The ornate door which had swung shut after Akane entered the obsidian room barred Ranma’s entrance with the strength of a hundred men pressing against its barred surface from the other side. Nothing which he tried caused the heavily carved and gilded barrier to budge. Finally, in pure and utter desperation, he raised his emerald katana and brought it to bear upon the portal.

Emerald flames licked the air as he delivered his first vehement blow to the door. The panel shuddered violently, but stirred not from its casement. Ranma snarled with impatience at the prolonged delay.

The second strike hissed and spat with fury as it roared along its path to the door. The irresolute barrier rang like a bell as it shuttered against its frame, but otherwise did not move. Ranma’s fury grew exponentially in response.

He screamed in rage as he whipped the emerald katana around again for a third stroke. The katana’s tip arced backwards towards the hilt as he tore it violently through air that suddenly seemed as thick as molasses. Emerald and sapphire flames roared about him and his blade. Causing him to appear as the living incarnation of flame as his once short braid suddenly grew many times its original length to snap out behind him like the tail of a comet streaking through the heavens.

The katana struck fiercely against the door a third and final time. This time the loud peal that resulted rose to an ear-piercing wail. The door suddenly shattered into a million pieces and Ranma stood in the opening writhed in flames.

His eyes almost glowed with the sheer amount of energy pouring off of his body in waves. The katana was held low in his posture with both hands wrapped around the grip, its tip pointed towards the center of the room. His teeth shone brilliantly white against the maelstrom of colour about him as he bared them in a feral snarl. His suddenly lengthy braid snapped and wove snakelike about him as if with a life all of its own.

This was the scene he presented as he burst into the site of Akane’s defeat at the hands of a leering, over-arrogant look-alike of Ranma. His eyes flashed with fury as he scanned the room. The first thing his eyes were drawn to like moths to a flame was the sight of Akane curled into a ball facing away from him. His chiseled features slowly took on a look of horror as he stared at the burns that laced her back and the charred mass that had once been her hair.

But that wasn’t what hurt him the worst to look upon. No. The thing that hurt him the worst was unlike almost every single other time he had come to her rescue, she wasn’t standing with the fierce pride that he held so dear. Instead, she laid upon the ground trembling from some cause unknown to him.

His katana was gone the instant he laid eyes upon her. His feet slapped hard against the slick surface in a rapid staccato as he raced to her side. His face was horrified and he had eyes for no one and nothing else.

"Akane!" he yelled as he ran.

She twisted her tearstained face painfully towards him. Her features marked with shiny burns and a fear that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He skidded to a halt beside her, his slippered feet sending live coals flying away from them.

"Akane..." he whispered, wavering between desperately wanting to hold her in his arms and protect her, and not wanting to touch her to keep from hurting her even worse than she already was. His normally confident hands fluttered uselessly about her battered form as his face was contorted into a helpless mockery of his confidence. Finally, he reached up and gently wiped the tears away from her face with his callused thumb.

Moving quickly, he stripped off his precious, scarlet, long-sleeved overshirt with the Chinese collar. Then he lifted her as tenderly as he could and wrapped it about her body before picking her completely up and carrying her free of the coals that scattered the floor. Walking carefully, so as not to disturb his precious load, he bore her from the room.

As he walked, Akane looked desperately into his face, trying as hard as she could to suppress the need to struggle away and race from him as fast as she could. His features were cold now. Determined. And that frightened her. She had heard from the others what he had done to Saffron, and as impressive as that was, she was still frightened for him. She knew first hand how powerful the creature he would be facing was.

He set her down just outside the door. Crouching before her, he tugged his shirt a little more snuggly around her so that she wouldn’t be cold and wiped away the tears that had fallen down her face as he carried her. Gazing into her eyes with those deep sapphire orbs that told so much difference between him and the beast that had stolen so much from her, he spoke.

"Don’t worry, Akane." His voice was soft, husky. Just like she remembered. Not the childish piping or the rumbling darkness of the beast. "It’ll be alright. I promise. I’ll make it alright." Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips softly against her forehead and was gone.

And she was alone. Tears streamed down her face as she realized that she finally felt safe. Not when Ranma held her so tenderly, but when she was completely alone.

***********

Ranma stalked back into the obsidian room as the flames of rage and despair rose off of him like smoke. His eyes sparked and flashed in his fury. His golden rod appeared in his hand and changed form so quickly that it seemed that the emerald katana had appeared in his hand immediately. When he spotted the beast that stood yet in the very center of the room, he nearly erupted in rage, but he controlled it barely.

"You did this." Were the first words he spoke, as he slowly brought the katana up into a guard stance. The phrase was most certainly not a question, though that didn’t stop the beast from treating it like one.

"Did what?" the dark rumble replied, issuing from an identical image of Ranma’s face.

"You know what you did." Ranma snarled back, almost spitting in his anger.

"Oh. That. I don’t know what you’re so upset about, boy. She was just a woman. That happens to be what women are for, boy. Don’t you know that?" the beast’s expression was seriously holier than thou.

"That was Akane! She was, is, my fiancee! That is not what she is for!" Ranma roared.

"Oh, as if that makes any difference. She’s got a hole, don’t she? Therefore a man has to teach her to respect him! You should have put a collar and tags on her if you didn’t want to share! Deal with it boy, your little piece of ass got fucked! And the only reason no one else has fucked her yet is cause you got lucky, boy!" The beast was beginning to get angry with Ranma’s apparent stupidity about the inherent place of women in the status quo.

Ranma had looked down at the ground during the beast’s tirade, and by that point was trembling with the maelstrom of vehemence that roared within him. He raised his eyes slowly to meet the beast’s onyx ones.

"You’re wrong." His voice was soft, steady, almost a whisper. "Women are to be treated with respect. Women are to be protected. Akane is my friend. She is my companion. My shield arm. She was not meant for the likes of you."

He paused to gather his temper about him again, then continued.

"Tell me your name." He demanded in the same soft, steady voice.

"Why should I?"

"Because I will know the name of the creature that sought to degrade and defile women. You, who are worse even than the mild perversities of Kuno, shall be the one who is destroyed today. I shall strive to eradicate all forms of your name so that you are not remembered on this earth today, tomorrow, or yesterday."

"Since you think you are so powerful, I shall deign to tell you, foolish boy. I am the one who is known as Raetheon. Some call me the Destroyer. Who are you, so that I may return the favor after I extinguish your pitiful flame of life?"

"I am Saotome Ranma of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. I have fought against gods themselves and won. I’m not going to lose to the likes of you."

And then all words were finished as Ranma leapt where angels feared to tread to do what he did best. Fight.

He sprung from where he stood without even bothering to take even the shortest step forward. He simply propelled himself without any visible means to fly through the still air towards Raetheon the Destroyer. His katana was upheld in preparation for a killing strike as he soared through the air. His face was contorted in a snarl of concentration.

At the last instant, a similar blade of emerald hue appeared in Raetheon’s hand and deflected the onrush of the katana’s downward stroke. The slender, slightly curved blade embellished with a guard the curved over his knuckles that was held in Raetheon’s hand was not Japanese in origin. It appeared like nothing so much as an American calvery saber from the civil war period. Twin tassels hung from the pommel in an annoyingly flashing bit of decoration. Raetheon merely smirked at Ranma’s apparent disbelief.

"I am twice the man you will ever be, boy. Don’t think that just because I do not have it constantly swinging about in full view, that I don’t carry a sword." He laughed.

Ranma didn’t even bother with a reply. He simply swung the katana about to strike ringly against the other blade. The two blades sang an ever increasing pitch as the they ran along each other’s lengths to allow their wielders to meet face to face in a clench at crossed guards.

The twin faces snarled at each other over the crossed blades. Their free hands wrapped about the other’s sword arm. Their feet dug securely into the ground. They struggled mightily against each other.

It would have been an evenly matched battle except for one thing. Ranma had only recently gained his ki rod. Raetheon on the other hand had apparently had his for much longer.

Suddenly, Raetheon’s saber changed shape and hue and Ranma was sent hurtling across the room with a scream. He hit hard against the wall beside the door and slid limply down with a slight smear of blood from where his skull had cracked against it upon impact. A tiny trickle of blood oozed its way out of the corner of his mouth.

Slowly, Ranma picked himself up off the ground. He wiped away the bit of blood from his mouth with the back of this free hand. Reaching back, he discovered the tear in his scalp, but dismissed it as unimportant. His eyes never left Raetheon.

In his hand, his emerald katana slowly changed shape. It flickered and flashed between various hues and shapes before finally settling into a scarlet hued device. Raising it slowly, Ranma pointed the device at Raetheon, who gaze at him curiously.

"I saw something like this in a game once." Ranma mentioned, almost off-handedly, as he fired the device. The hook on the end raced towards Raetheon and expanded and wrapped itself around him before he had time to react. "GET OVER HERE!" he yelled, pressing a different stud on the device.

Raetheon suddenly found himself flying through the air towards Ranma. The grappling hook in Ranma’s hands was the direct cause of that result. He flew past Ranma as the other ducked and continued the motion with his arm. Smashing upside-down into the same wall that Ranma had hit bruised his confidence somewhat. Not to mention giving him a broken nose and a pair of black eyes.

Kipping to his feet despite being still tied up and injured, Raetheon flexed his arms and upper body. The grappling hook tensed for a moment. Straining mightily against Raetheon’s fierce onslaught, the hook finally gave up the ghost and broke open. Ranma screamed in pain as his ki rod took the brunt of the damage.

Raetheon grinned evilly as he called his own ki rod back to his hand. "Next time you decide to pull a stunt from a game like that, boy, I’d recommend that you remember to let go."

"I’ll keep that in mind." Ranma snarled through bloodstained teeth as he glared at Raetheon.

He charged at Raetheon again. This time he actually got through the other’s defenses. Three high powered strikes to the gut. Then he whipped his foot around in a golden high kick that moved so quickly though the air it literally caused a field of dense air to build up before it.

That last kick sent Raetheon flying again. This time not far in flight time, but he slammed hard into the ground and skidded across the floor until he ended up lying on his back in the center of the room once more. Ranma summoned his katana again and leapt for him once more.

He reached the apex of his leap almost directly above Raetheon. Then he altered his stance slightly so as to bring him downwards in a much steeper arc. During the time that he did that, however, Raetheon had recovered enough to summon his ki rod to him again.

"Tell me something, boy, since you’ve learned about ki rod. Have you learned to do this yet?" Raetheon asked, pointing the rod directly upwards at Ranma.

Suddenly the dark golden rod morphed into a strange green and red mixture of confidence and depression that just should not have been possible to pull off. The shape was vaguely gun-like, though Ranma couldn’t think of any guns that would have a muzzle quite that large.

Raetheon depressed the stud with a grin at Ranma’s surprised features. "I guess not."

The green and red fireball that launched from the muzzle caught Ranma hard in the chest and propelled him upwards fast enough to smash clear through the ceiling.

***********

AUTHOR’S NOTES: Hey, there! Me again. Don’t worry, things are going smooth. Hope you all had a nice Fourth if you’re Americans, though! ;D

Again, it was Triumph for this scene. I hope everyone’s liking this so far. Tell me if you have a major problem though! I’ve been known to make some really strange mistakes from time to time.

And no, the fight’s not over yet.

There’s still another chapter to go before I wrap up this battle scene!