at Ranma's insistance. It had taken some time and much convincing, but the pig-tailed boy had finally find peace as he began to patch the unnatural openings with spare boards that the Tendos now seemed to always have in stock now. The hammering reverberated through the living room with each knock, a constant reminder of recent events that had taken place. As each echo reached his ear, the more irriated he felt and the more unfocused he became until the tool made direct contact with his finger.
Ranma grunted loudly, dropping the hammer to the floor and stuffing the throbbing fingertip into his mouth. "Man, why does this stuff always have to happen to me," he moaned, feeling particularly sorry for himself. "Why did Akane have to get so moody? It's not like I asked those girls to come over. Stupid tomboy..."
He hopped down from the ladder to take a better look at his work. Though protected from the elements, the patched crevices would not be hard for Genma and Soun to notice when they returned. "Great, now I'm really going to get it," he complained, rubbing the back of his head in a nervous habit.
He had already swept up all of the bits of broken china and cleaned the reminance of ramen and other food items from
the walls, suddenly missing the usefulness of Kasumi around the house. The plate of pork still stood before him,
completely untouched, from where it had landed, unscathed, from Akane's hand. She came to Ranma's mind once again,
the image of her in the doorway wearing an expression that he couldn't quite read ran through his head. It had
been a few hours since she had retired upstairs. Ranma shoved his hands deep into his pockets as he pushed a bit of
lint around the floor with his toe. "I guess I should go upstairs and apologize to Akane. She didn't have to run
away like that, but I guess I could have gotten the troublemakers out a little sooner. The stairs had never seemed
so long to him before, and seemed to linger before him forever as he slowly made his way up and down the hall.
The forboding yellow duck stood before him and he hesitated before summoning up enough courage to make contact with
the door using his knuckles. His greeting was returned with silence. "Um...Akane?" he sputtered.
There was still no answer to his beckoning. He stood for a moment, unsure what to do next. The door was open just enough for him to expose a slim line of sea foam green paint from her far wall, but little else. Ranma slowly pushed the door in a little farther, anticipating a mallet to come out at any moment. "Akane, can I talk to you for a sec?"
The door was now open to bring the whole of Akane's room into view. As usual, her room was immaculate. The curtains were still drawn back to allow the brassy shafts of the late sun to lounge lazily across her bed, which was still made. Akane was not there. Ranma sat for a moment, surprised by her absence, scanning the room for any sign of her. The corner of his eye caught a pink ribbon that had adorned her hair earlier in the day before the unexpected visitors had made their appearance. A sudden through ran through his head. He briskly walked across the room to the closet and threw the doors open before him, searching for an item of clothing that, as he had suspected, was missing. He turned around, eyebrows slouched across his face in anger. "She wouldn't..."
"Hiyah!"
The brick crumbled almost effortlessly beneath the weight of Akane's flying fist. She paused for a moment in her
follow through, eyeing he work, and then pulled herself back up into standing position. Her body felt heavier
than normal and the work-out was beginning to take a toll on her so early on. She placed a hand against her chest,
feeling the racing of her heart, as she took deep beaths in order to calm her heavy breathing. She felt out of shape,
but that was far from the case as she practiced nearly every day. She sighed in defeat, realizing that her illness
had affected her more than she would like to realize. Who knew that a cold could put her so far behind in her
abilities? A tickle formed in her throat and she succumbed to a few coughs, finding them to bellow deep from within
her chest, the noise echoing against the dojo walls, overpowering the sliding noise coming from the shoji door behind
her.
"AKANE!"
Akane, whirled around with eyes wide open, quite started at the sound of her name. The expression had nearly matched that of her father's from back in her childhood days. The expression behind it meant that she was in trouble. Ranma stood before her with the cool wind sneaking into the dojo. She tried to relax in his presence, but his body language could not help but make her feel as though she should not have been there. "R-Ranma-" she greeted quietly.
Ranma wasn't leaning in the doorway as he normally did when he watched her practice. Instead he stood several feet into the room with his arms folded, a look of true anger covered his face. "What the HELL do you think you're doing?" he exploded, making her jump a little at his sudden burst.
This wasn't like him at all and Akane hesitated instead of snapping back as she normally did. She fidgeted with the belt on her gi, the same piece of clothing that Ranma had identified as missing from her closet. She finally answered, trying to regain her confidence, and yet finding it far more difficult than normal. "I just thought that I would come out to the dojo for a little work-out," she innocently responded.
"A work-out? Akane, you're sick! Any true martial artist would know better."
Akane scowled. "What do you mean true martial artist? Just because I'm not as good as you doesn't make me a bad one!"
Ranma's face darkened. "Akane, stop acting like a child."
Akane was completely taken aback. This was not one of their typical arguments. Ranma's words were completely serious and she could see it. A flash of lightening lit up in the doorway, just behind the pig-tailed boy as the booming of thunder followed closely behind, but he did not even flinch. Raindrops began to dance on the dojo roof, sending a sweet fragerance into the room, something that the petite girl would have normally indulged in. The circumstances in the room, however, left the moment completely unappreciated. Akane studied his face closely, and couldn't deny the pained look in his eyes. Was that the look of disappointment? He could tell that she was suprised by his sudden outburst, but at the moment it didn't concern him. He took a few steps closer to her before continuing. "You were left at home today because you were sick."
"It's only a cold." She released an additional short series of coughs as though they happened on cue.
"It's getting worse. You need to take care of yourself."
"I know how to take care of myself."
"Then DO it!"
Akane's eyes widened and fell silent again. This time Ranma was not going to back down. "Dammit, Akane, you were my responsibility today. You were MY responsibility!"
Her delicate hands clenched and unclenched one another in front of her, as her eyes studied the wooden floor beneath her. She would have normally argued that she never asked to be his responsibility and demanded that he mind his own business, but she was left with nothing to say. He had made her feel like a fool. "I'm sorry," she wispered, and rushed past him quickly into the storm that lay behind him.
Her stinging tears mixed with the rain that fell all around her as she blindly made her way towards the house, with Ranma following closely behind her. "Akane," he called to her in an almost gurling noise as he began to take his form in waterlogged dusk.
Another bolt of lightening lit up the darkness that now surrounded them, following by a burst of thunder that nearly shook the ground beneath them. Akane whimpered quietly at the deafening noise that startled her, and felt a sudden flood of pain as she crumbled to the ground in a heap. "AKANE!"
The lights that once led the way to the house flickered and then left the two in a veil of night.