The usual disclaimer: Ranma ½ is a trademark of Rumiko Takahashi and VIZ Communications, and its characters have been borrowed without permission. This story was written for non-commercial purposes only.

This story is part of the "Bindings/The Next Cycle" Chronicles. If you haven't been following it, the plethora characters might be confusing. There's a cheat sheet in my profile.

Chapter 1: Dawn

Akane slipped out of bed quietly. Nabiki was home for the holiday and the last thing Akane wanted to do was wake her snoopy sister. Once she stood up, she slipped out of her pajamas and underwear. The morning air felt brisk – almost invigorating. In some ways it matched the fire in her blood.

"Done!" she thought fiercely. She glanced at the calendar on the wall with its circled date. "This is the day *I've* chosen. Valentine's Day went exactly as planned. I've done what I wanted even though Nerima itself tried to hurry me." She picked up the Romance Candle set in a candle holder. "I have already chosen him, he's given me consent, and the moment is now!" With that thought she vanished.

Ranma walked around the fountain in his Dream realm looking at the statue of Akane standing on its pedestal. He was determined to give Akane her courtship, but it was hard sometimes. His blood boiled with longing for her right now.

"You're being foolish!" Akane's voice hissed all around him. "I already made all my decisions when I stepped into the Circle at SkyWatch. You gave me a ring. Even more important, you gave me a vow."

"Not yet," he whispered back. "I made it very clear that I was ready, but that I was in no hurry. I won't seduce you into this. You're going to make this call."

Suddenly, the statue awoke on its pedestal and looked at him. The statue threw off its gi, revealing a perfect body. "Fine!" the statue hissed. "Then I choose now!"

With a start, Ranma woke in his bed, his blood racing and roiling. He turned his head and glanced at the clock – 5:30AM. His throat was tight and so were portions of his pajamas. "Oh gods," he moaned. "A few more nights like that, and I'm going to end up in a mental hospital." He concentrated on steadying his breathing. Never had he felt like this about anyone or anything. Being apart from Akane was causing him actual pain. "She's just in her room," he mumbled to himself. "We agreed that Nerima was pushing at us and we wanted to avoid accidents so we were sleeping apart – that's all!" He held his head in his hands. "But it feels like my brain is on fire!"

Suddenly, his premonition kicked in. He had a moment to kick off his blankets before Akane appeared next to his bed with what seemed like a flash of light. He registered her presence like a blast of fire, lighting up his nerves. She dove at his exposed feet yelling "Then let's turn up the heat!"

He tried to push his feet back under the covers while yelling something incoherent, but she grabbed one foot with two hands and trapped the other under her body. Then the fiendish girl began to tickle his foot and laughter poured from Ranma's mouth. He tried to focus despite the sensation electrifying his leg and lunged forward to grab his fiancée about the waist. At that moment, Ranma hands brushed against a few interesting portions of Akane's anatomy and he registered one key fact – Akane was in his room without a stitch of clothing on. He pulled her away from his feet and she turned in his grasp. Her hands dove under his pajama top and forced it up over his chest. She almost had his arms trapped, but he concentrated on getting the shirt off before she pinned him. While he focused on getting free, Akane used a foot to push his pajama pants off. Then she grabbed his arms and placed her weight squarely on top of him, looking him in the face directly. The look of Desire she gave him froze him in his struggles.

Despite this, he forced his voice to work and asked: "Are you sure, Akane?"

The Desire faded in her eyes and was replaced by a more intense look of Love. "The only time I can think clearly lately is when I'm touching you. I've never been surer, Dummy! I was planning on this morning ever since you proposed!" she answered. With that, she released her grip on the surprised young man and slammed the Romance Candle onto his end table - lit. "The only question left is 'Do *you* want this?'" she pressed as she reestablished her hold.

Ranma stretched up and kissed her passionately. "That has to be the dumbest question you've ever asked, Tomboy!" he said when they stopped. Love and Passion burned in his eyes as he added: "I've wanted this for a long time – I love you and I want you NOW!" With that, he broke her grip and wrapped her in a fierce embrace. Things only became more interesting from there as they became lost in each other. Neither of them noticed the swirls and pulses of Power that they shed into the air…

Mousse woke up with a start. Akane had invoked the Umisen-ken in her room and vanished from his mental map of the family. He always knew where the Tendos and the Onos (including Nodoka) were, no matter how far the distance except when one of the families invoked a Cloak as Akane had just done. He also knew where Ryoga and Akari were, even though they were an hour away by train. Ciren was mapped too, no matter how far she traveled, as were Ukyo and Konatsu. Lately, the old Ghoul had shown up on his map as well. He knew why, but chose not to make an issue of it. If Cologne thought of him as a grandchild, that was enough of a compliment. However, if any of them vanished, it was like a shock to the system, which is what woke him up.

"She's coming for Ranma. This is going to get noisy, one way or the other," he thought. "I really don't want to be here."

Akane had been acting very strangely lately. She was constantly distracted and had a hard time focusing on anything except fighting – and Ranma. Ranma was just as bad except he was more enigmatic than distracted. They were not mad at each other or anything like that, but their sparring had been extremely vicious as of late and they were very possessive of each other right now. The two had been joined at the hip ever since Mousse came onto the scene (how on earth did the Fiancée brigade ever think they had a chance?), even more so since Ranma had given Akane an engagement ring just after New Year's Day. But lately, they had taken things to a whole new level. If the two were in the same room, they were in constant contact with one another. If Akane was working on a Nuido project, Ranma was right beside her with an arm unobtrusively around her shoulders while he was reading a manga. When they played video games, they were practically in each other's lap. It had gotten bad enough that Akane was eating with her off-hand so that she could hold Ranma's hand during meals. Mousse would have thought that unfair except Ranma was doing his homework using his off-hand for the same reason.

"This is Minus 1," he thought. "They're young, in Love, and betrothed. And Nerima is *not* helping. Everyone's overloaded by the Equinox. There isn't enough wood, steel, and concrete in the dojo to shelter me – I've got to go."

Mousse looked around his room in the basement of the dojo. Light flowed in from the small high windows illuminating his room. Ranma had a similar room down the hall and there were two spare bedrooms as well, one of which Ryoga and Akari used when they came to visit. There was also several toilets and showers in the basement as well. Mousse's room was decorated with western rock-and-roll posters, some Chinese paintings, and weaponry. The furniture was an antique cherry bedroom set that had been in the dojo basement. Mousse had carefully cleaned and polished the handful of pieces and the Tendos had insisted that he keep them with him, reasoning he was the best one to keep them safe. All-in-all, it was an extremely comfortable and personal room.

When Toshio Kuno had generously settled with the Tendo family regarding the destruction of the dojo (which had happened with Tatewaki's and Kodachi's help) to buy their silence, the Ono and Tendo families had gathered to talk about the future, especially since Doctor Tofu and Kasumi were to be wed on New Year's Day. The apartment attached to the clinic was too small for a family, so Tofu and Kasumi had decided that it would need to be re-built, a procedure that was likely to take some time, especially since it was important not to disturb the clinic. Soun had offered to have the Onos move into the Tendo's house, but there was not enough space for everyone for such a long term stay. So the family had decided to finish part of the dojo basement before the wedding to add more rooms. This would allow everyone a little privacy and more comfort. After the wedding, Tofu and Kasumi took the upstairs guest room that Nodoka had been staying in; Nodoka took Kasumi's old room; and Mousse and Ranma moved into the dojo basement. There were now two spare rooms for guests as well. Ranma had also talked the Tendo family into a few modifications regarding plumbing and electricity to allow for possible expansions (Ranma and the Tendo sisters had ambitious plans for the future).

Mousse got up and put on a gi. If he was going to be up, he might as well do something useful, and running through some katas felt like a good idea. "Maybe some Tai Chi this morning," he thought. As he left his room, he saw a ghostly image of Akane quietly entering Ranma's room. Although the image was indistinct, Mousse had the impression that she was not wearing any clothes. "Definitely going to get noisy," he thought. He waited a little longer until he heard Akane's muffled battle cry, followed by a surprised yell from Ranma. Then Ranma broke out into laughter. Mousse grinned. "She found out you're ticklish on the soles of your feet and you get no peace now, Brother," the Chinese man thought. "Definitely time to be elsewhere."

In the backyard, Mousse performed the katas and reflected on the glimpse he caught of Akane. "My Spirit Sight is definitely growing more powerful. She was able to stop my physical mind from finding her, but not my Sight. I don't think I'll mention this to her though. I didn't see anything interesting, but she may still get embarrassed and I like walking upright," he grinned to himself. "To be fair though, the only one Akane really 'hits' these days outside of sparring – or a martial arts battle – is Ranma, and she never does it to inflict real pain anymore – only to get his attention or give him a dope-slap." Akane had largely recovered from her post-traumatic stress disorder inflicted by Tatewaki Kuno and his idiots. She controlled her temper more these days, but she was still a bit of a hot-head, and had a tendency to scream and shout if angry, or settle into a cold icy rage (either of which could be quite intimidating). But she wouldn't strike in anger anymore – especially not Ranma. "We all grow up eventually," Mousse thought as he finished the katas.

As he bowed to an imaginary sensei in the warm spring sunshine, Mousse heard a soft wolf-whistle coming from the back porch. He turned to see Nabiki wrapped in a warm robe watching him from where she sat on the edge of the porch. She had two cups of coffee next to her and a small smile on her face. "Good morning, Duck-Boy," she greeted quietly. "What has you up so early?"

"I could ask you the same question, Shark-Lady," Mousse smiled back. "You're not due up for another couple of hours."

Nabiki wrinkled her nose. "The same thing that has most of the city up early. Things should start to calm down by late tomorrow," she answered. "Here," she said holding out a cup of coffee to him. He came over, accepted the cup and sat down beside her.

"You made coffee this morning?" he asked.

"Are you kidding?" she replied. "Kasumi's been up for hours."

"How is she this morning?" Mousse asked.

"She's still glowing brightly. Tofu looks a little groggy because he couldn't get any sleep last night – their bedroom was lit up like daylight. He's wearing a blindfold right now. He still has a tail though, so he won't be going anywhere today," Nabiki answered. "How about you?"

"My Spirit Sight is going off-the-wall. Now I know how Ojima feels," he answered with a sour face. "At least all the ghosts have cleared out for a couple of days, so I don't have that distraction. They feel too uncomfortable to hang around. What about you?"

"What about me what?" she tossed back. He just gave her a very direct look until she smirked and replied: "I'm the one who's supposed to be good at ferreting out secrets, remember?"

Mousse continued with the direct look and teased with a half-smile: "C'mon – you're a Tendo."

Nabiki dimmed the smirk back to the small smile and admitted: "My mom's visit must have tripped a switch. I can see people's auras right now. What's even more surprising is that I know what the colors mean." She paused for a minute and then asked: "Did the dojo just shake?"

"I know nothing," Mousse said as he took a sip of coffee.

"Liar. Is that why you're up early? We put in a lot of sound-proofing in those rooms," Nabiki commented.

"Doesn't stop the ground from shaking," Mousse replied.

"Honestly! Why don't they fight out here?" she said with exasperation. Mousse bit his lower lip and thought about what he should say. Nabiki caught the expression and raised her eyebrows. "Oh thank gods!" she burst out. "If the tension between those two had gotten any worse, they'd start infecting those around them. We'd have a population explosion in nine months!"

"We may have that anyway without their help," Mousse added. Nabiki just nodded.

Elsewhere...

Judge Sanu looked out over his command center. He had policemen bringing in reports to clerks who quickly sorted them according to priority (generally relating to the potential for public harm). The clerks then either routed each report to one of the local mages for magical threats or to Ojima for physical threats. Threats that met both criteria were sent to Thomas Othan and his team of mercenaries. Sanu didn't know why Othan's team had offered their services Pro Bono, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse the mouth. He knew Othan's group was on someone's payroll, but as long as it wasn't Kuno's, Sanu didn't care. The judge suspected Ono had something to do with it, but he couldn't prove it. Actually, the gossip chain said Ono was temporarily ill due to the Equinox effect and was holding out at the Tendo house. Ono's mercenary team had gone to help Ojima and were taking their orders from him. Again, as long as it wasn't Kuno, Sanu didn't care.

Ryuu watched his boss carefully, and with a little glee. Sanu was practically vibrating with energy. This morning's assassination attempt hadn't even come close; Sanu had been so on-the-ball this morning that he defused the "bomb" with five minutes to spare and this one even had a special detonator. Normally, the Game would have been declared in Sanu's favor for simply finding and avoiding the bomb, but Ryuu was feeling his oats too and had rigged the bomb to "take out" the neighborhood. The judge had to defuse the bomb to win. "He's alive again. More alive than I seen him in quite some time," Ryuu thought. "Coming to Nerima was a big win. There's no more talk of retirement."

Judge Sanu looked up and spied Ryuu. "Are the Americans all right?" the judge asked.

Ryuu smirked. An American delegation was visiting Tokyo in general and some Nerima manufacturing plants specifically. "We're in luck," the assassin answered his boss. "They are still hung over from last night and none of them want to move. Soun Tendo really did a job on them."

"And himself," Sanu added. Ryuu just continued to grin evilly. "At least their hotel is not in Nerima. I think we can consider them out of picture until Monday. That's one less problem. Honestly, I don't know what the Finance Minister was thinking sending them our way."

"It's true then? The Big Boys really know about Nerima?" Ryuu asked amazed.

"Apparently," Sanu answered. "They just keep it under wraps and leave it to the locals to deal with."

"Which includes us now," Ryuu stated. Sanu just grinned back.

"Judge!" a clerk called out. "We have a Grade 1 supernatural threat reported!"

"A real ghost?" Sanu called back.

"No!" the clerk corrected. "An real oni!"

"Where?"

The clerk froze for a moment and then said: "Shall I dispatch one of the mages?"

"Where is it?" Sanu demanded.

The clerk swallowed and said: "Central and Court…"

"Boss!" Ryuu shouted as Sanu was running out the door.

Sanu ran out of the building and practically leaped down the courthouse stairs. He hit the street and looked around wildly. Dawn was just breaking in the eastern sky. There was no one out yet, except the two policemen fighting what looked to be a walking garbage can. The can had sprouted metal arms and legs and was reaching inside itself to throw smelly trash at the policemen. The policemen fought back with batons that raised an unholy racket. The garbage can was fortunately at a severe disadvantage against the more nimble men however.

"Holy shit…" the judge murmured in awe. The garbage can seemed to orient on him.

"Crap, Isao! You just blasphemed!" Ryuu said harshly as he caught up with his boss. "Why don't you just ring the dinner bell!"

Sure enough, the oni oriented on Sanu and began stumbling toward him with the policemen tripping it up and bashing it. Ryuu produced two sai and stood in front of his friend. The garbage can reached inside itself and pulled out what looked like a small crystal ball. It hurled the ball at Sanu and Ryuu reacted to block it. The ball dodged Ryuu and drew back in an attempt to try for Sanu. Meanwhile, the trashcan monster collapsed and the policeman continued to beat on it.

"It's dead!" Ryuu shouted at them. "A little help over here!" he yelled again as he blocked the flying ball from getting to Sanu once more. "Pray!" Ryuu insisted to his friend.

"What?" Sanu replied in a shock tone.

"Pray! Apologize! Do something!" Ryuu persisted as he batted the ball away. "After all you seen in Nerima? BELIEVE!"

The idea shocked Sanu. Before coming to Nerima, he had been a confident atheist. But as he watched his friend battle the oni, a thought entered his head: "If it's real, so are other things." He looked up at the clear sky and shouted: "HELP!"

Suddenly, a robed priest ran around the corner holding a clamshell box. "There you are!" he cried. Quickly, he ran up behind the oni and snapped the box shut on it. "Done!"

Ryuu let out a sigh. "Thanks," he said tiredly. Sanu echoed the sentiment.

"You're welcome," the priest answered. "I've been hunting all over for this escapee."

"Escapee?" Sanu prompted.

"Solstices and Equinoxes can strengthen spirits – even evil ones," the priest answered. "This one's been bound for a long time and the trap wore out. This new one should keep it safe again." The cleric then looked at the pair of sai. "Where did you get those?" he asked.

"What? I've had these a long time," Ryuu answered.

"Interesting. Someone Blessed them recently. That's why they worked against the oni. I'd take very good care of them if I was you." Ryuu nodded, so the priest nodded in return and added: "I need to get this troublemaker back to the temple." He turned to leave.

"Wait, sir!" Judge Sanu called out. "We don't even know your name!"

The priest looked back over his shoulder as he walked away. "Oh, my name is Jakaro. I'm sure we will bump into each other again…"

Ciren left her apartment dressed in a jogging suit. She wanted her neighbors to think she was going to burn off excess energy. The truth of the matter was she was going to collect energy – a lot of it. "He promised nothing," she thought. "But I know this is my one good chance for a normal life with Ojima – I've got to take it."

Hinako also left her apartment, but in her child form dressed in one of her usual oversized dresses. "Is it worth it?" she wondered. "If this works, I'll be normal for the first time since I met Happosai." Doubts ran through her mind. "My life span will be the same as everyone else, and I'll lose my abilities. What if I get trapped in my younger form? Do I even want a family?"

The last thought caught in her mind. Finally she admitted to herself: "I do. I'm frozen in time. Everyone around me grows up and I'm always running behind them – even my adult form is childish." Then she shook herself. "Enough. There are plenty of other reasons to do this. Cutting this madness short is worth it all by itself…"

A/N: Next up – "Side Effects" As always, please read and review (or send a PM)!