The branches of the venerable oaks bent silently in the gusts of the steadily growing storm, but the invisible leaves of the foliage blooming in spring rustled noisily in the cold air currents, on which they wandered dancing towards their inevitable fate, while a lone, pitch-black raven on the Swinging of the wind drove its sardonic, scornful croak echoing in the ears of all those who were able to hear his meaningful word, giving the young woman, who feared his magnificent plumage with undisguised curiosity, giving an apparent smile before he, for the wildness the sudden storm, much too slowly, slipped out of her field of vision.

Reluctantly, the expressionless eyes of the young woman, in whom the once blazing fire of her soul had completely extinguished, turned away from that strange spectacle and focused on the stooped figure of the old man, whose black cloak hung motionless from his shoulders in the middle of the raging storm , while she watched numbly as he slowly placed his hand, raised in greeting, on the pommel of his heavy wooden staff and thus on the left hand already lying on him, almost entirely supporting his weight on the staff. Only now did the young woman notice that she had not yet seen the stranger's face, since, although he was standing opposite her, he had never raised his gaze once.

As if the unknown old man could read the young woman's mind, he lifted his head with a graceful elegance, the like of which she had never seen before, but while she still saw the first features of his wrinkled forehead, that of a timeless youth and by no means of advanced age spoke, saw, blurred her field of vision. Suddenly weak, she stumbled back a few steps, but her eyes, staring with terror, did not deviate an inch from his face, which, although it steadily blurred and cleared up again, slowly assumed visible contours, while she and the distant sound of drums resounding in a hot-blooded rhythm heard the fading neighs of noble horses in the shores of unknown lands.

Although her legs, trembling with unfathomable weakness, apparently no longer wanted to support her weight, the young woman tried to prevent her inevitable fall with great concentration, because she felt that she knew that she did not show any signs of weakness in front of the stranger, that she did not disappoint her master was allowed to, although she was not aware why at this point in time, when she wondered why her heart was beating, when she could not feel anything, she was given the clarity that she had sought in the loneliness of the forest; but even while her thoughts were turning in circles and she recognized the strange man's timeless forehead, her weak knees collapsed, the tremors of which were intensified by the uncanny, inhuman presence of the inconspicuous old man.She felt herself fall, but her terrified eyes were still fixed on the black figure in the doorstep, while her gaze blurred for no more than a blink of an eye; for an infinitely long moment, but no longer than the fading echo of a gentle snapping of the fingers, the young woman felt the scorching heat of the summer sun on the horizon, she heard the unmistakable drumming of war, the sound of the horns, the sound of metal clashing, she saw the dust whirled up by thousands upon thousands of feet trampling on the dry ground of the deserted valley, which enveloped the valley in an impenetrable cloud, she smelled the smell of fresh blood that soaked the earth, and only now noticed the two men who were indifferent to what was happening observed an increase.

But before the young woman could see who was hiding behind the masks of the red and black robes in which the two men were wrapped, her gaze cleared for a few seconds so that the man's eyes flashed in her field of vision. Even as she fell, she shuddered as she gazed into the gray depths of his infinite, omniscient eyes, which she appraised with expressionless curiosity, until the apprentice's gaze blurred once more.

For a blink of an eye in infinity she found herself in a forest, felt the damp, cool climate of her own home in every pore of her being, smelled the damp moss of the wild forest floor, took the thick wall of fog that covered the closely spaced trees in the twilight of the The dying day made it seem impenetrable, true, heard the distant ringing of the war horns, the wild attunement of hundreds of invisible male voices in the depths of the mist, the silence in which the cawing of the ravens waiting for their prey seemed eerily loud, the approaching one The clatter of hundreds of warhorses, who immediately broke through the wall of smoke and carried the fighters clad in venerable military armor on their backs against their enemies, and finally saw the same two men, wrapped in red and black robes, leaning against the trunks of nearby trees, arms crossed, Turning his back on the action and the young woman.

The young woman didn't know what was happening to her, she didn't know what to expect next, when her gaze cleared again and she felt her fall again, which would soon come to an end, as her knees were only inches off the floor, while she saw the strange man's rough, chapped lips, whose sneering smile they had been wearing now gave way to a neutral expression as he watched her before her gaze blurred a third and final time and she caught her distant realms of their dreams.

But this time she noticed the man in the red robe immediately; He stood alone in the middle of a desert steppe, surrounded by a dozen wild bandits, whose sabers, gleaming in the sun, were pointed at him, and took off his red robe.When the red cloth rustled to the ground, the young woman recognized her master with a gasp, dressed in a red shirt and black trousers, an elegant sword on his belt, who was talking to the robbers in a foreign language, but no more than a malicious one There was a grin before the first man her master had turned his back on broke out of the circle and swung his saber at his neck; but his blade was never to be swung again, as the young man drew his own sword from its scabbard in a flash and forestalled the bandit's attack. Again and again the raven-haired man's red blade flashed golden in the bloodlust in the colorless rays of the sun as he danced fast as the wind with timeless elegance to the rhythm of the thunderous beating of his heart around his enemies, the beats of which dictated the number of bodies falling .

The young woman's knees hit the floor painfully and pulled her out of the clammy fantasies of her dreams back into the reality of being, in which she threatened to faint when she looked into the expressionless face of the strange man, whose silver-gray, Shoulder-length hair covered his temples and his mouth formed words that she could not understand because the rush of her blood echoed so loudly in her ears, but she still fought for her consciousness so as not to disgrace her Master.

"Who is she?" Came the man's toneless voice from the depths of the hut, although he still paused in the doorway while he sought the eyes of the person opposite.

"My apprentice," the black-haired man replied curtly, and yet not without a hint of pride in his voice. "What do you want here?"

"How can she see me?" Asked the stranger in the same expressionless tone that had already dominated his first question and was not used to contradicting the other man's question.

But instead of insisting on an answer to his question, the young man turned to his apprentice for the first time since the arrival of the black-clad man and inhaled the cold air with a hiss when he saw the terrifying pale face of his Akane in their eyes the figure of the old, young old man was reflected and seemed to kneel before him as if in prayer. Ranma gave the old man a piercing look of sheer hatred before kneeling in front of the young woman to hide her view of the man, but his reflection seemed to have been burned into her eyes. Slowly he leaned his forehead against her forehead, but still the young woman did not react, but continued to stare motionless into his eyes without seeing him.

"Akane," he whispered to her as his warm breath brushed her cheek, carefully and gently placing the palm of his right hand on her chest over her heart and his left on her cheek."Akane, can you see me? Akane? Can you hear me? Concentrate on my hand, it gives you the rhythm of the beating of your heart. Concentrate only on me and my words."

Trapped deep in the waves of the foaming sea, where her innocence burned in blazing flames, Akane struggled to maintain her consciousness, to prove to her master, the man she loved, that she was worthy of his love than his warm words reached her about the roar of the sea, urging her to concentrate on him. Slowly the image of the stranger's face blurred in front of her eyes, so that she perceived the young man's azure blue eyes, felt his hand on her heart, which beat gently on her chest to the rhythm of her heart, and heard his warm breath on her lips.

Following a sudden instinct, the young woman closed her hazel eyes as his rough, cold thumb gently brushed her cheek and raised her numb hands to his cheeks. Slowly, without wasting a thought on what was happening around her, she forced his lips towards her with gentle force until they reached her ruby ​​red lips and the two young adults kissed kneeling in front of an old man in the middle of a small wooden hut. As if the kiss broke a spell, even during the first few seconds, when the skin of the two touched, Akane began to perceive everything that she had been denied until then.

The strange winter storm that raged in the little hut howled loudly in her ears, the branches bending in the wind creaked with a groan, the biting cold of winter took its toll on her uncovered feet, but this storm was nothing more than a mild summer breeze compared to the storm in her heart that seemed to electrify itself with each of his touches that ran down her