Disclaimer: Rumiko Takahashi created Ranma 1/2, not me; nothing of that series belongs to me. I'm not making any money out of this story.

Street alleys are not the safest places to be at after dark. This held true especially if you were going to confront a group of robbers.

"Give up and roll over, girl!"

In part due to the mask she wore, Akane didn't seem affected by the thug's sneer. She knew she was good - if she weren't, she couldn't have handled the Hentai Horde before Ranma arrived. In a way, she might have now been grateful for Kuno for organizing the practicing sessions of fighting against multiple targets, but back then, it had been simply too infuriating for such thoughts to have any room in her mind now. Still, they hadn't used knives on her at that time or acted in concert beyond blindly attacking at the same time.

She dodged a swipe of the miscreant's switchblade that followed. She didn't know why exactly it took three young men to steal an old lady's purse, but that's what had happened. The purse now lay a few metres away, temporarily forgotten.

"You're only making it harder for yourself!" another of the robbers called.

"Leave the purse and I might go easy on you," she shouted back.

Ranma definitely had her beat in one area - talking down the opponents and getting them angry enough to make mistakes. Sure, it wasn't as fun when she was the one being goaded, as it usually was. She had better start paying more attention to his fights to pick up tips, since he certainly wasn't dishing them out in their so-called spars.

Even if he didn't know it, he was the reason she had gotten into this business in the first place.

Her thoughts digressing from the fight turned out harmful. The first troublemaker made a swipe with the blade, forcing Akane to dodge to her left, towards a wall. The other two gang members pressed on immediately at that point, forcing her to back against the wall.

The thugs paused to savour the moment, grins appearing on their faces. Things were now in their favour.

Behind them, unnoticed by the three thugs, a shape landed silently on the pavement. Akane saw this and wondered if the new arrival was there to help her or not.

"Now, you made us all worked up, so methinks you owe us something," the apparent leader of the trio said while stepping closer. "First, let's do away with the mask," he continued, "super sentai shows never did much for me."

As his hand reached towards her mask, he suddenly crumpled down to ground. His friend quickly followed, barely managing to see their boss go down first. At seeing the first man go down and the mystery person going for the second, Akane kicked the remaining thug in the face, sending him crashing into the opposite wall. "Perverts," she thought disdainfully, "atop of everything else."

Akane lowered her leg and looked to the newcomer, a masked character with a dark red cloak and her long flowing black hair. Underneath the cloak was some baggy clothing, as if they were a few sizes too large. On the other hand, she was not the one to talk, with her equally loose clothes. Mobility was essential, after all.

"Not planning ahead is gonna get ya killed, 'Tigress'," the arrival spoke in a woman's voice.

The failed wedding had been a month ago. Its weight in the life at the Tendo household definitely warranted the stress on the definite article.

After Akane woke up at Jusendo, she thought she could trust her understanding of Ranma's feelings. She thought that the words she heard Ranma say just after she turned back from being a doll meant that he really, really cared for her. That was why she had agreed and gone ahead when the fathers had put forth the idea of a wedding.

And then the whole wedding just... imploded. The dojo was a mess, the procession ended before it even started. If one had to search for the good side of it all, the dojo was left still standing in spite of the explosives that had been thrown inside.

As much as she wanted to - and had said so - she couldn't lay all blame at Ranma's feet. She herself was a veritable saint compared to him, but he wasn't the only source of problems.

Problems that lay much closer to her and her own.

She knew Nabiki walked some metres behind her as they were returning from school. She usually did so for the past month. Ever since the fiasco, Akane had avoided her older sister.

Reconciliation was a long time in coming, especially since their views were so different. Nabiki saw little if any wrong in what she had done, sending invitations to the wedding.

In the end, Akane suspected that she would be the one to budge and break off the silence between the two of them. Either she had been wrong to assume that Ranma loved her or love alone wasn't enough to make a couple work. In the fallout of the wedding, they had started arguing again, soon relapsing into the same rut as if the feelings they had... might have had before had never existed.

Maybe it simply was a comfortable, familiar state to return to, to get out of thinking of the supposed 'happiest day of her life.'

Ranma had run ahead of them all and was probably already at the Tendo house. Seeing that they were definitely living a rough patch in their relationship, he wasn't keen on hanging around her when her temper was flaring.

Today, though, she had something to take her mind off of Ranma. Hanako had been a neighbor and a good friend of hers in her years before Furinkan, but the family had moved to Itabashi to live nearer to her father's work. Her birthday party was this weekend in a local restaurant. Even more, it was a costume party.

She smiled to herself. It would be great to see her again. They had both been interested in theatre and acting, so the type of party was a logical choice. It comforted her that not everything seemed to have changed in these past years.

Her costume was already finished and in her closet, ready to be donned.

"I'm back!" she called as she arrived at her home.

Kasumi's "Welcome!" carried from the family room she was cleaning in. Ranma had probably gone to the dojo to meditate. It was still in pretty bad shape, but at least the doors had been fixed, giving some semblance of privacy to the boy sitting there.

She walked over to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. Not long later, Nabiki followed her there.

After a few moments of silence, Akane was making her leave but Nabiki called after her, "How long are you going to give me the silent treatment?"

Akane stopped at the door and turned back. "Until you apologize."

"For what? Even if the wedding had gone through without a hitch, you would still be fighting with the boy wonder." Nabiki didn't see it wise to remind her of the pocket change she had gotten for the invitations as she leaned against the kitchen counter.

"Repairing the dojo costs money," Akane said back.

"That's not really your concern - besides, daddy has the money."

"I will be the one taking over the dojo, so that makes it my concern," her temper slightly rising.

Nabiki shot Akane a look that wavered somewhere between patronizing and smug. "Once Ranma gets his business in order, I'd say he'll be the one doing that."

The youngest Tendo was shocked at her sister's words. "How can you say that, I'm the one daddy has trained, not Ranma!"

"Can you honestly say that your skills are better than Ranma's?" Seeing Akane stay silent, Nabiki continued, "Unless Ranma is a hopeless teacher or bad at handling money, he'll likely become the new head of the dojo once you marry. If you marry."

It hurt Akane that even her sister didn't believe in her plans or hopes for the future. The rift that had formed between them at the wedding clearly showed no signs of closing.

But still, she couldn't fault Nabiki's reasoning. Japan still offered limited opportunities for women, and she couldn't compare with Ranma's fame that likely would turn into the dojo's prestige once... if he took over. Why settle for being famous in the neighbourhood when you can go for being famous in the country?

She left the kitchen and looked at the clock on the family room wall. Plenty of time still left. She intended to eat a little before leaving for the party. But before that, she went upstairs to change out of her school uniform.

Ranma had been attempting to relax and gather his thoughts in the dojo. It had taken a day to clear out the broken tables and whatnot once they got to doing it. Neither he or Akane visited the dojo as frequently as they used to. This was not by conscious choice, just the silent want to avoid the reminder of the latest mess in their lives.

As he sat on the floor, the events of the past weeks blurred in his mind. Back at Jusendo, he thought he knew what he felt for Akane.

Even in spite of all the fights they had, of all his fiancées she was probably the girl he was closest to saying out loud that he loved her. He knew it, she probably knew it as well.

Fat lot of good that did.

"It wasn't my fault!" he thought, referring to the wedding fiasco. He didn't tell Ucchan or Shampoo about the wedding or tell them to bring those 'gifts'. He definitely didn't tell either Kuno about the wedding either.

The wedding was no longer the only wedge between him and Akane, but it was perhaps the largest, together with the ongoing fiancée mess. He could also foresee more trouble on the horizon.

He believed that if he stayed here, then in time he would be asked to take over the dojo. He only didn't want that.

In his travels with his pops, he had grown to appreciate the entailed freedom. Being tied to a single dojo was not, at least not yet, what he had in mind.

Of his fiancées, Ucchan was probably the best alternative in this sense. Unfortunately, she was definitely not the best choice in several other aspects. He also considered her partially responsible for what happened at the wedding, which definitely was not a plus for her.

The same reasoning of a few good sides tempered with several downsides applied to all the other fiancées as well, except for Kodachi, in which case he couldn't find any benefits at all beside the money, which didn't interest him beyond having the necessary amount of it.

"Ranma?" Kasumi's voice returned him from his thoughts.

"In the dojo."

"Would you mind giving me a hand in the kitchen?" she called back.

Seeing that his thoughts were disrupted for good this time, Ranma stood up from the floor and left for the kitchen. Besides, he knew better than to bite the hand that fed him.

Meanwhile, Akane had changed into a skirt and a blouse and came running downstairs to grab something light to eat.

As she approached the kitchen, she heard Ranma and Kasumi talking inside.

"Is your mother's opinion so important to you, Ranma?" Kasumi asked.

"Well, she is my mother. Besides, is it such a big deal that I prefer this form in the kitchen?" girl-Ranma's voice replied.

"All the Iron Chefs on TV are male. And most of the challengers are as well. There's no shame in men doing the cooking."

"Ya watch that show?"

"Of course, Ranma. It's most interesting to see how other people deal in such situations."

"Ya think you could take part in the show? You're a good cook, don't get me wrong, but they're pros."

"Sometimes I have an ingredient in the fridge that has to be prepared before it goes bad. It's close to naming the theme ingredient in the show."

Ranma seemed to understand this as she kept nodding.

"Have you ever considered taking cooking classes yourself, Ranma?" Kasumi continued, changing the topic.

"Nah, I get by well enough with what I learned on the road," the younger girl replied. "'Sides, with you doing the cooking here, my skills aren't even needed."

"I won't be staying here forever, Ranma," Kasumi admonished her.

There was a slight pause. "Right, sorry for thinking that, Kasumi. I s'pose that of the choices left I'm the best." The smirk Ranma had on her face was clearly audible in her voice.

The eavesdropper didn't really feel all that hungry any more. Besides, she was going to a restaurant for the party so she could skip the snack.

There was still a little time before she would head for the party. Maybe she could already change to her costume here and leave for Itabashi?

She made her mind and left back upstairs to rest for a while before changing her clothes again. She'd put her regular clothes in the bag and wear a long coat over her costume. That should be enough; she would arrive well in time and put on the make-up in the ladies' room at the restaurant.

"I'm so glad to see you, Akane!" Hanako hugged Akane before she had managed to put away her overcoat. "The wardrobe is over there. Really, it's been so long since we last met!"

Akane smiled widely back at Hanako. It felt like she hadn't really changed all that much in these years; based on the hug, she still thrived on physical touch. Maybe that was why she was chose to dress up as a pirate, all simply to avoid wearing a wide puffy skirt that would keep her from hugging people.

"I know, two years, is it? I've been really looking forward to this," Akane replied, and truly meant it. She had received the invitation a month ago, soon after the... wedding. Just thinking about it made her smile falter. But she had accepted the invitation and here she now was. It was just what the doctor prescribed.

Hanako hadn't noticed the dip in Akane's mood as she had turned to welcome other guests.

"Ooh, what is that dress? Come on, girlfriend, you gotta tell me!" she demanded from a new guest who looked like a cross between a candy wrapper and a rose. Hanako seemed lost, as giving a hug wouldn't have done any good for the costume.

Meanwhile, Akane hung her coat in a coat hanger and left her usual clothes in a bag underneath it. After looking around for a moment, she found the ladies' room and went in to put on yellow-and-black makeup.

She looked into a mirror. In there, a feline woman decorated with tiger stripes and a loose knee-length dress looked back at her. The suit was made of elastic material but not really form-fitting. She noticed that she was still missing her mask and moved out of the bathroom to pick it up from the clothes bag. She smiled to herself.

"Looking good, Akane. Did you make that yourself?" Hanako asked her, now that the new guests had gone to take off their overcoats.

"Yes, how did you guess?" It had taken her a good while, too. There were several reasons why she did it on her own rather than asking Kasumi for help, one being that she wanted to have something to take her mind off other people and things.

"It's simple but beautiful. Really. And I think it's befitting of your martial arts hobby."

"I suppose it could be called that," Akane quietly admitted. Hanako had never really understood her choice of a 'hobby', but as a friend she didn't push on the issue.

"Are you still interested in acting?"

Akane smiled. "I suppose so, although I doubt my future lies there. We had this play at school, Romeo and Juliet, and -"

"Oh my, you weren't the Romeo this time, were you?" Hanako asked, a teasing grin on her lips.

"Ahh, don't remind me of that time. No, I was the Juliet," Akane replied with a proud smile.

The door opened, admitting more guests. "Sorry Akane, we need to continue later on," she quickly said and turned to welcome the new arrivals.

The room was starting to fill with people in different kinds of costumes. There were a few mikos, some that appeared to be cosplaying some anime, possibly unknowingly and some in princess gowns. A few of the guests looked like they were crossdressing, or at least their beards looked very much fake.

She could tell that she recognized very few of the others, testament to Hanako's changed social circles. The party was also starting to look much larger than she had expected. She really doubted that Hanako would have much time to talk with her.

A couple of waitresses circled around, offering glasses of alcohol-free drinks for the impending toast. Finally, Hanako's father, who had dressed as an overweight ninja, stood next to her as she welcomed everyone with a short speech.

"Please, eat plenty of food and enjoy yourselves!" she finished.

Akane had already concluded that this was more of a mixer, since the chairs in the restaurant were set at the sides of the room. This left ample room for people to gather around the small high tables set around the hall.

She looked around the room, pondering which group of people to join. She wandered around for an hour or two, sampling the foods and talking with people, before approaching a group of three around a table.

"Hello there, tigress, I'm Hiroyuki Sasaki. Who might you be?" a smiling tall boy dressed as a pirate welcomed her. The blacked-out teeth showed behind his lips but not greatly diminishing his charm. The name he decided on her was a major turn-off though, but in the end, that was she could expect for her choice of dress.

"Oh, a daring swashbuckler? Akane Tendo, pleased to meet you," Akane replied. "I was Hanako's neighbour back when they lived in Nerima."

"Nerima? Is it really as wild there as the rumours say? Oh, I'm Miki Tanaka," a noblewoman from King Louis XVI's court asked. A tall wig on top of her head wobbled as she moved her head. "I'm on Hanako's class in high school."

"I doubt Nerima is bad, but what do the rumours say then?"

"For one, is everyone in there a martial arts expert? I mean, I hear so much of the martial artists in Nerima, but I really can't believe there are several fights on the streets every day," Miki continued.

"No, not everyone in there practices martial arts. Sure, there are a few even in my class, but definitely not everyone. As for fights every day... no, I don't think so. It's a rather peaceful ward."

Hiroyuki interrupted at this point. "Peaceful I can understand. I hear that Nerima has actually the lowest number of reported assaults in Tokyo per capita. Maybe the lowlife are afraid that they'd pick the wrong target in Nerima?" he said, laughing at the end.

"I don't know if I wanted to live in Nerima even if that were true," Miki said. "I mean, the rumours also tell of these monster sightings. You know, the giant bull with tentacles", Miki visibly shivered at this point, "and the panda walking around the streets. Shouldn't he be in a zoo? Oh, and a huuge constrictor snake moving about, strangling and eating people in their sleep?"

Akane's eye began to twitch at this. "I haven't ever heard of such a snake in Nerima," she said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Oh," Miki deflated, not even noticing that Akane hadn't said anything of Taro or the elder Saotome. Her wig leaned forward so badly that Akane was worried it would make a spectacular landing on the table.

"I think I'm pretty happy that Hanako moved away from Nerima - no offence, Ms Tendo, but if she hadn't, we probably wouldn't have met," Hiroyuki said.

"You're her boyfriend?" Akane asked. That could explain the matching choice of costumes.

Hiroyuki gave a roguish smile that fit together with his outfit. "No, I'm her fiancé. And I couldn't be happier about it."

"You're engaged already?" a woman in her thirties, dressed in a pantsuit, asked him.

"Indeed - we're planning our wedding just after we graduate from high school. Of course, we'll both continue our studies after that."

"Congratulations," Akane told him.

"Say, speaking of weddings, I heard a rumour -" Miki tried to say, leaning forwards over the small table.

"Even more rumours?" the pantsuit-clad woman asked, quirking her eyebrow.

"Yes, about a wedding in Nerima."

"Aren't there many weddings in Nerima?"

"Of course there are," Miki snapped, "but in this one pretty much everything went wrong." This time, her wig shook so badly that she had to reach up to keep it from tipping.

Akane was starting to get a bad feeling where this was going to.

"First the lout of a groom had several fiancées who were invited to the event."

"Multiple fiancées? How did that happen? Was he a playboy or something?" the unnamed woman asked.

Miki just shrugged. "I don't know, I'm just telling what I heard. So, multiple fiancées who were very unhappy about the wedding and decided to trash the place."

"That doesn't sound too bad yet - sure, a bit of yelling and a call to the police or bouncers to get rid of the unwanted guests. But yeah, actually inviting them sounds like a bad idea."

"They were all martial artists, Hiroyuki, all of them. Real good, too," Miki explained.

"Okay, that makes it an even worse idea then."

"And that's not all. The groom also had several rivals who crashed the party, all martial artists as well," Miki said, putting her gloved hand in front of her mouth to hide a smile.

"You have to be kidding."

"No, I'm telling you."

"In the end, the building the party was held at collapsed. No one died, thankfully," Miki finished the story.

"Bringing the house down... literally. Sheez. Poor people. Do you know who the unlucky couple were?"

Akane had grown steadily paler as the story continued. It was like listening to your own sentencing.

"I think the groom was Ranma something. No idea of the bride, though. Say, Akane, you wouldn't happen to know these people?"

"Wait, could that have been Ranma Saotome, this supposed martial arts prodigy I hear about?"

"Yes, that was the name," Miki exclaimed, striking her fist into her palm before turning back to Akane, waiting for her reply.

"Ehh.. I have heard of them. And it didn't quite go like that. Please excuse me," she quickly finished and left the group before they could start questioning her more.

"What was that about?" Hiroyuki wondered.

Akane sat alone on a chair by a wall with an empty plate in her hands. She had come here with the hope of escaping the Nerima craziness but apparently there was no doing that. It didn't console her at all that the rumour about the failed wedding had reached Itabashi as well. At least they remembered only Ranma's name, not hers, with the incident.

It hurt her, it really did.

The party was closing down and she felt it was time for her to return home. She walked over to Hanako and congratulated her again.

"I hope that we can catch up on another date," Hanako said, hugging Akane yet again.

"I hope so too, there has been a lot happening in my life," Akane replied.

"I hear things really heated up in Nerima after we moved away."

"Understatement of the year. But, until next time," Akane said and waved her goodbyes to her old friend.

It was already late when she reached the bus stop where a couple with their young son of maybe seven years of age were waiting for a bus as well. The boy stared at Akane when she opened her coat a bit, showing the striped costume underneath. She hadn't remembered to take off her make-up yet either.

"Are you a tiger?"

Akane looked back at the child, surprised, and saw him shirk back towards her parents at her attention. Seeing him scared, she leaned down and smiled kindly at him.

"Yes I am, how did you know?" Akane asked.

"You have stripes. Pretty stripes," the boy answered, no longer leaning to her mother.

"Akito, don't bother strangers," his mother admonished, avoiding to look at Akane.

"But mum, she's not a bad person. Are you?"

"No, I'm a good person," Akane replied with a smile.

"Akito, be quiet," the mother scolded the boy.

"Are you a hero then?" His eyes lit with the excitement over the idea.

"Akito!" This time, it was the father that said this.

"Please excuse us," the mother said, "Akito is a fan of super sentai shows on TV."

Akane took a few steps back to give some more space for the family. She couldn't really fault them - she was, after all, dressed rather strangely late in the evening in a ward that was not Nerima.

But the boy's last question stayed in her mind even as she sat on the bus on the way home.

AN: I'm more accustomed to bashing Akane, so we'll see how my first fic with a Ranma/Akane tendency turns out. So far, I'm not too happy. If the story goes as planned, it'll be pretty focused on Akane and to some extent on Ranma.

If you label this a crossover, I'd say it's a Kick Ass fusion or at least very heavily inspired by it. Very stupid of me, since I don't know anything about the genre. The fighting aspects will hopefully be... peripheral. In any case, this fic might change to a crossover.

The claim of crime stats in Nerima I pulled out of my hat (or weebee's, actually). Many thanks to him and Ozzallos. This chapter was not, however, proofread by them. If you spot errors, let me know and I'll try fixing them.