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Enjoy!

The FFML Refugee List



Disclaimer: The characters belong to Ms Takahashi, and the inspiration is
from Richard Calder. Have pity on me.

I'm totally serious about the tags I put on this story. It's a nasty bit
of work.


But she's just like lightning
She goes right through you
Then you know you'll never
Be the same

-She's My Baby by Mazzy Star
------

Her kiss was perfect. Murderous.

Her tongue flicked over his lips. He knew he was long lost and very
sick. Not sick, he amended. Addicted. She guided his hands to her
breasts, her ass. They were covered by a fine layer of black PVC that
clung to her like a second skin. Sleek and deadly. He was shaking and she
bit his lip reproachfully.

"God, Ranma. Fucking cope." She pulled away and stuck her piece of gum
back into her mouth. Her hand flashed up and she carved a thin red
crescent on his chest. She brought her finger to her lips.  He watched
every second of it, her tongue flicking out to catch the trace of blood,
her lips opening, closing. He felt his tongue rasp over his own lips
sympathetically.

Ranma used to think he wanted things. Wanted to be the best martial
artist, wanted respect, wanted to get rid of his girl side, all of these
things he thought he wanted. Then the tell-tale green tint invaded
Akane's eyes. He finally faced something he couldn't fight. All other
wants dropped away. Now there was only her.

The room in the love hotel was a garish practice in pink plush. Fuzzy
heart-shaped pillows and impossibly thick and studded dildos lay
scattered about. Mirrors caught and refracted the light, highlighting the
destroyed bed. It was a melange of torn condoms, blood, bandages, semen,
ripped sheets and the remains of a sundae Akane had taken two bites out of
then discarded.

The blood loss didn't really bother him much. He had always healed
quickly, even after extended fights. He only had one scar from her. The
first one. She was a late case, really. Most girls in Tokyo had started
turning when they were fourteen, locked forever in the prepubescent haze
between girl and woman. When the epidemic started, they had worried,
checked her eye color, her teeth, the length of her hair. After a while
they relaxed, Tendo in particular insisting that there was nothing to
worry about. He wasn't a bot fucker.

But it happened. The long scar stretched from his collar bone and hooked
around his left nipple, coming to a jagged end over his stomach. The furo
had been drenched in blood. It had started out innocently enough, another
mistaken encounter in the bath. He was too tired to even cover up. He
just laid his head back down on the tile and waited. She hesitated. Took
a breath, hesitated again, then he felt the water ripple around him as
she got into the bath. Somehow inhuman exhaustion had overcome them
both. The battle earlier in the day had been standard fare, insert enemy A
with item B and end with fight C. Repeat. So tiring.

She was beautiful though. So passionate, yet so delicate. He often
wondered how so much fire was stuffed into her small body. A light touch
brought him back to awareness. It was hard to concentrate with her so near
in the furo. He watched her face as her hand ghosted over his arms, so
slow and soft, he wasn't sure she was touching him at all. Her skin was
vanilla cream perfection, and made her hair and eyes look even darker. She
was watching her own hand trace over his muscles. He fought to remain
still. There was something a little frightening in the intensity of her
gaze. She shifted towards him and he could feel her breath on his skin,
almost chill in the steamy furo.

Almost chill. He lifted a hand out of the water and brought it to her
cheek. The water dripped off of him and made her cheek look wet with
tears. Akane leaned in for a kiss and he closed his eyes, hand shifting to
her hair. Everything unspoken between them came to a peak, then dissipated
when their lips met. Ranma heard himself groan, his crotch stirring. Her
hair was soft under his fingers and stroked it feverishly. He felt her
breasts press against his chest, the water lapping around them. Distantly,
he noted that Akane needed a hair cut. Her hair seemed almost to her
shoulders under his fingers.

Her tongue plunged into his mouth and he wrapped her in his arms. She was
cool to the touch and he wondered how that could be in the furo. His eyes,
which he didn't realize he had shut, flew open. Akane's eyes, always so
dark and deep, shone green. She smiled at him, and a cute fang peaked out
from her lips. Cute. Evil. He heard himself gasp and she brought her lips
to his. Pain, she had bitten his lower lip. The touch of her tongue on the
wound, and he shuddered in ecstasy. Something flashed in his brain, bright
silent explosions. He felt his heart speed until he thought it would
burst. She let go of his lip and tore a long lesion in his chest. He
arched into the pain and pleasure, and entered her, by happy mistake. She
mewed into his chest, where she was greedily sucking his blood before it
escaped into the already pinkish water. He thrust into her twice, three
times, and was done, feeling the blood and semen throbbing from his body
in synch. Seemingly full, she laid her head on his shoulder, panting
slightly. The blood pressed between their bodies was gooey and thick, and
Ranma felt himself weakening. He didn't care. The explosions in his head
still hummed and glowed.

She was a bot after all. A dead girl. He had once joked about vampires and
he found himself shut out abruptly, the agony of his withdrawal making her
tantrums fearsome. They weren't vampires. They were the daughters of men
who had fucked robot girls. A company from England, fearing the cheaper
Hong Kong dolls were taking over the market, had bioengineered a virus.
The virus was supposed to just cause discomfort, but a fluke in the genome
interactions had rendered it latent, striking the next generation. Girls
at his High School, mostly the lower grades, had started
disappearing. Their skins would take on an unholy sheen, their hair would
grow and their teeth would develop. Not quite girl, but not quite doll.

And he was addicted. The scar on his chest itched. He was glad to have
survived; not many did after their first encounter. And those that did
were shunned, as unholy as their consorts. So here they were.

Akane shed the black PVC and tore through her suitcase. Money was never a
problem, but finding the privacy to get the fix they both needed was a
little bit harder. She threw aside ridiculous pink frilly dresses, fuku
from different schools, then came upon a package filled with gauze.

"Perfect!" She pulled on a skirt and top from a Tokyo school, then looked
over her shoulder at him and winked. Parts of her personality were intact,
others seemed to have been stretched and pulled into new shapes. It was
like looking at a hundred different Akanes, fragmented, changing in the
light. She started wrapping her leg with the gauze.

There was something terribly endearing about a schoolgirl in bandages.
You want to hug her. You want to reward her for her valor in battle. You
want to kiss it and make it better. You want to unwrap her. You want
to fuck her.

Akane adjusted the sling on her arm and put on a trace of lipstick. They
had a new assignment. She threw a school uniform at him and twirled in
front of the mirror.

Ranma sighed and repacked the suitcase with the few things they couldn't
buy again and the trinkets Akane was attached to, even if momentarily. He
checked his uniform in the mirror and ran a hand through his slightly
greasy hair. He'd take a shower later. A glance at a heart-shaped clock
showed that they were already running late.

"So let's go kill somebody." He held the door open for her.

She blew a kiss at her reflection in the mirror. "Yes. Let's."

+++

It was always this way. He spied on Akane and her prey through an empty
ceiling fixture hole. The man lifted a hand to Akane's sling, and she
forgot to jerk it away. She was certainly sloppy, but they rarely cared.
They were all only interested in one thing. The same thing he was
interested in. They all ignored her dolliness. Ranma could see it in all
of Akane's movements, a hip cocked, calculated hair toss. He could only
guess that the business men they killed couldn't see it. Or maybe they
didn't want to.

The room below him was a little bit squalid. Cheap, cracks in walls, a
urinal in the floor in the corner. The expensive suit jacket with the
company logo woven into the fabric was hanging on the only chair in the
room. Akane had caught the man's eye in Shibuya, their employers knew
their targets well. The man evidently walked through the crowds of
flamboyant teenagers, looking for one that needed a little pocket change
for the hideously overpriced clothing in the shops of that region. Ranma
went unnoticed in the flocks of coiffed teens on stilt-like shoes. He
immediately began thinking of a fighting style that would work with the
shoes, but was interrupted by Akane finding her target.

The man unzipped his pants. Akane had just enough acting ability to
pretend to be shocked and bashful. Ranma hated this part. Akane licked her
lips and knelt in front of the man. She pulled his belt free from his
pants. She tugged on his pants, then his underwear. The man was about
half-erect. Akane ran her hands lightly over his cock, his balls. She
unbuttoned his shirt and pushed his undershirt up slightly. The man just
stood there, watching her. Only when she had her mouth poised directly
over his cock did the man move. The veil of Akane's hair prevented Ranma
from seeing her expression, but he saw the knife in the man's hand.

As the man's eyeball exploded under Ranma's foot, he thought of what the
whispered voice of their employer said over the phone. "He likes sick
girls, injured girls..." The arm that was holding the knife broke was
broken three times. Yeah, no shit. He aimed a killing strike to the man's
nose, only to be slowed by a hand on his shoulder.

"Geeze, Ranma. Leave some for me." He lowered his arm and stepped off of
the man's half-crushed in face. He scratched thoughtfully at the back of
his neck then yawned. The vague killing anger that prompted his entrance
through the ceiling had left him. He started rifling through the man's
pockets.

Akane smiled at the small whimpering noises the man was making through
what she thought was one of his nostrils. Or what used to be a nostril.
Whatever. She knelt over him, re-exposing his midriff. The only place that
he was leaking blood was through his head, so the belly should still hold
a decent amount. She carefully sliced a small half-circle right below his
bellybutton. The initial taste of old sweat was revolting, and the blood,
though sustaining, wasn't much better. She thought of breaking one of his
legs open for what she really liked, which was marrow. But they only had
this room for an hour, and that time was running out. Akane drank her
glut, noting the faint pungent smell from the corner of the room, where
Ranma was taking advantage of the facilities.

He shook and tucked himself back in. "Remind me why I don't just kill them
right from the start?"

Akane carefully removed her mouth from the man's stomach wound, which was
only trickling blood now. She patted him on the cheek as she saw his eyes
close for the last time. "Because you don't kill people, you only defend
my honor, remember?"

"Oh, right." It still annoyed him, just a little bit. Though he wasn't
sure if he was annoyed at having to make the save or at being stopped in
the middle.

"I'm done here, you ready?" Akane had shed her bandages into a little
half-assed shroud draped over the drained man.

Ranma leapt into the hole he had made into the ceiling and dangled a hand
down for Akane. She smiled up at him and he pulled her through the
ceiling.

Neither of them had a speck of blood on them.

+++

The events of the last few months had blurred for Ranma. He wrote it off
to repeated blood loss. Soun and Kasumi had discovered the mess in the
furo. Not a word about it was spoken aloud in the house. A week later, the
Capture and Subdue authorities burst through Akane's bedroom door at 3AM.
She was newly evolving and caught off guard. Their snare-harness was half
in place, but they hadn't been counting on one thing. Ranma was sleeping
in the bed and was unhappy about being woke up. He fought them naked,
seething, but weakened from blood loss. It didn't matter in the end, they
were equipped to subdue an average Japanese girl only coming into her
power. He spat on the face of the last one, and saw that the rest of the
family was standing in the hall, behind the team. Their expressions were
closed. Ranma pulled his clothes on, wrapped his arm around Akane's waist,
and went out the window. They hadn't been back since.

The first few months were lean. Neither of them really understood what was
happening to Akane. The epidemic was kept under wraps by the authorities
for the most part, carting girls off to institutions, never to return. The
information was scarce, and they were scared. Akane still felt badly about
draining him, but the sense of freedom they both felt was amazing. They
were petty thieves at first, tumbling salary men and hoods for their
credit. Akane would watch him from a side-street, so pale in the
moonlight. When one of the hoods pulled a gun on Ranma, he had done his
first act of damaging violence during these forays. He had broken the
guy's arm. He still had the image of Akane, suddenly behind the cursing
man, so pale, so beautiful. Her hair spread out behind her, and her teeth
came down on the man's neck.

She had gotten drenched with blood that night, but was filled to
satiation, something that hadn't happened yet. He had smuggled her into a
love hotel, away from their regular room. They had amazing and strangely
bloodless sex that night. Ranma was used to getting carved up, but enjoyed
this too. Ranma felt vaguely betrayed at her taking blood from other
people. But she always saved the sex for him alone.

Unfortunately, the method of the thug's death called attention to their
petty crimes, and Akane's hunger grew. Soon they were contacted by an
organization that Ranma only assumed to be yakuza. A voice on the phone
would tell him who the target was. They'd find him and Akane would eat.
Then money would come from a bicycle courier. It sickened him at first,
but then he started to see the nature of the victims. Always sick
bastards. Though he didn't think his employer was much better.

They passed by a kiosk and Akane, still in her schoolgirl mode, pointed at
various pink things. Ranma fished the dead man's wallet out of his pocket
and threw a credit chip on the table. Akane immediately snatched one of
the things that looked like a cat-bunny-puppy mutation up and cradled it
her arms. She cooed at it and flashed a smile of gratitude at Ranma. His
eyes narrowed, wanting her even then. She placed herself in the crook of
his arm, and they were off again. Akane was always like this after a kill.
Deadly and adorable. He noticed he still had the wallet out and idly
flipped through it. The guy had a few forms of ID, phone cards, insurance,
pictures of his wife and kids. Ranma rolled his eyes. He took out the
money and tossed the rest into a trash can that obligingly incinerated it.

+++

"nnnn!"

Akane's eyes were rolled back in her head, sweat dripping off of her. She
arched into his thrusts, ass coming off the sheets, nails dragging across
his lower back. Past the kissing, past the under-the-bra, straight up
fucking.

Ranma felt like he could go on for hours. It was a sort of zen, mind away
from body. He could feel how he was filling her, feel her clamping around
him, feel their sweat-slick bodies slamming together. There was a
before-time, when just a glimpse of her panties was enough, just a
sideways smile. He remembered being deathly quiet, always fearing being
caught masturbating almost nightly on his futon. He told himself that he
had to - to keep under control - to keep aloof. To keep from entering
Akane's room and forcing himself on her - but in the end, there he was,
under scratchy sheets, fist full of his own cock, listening for
irregularities in his dad's breathing.

He's not sure now what he was even imagining. Shampoo's lips curled
around his dick, Ukyo's tight ass as he rammed into her from behind? No.
It was always Akane. His fetish. His weakness. His most fuckable girl,
wrapped in a blue school dress. Just like this, sweat gleaming on her
skin, mouth caught into a tight o of delight...

He grabbed her breasts and went in for the haul. She was making small
keening noises now, like a hurt kitten. He liked thinking of her that way.
He closed his eyes and shifted her up to get more leverage. The zen sham
came down into tao, he was one, he was fucking her, as he always has and
always will...

"Ranma?"

He hadn't noticed her stop. He opened one eye.

"Aren't I getting a little bit moldy to fuck?" She was half-sitting up,
and indeed there was mold patches on her. She tilted her head, and he
could see the seam. A neglected old doll. She smiled, like an old watch.

His eyes opened again into darkness. The sheets were around his ankles and
he was panting. A nightmare. His reality. He still had an erection. Ranma
looked at the place in the bed next to him and she was there, green eyes
glowing, knowing.

Akane rarely slept since the virus hit her fully. Recently she learned
that she could reach into the chaos of near future thought and pull up
bits to examine.

"I thought you'd want to be awake for the call."

The phone rang.

+++

Tokyo was a big fucking place. Hell, even Nerima was a big fucking place.
But it was indeed, that one okonomiyaki place. The guy that was next to
die frequented Ucchan's for lunch. Akane appeared unconcerned when she
heard the news. He suspected that she was forgetting her past. She seemed
comfortable here, in his arms, in a hotel with their few belongings fully
packed for a hasty exit. The pink thing she bought that afternoon was
picked apart, and the stuffed innards were piled next to the bed. He
reached up and took one out of her hair. She giggled.

"What if she sees us?" Ranma tried to appear stern.

"So what. What can she do?" Akane snuggled more closely to him. Her hair
tickled the scar on his chest.

"Oh, I dunno. You're probably right. We'll worry about it tomorrow." He
thought that he could probably sneak past Ukyo, but the ninja would be a
problem. Not to mention all the other martial artists in Nerima. There was
one possibility though. It made him slightly sick to think about.

+++

Changing for Ranma was like sweet milk curdling now. At first he
suspected, and at last he knew. His dad wasn't saved from the infection
from being out in the Chinese wilderness with him. It was probably worse
there, but China had shut down most communication after the plague, so
nobody really knew. He looked into the mirror at his green-tinted eyes. He
was a dead girl too. The blood lust was abated by a quick shower, but he
still avoided changing into a girl more than ever now. He needed to be
strong, be a man for Akane. And he wasn't sure that once he was fully
changed that he could turn back into a human.

Still he did it that morning though. The company in the directory and came
through as advertised, and wigs and clothes were delivered the next day.
Akane zipped herself into an inky black catsuit and slipped on hot pink
furry bracelets and anklets.

"You look like someone from an anime." He snorted

"What's anime?" Akane looked blank.

"Never mind." More memory loss. She was fragmenting at an accelerated
rate. Ranma wondered if the girls in the institutions had displayed
similar behaviors, assuming they weren't just killed upon arrival.

He pulled his own outfit on, a ragged pair of Gucci overalls and a
stocking cap. He wondered if the Shibuya teens would have more
appreciation for him now. He tried to hold still as Akane applied make-up
to him. She had gotten quite good at it. Just like cocksucking.

The thought didn't really rouse anything in him at the moment though, as
he didn't have the organs necessary. They'd messed around a little bit
both as girls, but Akane seemed reluctant to draw blood. The ache of
addiction was gone for him as well. So deadly, so sweet were dead girls.
It was supposedly the nanotech in their saliva that changed people,
infected their genome. He had enough to infect most of Tokyo, he
suspected. The choice between longing for the infection and wanting to
infect was confusing, but in the end he'd chosen Akane's bite.

When they finally looked at themselves in the mirror, Ranma was pleasantly
surprised. They wouldn't fool Konatsu, but the disguises were good. He
tilted his face up and kissed Akane, then they went.

+++

As sensitive as Ranma was to his body, he couldn't actually feel his cells
changing over. His biology teacher had used machines as an example as to
how cells worked though, so he wasn't sure the exact difference involved
in the change. What he could feel was a general diminishing of his ki. And
a slight feeling of being off balance. And maybe his hair growing.

He shook his head.

They walked through the streets of their old hometown. He recognized
battle sites, near-missed opportunities at a cure, misunderstandings. They
had a decent amount of fun here. Akane looked like she didn't recognize
any of it. Everything was new and exciting to her, especially on her way
to feed. She was becoming less of a girl and more of a doll as each day
went on. He wondered if she'd even recognize him eventually.

What would he do that day? He'd have her in body, but her spirit would be
gone. But what did that mean exactly? He finally came to the decision he
always did when he thought about the subject. He'd miss her, but only for
as long as it took for him to kill them both.

He didn't care about the plague, about the righteous bastards who said
they'd never mess around with a bot, then churned out doll-children.
Typical that they shuttle the problem off to institutions, sacrificing
their kin to their personal shame. He didn't care about all that though,
not really. He just wanted Akane. And nobody was going to have her or hurt
her besides himself.

He let out a sigh that sounded girlish to his ears. They were nearing
Ucchan's. The original plan was to stake out the prey and wait for him to
finish eating, then quickly hustle him away. Unfortunately, what had used
to be a teeming street in front of Ucchan's was now desolate. Most of the
shops had closed, boarded up windows and hollow doorways lined the narrow
passage. Only Ucchan's had a banner up, and even that looked slightly
tattered.

They'd look absolutely conspicuous loitering around in this empty street,
especially with the way they were dressed. Something like this would pass
easily in the more urban parts of Tokyo, but here they stuck out. It was
what their employers wanted though, damn them. Swallowing his own rapidly
raising bile, he pushed open the door. Same smells, same sounds, the
counter was surprisingly packed for the emptiness of the street outside.
Perhaps they'd be lucky and get out of this one clean.

He came nose to nose with the psuedo-femme waitress. Nope, not clean.
Konatsu's face twitched and his eyes opened wide in alarm. Ranma fixed him
with a cold stare. Tell and die, it said. Then he blew a kiss at him.
Konatsu hurried to the back. Ranma didn't hope to keep this one clean
anymore, just not absolutely messy. He scanned the room.

A pudgy boyish-man was sitting in the corner in one of the small booths.
He had greasy hair and a t-shirt from some show. The girl on the front was
hideously stretched by his man-breasts, and echoed his pudginess in the
distortion. He was eying Akane hungrily. He was their man. He glanced
over to the counter. Ukyo waved to them happily and shouted a greeting
over the din of customers. She didn't recognize them.

He pointed the man-boy out to Akane and went to cover for them with Ukyo.
He always felt like he had a loaded gun when he pointed out the victim to
Akane. The person at the end of his finger would be dead within an hour.
She swayed up to the fat man, asking him about his order, his shirt,
whatever it was she talked to them about while doing her voodoo. Ranma
walked up to the counter and ordered some vegetable okonomiyaki, the
opposite of what he used to order. Ukyo quickly assembled the ingredients
and the batter was sizzling before him. She looked slightly tired, but
happy to be working. Konatsu was fluttering around to different customers,
but kept an eye on him.

Ranma glanced over his shoulder at Akane. He wished she'd hurry up. He dug
a few credits out of his purse and gave them to Ukyo. Then he thanked her.
Something crossed her face, then she thanked him back. Akane was walking
out the door with the target. He ate half the okonomiyaki then followed
them. He didn't notice Ukyo taking off her apron and folding it carefully
behind the counter.

+++

He followed the waddling thing and Akane up to a room. The thing was going
on about how Akane looked just like so-and-so, or maybe more like
so-and-so, and would she say this for him? Akane would say it and he'd
giggle with glee. When she motioned to the hotel, he looked confused.
Ranma was worried. Usually the targets were business men, used to the
teenage prostitutes. Ranma supposed that this man-boy thought that Akane
perhaps really liked him. He snorted.

He was relieved when Akane got him inside the building though. Ranma hoped
to have this over with and them out of Nerima as quickly as possible. He
went to the back of the building and started climbing to the roof. From
the roof he'd be able to hear her signal for which room they were in, the
sound of a window opening and then shutting. He flipped up onto the roof.

A giant spatula occupied the space where his head had been. Messy, indeed.

"Bot-fucker," she hissed.

"I know," he said flatly.

In another time he would have avoided her thrusts, cajoled her, called her
his "cute" fiancee. That was then. He jumped over and behind her. The lack
of ki slowed him down, but not that much. He grabbed a fist full of her
hair and yanked her to the ground. Ranma wanted her to hear his every
word.

"Get out of here. Now." Tears came to Ukyo's eyes. Ranma let go of her
hair and turned his back on her. He could feel Konatsu's eyes on him. His
ears strained for the sound of a window. Instead he heard Ukyo again. She
noisily got to her feet.

"How could you? How could you leave us...me for that thing?" He really
didn't have time for this.

"Konatsu, get her out of here." The ninja appeared beside his mistress.
Ranma heard the faint clicking of a window.

"I do think she deserves an explanation, Ranma." He had his arm
protectively around Ukyo. They belonged to another time, a time of
obligations and sorrows, and dancing around feelings. Ranma disappeared
over the side of the building and into a window above Akane's room. He
hoped they'd get the hint.

He hadn't had the time to prepare here, so he had to put his ear to the
floor and hope that he could save her if she needed it. Sound wouldn't
have saved her last time, he thought. He considered boring a hole through
the floor, but knew that it was implausible. He could hear the target
yammering on about magical powers that came with a wand, so he supposed
Akane was okay. Hurry, he silently urged her, and wished that he was in
his male body.

A crash followed by a scream of outrage. Ukyo. Ranma ground his teeth. He
went out of his window and in through the shards of the one on the floor
beneath. The otaku was on the ground, still gurgling, and his blood was
flowing freely around Akane's feet. Ukyo had disturbed her while feeding.
The chef stood with her spatula at the ready, yet reeling at the scene in
front of her. Ranma had the advantage of her back. He quickly knocked her
aside, even while evading Konatsu's counter strike. The ninja quickly
recovered and went after him again. Konatsu was incredibly fast and
incredibly strong, and Ranma was at a disadvantage in his female form.
They exchanged strikes again, and again. The room was quickly becoming
shrapnel.

Ranma's new ruthless nature won in the end though. He managed to connect a
double-handed strike to the middle of the ninja's back. It would have
crippled a lesser opponent. Konatsu moaned and rolled over. Ranma kicked
him in the kidneys.

He looked over towards the man-boy, who had stopped twitching in the
interim. Akane wasn't there. His heart leapt into his chest. She was
kneeling over Ukyo. Oh no. Sensing his eyes, Akane raised her head and
smiled a bloody smile at him. He thought he could see a bit of gray
intestine peeking through the chef's battle outfit. Ranma should have
gotten sick, but he didn't. He felt nothing.

A wail of despair made him whirl around. The ninja had seen. Ranma flipped
over him, breaking his neck quickly and cleanly. He hoped that the ninja
would have done the same for him. Akane was combing through Ukyo's hair
with her fingers.

"Such a pretty girl, Ranma. Who is she? Why did she come here?" Ranma took
Akane's hand and lifted her into his arms.

"Nobody, Akane. Nobody." He launched them out of the window, leaving three
sets of unseeing eyes staring after them.

+++

He awoke again in a cold sweat. He told himself it was only the addiction,
only bad dreams. Akane was sleeping curled up next to him, thumb slightly
in her mouth. The teddy bear she held in her arms was headless. When he
bought it for her at the stall earlier that day, she had thanked him,
after a slight hesitation. A question died on her lips. She didn't know
who he was.

He brought his hand up, knowing a number of strikes that would kill her,
would dismember her, inhuman or not. She'd die, and then he'd quickly
follow her. Ranma frowned decisively. His hand came down, a blur to even
his own eyes. It stopped a centimeter from her nose.

No. Another day. He rolled over and pulled the covers around him. He could
feel the warmth on his back. Akane smiled in her sleep.

--------

C&C public and private welcomed.

This is sort of a piecemeal story, and not a great one at that. It's meant
to pretty much stand alone, but I might continue it if the inspiration
strikes. Thanks for reading!

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                     desaix@sysnet.net
Sir Desaix, member # 116 of the Knights of the True Fiancee           
              anime  fanfics available at 
  http://www.geocities.com/zednik.geo/fanfics.htm

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