body like drops of hot water. All those feelings that she had never uttered for fear of being rejected, that were no more than a small shadow on the edge of her heart, raged out inside her until she believed that her heart should burst with joy while For the third time that day, thousands of tears pearled from her eyelashes.

When the young woman opened up to her master completely, revealing all her feelings to him in this one kiss, she felt how her true beings ensnared each other, as if she had ensnared the fireflies in the forest in order to lure them to her, but instead of herself orbiting playfully, her beings merged harmoniously into a single being that banished any remaining rational thought from her head, and reduced her emotions to a simpler, animalistic desire, so that she groaned sensually into the kiss, inviting him to take the initiative when a sudden puff of air drove the two adults apart.Ranma didn't know what was happening to him, his mind couldn't grasp the change in his apprentice as her lifeless eyes closed, her silky hands placed on his cheeks and pulled him to her unopposed. The seductive taste of her cherry lips, the sensual smell of her short hair, the burning sensation of her longing hands on his skin, all of this reduced his thoughts to a single desire as their lips met and their beings connected. He loved this woman, he had loved her since they first met, and he would love her for the rest of her days, but when he tried to express his love for her, he felt a forceful gust of air that forced her apart and jumped hastily at his feet.

"Et stellae de caelo ceciderunt super terram," came the young man's voice from the wooden walls of the house as Akane, confused, angry, and with a clear head, got up hastily to face the stranger with dignity; but contrary to her expectations that something must happen, her master just stared calculatingly at the stranger, ignoring her presence and what had just happened. "Let me in, we need to talk."

Akane watched in amazement as the black-haired man gave his counterpart a short, almost imperceptible nod, carefully walked to the front door, and pawed the floor with his right foot while whispering something incomprehensible to her. The other man entered the hut with elegant steps, closed the door behind him so that the howling of the raging storm subsided, and stepped, without looking at her, to the cozy crackling fire, in front of which he finally pulled a chair on the he settled down.

"Akane?", Ranma asked cautiously, but with such a backlash that the young woman knew that she could not contradict his following request after the stranger had settled down by the fire and went to her. "Would you be so nice, and would you leave us alone for a moment? I promise you, I will answer all your questions today when we are alone. Would you please wait that long for me in the bedroom?"

"What a despicable display of emotions," said the old man matter-of-factly, while he warmed his hands by the fire, and watched the young woman leave the room in silence. "I never quite understood your obsession with these petty beings, although this one seems a tad different than the others."

"Can't we at least show her respect and talk to each other in her language?" The young man asked resignedly as he approached the fire, pulled up a second chair, and sat down across from the stranger.

"I have no respect for these pitiful creatures; yet I would make an exception for her, except that you promised her to tell her everything anyway. So what is the point in speaking their language?"concluded the man coldly, staring into the flames.

"Why would you make an exception for her?", Ranma asked cautiously and watched astonished how the elegant features of the thin man twisted into a joyless smile as he turned his head to his interlocutor.

"You know that she is special, otherwise you would not have made her your apprentice, but neither of you has the slightest idea how special she really is," the old man continued in his never-changing tone, before turning to that again and the young man believed that there was an air of contempt in the stranger's voice. "But your view is clouded by love - be quiet, there is no need to deny it. You are bound to fall in love. It is your prerogative, since love is nothing but a form of war. And now listen closely, because this conversation is long overdue. You have run away from your fate and climbed up the heights of shame. You have hidden yourself, and you have hidden yourself well at that, but no longer. The seals are being broken and we have been set free to roam the world once more. He has called us and it is our duty to answer the call. "

"I have no obligations of any kind," laughed Ranma humorlessly as he rose up from his chair and paced the room. "I don't owe him anything! And how much longer do you want to play his servant?"

"Show me some respect!", The stranger raised his voice, emphasizing every syllable of his words with icy coldness and precision, and slowly got up from his cozy place by the fire. "I will serve Him as long as He has me bound to do His bidding. The day that we are free again will come, but for now you will do as I tell you to do."

"No, I won't," the wizard replied tense. "I'm tired of following his word, I'm tired of being moved like a mindless pawn when I'm supposed to be the chess player and he is no more than the pawn, I'm tired of serving him! What is he supposed to do what if I refuse to follow him? "

"You have always been a soldier on your own, disobeying my orders and starting wars whenever you felt like it, but this time I have a valuable bargaining chip, my little brother," he said with a malicious smile and pointed to the bedroom door small wooden hut. "You will break the remaining two seals or I will come for your precious, little apprentice."

"You don't dare!", The young man warned him with a trembling voice and stepped quickly towards the stranger. "Without it the remaining seals cannot be broken and you said yourself that you do not dare to contradict him!"

"Or what?" The old man asked smugly and turned his back on the pleading man as he approached the front door. "As you yourself just said: what will He do if I disobey? He will be weakened considerably, you will suffer a loss, you will not be able to bear, and I will get ahead of schedule - sounds like a win-win-win situation for me and even if you are able to protect her from me, you will break the seals sooner or later and I will take your child just as a reminder that you can never win against me, that you can never cheat death; one year , little brother, one year.Choose wisely. "

Without saying another word, the old man opened the heavy wooden door with a slight swing of his bony wrist and faded from the memories of the people behind the closing door, while he left the young warrior motionless in the middle of the hut. Though the warm fire of the fireplace warmed him, a bitter chill crept slowly into the wizard's motionless limbs as, unable to form a single thought, he stared at the door through which his fateful visit had disappeared until after a while he was felt the slender, warming arms of his apprentice, which carefully wrapped themselves around his sluggishly rising and falling chest.

"Ranma?", The young woman whispered in his ear when he didn't react. "Is everything all right? I heard the door close, and then nothing more. Ranma?"

The young wizard's field of vision blurred for a tiny blink of an eye as bitter tears of desperation threatened to overtake him, but he valiantly closed his azure blue eyes, grabbed the raven-haired woman's energizing hand and breathed deeply until he was his had calmed painfully beating heart. Ranma slowly released herself from the embrace and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling of his house.

"I'm sorry, Akane," he finally mumbled, turning to his apprentice. "I'm sorry I dragged you into my war. And all I wanted to do was protect you."

"Ranma, what are you talking about?", Akane asked confused and wanted to take his hand, but the young man pulled her away quickly and stepped back from her, so that her injured heart jumped painfully. "What's going on? Who was this man? What's going on here?"

"No, Akane, it's, I can't, you shouldn't, it would be easier if you didn't," the young man began, but should never be able to explain what he meant because at that moment when the words left his mouth left, the flat palm of his apprentice smacked his right cheek with such ferocity that his head was jerked to one side, a loud sound of colliding skin drowned out the raging of the storm, and his cheek burned with pain, but all of this astonished the wizard less than the crackling fire that licked dangerously in the woman's hazel eyes.

"You're telling me to wait for you, and yet I have to get you?" She whispered while she furiously tried to blink away the diamond tears that came into her eyes and gently forced him to pull away to sit down on one of the two chairs. "You tell me you love me, and yet you back off from me? You promise me you'll answer all my questions, and yet you avoid them before I can even ask them? No, Ranma! You will now explain what's going on; who was this man? "Slowly the young wizard let himself be maneuvered into his chair and listened to the words of his apprentice, under whose weight he threatened to crush, so that no sound escaped his constricted throat until the silence that spread unstoppably between the two adults cast a black shadow over their souls that he would never be able to step out of until he had freed his own black soul from that oppressive burden of lies that was eating away at his being. For a long time he looked into her beautiful eyes, in the depths of which he had lost himself so often before he finally sighed softly and began to tell his story.

"What I'm telling you now will sound ludicrous; you won't believe me and