Misty Refuge

Chapter 3: Breaking through the Mist

Akane shut her eyes tight, bracing, hoping that her death would be swift and painless. Tendo Akane was going to die at the hand of her fiance. The man who had saved her countless times was also the man she was going to die to, the irony.

She did not know what to expect death would be. Death was something permanent, the ultimate admission of defeat. She could not admit she lost to Ranma, her pride would not allow her to do so. Nor was she in any positon to pull the Anything Goes secret technique, she was in way too much pain. Seconds stretched into eternity, as she waited for that final blow that would send her into the embrace of a Shinigami. A small part of her was actually looking forward to her own final slumber, she would finally be reunited with her mother.

Through out her life, she had never felt pain. Noone had ever hit her when she was young even when she was training with her father. Whenever she had cried, her mother or her father would come running. Her father could never really refuse anything she had asked of him. It was her mother that had given her a moral compass, she disciplined her when she was wrong, she was the one who had cleaned her scrapes, and told her what she did was wrong.

Tendo Kimiko was the one who had hunted down the rapists, whom the Japanese police could not capture, because those rape victims felt too embarrassed and shameful to their family to voice their status. Akane saw how devastating rape could do not only to the body but more importantly the mental scarring it created as a result of it. Her penchant for smashing pervert came from that and fear.

She was afraid that if she lost even one martial art match, she would not be able to defend herself anymore against those sick perverts. She built her confidence and pride on her imperviousness to anything male. She could never admit to that weakness, her pride would never allow it. Instead she bottled her fear up and try to contain as much of it as she can.

Anger was the only means she found that helped expel her fear outward, but one time release was never enough. The cycle of fear and anger was one she found herself trapped in, but once again she was too prideful to reach out for others to help her with it. The constant beating without defeat also fed her pride, which she thrived upon. She remained undefeated because of that she found solace for her fear in her strength.

She rather die, than admitting she could not defend herself anymore. By admitting defeat, she had to come to terms that she would just be another damsel in distress, who needed the help of a male to come bail her out everytime.

She was hoping with the plan from last night, she would gain back her dominance by, by finally defeating Ranma and gaining back her pride, by winning Ranma, and squash that fear forever, as it would be Ranma's ultimate admission of love. Now she just did not care anymore, her anger started to turn inward, into a putrid puss of self-loathing.

Anger at her inability to protect herself, anger at her own insecurities, anger at her own fear of intimacy, anger at her own undecided feelings toward Ranma, but now she laid face down defeated waiting for that final blow to put her out of her misery...

Her shoulder slumped and relaxed the tension between her shoulder blades, she felt a rush of air toward her neck. She flinched but the blow never came...

Her eyes fluttered open to see what had happened, what she saw petrified her more than anything else in her life. Ranma's face twisted in absolute disgust and disdain. Ranma's flattened hand prostrated straight, while shaking with power. She knew if he wanted to kill her he would have done it already, but why is he stopping. Everything no longer made any sense in her head.

The picture of Ranma in which she painted as a monster who had strung all those girls for his own perverted pleasure started to dissipate, forcefully, by the glare he was steadily leveling toward her. She did not know how to handle a serious and angry Ranma. The next words that came out of Ranma's mouth stunned her.

"Real martial artists have control" Ranma growled out gutturally with suppressed rage.

Akane was not sure whether that was directed at her or was it to serve as a reminder to himself. She watched with her mouth half gaped as the red-headed martial artist stood up and walked into the house, without making eye contact with anybody.

-MR-

Nabiki was the first to break the utter silence that followed the double beat downs at the hand of the heir of Anything Goes with a long two tone high low whistle. She surveyed the damage to the Tendo yard, Ranma definitely did a fine thorough job of destroying the current property.

Nabiki was fortunately enough to corner Kasumi after her morning coffee, for her to be updated on last night's events. She personally had a feeling something big was going down, for once she did not care for it anymore.

Nabiki's view on Ranma had changed drastically over the years he had stayed at the Tendo Dojo. When her father told them about the engagement, she was hopeful. Hopeful that she could find someone who would not be prejudice against her because of her reputation. However, when the curse was shown, she was scared and it was one of the few knee-jerk decision she had ever made in her life.

That decision was also one of the few mistakes she had made in her life as well. The feeling of hope turned into trepidation of the unknown. She reacted and shoved the responsibility of the engagement onto her younger sister. As she observed Ranma's life from the sidelines, seeing Ranma's endurance of character and his strong sense of character. Nabiki could not feel but him earning her respect a little by little everyday. She even entertained the idea of engaging to him, but his lack of ambition in anything but martial arts was in fact the breaking point of that possibility. Under different circumstances, it could be something. However, that was not the case.

Although Nabiki would never admit to it, she was able to repair her broken moral standards, by simply watching and seeing Ranma's decision on a daily basis. There were times when Ranma slipped, but in the end he always found a solution that would not tarnish his honour.

Her feeling toward Akane was mixed, there was a part in her that cheered Ranma had taken the Princess of Furinken High down a peg or two. There was another side of her that was also furious at Ranma for attacking her family. The former won out, as she saw the merit of providing some form of discipline for Akane as opposed to letting her behaviour to fester longer.

There were few things that happened in Nerima without her knowing at all. Even though she may not know all of the details, she was perceptive enough to have a general idea of what was happening, and from then on she can exploit the details out of people. Her greatest asset was not her reputation, but her understanding of the human psyche and her ability to put two and two together.

In the past month, she saw how all of the fiances including Kodachi as well as the rivals had a sudden change in behaviour. Instead of charging head on into Ranma like they usually did, they had avoided him like the plague. It was this type of hints that she picked up, which helped her interrogate and squeeze information out of people. She could pin down almost anybody through their body language in a matter of minutes. The others in Nerima were not even given her a challenge anymore. Although it was harder to read Cologne at times, but given her culture in which reading someone's action was taboo. The Amazon Elder did not have her defense up, habitually.

Her understanding of the human psyche also extended to one aspect of humanity that most could not grasp. Humans were unpredictable, especially those teetered on the brink of a psychotic breakdown. She observed the hint for the small crack from Ranma's posture during the failed wedding. It was then she made the decision to stop all operations she had on Ranma, because to be honest she liked the jock. If anybody broached her on such a sentiment, the mercenary would deny it vehemently.

Ranma had received one week after the wedding, in which nobody dared approaching him. During that peaceful week, the fracture began to heal. However it just seemed that the Kami would not give the pig-tailed martial artist a break. After the week, it heralded another fiance. Which set off another chain of events which reopened the wound and have been growing since.

Now it was almost half a year after the failed wedding, the cycle continued up until a month ago. She knew that something was up, but she for once was not in the planning stages for the event, nor was she the catalyst. Nabiki had a feeling that this would be the event that would be the straw that broke the horse's back, so to speak. She watched him struggle to keep his despair and sadness in, by putting up his usual carefree front. Now as he walked out the dojo, she saw the light in his eyes, the spark that made Ranma the bundle of energy, flickering and dying out slowly.

Nabiki wanted to help Ranma, but she did not know where to start. There were too many unknown factors and too many players for the result to be what she wanted. Most importantly, she did not know whether any plan would not blow up and would just aggravate Ranma even more. The futility of everything around the Aquatransexual was overwhelming, sometimes.

-MR-

Ranma looked up at the sky, it was funny how temperamental the weather can be. Not a few hours ago, it had been a torrential downpour from the heavens but now the afternoon sun was playing hide and seek in the clouds.

The heavy downpour and the feeling of holding Kasumi's soft supple body to him was still fresh in his head. Until last night, Ranma had no clue that under such conservative dress of hers was a body that would outmatch his current form. The rain from last night caused Kasumi's dress stick to her body like a second skin. Ranma could not help it but feel attracted to the elder Tendo when he had held her in his arms at the time. He felt something within him stir, even though he was a she at the time. Her breath became ragged, not from the exertion...

Ranma shook her red mane back forth trying to shake the image and feeling from her head. Now was not the time to feel aroused by such events, she just wanted to clear her head and want to find a way to solve her fiance problem. She wished that things were as simple as the fiances wanted it to be. He could just pick a fiance and everything else would be fine. The problem was he could not, because if he chose one he would tarnish...

Ranma was unable to complete this line of thought as a myopic Amazon jumped out of nowhere with a scream of

"Shampoo, Airen!"

Ranma felt a pair of male arms wrapped under his breast, while listening to the Amazon male babbling something incoherently in Chinese. The feeling of anger and disgust he tried to calm down came back a thousand fold. The pig-tailed martial artists froze up, and tried to tap into the soul of ice technique. However, the feeling for retribution and years of suppressed anger refused to be ignored any longer.

"Let me go" Ranma rumbled with suppressed rage.

Feeling Mousse's refusal to his command from the tightening of his arms around his stomach, and to Ranma's chagrin she felt a hand that was not hers squeezed her breast quite painfully. Ranma reacted. Swinging her legs back, the aquatransexual tucked her feet within the crooks of the Amazon's knees and pushed her feet into the back of his knees, forcing Mousse to bend his knees forward. She heard Mousse's yelp as he unexpectedly found himself kneeling on the ground. A feral grin broke on Ranma's face as she heard the cracking sound of the knee cap. The forced movement caused Mousse to loosen up his hold onto her, and she used this momentum to flip backward onto Mousse's back and landed on her feet facing toward Mousse.

Given that this movement made Mousse to be set up in a position with his ass sticking in the air toward her. Ranma took the opportunity to punt the blind martial artist toward the wall that he was facing. Mousse was apparently more resilient than Ranma had given him credit for, as he wobbly got back up on to his feet, but his fight against unconsciousness was for nought as Ranma took a running start and jumped with both of his feet aiming right at Mousse's chest, which pushed Mousse back into another part of the wall, his head made a thickening sound against the concrete wall and was promptly knocked out.

Looking up at the sky, seeing that it was close to nightfall, he hopped up onto of a building, and headed back toward the Tendo Dojo.

-MR-

Mousse for once in his short life was extremely jubilant as he meandered through Nerima, because he watched first hand that Ranma was no good for his Shampoo, and had rejected her outright, nevermind the fact that he had rejected the rest of the fiances as well. He was just happy that Ranma had rejected Shampoo. He hoped that through this outright rejection, Shampoo could finally accept the fact that Ranma was just not interested in her at all.

After the missive that was just recieved recently from the Council, Cologne have been more subdued than usual. Much unlike popular belief about the two, Mousse actually liked the ancient mummy. If it was not for her, he would not be able to practice martial arts at all in the village. Add on to the action she did not do when she had discovered him in Japan, it was safe to say that she valued Mousse more as an individual than anyone else in the tribe. He knew that Cologne was one of the more progressive Elders on the Council, and the most progressive Amazon Elder to date as well. Progressive did not mean that Cologne was absolutely naive toward the old ways, nor had she ever openly went against the decision or "recommendation" of the Council.

Mousse knew his place within the tribe, and tried not to go past the boundary which he was allowed. Mousse's pursuit for Shampoo was actually given consent by Cologne. Although on the surface, it was something that would be frowned upon by other Elders. His own grandmother was against the idea, because she did not want to jeopardized her position at all, as she was relatively new on the Amazon Council. Cologne saw the merit of his pursuit from the beginning, however his total color-blindness and his near eyesight give him a distinct disadvantage when it comes to martial arts.

Being born male, in a female dominant society had not been easy for Mousse. The treatment of males in the village as inferior being had actual real logical reason behind it. The reason was quite simple: almost all the males in the village suffered some form of color-blindness, because of a defective gene within the Amazons. How this gene got deformed was anybody's guess. As color-blindness is predominantly within male, females were unaffected by such limitations. Due to this defect, the Amazonian culture just made so much more sense for the female to be dominant while the males were subservient. It was also why Amazons preferred a match with outsider males, since they most likely did not have this defect, as opposed to the village males. Mousse could not really blame the culture of which 98% of the male population suffer this impairment, and he was no different.

All Cologne cared about was the total devotion Mousse had shown for her great granddaughter. Mousse also was among the most honest males in the village. Unlike other males in the village, Mousse refused to participate in the pastimes of the village males, gossip. This alone earned him some respect from the ancient elder. He was among the few in the village: a male that actually cared about his masculinity. Mousse honed his ears and nose to gather more information than his eyes. The only time, Mousse had ever been truly blind was when it came to Shampoo. He just did not know how to act around her. He felt so inadequate and insignificant when she's around. Mousse knew he could easily beat Shampoo if he gone all out, but he wanted her feeling to be genuine and not forced.

When he heard the news that Shampoo had given out the Kiss of Marriage, Mousse wanted to test out the devotion of her new suitor. He loved Shampoo and he was ready to give up on Shampoo entirely, if Ranma had shown her the type of devotion she deserved. He left the village without the consent of an elder. He was caught at customs and was sent back immediately to the village. His punishment was being cursed to turn into a duck. After a few weeks, he went to the council and petitioned to leave the village, as he turned 17, which by Amazon standard an adult. He petitioned on the reason he wanted to see the world and he had wonderlust. The Council saw no reason to keep him in the village and readily agreed for him to leave. He joined a travelling circus and the rest of his actions were history.

When he arrived in Japan, he stayed with the circus to finish off his contract, but also during this time he stayed out of sight and observed Shampoo and Ranma's actions. He was incensed by the fact that Saotome was actively running away from Shampoo, and most of her affection were quite one-sided. Ranma never really given any overt rejection, but the stiffening whenever Shampoo was near, and his active avoidance of the purple-haired girl angered him to no end. He came to the conclusion that Ranma was a womanizing bastard that liked the attention of females as he kept so many around him.

Oh how naive he was due to his young age and inexperience with interactions outside the village. The possibility that Ranma was forced into his situation, had never really crossed his mind. His reaction was in retrospect disgraceful and stupid. He had endangered someone else for the sake of interrogating Shampoo's suitor, having just being punished by the Council had put him on edge, and add on to the weeks of repressed anger from watching Ranma ignoring Shampoo did nothing to relieve his stress. The end result plan was absolutely idiotic. He was just glad nothing permanent came as a result of it or he would not have been able to live with the subsequent guilt.

His action afterwards were according to Amazon law, which was if he could defeat Shampoo's suitor, then It would mean that Shampoo would be released from the Kiss of Marriage, but tried as he had he could not beat the pig-tailed martial artist. As days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and months turned into years, Mousse started to question the validity of the Kiss of Marriage. He was the first to brought up, this concern to Cologne, Cologne who was in the thick of trying to capture the wayward husband. Rejected the notion outright at first, but as each attempt was thwarted she began to take the accusation more seriously, as she knew the real reason behind why Shampoo was initially cursed. The Council rarely publicized their opinions on rulings, as a result the reason for their actions throughout the village was entirely passed through the rumour mill. The grapevine may be true once in a while, but rarely were they ever true. The scenario which the Amazonian rumour mill accepted was that Shampoo had failed to bring back the head of the red-headed martial artist, not Shampoo's disobedience of the tribe's decision. Knowing her great granddaughter, Cologne had told him she would investigate this issue some more.

Which led to his current predicament, Mousse was wondering around Nerima. Since it was a Monday and it was a little bit before noon, the lunch rush was not for another hour or so. Cologne made him leave the Nekohanten to enjoy part of today, especially after the injuries he had sustained from last night. It would do his body some good to stretch out a bit. As he turned around a corner he saw the back of "Shampoo"'s back toward him. He rushed forward hugging her from behind.

He unknowing started to babble a whole lot of nonsense in Chinese about Ranma was no longer a problem, they could finally be together, how her honour would not be stained at all if she would give up on Ranma and head home with him. The reaction he recieved was standard "Shampoo" whenever he initiated any form of contact: froze in place. He just continued to babble more incoherently about his undying love for her and their union have already been blessed by his grandmother. He felt "Shampoo" shake, not from her body, but as a tremble from her vocal chord.

That did not sound like Shampoo...that sounded like Ranma. He unconsciously grabbed on to the female's tits and felt its size, it was definitely not Shampoo's size. Shampoo's was a bit fuller than this females. When his thought finally caught up with his action, the next thought that went through his head was:

"Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!"

He felt himself falling down on to his knees followed by a sharp pain on his knee cap accompanied with the distinct crack from bone fracture. The next thing he knew he was flying head first toward a wall.

Wanting to express his remorse, he braced himself for impact. His determination won out, as he wobbled back on to his feet. Just when he was about to voice his apology, the wind got knocked out of him as he found himself air born again. Soon after, he drifted into the land of unconsciousness

-MR-

Kodachi was laying on a boat floating down the Nile, she was dressed in very thin satin and was wearing nothing underneath. Her faithful servant and bodyguard was standing next to her wearing nothing but a loin cloth. She watched idly as her pet, Midorigame thrashed around in the shallow end of the water. Absentmindedly she reached over and started massaging...

{/I will spare you the mental sexual construct of a crazed lunatic, although I do have it written}

"Ranma" the final soft sigh escaped from her open lips as her fantasy came to an end.

Kodachi had left the Tendo compound as soon as Ranma left, seeing that most of her wounds were minor thank to some miracle. She had worst injuries when practicing gymnastics. It wasn't long before she drifted off to a soft slumber, and awoken up with her hand inside herself.

She groggily got out of her plush bed and wondered into the shower to clean the musk scent from herself as much as possible. She had discovered after years of therapy and chemical balancing drugs, the only means by which her mind had ever cleared up and allowed her to function as a member of society was after a strong sexual release. Having never been touched by a man before, she never really understood true carnal joy. In her moments of clarity, She had hoped her moments of clarity would be sustainable, after having a real session in the sack with someone she cared about as opposed to fleeting moments of lucidness like it had been ever since she started masturbating regularly. She did not have the luxury of constant masturbation during class and while she practiced gymnastic martial arts.

The only other times that she was able to break out of the fog of lunacy that was her birthright was during times of extreme concentrations. Once past her craziness, her mind was actually extremely sharp. It was selfish of her but she wanted to remain sane as much as possible and she wasn't above using some underhanded tactics to get the man she wanted, and in this case: Ranma.

Kodachi quickly donned her skin-tight leotard, and bounded out of the Kuno Mansion looking for Ranma. He was everything she wanted in a man, naive, strong, kind, steadfast, and quite smart when properly motivated. Naivity was a quality most people would not found attractive, but to Kodachi it meant she had both the opportunity to shape his sexual preferences and leaning. She did not mind the extra work, if it meant that he could cause her to be in comatose from pleasure. She was getting ahead of herself, now all she wanted to do was to locate her Ranma-sama.