Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted material belonging to Rumiko Takahashi. I make no claims, I am merely borrowing some ideas for entertainment.

This story is a Ranma/Akane pairing fic, I won't change that. I plan to have a lot of fun with this fic and so far am not completely sure which way it's headed.. yet.. But I can say there will be many crossover characters tossed in as I please. To add to my little disclaimer I own none of the characters I'll be using, as of yet.. I may make a character later on.. but we'll see when I get that far..

It was a dark, warm, summer evening in Nerima. The sun was mostly set, it's last remaining rays casting a warm orange glow through the city. In the backyard of the Tendo residence, Kasumi walked through the garden, tossed some bread crumbs into the koi pond, then walked over to the tree and gave the rest of the bread to an owl who had been perched there watching her intently. The owl took the bread and chewed on it gratefully, bobbing it's head seemingly in thanks, as she walked away. She smiled as she heard Ranma's loud yell in the dojo.

Inside the dojo Ranma finished up a new set of kata's he'd learned. A month had passed since the wedding fiasco, in that time Ranma had withdrawn, and become far more serious. He'd stopped speaking to almost everybody the day after the fiasco. His mom and the Tendo sisters were the only exceptions. Nabiki had assisted him with finding videos of various different martial arts for him to study. She had gotten complete sets of several different styles, including; Wushu, Wing Chun, Shaolin and a few styles he'd never even heard of. Ranma walked over to the wall where a mahogany Mook Jong style wooden training dummy stood. He took a yellow towel off the dummy and started practicing on the dummy while going over schoolwork in his mind.

In Kasumi he'd found a confidant, he opened up to her a few nights after the wedding, and ever since then their relationship had changed. He felt as though Kasumi was a sister in whom he could confide any secret. He'd even explained to her how he truly felt about Akane and his fiance problems. Every morning now, while everyone else was still asleep Ranma and Kasumi talked, she helped him start planning some of the life changes he'd been making.

Surprisingly, he'd found that her best suggestion yet, was when she'd suggested he actually try really hard in school. She'd even gone as far as to imply that a "man amongst men" as his mother preached about should also be well educated. Everyone aside from Kasumi had nearly choked to death on their breakfast the morning Ranma stood up and announced he was voluntarily taking summer classes. Her suggestion that he start studying with Akane had set off alarms in his head at first, but now, now he looked forward to it each night. He had an hour to spend with her completely hassle free, especially after the first few times of attempted spying had resulted in a boring spy session and Kasumi punishing the family by making them all smaller portions of food except for Ranma and Akane.

When Kasumi had suggested he continue giving the rest of his fiancees the cold shoulder, he'd taken her advice and even now was still ignoring all the rest of the fiancees and suitors. He'd spoken once in this time to Cologne, he'd told her straight out there was no chance he would ever marry Shampoo after what had happened. They'd spoken late into the night, and had come to an arrangement.

Ranma's hands moved faster and faster on the dummy, after finishing the set kata's he'd started doing his own routines, partial kata and mostly improvisation from the vast array of martial arts he had to pick from in his brain. Except his brain wasn't in the training at the moment, his hands and feet performed the movements perfectly from muscle memory. His mind was on Akane's smile from last night at a joke he'd made...

"Ranma!"

The shout shook him out of his concentration, his hand slick with sweat slipped on the dummy, and he started to fall, but caught himself and somersaulted to the door and found himself face to face with Akane wearing her yellow gi. As a familiar look of hesitation crossed Ranma's face Akane stomped her foot.

"You promised!"

Putting his hands up in surrender Ranma laughed, "Okay, okay, geez tomboy. Don't have a cow."

His face got serious. "I need to fully gauge your current skill level."

"You've seen me fight plenty of times!" she protested

"It's not the same, anyway to do this right I may have to spar with you for real. If I'm going to be your sensei, you're going to have to stop arguing with me during these lessons"

Hearing the change of tone in Ranma's voice Akane stood straighter, he was using the same tone her father used to use when he went into teaching mode. "Hai sensei!"

"First get warmed up, then I need you to go through every kata you know in entirety."

"But that could take hours.." As he raised his eyebrow at her she bowed her head, "Hai sensei."

Akane did a short warm up routine and moved through her kata's gracefully, until finally, two hours later she had finished. Sweat running down her face she took a few breaths to calm her heartbeat and looked at Ranma. For a moment she felt the intensity in his gaze, she could almost feel his longing for her, her heart started racing. Finally chalking it up to just being her imagination she stood straight up for a moment and bowed to Ranma, looking him in the eyes the entire time.

Ranma's mind was a whirlwind. He was trying to focus on the mistakes he needed to help Akane fix, but his mind kept wandering back to how beautiful she'd looked the entire time, how sexy she now looked with a light coating of sweat causing her gi to cling to her in all the right places. Finally as she bowed, he focused his mind on the soul of ice, calmed himself down and smiled at Akane.

In his mind he heard Kasumi's voice in his head warning him of how to be nicer with his criticisms with Akane. "Always start with a compliment, us girls are suckers for compliments."

"Nice form, very graceful for the most part.." He paused for a moment resisting his minds impulse to sneak in some snide remark or insulting name, "there's a few things we'll work on, but for the most part it looks good. You've got most of the basics down pat, you only need help with the last two kata's."

"Now," he said standing up and walking up to a wall where he had a bag "do you feel up to a short sparring session?" As he finished the question he reached into the bag and pulled out a set of padded gloves and foot pads.

She glared at the pads for a moment, her pride almost getting the best of her, but then she accepted and with a nod, stepped into a sparring stance.

Seeing the eager look on Akane's face Ranma put on the gloves and pads quickly and stepped out in his usual relaxed stance. Ranma nodded sharply at Akane to signal her to attack.

During the last few years Akane had been no slouch, sure the freaks that Ranma attracted were generally stronger than her, but they were insanely powerful for anyone. Of course if anyone had bothered to check thoroughly they'd have noticed Akane was slightly over Shampoo's level now. Ranma realized this from the moment she started attacking. She came in running, bringing her leg up as she closed the distance obviously going for a head kick. At the last possible second she seemingly changed her momentum and Ranma just narrowly avoided the kick that came from her other foot. As he'd been focused on her foot she'd twisted her body sideways, planting a hand on the floor and launching her opposite foot towards Ranma's ribs.

Ranma grinned now, his only regret in taking Akane on for training was that he hadn't done it sooner. He closed the distance again, this time going on the offensive, her eyes widened in momentary surprise as he caught her in the ribs with a fist, she doubled her body into the fist, absorbing the blow. In a very Ranma-ish move Akane grabbed Ranma's arm and flipped her legs over, bringing her foot down hard on Ranma's head.

But Ranma was too fast, catching her foot he threw her away from him and she rolled away, absorbing the fall before flipping back onto her feet.

"Enough" Ranma said, grinning at her.

"Good job tomboy, you surprised me."

"Really?" Akane asked, she was surprised he'd gone this long and not said anything mean about her martial arts.

"Really, now go inside and clean up. It's too late to study tonight, so I'll see you tomorrow. I'll clean up in here, you go rest. Goodnight."

Again Ranma had that tone of authority in his voice that made him hard to argue with. "Hai" With that she got up and went inside.

After Akane went inside Ranma started cleaning up the dojo, he looked up into the rafters and said, "You can come out now P-chan."

With an indignant squeal the piglet launched himself at Ranma, who completely ignored him as he walked to his bag. Taking out a thermos the grabbed the piglet and stepped on it as he poured the contents of it onto the it. A naked, and angry, Ryoga lay pinned under Ranma's foot.

Get dressed first, Ranma said tossing Ryoga a white gi. Embarrassed Ryoga put it on.

"You jerk, I saw you! You hit her, now the truth is out, you piece of shit!" As he shouted this he grabbed Ranma and threw him. Or at least, he attempted to throw him.

Ranma twisted in midair and drove his elbow down sharply on top of Ryoga's head. Ryoga, dazed stared as three Ranma's walked up to him and started punching him rapidly, "Katchu Tenshin Amaguriken" his mind said, bringing his hands up in the usual defense he used against the move. There was something different about the move this time though.

Ranma turned his body, bending his knees towards each other, bringing a foot up to Ryoga's chest he kicked the lost boy against the wall and closed the distance. Ryoga's go-to defense for the chestnuts move played right into Ranma's adaptation of the Wing Chun chain punch.

Ryoga felt both his arms go numb as Ranma hit them on several different pressure points. Then Ranma's fists blurred out of sight with speed as he felt multiple solid impacts up and down his upper body and face, a sharp kick against his left inner thigh forced him to drop to his knees and Ranma's fist blurred into his face one final time.

Normally during their sparring sessions, Ranma held back to prevent himself from hurting the boy. This time he had held back just enough to prevent himself from killing him.

Ryoga's head bounced off the dojo wall and the lost boy collapsed in a heap, breathing raggedly, barely holding himself up as blood poured from his face. He coughed a couple times and spit out a little blood, finally he said. "You win Ranma, you've beaten me in our fight..."

Ranma finally spoke, "I'm sorry Ryoga. I wouldn't have beaten you so hard, but I know you'll recover in like a day or so. And frankly I've grown tired of the challenges."

Ryoga looked up at Ranma, amazed to hear him speaking so honestly.

Reaching back into his bag Ranma grabbed a change of clothes, "Got your backpack nearby? I think we should go to the public baths. If you're gonna stay the night we need to get you looking better than this."

At the baths both men spoke to each other candidly, Ryoga now with a new sense of respect for Ranma. Ryoga spoke to Ranma of his plans to marry Akari, adding that he already knew Ranma and Akane would end up together. Ranma didn't directly respond to that subtle inquiry. But his silence and lack of protest spoke volumes to the lost boy who knew Ranma for several years now.

They didn't make it back to the dojo till nearly three in the morning, Ranma told Ryoga to go ahead and set up his futon in the dojo. Finally Ranma went to his room and lay down on his own futon, he was asleep almost the instant his face hit the pillow.

Despite being up so late, Ranma woke up at his now normal time, and looked out the window to see the sun rising casting it's gentle glow over the garden. Kasumi was in the back feeding the koi. An owl sat on a tree watching her intently till she came up to it and gave it a piece of bread, then Ranma watched as she set a bowl of milk down on the porch for the neighbors kitten that wandered over occasionally. Although he'd trained himself over the last month to be able to be near the kitten without freaking out, the mere thought of the word kitten still gave him chills.

After brushing his teeth and washing his hands he walked into the backyard and began helping Kasumi hang clothes up to dry as they enjoyed each others company in silence for a few moments.

Ranma spoke first, "I saw Dr. Tofu a few days ago." He started smiling gently at her.

"And you're just now telling me?" she pouted cutely at him.

He laughed and scratched the back of his head, "Are you gonna go visit him?"

"Maybe," She paused apprehensively, "do you think he'll act silly again?"

"I think he's gotten himself under control, I think you should go for it."

With that said, Ranma hung up the last sheet from the basket and walked inside to shower and get ready to go to school.

Akane woke up with a sunbeam gently creeping up her face, her body felt sore. It had been a while since she worked so hard, she felt a small bruise forming where Ranma had hit her last night. But she was happy, very happy. Putting on her running clothes she left her room with a smile on her face.

She went on her regular jog and altered it slightly by jumping on the fence occasionally. She didn't stay on like Ranma because she didn't have the confidence in her balance to run along the fence like he did yet. After she'd completed her route she did it again trying to increase her speed, and came back home after she'd built up a good sweat.

She came back just as Ranma was headed out the door to go to his summer schooling.

"Good morning"

"Good morning tomboy," He responded with a grin. "today I want you to practice on your balance, the same types of drills you do for gymnastics, I have the equipment already set up in the dojo. Ryoga is there if you need any help."

With that said Ranma took off for school running full tilt along the fence tops.