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    After two hours of rest, one failed attempt at cooking lunch on her part, 
a number of shaiatsu point applications on Cologne’s, and a few aspirin, 
Akane was back at the training grounds, staring at the sling that she would 
soon hang from.  She regarded it with something akin to loathing, a slight 
frown creasing her face.
    “I know I had something that last time,” she muttered.
    “What was that, child?” Cologne, who was readying the boulder, asked.
    “I sensed something on that rock last time.  Like... a weak spot,” Akane 
said, trying to describe what she’d felt.  “I hit it, though, and the 
boulder didn’t shatter.  It didn’t even break.”  After this, Cologne paused 
in her preparations, thinking.
    “Well, since you’re an Outsider, I cannot tell you anything that might 
lead to your mastery of the technique, weather I teach you or not,” Cologne 
said, causing Akane’s shoulders to slump, ever so slightly.  “However, as a 
teacher mentoring her student perhaps I can speculate that there is something 
more to the Breaking Point than just hitting the weak spot,” she continued, a 
small grin on her shriveled face.  With that, she continued to raise the 
boulder.
    “Thank you, Cologne,” Akane said softly, climbing the tree.  Once she 
was high enough, she leapt to the sling and secured herself as best she 
could.  All the while, she thought about what Cologne had just said.  
<Something more...  What could it be?> she wondered.  After a few minutes of 
relative silence, Cologne hopped down onto Akane’s supporting branch and 
shimmied down to finish tying her trainee into place.  Akane winced once or 
twice as the ropes tightened around particularly painful wounds, but most of 
the pain was dulled, either by shaiatsu or medication.  <Well,> Akane 
thought, remembering Ryoga’s first fight with Ranma after he’d learned the 
Breaking Point.  <He was screaming mad the whole time.  Maybe you have to be 
mad to be able to pull it off?>
    Suddenly, Akane noticed that Cologne was no longer perched on her sling, 
and that the forest had grown silent, except for a quiet rushing of air.  
Sensing the boulder, Akane faced it, summoning all the anger she could 
manage.  Remembering the things Ranma called her, how he never tried her 
cooking, how she was never good enough to beat him.  She remembered how 
Mousse had kidnapped her, using her as a tool to try to marry Shampoo.  She 
remembered how Shampoo always threw herself on Ranma, acting like a hussy 
just to try and steal away her fiancee.  Finally, she remembered Kuno’s 
proclamation, from all the way back before Ranma had entered her life.  By 
the time the boulder entered sight, Akane was glowing a bright red, her anger 
manifested.
    In the treetops, Cologne noted this with a fair note of surprise; this 
girl, while untrained in the art of focusing one’s chi, was putting out 
enormous amounts of unfocused energy.  This, if nothing else, indicated an 
extraordinary potential for chi abilities, should she receive formal training 
in the chi arts.  It was with a note of sadness that Cologne remembered just 
what freeing Son-in-law would cost this girl, and wiped away an errant tear.  
She would not cry, for she was an Amazon Elder, and Amazons do not cry.  
Besides, this girl was an obstacle to Shampoo’s progress, and obstacles were 
for killing.
    In the sling, Akane pulled her fist back, her finger extended, as the 
boulder came thundering towards her.  At the last moment, she swung her fist 
with all her might, her battle aura blazing with a fearsome intensity.  Her 
finger and fist crashed into the boulder with unstoppable force, driving 
deeply into the rock.  However, despite her little tunnel, the boulder 
crashed into her body.  As far as victory was concerned, it was, more or 
less, a draw- Akane was hurt, but there was now an Akane-shaped crater on one 
side of the rock.  Chuckling, Cologne hopped down onto the boulder.
    “Well, that’s one way to try and accomplish it.  I admit, I’ve not seen 
anyone try that before, and I’ve been alive three hundred years!” she 
cackled.
    “Damn it,” Akane said bitterly, grinding her teeth.  Absently, she 
punched the boulder, causing a bit of it to chip off.  “I thought I had it 
there.”
    “On one hand,” Cologne said, her amusement draining.  “You’ve failed to 
learn the Breaking Point as of yet.  On the other, look what you’ve done to 
my boulder.”  For the first time, then, Akane noticed the state that the 
boulder was in with a start.
    “I did that?” she wondered aloud, a shocked look on her face.  Cologne, 
seeing the look, broke out into a full belly laugh, something she’d not 
enjoyed for many years.
    “Yes, child, you did,” she finally replied, once she’d reigned in her 
laughter.  “That, I believe, is just a little more powerful than the beatings 
you have a tendancy to give my son-in-law.”  Akane immediately made a note to 
cut back on either the force or the frequency of the beatings she gave Ranma. 
 She forgot it within a minute.  “I’ll set up the boulder again,” Cologne 
decided after a short pause.  Once again, Akane was left alone as the boulder 
was lowly raised beyond her eye level.  <Okay,> she thought, <how do I do 
this?  It’s gotta be chi, because I just proved that physical force will only 
split or crush rocks of this size.  Let’s see... maybe I need to hit it, but 
strike at it more deeply with the chi.  Cologne never hits these things very 
hard.>  Carefully, Akane calmed herself, concentrating on her sole extended 
finger.  Carefully, she concentrated, as best she could, on the chi flow in 
and around her body.  Pressing her finger to her forehead, her chakra, she 
concentrated, imagining a needle of invisible, intangible force that extended 
from her fingertip.
    Absently, Akane noted that the boulder had been released and was 
approaching.  Slowly, being careful not to disturb the tiny spike in her chi 
field that existed at her fingertip, she moved her hand from her forehead to 
directly in front of her.  The boulder whistled into view, and again she felt 
the tugging to hit a certain area, just below and to the right of the center. 
 Quickly, she moved her finger so that she’d hit the spot right on, extending 
the chi needle as much as she could.  In the next instant, contact was made.
    Suddenly, Akane felt her consciousness enfolded by a cold, hard prison.  
She was streaking down a tunnel that was barely large enough for her to pass 
through at speeds that made details unnoticeable.  The path weaved and 
twisted, all at sharp angles, was intercepted and detached from by other 
pathways, but Akane was pulled along one in particular.  Suddenly, she 
stopped.  She was at a point where thousands of the tunnels joined into one 
nexus.  For one instant, she rested there, and noticed that she had no form, 
that her entire being was amorphous and made of light.
    In the next instant, she was pulled in all directions, through all the 
tunnels.  Her awareness remained in the nexus, but her form twisted and wound 
through all the thousands of passages, which split into millions.  Finally, 
all the pathways arrived at what she realized was the surface of the boulder. 
 Once she made that realization, her consciousness was instantly back in her 
own body as she stared in satisfaction at the shattering boulder.
    From above her and slightly to the left, she heard a soft clapping.  
Cologne, a small smile on her face, dropped from the treetops, her tiny hands 
applauding Akane’s accomplishment.
    “I did it!” Akane cried triumphantly.
    “That you did,” Cologne confirmed.  “Now let’s go home.  We have a 
certain cursed martial artist to save, I believe.”
    “Right,” Akane nodded, looking triumphantly towards Tokyo.  Several 
seconds passed.  “Umm, could you let me down?” she asked Cologne sheepishly. 
 Obligingly, Cologne hopped over onto the sling and began to free her 
ex-trainee.  “So, the Breaking Point only works on rock?” Akane asked after 
a few moments of silence.
    “It works on any nonliving subject with a crystalline structure,” 
Cologne explained, untying the last knot and freeing Akane.  Akane landed 
lightly on the ground, while Cologne chose to pogo down slowly, bouncing 
between two trees.
    “What do you mean?” Akane asked, confused.  Cologne sighed in 
exasperation as the two headed off to camp.
    “If it’s never been alive, and has a crystalline structure, the Breaking 
Point will work.  Take ice, for example.  The Breaking Point works on it 
because it is frozen in a crystalline arrangement, and has no chi to form 
defensive pathways,” Cologne explained.  “But say you had to fight a stone 
golem, a creature of stone animated by magic.  The Breaking Point would work, 
because the creature has no natural chi, but it would take effort, because 
the magic that animates it would try to do the same thing, but with a lesser 
effect.  Do you understand now?”
    “I think so,” Akane said.  “But why can’t magic stop the Breaking 
Point?  I’d think it’d be better than chi; it is more rare.”
    “Magic is no more rare than chi.  In fact, magic is just chi that’s been 
shaped to a specific task.  Since it is confined to that task, it cannot 
function as it normally would,” Cologne explained.  As they arrive at the 
campsite, their conversation moved to inconsequential things as they struck 
their camp.  In the sky, the sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon, 
a mere seven hours after Akane had begun the Breaking Point training.

*   *   *   *   *   *

    Cayenne rested atop the school wall, waiting.  Only a day had passed, but 
it had felt like an eternity.  He determined to bring a book to read tomorrow 
or something.
    “Hey, you,” a childish voice called at him.  He turned and looked around 
the schoolyard, seeking the source of the noise.  “Yeah, you.  I’m right 
down here!” it called again.  Cayenne looked straight down and saw what 
seemed to be a pissed off seven year old with a lollipop bigger than her head 
at the base of the school wall.
    “What do you want?” he asked calmly.
    “Why aren’t you in class?” the girl asked, taking a lick on her lollipop.
    “I don’t attend school,” he replied.
    “Ooh, a delinquent!  You have to be punished!” she declared, rummaging 
in her dress pocket for something.
    “I’m no delinquent.  I’m too old to be attending school,” Cayenne 
rebuked.
    “Oh, I see.  A tresspasser, then.  I’ve got to protect the school!” she 
cried, pulling a coin out of her pocket.  “Happo go five yen satsu!” she 
called, pointing it at him.  Nothing happened.  “Huh?” she said aloud, 
surprised.  Dropping the coin, she dug in her pocket again, this time pulling 
out a larger denomination.
    “It’s not going to work,” Cayenne said, bored.
    “We’ll see about that,” the girl said, aiming her coin.  “Happo go ten 
yen satsu!” she declared.  Once again, nothing happened.
    “Your target’s gotta have chi for you to be able to drain it,” Cayenne 
said offhandedly.  “And guess what?  I don’t have any chi anymore.  Chi is a 
weakness,” he commented derisively.  “Why don’t you just go back to your 
lollipop and forget I was ever here, hmm?  I’ll leave your precious school 
alone.”  Dumbfounded, Miss Hinako simply nodded and walked away, trying to 
forget what had just happened.  Being a seven year old, she was extremely 
successful.

***Author’s Notes***
    Woo hoo!!!  I beat my writer’s block!  Yay!!!  *Ahem*  Well, now I’ll be 
chugging out the rest of the story pretty quickly now, cuz I know exactly 
what I want to do.  Also, I’m sorry about the delay, but my laptop (which 
I’m writing this on) went on the fritz a few weeks ago, and I had to send it 
in to get fixed.  I just got it back, and I haven’t sent chapter four till 
now cuz I needed to be able to change a few things to that the story 
continuity stayed fairly smooth.  In any case, I hope to have this wrapped up 
by next Friday.  Failing that, the Friday afterwards.  I can’t say how 
quickly I’ll be able to write, because I’ve got an AP test to study for and 
I writing’s going to be relegated to a very low priority.  Sorry.  Oh well, 
if you wanna write and say something, my address is Flashfyre5@aol.com, even 
though nobody ever writes to me ::sniffle::.  Seriously, though, I really 
appreciate your C&C, even your flames.  In any case, until next time!


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