starting from yesterday, our engagement was nullified. 
>From now on, I will no longer be a burden to your household. . .
I can't guareentee the same thing about Pop though.  It was nice
knowing you."  Ranma smiled and drifted away, as cool as a piece
of autumn leaf.

     Akane looked at his retreating figure with her jaw almost
hitting the ground.  This couldn't be right.  Ever since the day
Mr. Saotome had brought him to the Tendo house, Ranma had became
hers to own, her to control, hers to be jealous over, hers to. .
. love.  He wouldn't, couldn't possibily left her.  This just
wasn't how their story was supposed to end!  He's her's!!!!! 
Leaping up like a furious leopard over Ranma, she landed right of
in of the boy, who didn't even finch. 

     "This isn't funny, Ranma."  She said, trying to maintain
confidence in her voice.

     "It's not meant to be."  Ranma replied as he stared evenly
at her.

     Akane franticly tried to think of something to say.  "We are
engaged by our own fathers. . ."

     "And not by our own free wills."  Ranma said casually as he
attempted to walk around Akane.  The girl blocked him,
frustration on her face.

     "Ranma!   You can't just ran out on our engagement!  Think
about your father-"

     Ranma looked amused.  "About what?  About how he threw me
into a pit of cats?  About how he had engaged me to a dozen
fiancees, and left it to me to sort out the mess?  About how he-" 
Ranma abruptly stopped himself before revealing too much.

     "He might not be the best of fathers, but he did
managed to brought you up."  Akane said with a hint of anger.

     Ranma laughed.  "And how, pray tell, do you suppose he went
about to do it?  The phase "getting a job" is obviously not part
of his vocabulary."  

     "Well... he... he had obviously done something!"  Akane
said.

     "That no doubt he did.  How else do you explain Ukyou's
blind rage when she re-discovered me here?"

     "So Mr. Saotome ran away with her dowry, but Ukyou's father
was just as much to blame for her sufferings.  If he didn't
attempt to BUY himself a son-in-law, none of this would have
happened!"  Akane went over what she just said.  It didn't sound
right, but for argument's sake it would have to do.

     Ranma looked sideways at her.  "Oh, and I suppose your
father behaved differently on this issue?"

     "Don't you dare say that!  My father loved you as he would
his son!"

     "Really?  Whatever makes you think that Mr. Kunoji didn't
care for me?"

     "I..."

     Ranma continued.  "As for your father, no... you entire
family, whose side were they always on whenever we got into a
fight?" 

     "It... it was always your fault!  Chasing other women,
avoiding my cooking..."  Akane was struggling to come up with
retorts.

     "THEY CAME TO ME, OKAY!?  I've never encouraged any of them,
let alone chase them.  And how dare you be angry at me for not
eating your cooking WHEN NONE OF THE TENDOS EVEN DARED TO WALK
NEAR IT?!!!!!!!"  Ranma was burning with rage.
     
     "Have you said enough yet?"  Akane was turning white.

     Ranma closed in on Akane.  "No!  For once I'm gonna give you
a piece of my mind!  None of you have never considered me as a
part of the family.  Remember how Mr. Tendo tied me up and hang
me in the Dojo when I dated Ukyou and Shampoo under the influence
of magic?  Kasumi... well, I can't say much about her, since she
always kept her distance. As for Nabiki, she kept on selling NUDE
photos of me in both forms, and TO MY CLASSMATES!!!  Would they
do this to you?  WOULD THEY??" 

     "Ranma, I . . . they . . ."  Akane was starting to sob as
her shell of righteousness shattered.  Ranma pushed her against a
wall. 

     "I know why they all treat me like this.  To them, I'm not
someone who was engaged to you, but someone who was SOLD to you. 
They think that I deserved to be beaten, exploited and humiliated
because I am leeching off the Tendo household and inheriting
THEIR Dojo!  Dammit!  I have never wanted your Dojo!  I DON'T
DESERVE ANY OF THIS!  I should have left long ago, to show them
that I aren't interested in munching off the O' mighty Tendo
fortune.  But no . . . my father WANTED YOUR DOJO AND INSISTED
THAT WE STAY HERE!  I didn't know that I had a mother then, and
he was the only family that I had.  Naive as I was, I stayed with
him and endured the hell that followed.  SO DON'T YOU CRITICIZE
ME FOR *DISHONORING* MY FATHER!!!"

     Akane turned away and cried.  "But what about me?  All this
time that you had stayed, I thought you-" 
 
     "Love you?"  Ranma asked as he loosened his hold on her. 
"Well. . . I . . . I did love you unconditionally. . . and for
such a long time too."  Those words were so much easier to say
now than in the past, when they were still meaningful.

     Akane turned around in shock

     "Because I liked you enough, and people that had mattered a
lot to me were forcing us together.  Also, you . . . you're so
drop-dead beautiful when you smile, and you were the first Tendo
ever to be kind to me.  And even though my damn macho pride had
prevented me from saying this before . . . I AM grateful to you
for helping me won the important battles, even though it was
stupid of you to risk yourselve like that all the time.  But
without your help, I would have been killed a long time ago."

     "Ranma . . ."  Akane blushed.  She never knew that he
thought that way about her.

     Ranma continued as his toned saddened.  "Anyway, I thought.
. . I thought that everything would be all right if I choose you
. . . and then I could . . . I could have something like a family
to hang onto.  And that . . . and that you will love me back and
everything will be all right . . . just like one of those
sentimental anime shows."  Ranma crutched his fists as he
continued.  "Obviously I was wrong.  Nobody would ever really see
me as anything more than a tool to defend the dojo.  And you . .
. you takes what I did for you for granted.  I know I'm not the
most perfect boyfriend in human history.  I can be rude and
boorish at times, and would sometimes put my foot right into my
mouth . . ."

     "Lot of times."  Akane corrected him as she wiped at her
teary eyes.

     Ranma continued on, as if he hadn't heard her.  "But I . . .
I have NEVER let you down in ANYTHING before, not when you needed
a partner to defend the Dojo from challengers, not when you
needed somebody to vent out your anger on, not when . . . not
when you needed me to stay loyal to you despite all other
temptations."   He then turned frustrately toward Akane,
startling her.  "And you would still keep on pushing me away with
suspicion and anger, expecting me to keep on reaching out to you
all the while."

     The accusation stabbed into Akane's heart, hurting her.  She
wanted desperately to say something, to show him how wrong he was
about her.  But nothing came up to her mouth.

     Because he was right.

     "I had tried, God be my witness I HAD tried so damn hard to
stay by you . . . but I can't do it anymore."  Ranma bit his
lower lip.  "You are getting angry more and more often, Akane. 
That kind smile of yours, the smile that had kept me by your side
all this time, it was beginning to fade from my memory."  Ranma's
eyes became slighly watery as he asked one final question.  "If
you can risk your life for me so often, why can't you risk
putting aside your anger and give me a chance to get into your
heart for even once, no matter how hard I had tried?"  Without
waiting for an answer, he turned away, leapt up over a rooftop
and disappeared.

     Disappeared from Akane's world.    

     Looking back upon the entire year that they had been
together, it wasn't hard for Akane to tell that Ranma was working
way harder than her on building their relationship.    With a
stable family (thanks to Nabiki) and an officialy approved
engagement, the youngest Tendo daughter could even afford the
luxury to sit back and scorned at Ranma's other fiancees tearing
each other apart.  They were the unfortunate ones, with no
substantial forces backing their claims upon Ranma.  She thought
of them as lowly, desperate banchees, throwing away their
dignities to try winning him over with their cat-fights.  She
thought of herself as a higher, purier being, always a
step above the others because a traditional, "honorable"
arrangment was on her side.  

     Actually, tradition was also on Ukyou's side, but since the
girl had nobody here to back her up on it, it was somewhat
invalid.  Akane even had the pleasure to constantly beat up Ranma
for being a womanizer (which she now began to realize he wasn't),
something that none of her competitors could afford to do. 
Somehow, she had seldom been grateful for all that he had to put
up to be with her in the past: the seemingly predictable result
of this "war" had boosted her arrogance too much.

     After all, who would take care in treasuring something that
she had gained so effortlessly?

     That's exactly why he left her now.  From now on, she will
have no suitors other than that sorry lot at Furinkan High that
challenged her day in day out.  All that good-natured taunting,
toleration, consideration, protection and devotion . . . gone
with the wind.            

     "BAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! "

     Roaring like a wounded tigress, she punched and kicked at
whatever that was in her way, demonishing walls, lamp posts,
fences with her kempo skills.  Nothing was able to stop her,
until a giant spatula blocked one of her punches.

     "Akane-chan?!"

     Akane looked through her blurry eyes, and saw Ukyou standing
there in her boy's get-up.  With the last strip of her
frustration spent, the kempoist collasped onto the ground in a
sobbing mess.

     Ukyou was simply taking an early walk in the morning to work
off the contrasting thoughts battleing in her mind after knowing
Ranchan's choice.

     Dammit!  He didn't deny not loving Akane, nor did he deny
loving her.  But he still insisted in pushing her away as far
away as possible!  How could she, who had given up everything for
Ran-chan, possibily lose to someone who had barely raised a
finger to please him?

     No, she had to stop thinking this way.  If Konatsu could
have stayed as her friend despite her prefering Ranma, then she
should have been able to stay as Ran-chan's friend despite him
prefering Akane.

     It was then that she saw whom she thought was the victor of
this love-tri . . . no, love-pentagon.  Her own depression was
shocked out of her as she saw her kempoist rival plowing through
everything on the street that her fists were strong enough to
plow through . . . which was just about everything.  

     After stopping the rage-fueled girl with her spatula, Ukyou
was further stunned by the sight of her collapsing on the ground
and started crying.  Tendo Akane was an extremely proud girl, and
it was almost impossible to imagine her breaking down right in
front of other people.  Besides, didn't Ran-chan decided to
choose her?  Putting their rivalry behind them, she immediately
kneel down beside the heart-broken soul.

     "What's the matter, Akane-chan?"  Ukyou asked as gently as
possible, almost as if imitating Kasumi's gentleness.  Their
relationship was a volatile one, thus she must be careful in her
approaches.

     "You. . . were right, Ukyou.  I don't. . . deserve Ranma." 
Akane said between sobs.  "He. . . didn't came home. . . saw him.
. . just now. . . said that our engagement. . . nullified. . .  
He. . . had had enough. . . of me. . .  said I used up. . . all
his. . . love. . ."  Akane's crying renewed with a vigor.  "HE'S
GONE!!!!!!!"

     In the past, Ukyou HAD dreamed of seeing Akane finally
having to let go of what she didn't pay to earn.  But seeing the
horrifying pain that the girl was in right now had squashed
whatever satisfaction that Ukyou might feel.  As martial artists,
both girls had their share of experiences in dealing with
physical pains.   But being brought up under the warmth and
protection of her family, Akane didn't had the survial skills
that Ukyou had in dealing with emotional pains.   Ukyou now
silently berated herself for ever wishing the loss of Ranma on
Akane.

     Looking at Akane's pitatious state, Ukyou bit down on her
lower lip.  In such an awkward moment between tense rivals, what
could she do?

     The words on the bookmark came back into her mind:

     Do one to others, as you would have others do one to you.

     If she was the fallen one, and Akane the bystander, what
would SHE want the Tendo girl to do? 
     
     "I am so selfish."  Akane continued to cry.  "I never . . .
never take the time to . . . love him back . . ."

     "No!!!"  Ukyou's cut her off.  "Don't ever say that.  You
have
loved him back!"

     Akane looked up through her teary eyes, startled.  "What?"

     Ukyou was startled herself after realizing what she had
said.  Was she actually capable of saying such encouraging words
to her rival?  But somehow, Akane's pain had triggered Ukyou to
continue on.

     "Don't you remember how you had once dived into the sea
trying to save him from Cologne's Shark-Fist?  You didn't even
know how to swim!  And the time that you had almost burned
yourself trying to help him in learning Hiryu Shoten Ha?  And
what about the time when you had used yourself as a bait to save
him from the Eight-Headed Serpent?"

     Akane stared at her in awe as she started to wipe off her
tears.  "Ukyou . . ."  
     
     Ukyou continued on and couldn't stop.  "And who was the one
who almost turned permanently into a doll saving Ran-chan from
Saffron at Mt. Phoenix?  You have loved him back.  You may not
know how to show it properly but you HAVE loved him back."

     There, she had given her rival a bundle of reasons to try
and continue to dominate her love.  But somehow, she felt her own
depression disappearing after speaking out the other side of the
truth.   She bent down and helped the other girl back onto her
feet.  "Here, get back up.  I'll give you some free okonomiyakis
at my restaurant, ne?"

     Akane slowly stood up as she looked at her rival in a new
light from her blood-shot eyes.  "I finally know why Ranma always
insisted in going over to your restaurant so often despite my
hammering."  She muttered.  "You made a very good shoulder to cry
on."      

     Ukyou sighed as the two of them walked toward her
restaurant.  If she had been able to go so far in trying to be
somewhat selfless, she might as well go all the way.   "If I
can't
even comfort a *friend* in her time of need, how can I ever hope
to actually love someone?"
     
     "Friend . . ."  Akane looked suddenly weary.  "Is all this
kindness simply because of the fact that Ranma had ran away from
me for good?" 

     Ukyou looked weary herself.  "Haven't I always been somewhat
. . . non-hostile to you, even when Ran-chan was still taking you
as his *real* fiancee?"

     Akane sighed.  "Sorry."

     "Now just because Ran-chan was running away-"  Ukyou stopped
herself as she realized something.  "Actually, where would he be
running to?"

     "To you, to Shampoo . . . perhaps even to that nut Kodachi." 
Akane said darkly.  "Not that I can stop him anymore . . ."

     "Not likely."  Ukyou said as she told her about Ran-chan's
"confession" to her from the day before.  Taking in Akane's
state,
she omitted the part about Ranma saying that he didn't love her.  
Ukyou mordified it a bit so that Ran-chan had chose the Tendo
girl for "purely logical reasons".  Akane's eyes widened at
hearing that.  Apparently, there were more missing pieces in the
puzzle than she thought there was.
     
     The "wild horse" had broken free.  Free from all those who
had loved him, those who had hated him and those who had used him
as a dollar tree.

     But who in the world could he turn to now?  

     Seeing the Nekohanten in the distance, Ukyou immediately
made a change of plan.  "Let's save those okonomiyakis for
another
time.  For now, We need to discuss something with the others."

     Akane didn't object.

*         *         *         *         *         *         *