small thank you, so to speak, as a thank you for everything you have done for us, for me? ”She asked, without turning her gaze from the frozen ground to him.

"I don't know, Akane. I actually only eat my own food at home, and besides, I doubt your family would like to see me in their house," he replied when he heard her disappointment with almost all of their senses; an almost inaudible sigh escaped her lips as the grip she'd been holding onto his coat loosened, her shoulders sank, and the aura of herself diminished, so that the young man reluctantly relented. "But I think an exception won't hurt, right?"Akane slowly and quietly slid the door to her family's house and slipped silently through the narrow gap so as not to wake anyone up and avoid embarrassing questions, but when she had maneuvered her slim body into the house, she immediately saw that her two sisters and her father had already gathered at the dinner table for breakfast. Pleadingly, she glanced at her older sister, who had first noticed her arrival, hoping in vain that she would give her the opportunity to explain herself before she asked where she had spent the night.

"Oh, look who decides to finally come home", Nabiki said casually with a teasing grin. "Akane! Where have you been all night? We were terribly worried."

"Akane?" Asked her father and her eldest sister as if from one mouth, and turned with worried looks to the front door, in front of which the young woman was still embarrassed, before Kasumi stepped towards her. "Akane! Glad to see you! We were so worried when you didn't come home yesterday. What if you had been attacked by a wild animal in the forest? But you're okay! Come in, sit down." ! "

"It's okay, Kasumi," replied the black-haired woman soothingly as her sister pushed her into a chair at the table. "Father, I'm terribly sorry I didn't come home yesterday, but I fell asleep exhausted from the hard training and didn't wake up until this morning."

"It's okay, darling," said the eldest member of the family and took his daughter's hand lovingly into his own. "I am just glad that you are safe in your home again."

Worried by the exuberant welcome and the lack of questions from her sisters about her stay yesterday, the young woman watched her family members skeptically and soon believed that she recognized a hidden nervousness behind the mask of happiness. With thanks for the plate that was presented on the grounds that she had already had breakfast, she tried to calm her beating heart like the day before, to put aside all the events, all thoughts for the moment, in order to find the eye of the storm in her where there was the tranquility she needed to find herself and see what was going on. When Akane took a last deep breath to calm himself down, and was about to close her eyes to look for her father's aura, it flickered faintly, only to disappear immediately into nowhere. Amazed, she paused for a moment, before she understood that she didn't have to close her eyes to see, and filled her heart anew with that icy cold that brought calm with it, until she saw the faint green that her father felt and every time she looked him in the eye, lashed out, was able to recognize again."What's going on?" She asked with furrowed eyebrows when she had observed the same flickering phenomenon in her two sisters whenever she looked them in the eye, assuming that it meant that her family was hiding something from her .

"What do you think?", Her oldest sister answered her question in an emphatically carefree manner and exchanged a worried look with her father. "What's going on?"

"What should be going on?" She repeated in disbelief, counting on her fingers what surprised her. "First of all you are very happy that I came home this morning; well, that may actually have been just a worry, but why haven't I heard a word of reproach from you? Why has Nabiki still not said a word about me today I didn't come home that night, because she's always interested in the latest rumors and is no less often involved in their creation? Why are you so nervous? And what was that look between you two for? "

The young woman looked around so resolutely that both her father and her eldest sister let the thinly coated bread slide from their hands back onto the wooden plates and returned their gaze in silence, while Nabiki watched the spectacle with a happy grin, which she by no means did prevented from eating breakfast. After the silence had spread like a barrier across the entire room, the grinning woman smashed the glass gate between the two worlds with a mock sigh that made all of her family members look at her.

"The cat is obviously going to be let out of the bag in a moment, isn't it?" She stated factually. "Can I at least make a comment about last night then?"

"No!" They ruled at their sisters and their father at the same time, before their father sighed in resignation and looked at his youngest daughter apologetically. "Yes, you are right, my dear, we have a surprise for you, but since I don't want to spoil the surprise for you, nor do I know how to tell you, you have to be patient until tonight."

"Tonight?", The young woman repeated slowly and thought hard about why she didn't want a surprise that evening before jumping out of her chair so abruptly that her family stared at her in shock. "Tonight ?! I completely forgot to tell you that the magician, I mean that I invited Ranma to dinner tonight! Can't you tell me what the surprise is? Tonight it's whole bad!"

"No," her father said thoughtfully and gave his eldest daughter an uncertain questioning look, who however shook her bowed head in response, so that Akane immediately tried to suppress the supposed meaning of the gestures of the two adults with a storm of her words."I can't unload Ranma any more!" She exclaimed, putting her hands on the table. "You know I can't do this after I've persuaded him to come to dinner! Not after we see him after I owe him so much! Father, please!"

"No, Akane, you shouldn't unload your master," her father defended his words with a slight smile at her quick-tempered manner. "It is even better that the wizard is here today when the surprise arrives, because she will be very foresight also concern your teaching. But enough of that! We still have a lot of work to do if we are to be finished by tonight! "



The young woman threw herself into everyday household chores with ardor, but although she worked faster than ever before in her life, neither work seemed to be getting less nor time to pass faster; Rather, it seemed to Akane that time stood still while she waited longingly for evening, but at last her father called his daughters into the living room to instruct them to fetch water from the village well to wash up for dinner could. Hastily but cautiously, the black-haired woman threw the white coat Ranma had lent her on their first meeting over her shoulders, which were covered by her work clothes, and made her way with her sisters to the village square, on which the fountain is found.

"So tell me, Akane," Nabiki began with interest, while the three women stepped onto the unusually empty village square to fetch the water from the well. "Up to now you have always saved a lot with the details, but if the magician actually has dinner with us today, then I would like to know beforehand what to expect; what does he look like?"

"Did you wonder why the village square is so deserted at this hour?", Akane answered her sister's question with a counter question, while she threw the bucket into the well and after a few moments went to work, closing the crank to get the water out and explained to her sister after she shook her head: "The place is so empty because our dear neighbors are terrified of the magician, and he is standing over there next to the elder of the village and with him entertains him. "

Both Nabiki and Kasumi curiously turned their heads to the place indicated by a nod of their sister's head, a few meters from the village fountain, and looked at the stranger, who had not noticed them up to this point and who turned to them as if at a wink, with the utmost Interest. The wizard loomed high over the elderly, his old stooped, his eyes hidden by a black hat pulled low over his face that cast a long shadow over the rest of his face so that it was difficult to make out his mouth at all, his shoulder-length, raven-black one Hair lying loosely on an equally black, heavy leather coat, which lay carelessly elegant over his shoulders, but was not buttoned, so that both his black, richly decorated shirt and his black trousers, in the pockets of which he had buried his hands, were visible.When Akane had finally pulled up the bucket of water and poured the water into her bucket, she turned to her sisters, who were still staring at her master until he pulled his hat off his face for a second to wink at his apprentice with a smile, before engaging in conversation with the old man with his hat falling on his face. Speechless, Kasumi and Nabiki turned to their sister, who was still smiling coquettishly at her wizard, and stumbled back two steps in sync when they thought they saw her white coat shift for the brief moment in which she kept her smile upright a rich red before reverting back to its original color.

“What's going on?” The young woman asked innocently when she saw the horrified faces of her sisters, rubbing their eyes in confusion, and added with a smile: “I told you he wasn't the monster for him hold him all! "



As the three women walked back to their house, they noticed that the first snowflakes were falling from the sky, which increased in number and intensity as they washed for dinner. After everything was ready, the family members sat waiting at the only table in the house, and shortly afterwards there was three hard knocks on the door. The father hastily opened the door and for a few moments