Hello,

I don't think it's been as long as Choices, but it's still probably been 
over a year since I last posted a chapter of this to the FFML.  This is not 
the entire chapter... I thought that I'd try posting in shorter segments 
rather than the 20k-word chunks I usually send off.  I estimate that this is 
the first quarter or so of the chapter, and the next portion should follow 
in a couple of weeks (hopefully).

As always, C&C is welcome... really!  Public is better, private pretty cool 
as well, and any and all comments welcome.  So's fanart.  Fanart is cool.

Enjoy!
-Mike

***
What has gone before:

Akane's use of a strange book Ranma found led to the inadvertent death of 
several young girls.  Putting an end to the slaughter led the creatures 
responsible--monstrously transformed humans known as the Children of 
Belial--to the Tendo household.  Their nighttime assault was repelled, but 
the leader, Akuji, escaped with Akane.  Encountering a rival clan of Belial 
he released Akane, who fled into Tokyo.  For several hours she dodged 
pursuit, including armored warriors and a gargantuan beast, before finally 
ending up cornered on the top floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building.  
Akuji prevented Akane from being overwhelmed by the creature contained 
within her, and revealed his own plans.  Just as he sought to capture her 
once again Ranma caught up with the action. . . .

***

Carl Okada had always wanted to be a lawyer, just like his American father.
	He had studied hard in high school and garnered top grades and had a great 
shot at getting into a good university.  Then one night he had gone for a 
walk with his girlfriend in the park.  The moon had been full and bright 
overhead.  Sakura drifted on the evening wind.  One look at the girl by his 
side and he had suddenly understood that some things were far more important 
than grades, more important than a good school, more important than any job. 
  The fullness of the love he felt for her at that moment had struck him 
like a physical blow.
	Then an Assyrian Tenebrion had lunged from the darkness and carried her 
off.  He hadn't known what it was back then, of course.  All he saw was 
something hideous take away the girl he loved.  Slitted eyes that gleamed in 
the night.  Chitinous flesh.  Hooked claws and gnashing teeth.
	Carl Okada had given chase.  When the warriors of the Memra led by 
then-Armiger Yamashita Ken arrived five minutes later, they found the 
seventeen-year old standing weak but defiant over the unconscious form of 
his girlfriend.  The young man was bleeding from numerous wounds--but had 
held the demon at bay long enough for the professionals to catch up.  The 
story of how, unarmed, untrained, and alone, he had managed to chase after 
and hold off a lesser fiend became somewhat of a legend.
	He became the youngest Aspirant the Memra had known in decades.  Five years 
later he was an Armiger in his own right, though he had followed Yamashita 
in his defection to the Imrah.  And now Carl Okada had a sneaking suspicion 
that he was about to die.
	Battle raged as the hastily assembled warriors struggled to meet the 
renewed onslaught of the Children of Belial.  The Tokyo Metropolitan 
Buildings towered overhead, dark monoliths against the night sky.  Brilliant 
lights flared from near the top.  Around him inhuman shrieks mingled with 
the war cries of his brethren, and with the groans of the wounded and dying. 
  The good guys were losing.
	Carl tried to focus.  His arms felt numb, his shoulders burned with the 
simple effort of raising his blade.  A man fell to his left, clutching at 
his throat with crimson spraying from between fingers.  A moment later a 
knight to his right dropped, impaled upon the jagged limb of one of the 
Children.  With a toothy grin it turned upon him.  It had too many limbs, 
stained dark with the blood of many knights.
	How many have fallen already tonight? the young warrior asked himself.  How 
many more will die because of my mistake?  I had the girl right in front of 
me.  All I had to do was kill her.  A schoolgirl.  Begging for her life.  
None of this would have happened.
	A defiant scream tore itself from his throat as he charged his enemy.  His 
sword flared and cut a brilliant swath through the dark--but the Child of 
Belial was strong and quick where he was tired and desperate; the attack 
went wild.  He felt his sword leave his grasp; a moment later pain erupted 
in his side.  He stared numbly at the hole in his breastplate.  The jagged 
edges were wet.  Carl collapsed wordlessly to his knees.  He slumped back, 
limbs splayed, his breath coming in hot and ragged gasps.  Eyes wide and 
vacant in death stared back at him.  An Apprentice of the Imrah.  Yasu, a 
friend, lying dead next to him.
	"So young," the misshapen creature said.  It loomed over him, one of its 
limbs still dripping with Carl's own blood.  "To die in such hopeless a 
cause."  An arm ending in a meter-long spike of bone pulled back to deliver 
the final blow.
	I should've been a lawyer, Carl Okada thought morosely.  Far overhead, the 
top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building exploded in an incandescent ball of 
flame.


Let the Curtain Fall
by
Michael Noakes
(Started Dec 11/2002)


A fanfiction set in the Ranma 1/2 world of Rumiko Takahashi.
Previous chapters available at http://www.geocities.com/noakes_m


	Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos, is restored;
	Light dies before thine uncreating word:
	Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall;
	And universal darkness buries all.
	The Dunciad


Act One,
Chapter Six:
The Nature of the Beast

Ranma woke with a start.  Confusion flitted across his mind: where was he, 
and why could he see his reflection on the ceiling?  A moment later pain 
slammed into him; he fell back into unconsciousness.  An indefinite time 
later he tried to ease himself into wakefulness once again.  Slow breaths.  
Eyes closed.  His mind shuddered as the numbness of sleep faded.  Agony 
lurked at the periphery of his senses.  Where was he?  He felt the softness 
of a mattress beneath him.  A flash of memory:
	_Flame and howling winds, shards of glass swirling past glittering, and he 
stood at the center of the maelstrom, burning incandescent but frozen 
within, as cold as death, his left hand curling into a fist and ensnaring 
the primal forces swirling past as Akuji strode effortlessly through the 
howling cyclones, a slight, arrogant curl to his lips, his mirrored flesh 
scintillating with reflected brilliance . . . and then she was there, 
bloodied, limping, launching herself at him with a desperate cry, "Ranma, 
no!"_
	"Akane!"  He shot up in his bed, saw stars, and passed out again.
	A familiar voice filtered through layers of comforting darkness before 
reaching him.  Slowly this time.  Ease into the pain.  Move through it.  
Focus on staying awake.  He could hear someone's voice again, calling to 
him, and then movement.  One thing at a time.  Reach out from you center.  
Breathe shallowly.  Piercing pain across his side--fractured ribs, maybe 
broken.  Deal with it.  The muscle over it felt like so much tenderized 
meat.  Further out . . . deep lacerations that were barely clotted over . . 
. dislocated shoulder . . . burns, frostbite . . . dried blood filling his 
nose, acrid taste in his mouth . . . a pounding headache hinting at a 
concussion . . . the litany of injuries was worse than anything he could 
remember experiencing before.  Somewhere not far off he could hear the sound 
of running water, as if someone was taking a shower.  He cracked an eye 
open-- discovered that the other was swelled shut-- noted that the lights 
were thankfully dim; and again saw his reflection on the ceiling.
	Shit, he thought, I look worse than I feel.  The woman looking down at him 
belonged in a hospital.  Her entire left side was a massive, purpled bruise, 
but where the discoloration ended the network of crimson slashes continued, 
long narrow slices crisscrossing her right breast and abdomen.  Her face was 
a bloodied mess.  From brow to shin his flesh was a mottled canvas of black 
and blue.  Then he wondered, why am I a girl again?  Soon after: and why the 
hell am I naked?  Where am I, and how did I get here?
	Wherever he was, the bed was comfortable and the air nice and warm against 
his skin.  His wounds, while un-bandaged, certainly looked like they had 
been tended to.  Someone had removed his clothes--what little remained, that 
is--brought him here, and put him to bed.  Which begged the question, who?  
And how?  Last I remember, I was a man.  I was a man, and fighting--


	"Akuji!" he called out, his voice resonating through the vaulting 
observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building.  He strode boldly from 
the elevator.  "Akane's _my_ fianc�e!"  His aura erupted into a fiercely 
bright corona.  "If you want her, you'll have to get through me!"
	The obsidian man stood in the center of the room, tall and wreathed in 
darkness, the smooth lines of ebony flesh glimmering with reflected light.  
In the dimly lit room Akuji's visage seemed one with the night, but for his 
eyes blazing like hot coals under a sudden wind.  And in front of his 
opponent stood Akane.  Whatever exhaustion, doubt, fear Ranma felt 
immediately evaporated before the heat of his reawakened rage.  His fiancee 
swayed unsteadily on her feet.  She was covered in cuts and bruises, blood 
flowed freely from numerous wounds, and in her features he saw naked fear 
and absolute exhaustion.  Not even as he cradled her cooling, dying body in 
his arms a thousand meters over blasted mountains had she seemed so hurt.  
Her eyes found his.  Akane flashed him a tired, wry smile and her eyes 
burned, it seemed, with hope and confidence reaffirmed.  He had finally 
come.  But just as quickly her eyes darkened, and Ranma thought he saw 
despair there, and then they rolled back into her head and she collapsed to 
the ground.
	"Akane!" he cried out.
	"Ah, the boy from before."  Akuji flowed towards him, and the night seemed 
to follow in his wake.  "I so hoped we would meet again."
	The fury Ranma felt at seeing Akane injured demanded that he leap into 
combat, but for once he kept his calm.  He knew his opponent's name.  Had 
been told that Akuji defeated Cologne--and all his friends.  They had 
fought; Ranma's eyes flicked to his opponent's cheek, and there saw three 
parallel jagged lines marring the smoothness of Akuji's face.
	"Yes," the dark man said softly.
	Too bad I can't remember, Ranma thought.  Under the influence of the 
cat-fist his memory was spotty at best.  The cat-fist had been different 
this time.  After cradling the maimed kitten in Kasumi's room as it mewled 
indignantly, slowly bleeding to death, there had been the furious descent 
into feral vengeance.  Glimpses of combat only dimly remembered.  Ensnaring 
bands of darkness, and then nothing.  If the cat-fist hadn't been enough . . 
.
	Akuji's lips curled into a smile.  "What other tricks do we have, boy?  
More claws?  More flame?"
	Flame?
	His opponent stood several meters away.  He slowly spread his arms open as 
if in invitation.  "Come, let us play.  We have time enough for that."
	Ranma felt the exhaustion of the night lurking close behind his readiness 
to fight.  The unhealed wounds.  The evening's pursuit.  He focused on the 
crumpled form of Akane lying behind the creature confronting him.  Nothing 
else mattered.  How many of these arrogant bastards would he have to face, 
how many Mikado's and Tarou's and Saffron's would try to take her away from 
him?  Ranma's eyes shifted back to Akuji and met his fiery gaze evenly.  No 
more.
	The martial artist took a deep breath, released it.
	_"Hit it hard.  Again and again and again until it stops moving."_
	A friend's brutal advice.
	_ You could have torn its heart from its body with your bare hand, 
shattered its back, severed its limbs._
	A father's final lesson.
	_ glorious suspension between Heaven and Earth _
	Mountains shattered at his feet as the winds screamed and burned.
	And suddenly Ranma felt free.  Whatever it takes, he thought.  For a moment 
he felt crystalline--transparent, and the entirety of the Anything Goes 
School flowed through him, unfettered by doubts, concern for his opponent . 
. . his entire existence seemed compressed into a fleeting moment . . . and 
within that moment everything seemed possible.
	"Yeah," Ranma said softly.  "Let's play."


	Ranma groaned as he shifted in his bed.  Moving slowly he looked side to 
side.  He was in some kind of hotel room, he suspected, though nothing like 
he had stayed in before.  There was a large television set into the wall 
opposite.  A bar fridge.  Mirrors--lots of them.  Soft and dim, ambient 
light provided gentle illumination.  As he took stock of his surroundings he 
became aware of the sound of movement not far off.  At the opposite end of 
the room there was brighter light from a hallway, and the sound of someone 
taking a shower.
	I have to figure out what's going on, he decided.  Willing the pain aside, 
he slid his legs over the edge of the bed.  The rush of blood into his 
aching limbs nearly made him gasp aloud.  Suck it up, he berated himself.  
It's only going to get worse.  Steeling himself, he pushed off with his good 
arm and jerked into a sitting position.
	Ranma's side erupted in savage pain.  _a perfectly formed glassy fist 
caught him in the side_.  He sucked down air, struggling to stay conscious.  
_the snap of bone, blood spurting from his nose_.  The fight hadn't gone 
well.


	Tokyo stretched out in all directions, a myriad sparkling lights reaching 
to the horizon.  These same lights glimmered and slid across the ebon 
expanse of Akuji's flesh.
	Ranma charged   Akuji slid away, eyes blazing.  The martial artist slipped 
into the non-presence of the Umisen-ken.  Sheets of darkness sprung up 
around the Child of Belial.  Ranma raced closed.  Inky tendrils lashed out 
wildly to meet him.  He leapt over the nearest attack, rolled, sprung 
forward and slipped between two more; and rising above the wildly thrashing 
darkness below, Ranma unleashed a blast from his outstretched hands.  The 
brilliant Moko Takabisha cut a swath through the nearest tendrils but broke 
like a wave on breakers against the night cocoon that suddenly slammed shut 
around Akuji.  When the protective shell dropped Akuji stood unharmed with 
one arm outthrust.  From his palm shot a flurry of midnight darts, jagged 
rips in space that tore through the air.  Ranma ran.  The volley gouged the 
floor behind his heel as he ran.  He left the floor and suddenly he was 
running nearly parallel to the ground, circling his opponent, the windows 
separating him from the dizzying sprawl of Tokyo hundreds of meters below 
shattering in his wake, splintering glass tearing his heels.  He pushed off, 
spinning through the air toward his opponent, arms scything a wide arc.  His 
cry of "Kijin Raishu Dan!" was overwhelmed as the curved vacuum screamed 
toward Akuji.  The Yamasen attack tore through Akuji's projectiles.  The 
obsidian man raised one arm defensively.  The ki-blade slammed into the 
waiting forearm.  The floor behind groaned and split and tables shattered as 
the attack broke to either side.  A long, thin line flared across the 
smoothness of Akuji's arm.
	"Well done," Akuji said, lowering his arm.  Ranma rose to his feet a dozen 
meters away.  His whole body thrummed like a string expertly plucked.  
Renewed confidence filled him.  The exhaustion of before felt far behind.  
Almost with curiosity, it seemed, Akuji examined his wound.  "Very well 
done, indeed."
	I've just gotten started, Ranma thought.  His eyes flicked back to Akane.  
None of his attacks had come close to her.  The battle had carried Akuji 
away from her crumpled form.
	The tall, dark man smiled.  "No words of defiance?"
	"Let us go," Ranma answered.  "I don't want to fight you."  A lie.  He 
could triumph where his friends had fallen.  He felt gloriously alive.  He 
wanted to tear this monstrosity apart with his bare hands.
	"But I want to fight _you_," Akuji replied.
	"Then leave Akane out of it.  Let her go."
	"How little you understand."  The obsidian man gave a chuckle.  "She is far 
safer with me, now."
	"Yeah, sure."  Ranma circled his opponent, slowly cross-stepping and 
maintaining the distance between them.  The darkness seemed to coalesce near 
the feet of Akuji, churning slowly.  The Child of Belial released no heat; 
there wasn't enough ki in the air to form a Hiryuu Shoten Ha.  There were 
other options.  "I don't think so."
	Akuji's steps brought him closer to Akane once again.  She stirred on the 
floor, one hand clutching at her head, the other pushing feebly against the 
ground in an effort to raise herself.   "Then come take her from me."
	Without a change in expression, without a sound and before the final word 
had even registered, Ranma was racing straight for his opponent.  Seething 
walls off shadows rose up to meet him, as expected; with an almost idle 
flick of his wrist he clove through the darkness with a ki-blast, the other 
arm held cocked back with palm up and fingers together, and even as the murk 
roiled and reformed and reached for him he leapt through.  Akuji stood with 
an almost bemused expression.
	"BELIAL!" Ranma roared with the fierceness of his strongest kiai.  Akuji's 
eyes widened--the slight shock the martial artist needed to exploit the 
opening technique of the Moko Kaimon Ha.  In that brief moment of his 
opponent's paralyzation Ranma thrust forward with all his might.  Dokuja 
Tanketsu Sho, his father's deadly Yamasen technique.  A spear hand with 
which to tear out his enemy's heart.  So powerfully did Ranma strike that 
the air itself seemed to seethe with his hand's passage.
	A hand snapped shut around his wrist.  Akuji held him in a grip as solid as 
mountains, as cold as the winds.  Ranma could feel the flesh as cool as 
marble beneath the tip of his reaching fingers.  He could feel the newly 
formed crack there.  His eyes widened in disbelief.  He hadn't even seen the 
arm move.
	"Such a valiant effort," said Akuji.  He was no longer smiling.  "So many 
tricks.  But not enough; never enough."  His grip tightened and effortlessly 
he lifted Ranma off the ground.  "Shall I finish what I began earlier this 
night?"
	 Ranma gritted his teeth against the pain.  At the edge of his vision he 
saw the darkness flare up once again, reaching for him with inky tendrils.  
A feral memory returned:
	_Howls of frustration turned to screams of pain.  Glacial cold cut through 
the heat of his fire._
	"Like hell you will," he snarled.  He aura burst into scintillating 
radiance, tinted a lurid red at the edges.  The darkness retreated.  Braced 
against his enemy's grip he snapped a savage kick into Akuji's side.  A 
normal opponent's ribcage would have buckled and shattered.  The monster 
barely flinched, but briefly his grip weakened.  Ranma pulled free.  With 
deft agility he pushed off of his opponent's side with his kicking foot and 
jackknifed over Akuji's shoulder.  The broad spread of an undefended back.  
Hakuda Toshin Shou: a hundred strikes battering his target even as he fell.
	A cry of rage.  Akuji twisted around before Ranma even hit the ground.  
Smoldering eyes blazing bright and furious.  A perfectly formed glassy fist 
catching him in the side.  The snap of bone, blood spurting from his nose 
even as the impact hurled Ranma away.  He hit the ground with his shoulder 
and felt the sickening snap of it dislocating.  He slid wildly across the 
room smashing through tables and chairs.  There was a sudden lurch as he hit 
the edge of the observation lounge, as his momentum jerked him back into the 
air.  With a loud crack he slammed spread-eagle into a window.  He had a 
brief, vertiginous glimpse of Tokyo spread out hundreds of meters below--of 
lights streaking and flaring in the courtyard--of his glorious suspension 
between heaven and earth; and then the glass shattered beneath him.


	Ranma sat at the edge of the bed, fighting down nausea.  The sounds of 
someone showering in the next room had stopped.  It was all he could do to 
remain awake.  The pounding in his head was unreal.  Akuji had nearly ended 
the fight with a single punch.  Nothing had ever hit him so hard; not Herb, 
relentlessly hammering him with ki attacks, not even Ryouga, imbedding him 
in a rock face during the training for the Hiryuu Shoten Ha.
	Behind the injuries and past the pain, Ranma gradually became aware of 
another concern.  The pervasive exhaustion he felt went beyond being 
physically drained or tired.  He felt . . . hollow inside, or thin somehow, 
empty and cold.  Cold.  He looked at his good hand and beneath the bruises 
and cuts and dried blood, he recognized the flaky blackness of burnt flesh.  
The heat for his final attack had had to come from somewhere.


	Instinct and luck saved him.  Instinct caused him, dazed as he was, to 
frantically twist away from the dizzying fall before him; luck caused his 
foot to be snagged by a power line exposed after his tumble across the 
floor.  He fell to the ground hard, broken shards of glass raining down 
around him.  Ranma forced a heaving, desperate breath as he clutched at his 
side.  Even as air filled his lungs his stomach gave a spasm and blood 
filled his mouth and spattered the floor.
	The pain was impossible.  The confidence of before was shattered.  Akuji 
was toying with him.  The speed with which had turned, the strength of that 
single attack: impossible.  I didn't even see him move, he thought.  Blood 
bubbled on his lips as Ranma gasped for breath.  I can't fight that.  He 
couldn't, he couldn't even feel his right arm, nothing but the pain and wind 
howling through the shattered window behind him.
	"Is that all, then?"  The deep, resounding voice sounded from far too 
close.  Ranma forced his eyes open.  Akuji was standing over him.  Not 
standing--hovering, a half-meter off the ground.  Ranma tried to push away 
with his good hand.  Glass crunched under his palm.  His fingers were broken 
and bloodied after striking the steely expanse of Akuji's back.  His arm 
shook beneath his weight.  Across the room he saw Akane.  She too was 
struggling to stand, and failing.
	"Not . . . by a long shot," Ranma said.  He slowly rose on trembling legs.  
With every breath his side burned.  The cool clarity of earlier was 
shattered and gone, but in its place a deep anger began to smolder.  "Not 
until you let Akane go."
	"How glorious."  Akuji smiled.  "You are ready to die for her."
	"No," Ranma snarled.  "I'm ready to kill for her."
	His opponent's smile grew.  "Such proud, insolent words!"   Akuji gestured 
towards Akane.  "Do you know what I have planned for this woman of yours?  
The presence she holds will consume her, eventually.  Nothing can prevent 
that.  It would have possessed her body already had I not been here this 
night."  The ebony man turned back to Ranma.  "She would become Ceph'ad, a 
slave to the Book."  Akuji paused.  "You have no idea what that means."
	"I don't care," Ranma said.  The words meant nothing to him.  The rage he 
felt grew and spread through his limbs.  The pain withdrew.  It never ended. 
  These psychotic godlings and their arrogance, their stupid speeches and 
their disregard.  Akane was his.  Nothing was going to happen to her.  Maybe 
I can't beat him, Ranma thought.  But I don't have to lose, either.  As long 
as Akane gets away.  That's all that matters.  "None of this matters."  He 
began to glow.  His hand clenched into a tight fist at his side.  "None of 
your bullshit."  His aura grew brighter as his fury grew stronger.  Briefly 
lived flames licked the air.  "I've had enough."  How many deaths in the 
last few days?  Innocent schoolgirls.  His father.  "You hear me?"  Whatever 
it takes.  "ENOUGH!"
	Ranma screamed.  He opened himself up fully to the rage he felt, tapped 
into the fiery, seething power he had embraced earlier tonight during the 
cat-fist.  Something had happened, something powerful enough to destroy most 
of the Tendos' house and drive away his opponent.  Something Cologne had 
warned him against.  The brightest flame burns quickest.  Well, I'm about to 
burn brighter than ever before, he thought.  I'll burn until there's nothing 
left, if that's what it takes.
	He lunged at his enemy.  The air sizzled with his passage, his strikes 
tracing luminescent trails against the night, the air burning in his lungs . 
. . The speed of his attacks took him by surprise.  Yet it still wasn't 
enough.  With infuriating ease Akuji seemed to dodge every hit, always 
floating just outside of his reach, smirking slightly.  Ranma began to grunt 
with every punch and kick, panting as he chased after his foe.  Their dance 
carried them along the periphery of the observation lounge.  The air began 
to grow hot and heavy, almost visibly swirling in their wake.  Ranma's 
attacks began to slow.  I have to try it now, he thought.  Before I'm 
totally exhausted.  Before there's nothing left.  He quailed at the thought 
of what he had to do next.  What if he wasn't tough enough?  Suck it up.  If 
this works--don't even know what I'm doing!--if this works, maybe Akane can 
get away.  His anger wasn't entirely spent; not yet.  Yet he turned away 
from it and allowed his rage to bleed away.  He threw a final lunging punch 
that fell short and weak.  He fell to one knee, panting.
	"A most impressive effort," Akuji said, sliding closer.  From over crossed 
armed he stared down at Ranma.  "I wish the Cephim had chosen you as its 
host, for then our games would not have to end.  Shattering your will would 
have been a most delectable pleasure.  The girl, I fear, will succumb too 
easily."
	Akuji's words sent an icy thrill through Ranma.  Good, he thought.  "That's 
. . . what you think."  Ranma forced himself to stand.  "I'm not done with 
you yet."
	"You begin to annoy me, boy."
	"The name's Ranma, you red-eyed freak."  Through blood-caked lips, he 
smirked.  "And I ain't afraid of you.  I killed your family.  Tore them 
apart with my bare hands."  He grew colder with every word.  With visceral 
remembrance he remembered the flesh parting beneath his hands; the bones 
shattered; the spray of blood and cry of joy; the savage joy.  "And Akuji?  
I still want to play."
	The obsidian man was no longer smiling.  His eyes flared brightly.  He 
uncrossed his arms, and his hand curled into tight fists.
	"Yeah, that's right, asshole."  Ranma said.  "So what you gonna do about 
it?"
	He was a burning flame frozen in frost.  He was rage trapped within a soul 
of ice.  For a moment raw terror nearly undid him and threatened the tenuous 
state in which Ranma held himself.  Akuji attacked.  What if he takes me 
out? Ranma thought.  What if I lose control?  But his will remained strong, 
even as Akuji slammed a fist into the martial artist's face.
	Through the sudden savage pain Ranma struggled to remain conscious, fought 
to hold onto his cool detachment as his head snapped back, as the impact 
picked him up and sent him corkscrewing across the room . . . he couldn't 
think, he couldn't see . . . his icy will stabbed a spiraling hole through 
the ki-dense air . . .and by some instinct he twisted in the air and landed 
in a low crouch next to Akane in the center of the room, and saw Akuji 
standing dark and terrible through a narrow tunnel that cut through the 
seething air.
	"Akane.  Is.  Mine!"  Ranma howled.  The soul of ice shattered.  He 
immersed himself fully into his rage.  With all the strength and anger left 
to him he punched forward.  "Hiryu Shoten Ha!"

***

Author Notes:

Not a real chapter so I guess I'll keep this short.  Action writing is still 
pretty new to me and doesn't come all that easy, so feedback is welcome.  
There's some strange words floating around that might seem unfamiliar... 
it's the kind of stuff that would've been explained in passing in earlier 
chapters, if I hadn't been lazy back then and had properly thought out who 
all these guys running around with sword were.  I've worked out some of the 
details of their Order, and I'll flesh in the details where necessary when I 
revise the earlier chapters (and as I move forward into this chapter).  Ah, 
the lazy joys of fanfiction.

Did Ranma's desperate attack work?  How did he end up naked in a hotel room? 
  And what about poor Carl Okada?  All this and more in the next installment 
of LtCF, chapter six: The Nature of the Beast!  (Ooh, Aah!)

-Mike

e-mail: noakes_m@hotmail.com
homepage: http://www.geocities.com/noakes_m
blog!: http://noakes.blogspot.com

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             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'