A/N: Yay next chapter woohoo! Finally we're approaching more AU territory. I don't really have much else to say, but I hope you guys enjoy this next installment!

Chapter Three: First Night

Akane gazed up in wonder at the structure before her. She had never seen a palace in person before, especially one belonging to a forest spirit. Her only experience with such estates were through illustrations or tales some of the merchants in the village would bring back from their travels. It was not as grand or expansive as some of the other palaces out there, such as the emperor's castle in Kyoto, but it was still breathtaking nonetheless. The Kuno estate was the largest property Akane had ever known, yet it paled in comparison to the beautiful grounds before her.

The palace looked to be very old and built in the traditional style. Its ceramic tiles were worn and faded, but the walls were not discolored or cracked, indicating that the home had been maintained and cared for very well. Akane thought the age only added to its beauty. All around the property were a wide variety of trees, shrubs, and flowers, which made sense given that the home belonged to the forest spirit after all. So this is where Nodoka had been coming and going from. Had she been tending to this place by herself all this time?

Ranma also took his time as he approached the palace with great curiosity. So this was his home, huh? He had lived here for the first three years of his life, yet he had been away for so long he barely remembered any of it. It was almost as if he was seeing it for the first time as well. As he placed his hands upon the wooden pillars of the gate, he could feel a calm and gentle energy.

Memories flooded back to him of his mother's kind smile as he played in the gardens. He could see the dojo where his father first began teaching him the spiritual arts.

"My boy is a prodigy!" Genma laughed as he raised a grinning baby Ranma in the air, "Did you see that, Nodoka? He learned how to sprout his first sapling in no time!"

"Dear, that's amazing!" Nodoka beamed and took her son into her arms. She gasped at all the life and energy radiating from his little body. He was certainly a gifted one.

"You will be the strongest guardian Nerima has ever seen! The villagers will sing your praises for many years to come!"

"Oh Ranma, you're so amazing!"

"Legendary guardian Ranma!"

"Ranma!"

"Ranma!"

The aforementioned forest spirit blinked in surprise as he was snapped from his stupor. A pair of inquisitive, brown eyes gazed back at him.

"Are you feeling ok?" Akane leaned in closer, scrutinizing him, "You've been standing there for ten minutes with a really dopey look on your face."

"Dopey?" Ranma's cheeks grew hot, "I'll have you know I was deep in important thoughts!"

"I'm sure you were," she mused, "Come over here and look at these flowers. They're so beautiful!"

She knelt next to a row of bright, red flowers and closed her eyes. They had such a lovely fragrance. Ranma observed from afar and cocked his head curiously to one side.

It was intriguing how delighted Akane seemed at something so simple as a row of flowers, not that there was anything wrong with that. It was actually really pleasant like this. Her aura was once again warm and calm, filling him with the same sense of comfort he had felt when they first met. He wondered briefly if it was because of the way the vow connected them together that he seemed to be a bit more sensitive to her feelings. In any case, if she liked flowers so much then he could just grow her a few more bushels. He made a mental note to do that later after they had been settled.

After touring the front of the palace they made their way inside. Akane could smell traces of Nodoka's perfume in the air. She wondered if she and Genma would also be returning soon. Wasn't this their home, after all? She did mention they would be gone in the spirit realm for some time. Come to think of it... what was the spirit realm like? She knew of its existence, but she realized she didn't actually know anything else about it. How it was laid out? Did it look largely the same as the human world? Were most spirits humanoid like Ranma, or were they more animalistic and amorphous as she had encountered when she performed exorcisms?

"Say, Ranma, are we in the spirit realm right now?"

"Sort of," he replied as he began to unpack his things, "Nerima forest is a holy site, so it's in-between. From here you can travel back to the mortal realm or take a different path to the spirit realm."

"If this place exists in both worlds, how come I've never seen this palace before? I've explored the forest countless times in my life."

"You gotta know what to look for," Ranma shrugged, "Don't really know how to explain it, but sometimes humans block spiritual things out and don't see what's right in front of them."

Akane pondered upon his words. All her life she had thought she was embracing the spiritual realm to the best of her ability and prided herself in being among the few in her village to see what many others could not. But it seemed she still had much to experience.

"What's the spirit realm like?"

"It's pretty different from the mortal realm. Lots of... interesting things. You never tried to find out for yourself?"

She shook her head no.

"You can go whenever, y'know? You're half divine so you can travel there if you want." Anything with divine origin was able to travel back and forth between the spirit and mortal worlds easily through these holy sites. The same was not true for humans, however. Only those with some minimum amount of divine blood or those born gifted with such abilities were able to traverse into the spirit realm, but it was not an easy task if you did not know where to look or what to do.

Akane's expression lit up with excitement, "Can I really? Will you take me sometime?"

"Sure, if you want."

She cheered excitedly and Ranma once again found himself intrigued by her reactions. Though he supposed that was because the village was mostly surrounded by forest, and given that Soun wasn't allowed to go through the forest easily that was probably why she hadn't traveled or seen many things. But, he had to admit it was a bit refreshing seeing someone genuinely get excited at these things.

"Your pop never really took you anywhere?"

"Well," Akane paused and thought for a moment, "There was one time we went to visit a valley called Ryugenzawa. My father took my sisters and me there after my illness, since the waters were supposed to help improve ones health."

Ryugenzawa? The name sounded slightly familiar. Ranma believed it was another holy site somewhere in the south of Japan, though he had never been.

"That it? Geez you really are sheltered, aren't you? OOF!" he barely managed to dodge the block she chucked at him

She stuck her tongue out, "So what! No need to be rude about it! I had a lot of duties that kept me in the village anyway."

"Why you gotta hurl things for? Violent tomboy!"

"What did you call me?!"

"You heard me!"

"Hmph!" Akane turned away with a huff. So much for that prayer earlier.

Ranma rubbed his head with a frown. He hadn't really meant to offend her, and maybe he shouldn't have called her that... but when he felt her aura fire up he just couldn't resist the challenge. It was in his nature as a fighter, after all.

"Well," he began again meekly, trying to change the subject, "Come on, let's go put our stuff away."

"Shouldn't we wait for your parents to get back? I mean, I wouldn't want to take a room that your mom was planning to use for something."

"My mom and pop?" Ranma blinked, "They're not coming back here."

"What? Why not?"

"This place is for the guardian of Nerima forest. My pop's not the guardian anymore, so they're probably back at our house in the spirit realm."

"You have another home?" Akane's jaw dropped.

"Yeah, it's where my pop and I stayed in between training trips. Mom had to stay here though to take care of the palace while pop was gone."

Wow, that certainly caught her by surprise. So wait, did that mean that it was just going to be her and Ranma living in this entire place?

... Alone?

A hot blush alit upon her cheeks.

"You OK?" Ranma's face was suddenly right in front of hers, and she was acutely aware of how dangerously close he was, "You got a fever or something?"

"I-Idiot!" she screamed and slapped him away.

"Hey! What was that for?"

Akane refused to meet his gaze as she struggled to hide the blush that only grew deeper the more she thought about the situation. Hurriedly, she gathered her things and decided to go find a room to go and put her things in.

Ranma scratched his head. What had gotten into her?

The rest of the day passed rather uneventfully, and soon the sun had begun to set over Nerima.

"There, that should do it!"

Akane wiped her hands proudly as she stepped back to view her handiwork. She had just finished unpacking and arranging her things around the spacious bedroom. Truthfully it was much bigger than she needed, especially since she hadn't that many possessions to begin with. She let out a contented sigh as she fell upon the plush futon. It was incredibly soft, she noted, much softer than the one she had at home.

Well, back at her old home, that was. It was probably going to take a while for her to associate this place with home. It was just so different than what she was used to, but not in a bad way at all. She loved the homely, traditional feel and how the architecture was so deeply ingrained with nature. Upon the paper screens were delicate paintings of mountains and forests, and beautiful flower arrangements decorated most chambers. If only her father, Kasumi, and Nabiki could experience the same contentedness she felt at this moment. Was it possible for them to visit her? Ranma did say this place existed to mortals as well.

It had only been a few hours but she already missed them terribly. Akane wondered how many responsibilities she would have now to maintain the palace. Was it similar to the day-to-day chores she performed at the Tendo shrine? Laundry, cleaning, cooking...

Akane sat up and gulped nervously.

Cooking was... um... something she had not quite mastered yet...

Back home, it had always been Kasumi who took care of that duty. Akane and Nabiki had helped out with every other chore, but cooking was something Kasumi was exceptionally good at so they had always let her handle all kitchen-related matters.

She knew for certain spirits needed to eat, since one of Kasumi's duties was to prepare ritual food offerings to lay upon their shrine. Akane had frequently snuck into the shrine late at night to watch in wonder as the offerings were carried off by various spirits.

Well, exorcisms and rituals were about the same as cooking, right? They all involved getting various materials together, preparing them, and following a set of instructions. So if she just read the instructions then it shouldn't be that hard!

OK, now to find out if Nodoka had written down any recipes for her to use.

Akane stepped out into the hallway and felt it to be eerily quiet. Come to think of it, what was Ranma up to? She had heard his footsteps going up and down the hallway earlier but otherwise there hadn't been any other sounds for several hours. Was he exploring the place still? If he was, she wondered if he had found any scrolls or something Nodoka would have left behind for her.

"Ranma!" she called, "Hey Ranma, where are you?"

There was no answer.

That was odd, but perhaps he was just busy.

The first room she looked into was the one across from hers. It looked to be Ranma's bedroom, as a futon similar to hers had been rolled out and his pack was emptied haphazardly onto the floor. How disorganized! And did he have to choose the room right across from hers, she thought as another hot blush splayed across her cheeks. Surely there were other bedrooms in this palace he could've taken!

She closed the sliding door and went to check the other rooms. There seemed to be what looked like a storage room, a meeting room, another closet... as she kept walking she found that the hallway led into a large, open living area. The tatami looked well-worn, so this was likely where the family would have spent most of their leisure time. The farthest part of the living area opened to a spacious veranda overlooking the palace's inner gardens. Akane marveled at how lovely everything looked at night. Fireflies flickered through the reeds surrounding a koi pond.

"What a beautiful koi," she said as she approached the edge of the pond. A lone fish swam underneath its surface, its amber and ivory scales glistening under the moonlight. As she dipped her fingers in the water, she was surprised to see the koi swim up to her.

"Welcome, divine priestess."

Akane jumped back with a shock. Did that koi just speak to her? Telepathically?

"How...?"

"I am Mamoru, resident to this pond for the past 200 years."

"Mamoru," she repeated, still trying to get over the shock that a koi was speaking to her. But it made sense, since in the mortal world koi fish were regarded to be descended from dragons, divine creatures. So here their divine side would be awakened and able to communicate with her. "My name is Akane, it's nice to meet you."

"Mistress Akane, I look forward to our time together."

"Say, Mamoru, have you seen the newest guardian by any chance? Ranma?"

The fish need not say anything else before a strong gust of wind swept through the garden. A large, dark figure leapt into the air some distance outside of the palace walls. An uneasy feeling formed in the pit of her stomach. A dark spirit?!

"GET BACK HERE!" a familiar voice hollered as he gave chase.

"Ranma?!" Akane shouted. What was going on?

She ran to the outer edge of the garden and jumped over the wall. The further she ventured into the forest, the more she began to notice the air felt slightly darker and more oppressive. She quickly whirled around in time to dodge a strike from another dark spirit, this one shaped like an amorphous wolf-creature.

"Go back from whence you came!" Akane ordered as she produced paper talismans from her kimono. A good priestess always kept these things ready on hand.

The spirit snarled and swiped at her, barely missing her face.

"Akane?!" Ranma said as he noticed the commotion coming from behind, "Go back inside the castle, you're not ready to be out here on your first night!"

"I've told you I can take care of myself!" she shouted back, "Now would you mind telling me what's happening?"

"On full moon nights tainted spirits who manage to escape from the underworld try to use holy sites to sneak into the mortal world. Mom and pop usually kept most of them at bay with a barrier, but now that they're gone the barrier is weakened!"

Tch, just his luck that he and Akane began their duties right on the night of a full moon.

"So all we have to do is exorcise them, right?"

"It's not as easy as it looks!"

Akane steadied her breathing and focused on searching her opponent for an opening. Ah, there! She struck first, flinging a disabling talisman towards it. The spirit jumped back but found out too late that it was a fake-out when Akane reappeared behind it.

"Gotcha!" she said triumphantly as she dealt a swift kick to the spirit's head. It howled in pain and she moved in to finalize the exorcism, muttering incantations and focusing her chi into the finishing blow.

"I told you I can hold my own!" she shot back in defiance.

She was not bad, Ranma thought with surprise.

"Ranma, look out!"

The large demon he had been chasing ripped a tree from its roots and swung it at the forest spirit, knocking him into the koi pond.

Ranma sputtered and grit her teeth as she emerged in her female form, "Why you! Enough is enough!"

Thinking the forest spirit nuisance had been settled, the demon turned his attention to the priestess. Akane narrowed her eyes and steadied her pose. It swiped at her, one claw managing to graze and rip through her sleeve. She hissed in pain and clamped her free hand over the wound, feeling a small amount of blood seeping from it.

"HEY, YOU BIG UGLY! YOUR FIGHT IS WITH ME!"

Ranma charged high into the air and met with the dark spirit again, grappling with it. The demon roared with fury as Ranma held it in a headlock before throwing it over her head and to the ground below. Elsewhere Akane had located several other lesser demons and was doing her best to dispatch them. The demon that Ranma was fighting was huge, she had never seen anything of that size before. It was strong enough to rip a tree out of the ground, for crying out loud! Was Ranma going to be alright?

"METEOR KICK!"

The demon dissipated into a million dark wisps as Ranma pierced through its chest. The wisps faded into the wind, back into the underworld.

"Feh!" Ranma flicked her pigtail nonchalantly behind her, "That guy wasn't even a challenge."

She scanned her surroundings and found her priestess nearby, fending off demon after demon.

"Crap," Akane cursed as she realized she was running out of talismans, "Eep!" she sidestepped just in time for the two demons running at her to collide with each other.

"You can use the leaves, ya know," Ranma's suddenly appeared before her, hanging upside down from the tree Akane stood beneath.

The image of Nodoka and her leaves flashed in Akane's mind. Right, that made sense. As priestess to a forest spirit, she now held affinity for things with earthy or woodsy elements. Grabbing a handful of leaves, Akane tried to focus her energy into them. She wasn't quite sure how to do this and just tried to envision what Nodoka had done.

"GYAH!" Ranma ducked as the leaves turned into razor blades and began flying wildly around, "HEY, DO YA MIND?"

The demons yelped and dissipated as the leaves cut through them and any other who dared to approach. Well, she had to admit, that was one way to get rid of them.

"A-Ah!" Akane panicked, which only served to make the leaves swing about more wildly, "How do I stop it?"

"I dunno! I don't cast spells!" Ranma yelled back, "Why'd you use that spell if you don't know how to control the leaves?!"

"I did the first thing that came to mind!"

"Just try telling them to calm down or something!"

"Telling them to calm down?! Am I supposed to be a leaf whisperer now?!"

"Look, you're the priestess here-GAH!" A leaf whizzed by, shearing off a few millimeters of her pigtail.

Calm thoughts, calm thoughts. Ok, that's enough, it's time to rest. Akane lowered her breath and concentrated on willing the leaves to cease their attack. Finally, as if on cue they all froze at once and drifted harmlessly back down to the forest floor. Feeling the air still again and free from the earlier dark miasma, Akane let out a breath she did not know she had been holding. It felt as if the energy had been all of a sudden sucked from her and she fell to the ground.

"Hey!" Ranma was quick to jump behind and steady her fall, "You OK?"

"I'm fine..." Akane mumbled.

"Alrighty, let's get you back to the palace," the forest spirit sighed and lifted the girl into her arms.

Once safely back within the castle's confines, Ranma placed her gently onto the tatami, making sure to position Akane's head onto a cushion. She inspected the cut on her arm. Thankfully it was not very deep and the wound had already ceased bleeding.

"You should be more careful," the redhead grumbled, "Told you it was a lot to handle for your first night."

"I don't think I did too badly," Akane replied. Honestly she had never fought so many dark spirits at once before, especially nothing as large as the one Ranma had faced. Exorcisms in her old village paled in comparison to this. But they made it out alright, didn't they?

"You... You're not bad," Ranma said as she turned so Akane would not see the slight pink staining her cheeks, "But you still pushed yourself too much." She had to admit that the priestess's determination was admirable. The youngest Tendo proved that she wasn't afraid of leaping straight into battle, which though reckless made Ranma feel somewhat glad. She liked that in a partner.

Glowing orbs floated into the living area from the veranda and materialized into what looked like little logs with short, stubby little twigs for limbs. Some leaves poked out here and there from their bodies, and their "faces" were simple hollows.

"Wood sprites?" Akane said.

The sprites bowed before looking at Ranma as if seeking permission to approach. Ranma gave a silent nod and the sprites rustled among themselves until one stepped forth carrying a treats on a large oak leaf. It waddled forward and placed it beside Akane.

"For us?"

It nodded.

She smiled warmly and gave the sprite a small pat on the head, "Thank you."

There it was again, that soft smile. Ranma found herself leaning closer towards the girl, wondering what about it that made her feel so intrigued...

The sprite bowed once more before returning to its entourage and fading back into glowing orbs. As they floated out the veranda and into the forest, Akane propped herself up on one elbow to inspect what they had been given.

"Kashiwa mochi," she marveled and bit into one. It was delicious!

"They're gifts for helping protect the forest," Ranma explained, plopping one of the round little snacks into her mouth, "They'll help restore your strength."

Akane felt a warmth spreading through her.

Ranma winced as she felt that tell-tale pang of dark energy swirling in her chest again. It was her male side, the body's native spirit, fighting to dominate the cursed side. This only really happened when she was in her female form, and she couldn't really come up with a good explanation why. It wasn't like it was a case of two different people fighting for control of one body - they were the same people! She was still as much Ranma Saotome as she was in male form. She retained the same thoughts, beliefs, motivations, and feelings in either form. So why did it feel like the chi kept wanting to rip itself in half?

"Akane, could you change me back?"

"Huh? Oh right, I suppose so. Could you fetch some water?"

Ranma went to scoop some from the koi pond and Akane raised a brow inquisitively.

"If this is a holy site, why doesn't the water here just turn you back into normal?"

"Water is just water," Ranma shrugged, "It's the same in your world as it is in here or the spirit world. Just like the leaves you and mom used are just normal leaves. Things in both worlds are the same and neutral, it's the spirits or people who live in them that are different. So water that exists here and everywhere else still needs to be manipulated if we want it to do stuff."

"I see..."

Ranma shivered as the water was poured upon him, returning him to his usual form. The tumultuous battle in his chest subsided for now and he breathed a sigh of relief. It still made him uneasy to think about what was going on in his body, but he willed those thoughts from his mind for now.

Blue eyes glanced to the right, where Akane had resettled herself and was resting peacefully. They sat that way for a little while, enjoying the silence and watching the forest sway gently under the moonlight. It was nice being back in the forest of Nerima after all this time, the pig-tailed spirit thought. Even 15 years later the smells and sounds were still so dear and familiar to him. Moving around from location to location with pop had made it difficult to attach any sort of feelings to any one place, except for their home in the ethereal realm, but even then they would only stayed for a few weeks at a time before departing again for another training mission. It was just... sometimes, it felt very lonely...

But now, all that was over. He was officially the forest guardian now, and this was where he would be expected to stay from now until the end of his days unless someone else came along to make him abdicate. But no way on earth or the high heavens that was ever happening. Ranma had worked way too hard for too long for this.

He thought back to everything that had happened over the past 24 hours and what an exhausting series of events it had been. Being told today was the day he would assume the guardian title, finding out he already had a priestess picked out, reuniting with his mother, and then exorcising an entire forest.

Ranma fell back onto the tatami with a tired thud.

Not only had he finally gotten a stable place, but now he also had someone whom he would be sharing it with. Someone who was meant to be his friend and support system through it all. Truth be told he still wasn't totally sure on everything the position of guardian entailed, or the extent of abilities a priest/priestess provided to a guardian, but at least they had plenty of time to discover together.

He and Akane had probably left big impressions on each other, didn't they? Whether that was a good thing or not was something he didn't quite know how to answer yet. She was a tough girl, much tougher than any other mortal girl he had ever encountered. Granted, she was half divine, but given that she had lived her entire life in the mortal world she was essentially currently the same as any other human since her divine blood didn't have a chance to awaken yet. One day was hardly enough to know anything about someone, but he did feel certain that he learned a lot.

And maybe, he thought, he wouldn't mind learning a little bit more.