It was a relaxing morning in the Tendo household. Birds were chirping and there was a calming breeze passing through every once in a while. Soun and Genma were playing Shogi, Kasumi was in the kitchen and Nabiki was reading a manga and everything was at peace for that moment… at least until two engaged teenagers started screaming at each other.
"You UGLY, STUPID, TOMBOY!!!" Ranma yelled.
"YOU JERK!! RANMA YOU'RE A STUPID, STUPID, JERK!!!" Akane yelled and stormed off into her room and Ranma went the opposite way fuming. Soun and Genma sighed. The teens' arguments became worse and more often as the days went on and it was time to put their millionth plan into action.
"I guess there's no other way Saotome." Soun said and Genma nodded.
"I'm afraid it's the only way to get them to be together." He said and both nodded together. This was a cruel plan but necessary.
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At dinner they were all sitting together, Akane and Ranma not saying a word to each other. Akane furiously and Ranma too proud to admit she had been right. Kasumi served some tea and Genma and Soun looked up slightly and nodded. Genma pretending to try to take some food from his son passed over Ranma's cup of tea and dropped a powder into it. Ranma threw his arm away and passing over Akane's cup he did the same and Nabiki looked up suspiciously at this. Before she could say anything both teens took a sip and instantly the liquid turned blood red.
"What on earth?" Akane muttered.
"What did you put on their tea?" Nabiki asked trying to pretend she wasn't worried.
"A special powder." Soun said.
"WHAT?!" Ranma yelled and was going to hit his father and then looked at Akane and Akane looked at Ranma. Everyone looked from one to another to see what was going on.
"Ranma?"
"Akane?"
"Why is he/she disappearing?" Akane and Ranma said in unison but everyone saw them just the same way. Both shut their eyes simultaneously and fainted.
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Akane opened her eyes and noticed she was looking at a burial, the grave stone read a name that made her heart freeze.
Ranma SaotomeShe shook her head refusing to believe it. "No, no, no! NO! RANMA!" Akane cried and felt being held back by someone and she screamed and cried to be able to reach him. She wanted to see him. One last time.
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Ranma looked at the tombstone and also refused to believe it.
Akane Tendo"Akane, NO! WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?!" Ranma said shocked and couldn't hold the tears he had in. "AKANEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
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The whole family looked as the teens slept one next to the other waiting for them to wake up. An hour passed and finally the teens opened their eyes. They both sat up looking around frantically and together looked up at the family.
"Tell me it was a nightmare." Akane begged and the sisters were at loss at what to say.
"It's not true! I know it's not!" Ranma yelled.
"Tell me Ranma is alive please!"
"Tell me Akane is still alive!" Ranma yelled and the sisters didn't say anything. Couldn't the see each other?
"I'm afraid it's true." Soun said and both sisters looked up at him shocked. What no one expected was the next thing to happen.
"NO!!! AKANE!" Ranma cried, he actually cried, not in his girl form, in his male form he cried. Both teens cried and went to each other's room. Akane went to Ranma's and Ranma went to Akane's.
The rest of the family ran up the stairs to see what they were doing. Akane was crying on her knees in his room and Ranma now in his girl form was crying also on his knees next to her bed. Both just kept on crying and the sisters dragged both parents into the dinning room and looked at them furiously.
"What did you do?!" Nabiki yelled at them.
"We're only doing it for their own good." Soun said.
"WHAT did you DO?!" Nabiki repeated.
"They think that each other is dead… they can't see each other, they can't feel each other, nothing." Genma said and everyone looked at Kasumi as she stood up and came back into the room after a few minutes and glared at them in fury with a kitchen knife in her hand and both males cowered back and Nabiki herself stepped away scared at her sister.
"And why did you do that?" Kasumi asked.
"We only want them to realize how much the other means to them!" Soun said cowering back from the knife Kasumi had very close to them.
"They would have figured out soon enough! You had no need to do that!" Nabiki yelled.
"They barely drank enough to last the rest of the day! They didn't drink it all! It will probably wear down by sunset!" Genma said.
"You better be right or else start digging a grave for yourselves." Kasumi swore.
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They all turned to see them enter for breakfast. They both had red puffy eyes and they looked like crap. Ranma slept in her room and she had slept in his, Genma had to satisfy with downstairs. Nabiki and Kasumi didn't say anything and it hurt and moved them at the same time to see them so affected by what they thought had happened.
"Akane/Ranma (They can't hear the other's name) eat some breakfast." Soun said and both teens didn't say anything. They just kept looking at each other, in their heads, and empty space. Ranma dropped his head on his arms and Akane cried, her face in her hands. Nabiki and Kasumi glared at both fathers who looked at their children pitifully. They felt like telling them everything but they couldn't bring themselves to.
"Akane/Ranma, It's going to be ok." Kasumi said reassuring them.
"Nothing is going to be alright!"
"How could you say that?! Ranma's dead! Nothing else matters!" Akane cried.
"Akane isn't here any more! Nothing will ever be alright!" Ranma yelled. No one said anything else.
After breakfast both teens went to the dojo together and sat side by side. It was a Saturday and they had nothing to do, and even if they did they wouldn't be doing it. They'd been sitting there for hours. Nabiki looked at them from the door and smiled softly. Even when they thought each other was dead they couldn't help being together. Every moved they'd done was almost the same. They swapped beds and walked everywhere together.
"Akane/Ranma." Both turned simultaneously to look at her and she came and sat down in front of them. "Do you want Ranma/Akane back?" She asked and they looked up at her.
"Yes." They said. Ranma held his knees close and hid his face from her as his shoulders shook softly and Akane cried and hugged her sister. "Why Nabiki? Why did he/she have to leave?! I love him/her so much! I want him/her back! I don't want to live without him/her!"
"Akane was everything to me… without her everything seems pointless." Ranma said.
"I don't want to live any more." Akane cried and both ran out leaving a very shocked Nabiki behind.
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"THEY'RE GOING TO KILL THEMSELVES!!!!!!!!!" Nabiki screamed at both males and they cowered back. They were shocked; they didn't know that they would go that far!
"The sun is already setting, maybe they wont do anything. They go everywhere together after all." Soun said and Kasumi glared at them.
"This is all your fault. How could you be so cruel?!" Kasumi said with tears in her eyes.
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Akane and Ranma were staring at the city as the sun was setting. They were high up in a cliff sitting next to each other waiting for the sun to set. It started disappearing bellow the horizon and they stood up. They stepped closer to the edge and accidentally touched, instead of not feeling anything they felt it and it gave them goosebumps. They looked at each other and extended their hands slowly. Ranma couched her face and she touched his shirt and as the sun disappeared they started seeing each other. At first see-through but the image started becoming more solid by each star that appeared on the opposite horizon. Tears came to their eyes and the sun vanished completely. They remembered drinking the tea and how the real world was.
"You're alive." Akane whimpered and cried hugging him and he hugged her back crying from happiness.
"I can't believe it! I thought I'd lost you!" Ranma cried and Akane only held him tighter. "I'll never let you out of my sight! I love you so much!" Ranma said and Akane looked at him surprised and smiled.
"I love you too. Don't ever leave me Ranma, promise me." Akane cried and Ranma nodded.
"I promise, never ever." Ranma said and they just held each other close like that none daring to let go fearing the other would disappear when they did. "Marry me Akane." Ranma said and now Akane was really shocked.
"What?" She said wondering if she'd heard right.
"Marry me… I love you so much." Ranma said and Akane nodded and another tear rolled down her cheek from pure joy.
"I will." Akane said and their faces got closer and closer to each other and they kissed softly. At first it was just a tender soft kiss that slowly gained more love and passion, each trying to express what they felt for each other after hiding their feeling for so long.
After a couple of minutes of just hugging each other they separated and held hands.
"Lets go back, I want to beat the shit out of my dad for making me go through that." Ranma said and Akane nodded.
"Ok. Lets go." Akane said and Ranma smiled softly at her.
"Then we can go watch a movie." He said and she smiled and leaned into his arm and they walked down the streets of Nerima heading back home. Kodachi and Kuno saw them pass and Kodachi was shocked, Kuno fainted leaving Kodachi to drag him back home. Shampoo and Ukyo saw them walk past as well and were about to go separate them and kill Akane when they saw the look they gave each other and they stayed still.
Shampoo went back to the restaurant in utter shock but accepted defeat and looked up as she saw Mousse crashing to the floor at not having his glasses on. She was about to yell at him when he stood up and gave her flowers, some damaged from the fall and some extremely beautiful and she couldn't help but smile at him and take them.
"Thank you Mousse."
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Ukyo sighed and just went into her restaurant; Ryoga came in shortly after with the same look of defeat as her. She gave him something to eat (on the house) and they talked, certainly the beginning of a friendship. A real one, not just an alliance to get Ranma or Akane.