easy as it looks."

"But then again," she said after she had balanced herself again and turned around to him with a sheepish smile, "I can always count on you to catch me when I fall, right?"

"I wouldn't count on that," he answered and looked past her into the wild forest separating the civilized life from the uncultivated nature.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I can't always be ... on time, can I? So you better start depending on your own skills," he told her, his eyes averted from hers, and jumped down the fence. "Wanna go back home?"

"What's with those pictures?" the brown-haired girl demanded angrily. "I can't use them at all!"

"It is not my fault," the ninja answered humbly. "You took them, I only developed them. Use them however you like. And now I must bid my farewell to you."

"Screw you, buddy; that's cheap talk!" she mumbled as the personal servant of the Kuno family disappeared from her side, and added, as she heard someone knocking on her door: "Come in!"

"Nabiki?" Kasumi asked nicely as she entered her sister's room. "Would you like to help me entertain Akane's guest while she is out?"
"Sure thing, Kasumi," she answered and tossed her the pictures of Ranma and Akane having breakfast in her room. "You can have those. I can't use them anyway."

The rest of the young woman's day went as she had thought and feared: a good deal of her friends from school, even more of her admirers, amongst which, of course, Kuno, and also most of her rivals for her fiancé's affection showed up to congratulate her, so that she had next to no time for the person she wanted to spend her birthday with the most. Nevertheless, Akane smiled, thanked everybody for them being here, and, after a somewhat bountiful and cheerful supper, fell exhaustedly into her bed, one thought circling her mind: tomorrow was going to be just another day to spend time with him.

The stairs creaked as he went down. He did not care nor did he know why he should. They were all asleep and would not wake up from something as trivial as a creak. Still, he had the distinct feeling of being watched; however, he dismissed it as his imagination. After all, his highly trained senses would have picked up a trace of whoever was supposedly watching him by now. Another stair, another creak. He was in the hall. Slowly but decidedly he walked down towards the front door, touching the wall as he went by and remembering all the good times he had.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" a formless voice sounded from the impenetrable darkness.

"I should've known you were here," he said, his eyes closed, and tried to find the owner of the soft voice in the pitch darkness. "My instinct's never been wrong. How come I can't tell where you are?"

"Do you really have to ask that?" she asked and switched on the hallway light, so that he could see what she was handing him. "Your senses are getting weaker by the minute."For a moment, the raven-haired man looked at the picture, before his numb fingers let it drop to the floor. The woman watched the small piece of paper fall to the ground and caught a last glimpse of the image. She could see her darling little sister sitting in her bed, looking at the camera in complete shock, while trying to feed something to her fiancé; he looked as shocked as her, but other than her he seemed to stare at a shadow that stood between him and the photographer, blurring his lower body.

"What do you want?" he asked slowly, eying the woman carefully.

"How long have you watched out for her?" she asked.

"Ten years," he said. "Ten years. I wanted to make sure that she was alright. I know I should've noticed them earlier, but I didn't. She'll be safe, though - at least if I'm leaving. And that's what I 'm gonna do. Did you know all that? "

"Yes and no," she told him. "I thought I knew you from somewhere when you first arrived here and I was almost positive when you hugged me. I was sure that you had hugged me before, but I could not remember when. Now I know. It was you who protected her in that forest when you were just kids and it was you who brought her back home. I hugged you because I was so relieved that she was safe. "

"What do you want, Kasumi?" he asked her again.

"I wanted to thank you, Ranma," she whispered and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, before she embraced him with such force he had never expected from her. "I know how hard it must have been. You did everything you could to stay away from her - yet you ended up here. You tried everything you could to make her hate you - yet she fell for you. You were the angel on her shoulder - yet you were the devil in disguise. Do you want me to tell her? "

"No," he said decisively. "The less she knows the better she'll be off. I wish I could tell you that I wanted to see you again, but I can't. Goodbye, Kasumi ..."

:)