Akane ½

The Beginning

Legal: All rights are of Viz. Video and Takahashi Rumiko

*~*~*~*~*~*

[Panda signs]

*Thoughts*

(Chinese)

*~*~*~*~*~*

Author's Note: Do not be confused, the names mean nothing. They are pretty much just the names that are the same. They may have rolls switched though. (Eg. Taro is not a monster) Another thing, I wrote this when I was twelve, don't be to harsh!

*~*~*~*~*~*

A black haired boy appearing to be about 16 is walking with a giant panda, which is wearing a gi, down a road just after a brief spring shower. The boy is wearing a red Chinese shirt and loose black pants, and has a huge pack on his back.

"Okay pops, so where is this place we're staying at?" the boy says, apparently talking to the panda.

The panda holds up a sign saying, [We're staying at an old friend's dojo.]

"All right," says the boy then turns down the street. He approaches a man who is looking at vegetables in front of a shop with what looks to be a giant spatula strapped to his back and asks, "Um... excuse me. Sir. I'm looking for a dojo, is there one near here?"

The man realizes he is being spoken to and turns around. "Dojo? Sure there's one right down this street, can't miss it."

"Okay thanks!"

The panda turns and starts to walk where the man pointed. The boy runs to catch up with the panda.

"Hey wait up old man!" he shouts after the panda.

The man who gave the directions continued, "This place gets weirder and weirder."

*~*~*~*~*~*

As soon as the inhabitants open the door into the main house the panda pushes past the boy into the house. The boy runs to hit the panda in the back.

"Hey stop it old man you're scaring them!"

Unable to push past the panda in the narrow hallway, the boy does a low jump over the panda.

He does a bow and say's, "My name's Akane, sorry 'bout this."

One of the boys stepped up in front of Akane and poked him in his flat chest. "Akane's a girls name right?"

"Yes, it is, and would you stop that?"

A young boy appearing to be about Akane's age stepped up and swatted His brother's hand away. "Taro! He asked you to stop!"

The boy named Taro just hrumphed and retreated up the stairs to what must have been his room.

"Hi, excuse my brother. My name's Ranma. Wanna be friends?"

Akane, surprised replied, "That would be nice, thank you."

"So...I hear you do some martial arts? Wanna spar?"

*~*~*~*~*~*

"Hai...go!" Ranma shouted from his end of the dojo.

Ranma took a ready position, but Akane just relaxed with hands behind his back. Ranma waited a few seconds then charges across the wood planked floors to throw a punch where Akane's face should have been. But as Ranma slid by slightly off balance because of the missed contact he noticed that Akane had easily dodged to the left of his punch. He whirled around to find Akane still standing with hands behind his back.

*He's good* Ranma slipped in for another round of kicks, all of which were easily evaded by Akane.

*Is he reading my moves? Ha! Now I've got him up against the wall!*

Ranma threw a punch with all his strength. Akane did a light jump over Ranma to land behind him facing him and tapped him on the shoulder.

Ranma looked in disbelief at his fist, which had gone through the wall.

"Do you mind if I take a dip in the furo before we have dinner?" asked Akane.

"Uh. Yeah, sure." Ranma replied with fist still in the wall.

*~*~*~*~*~*

"Ah..." Akane moaned as he settled into the steaming furo.  Suddenly the figure morphed and shrank into a female form. She leaned back against the tile wall of the furo and closed her eyes, thinking through the day for a while. She was about to get out of the tub when Ranma's voice rang through the screen between the changing room and the bathroom, "Akane you in the furo?"

"Yeah, I'm almost done." Akane relaxed for a few more seconds then sighed as she rose out of the water.

*Hmmm..Akane's voice is higher*

Just at that moment the door to the furo slid open and Ranma stepped into the room, stark naked except for the towel that was inconveniently over his shoulder.

They each looked down at themselves then at the other person.

"Aaaugh!" Ranma yelled.

"Ahhhh!"  Akane replied.

Akane flew back into the cover of the water leaving only eyes over water level. Ranma covered himself with the thin towel and darted back into the changing room, dressed hastily and ran full speed to his room, furo or no.

*Who was in our tub?* he thought as he ran to his room.

Akane waited until she was sure there was no one was in the changing room. Then she rose out of the water and sheeted the extra water with her hands and finished drying with the towel. She then went over to the changing room door and peeked around to see if anyone was there. She got dressed in the clean clothes she brought with her to the bathroom. Consisting of a blue shirt and another pair of black pants. She then went to what she guessed was Ranma's room.

When she got to Ranma's room and knocked there was no reply so she opened the door a crack and said, "Ranma?"

She was greeted by a questioning look, "Uh... who are you?"

"I'm Akane, sorry about this," Akane said and bowed.

A disbelieving stare and a slack jaw greeted her.

"I'll explain later." she said, and made her journey to the door.

*~*~*~*~*~*

"So, cold water turns you into a boy and hot water returns you to your true form?" asked Taro, who was sitting in front of Akane.

"I don't believe it," the one she hadn't met said.

"Here, for a demonstration." The fat bald man hastily grabbed Akane by the arm and threw her into a koi pond in the garden.

A raven haired girl was thrown into the pond but an angry black haired boy emerged and shouted, "Hey what'd you do that for old man?"

"They wanted a demonstrati..." but the man was cut off as a stream of water flew from a bucket of water the now male Akane had found.

The boy moved in for another attack while the panda rolled around on the grass holding signs saying [I'm just an innocent panda!!]

"Well then your problem is not so bad." Soun moved over to stand behind Taro. "My son Taro, age 17. He shifted behind the one Akane hadn't met or been introduced to. "My son Shuri, age 19. Then he moved over behind Ranma and put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "And Ranma, age 16."

"Uh, yeah..." Akane said confusedly.

"Which do you wish to marry?" Soun said happily.

{SPLASH}

"Spill, old man."

"Well, you're to be engaged to one of them." Genma said.

"WHAT! No way! Hell, first thing I'm going back to China for a cure!"

"No you're not, Akane." Genma then hit Akane over the head with a rather large mallet.

"Urk..."

"How about a game of go? Soun my friend." Genma said happily.

The two fathers happily retired happily into the next room. Taro went to his room to count money. Shuri went to his room to study. Ranma was left staring at the unconscious girl in their sitting room. He sighed and walked over to pick her up. He knelt and put one arm under her knees and the other on her lower back. When Ranma stood up Akane stirred a little and put her arms around her neck.  Ranma froze to see if she would wake up. When she didn't wake he started walking toward the stairs.

*Hmm...where should I put her? Oh whatever* and started toward his room. Ranma put Akane down on his bed and tucked her in. He then went to the bathroom and did the nightly clean up he had missed earlier. He got another pillow and blanket and put them on the floor. He lie down and shut his eyes.

"Good night, Akane."

At her name she stirred a little. "G'ight Ranma…" then she fell back to sleep.

*~*~*~*~*~*

"Ranma! Breakfast!"

"Wha…" Ranma said groggily as he awoke from his far from comfortable sleep. He blinked and yawned a few times to clear his head and remember last night's events and looked at the bed. *Oh yeah that's why I'm on the floor*

He got up and looked over at the bed where Akane had not moved so much as an inch.

*Heh…I could have put her on the floor and she wouldn't know the difference*

He stepped forward so he was next to the bed. "Akane, time to wake up." Ranma leaned over and tapped her on the forehead.

When Akane woke the first thing she saw was Ranma leaning over the bed she was on. "Augh! Hentai!"

{SLAP}

Ranma was looking at her funny that alone may have made her laugh, the fact that he had a bright red hand mark that was starting to swell made him look even stupider. She burst out in peals of laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"Sorry your face looks funny."

"Well now my face hurts, time for breakfast," he said then turned around to go wash up for the morning.

Akane went into the entrance hall to go pick up her bag. When she got there she saw it wasn't there and went into the kitchen to ask.

"Oh hello, are you looking for your bag? Taro and I moved it to the guestroom. How you carried that all the way from China is beyond me," Shuri, the oldest brother told her.

"Okay thanks, uh… where's the guestroom?"

*~*~*~*~*~*

Akane wandered into the dining room and knelt next to Ranma at the table. For some odd reason he was the one she felt most comfortable with. After some small talk circuited through the group, Shuri came in holding a bunch of large platters.

"Itadakimas!" the whole group said and dug in the wonderful food.  After Genma had finished his food and was still hungry he eyed Akane's plate. Genma's chopsticks darted in, but Akane neatly stopped them with two fingers and snapped them into bits. The rest of breakfast went on normally.

"Akane, you will be attending Furinkan High School with Ranma and Taro for the duration of your stay," said Soun.

"Pops, I haven't been to school in over, I don't know how long!"

"Growf!"

"You just stay a panda so you don't have to explain! Oh, never mind I'll go, I just won't like it," Akane was pretty annoyed so she walked out the front door just to get away from her idiotic father.

Ranma grabbed the bento boxes and the book bags they would need for school. Then raced after Akane so she wouldn't get lost. He almost ran past her because she was walking along the top of the fence.

"Hey! What are ya doin' up there?"

"Hmm? Oh, pops always trained me to practice whenever I could. It's a balance exercise, sort of." Akane replied.

"Let me try this…" He said then jumped to what would have been right behind Akane, if he hadn't let his momentum carry him too far.

Akane lashed out with a hand to catch his wrist and haul him up onto the fence top.

"Heh…thanks, nice save. Where did you learn to be so fast?" Ranma asked.

"Well everywhere. Training was what I did when I wasn't sleeping or eating. So most of my time went to the art."

"I used to be the best here until you came." he said his voice showing he was a little down.

"Well then you're taking it a lot better than every guy I met on training. They'd all have competitions to see who could date me. I entered and fought and beat everyone in the competition. That was a pretty good work out. Is that it?" Akane asked pointing to the building ahead.

"Yes, that's it. Oh and I think we're in all the same classes. Gym's first, girls do gymnastics while the boys do other sports. I think today is dodge ball," Ranma said.

At this Akane started to steam. *Why can't the girls do other sports? Gymnastics? I'd rather do anything else*

As they approached the gates to the school the male population stopped to drool at the new girl. The ones with girlfriends were quickly set straight, and the rest looked away uncomfortably when they saw whom Akane was walking with.

"A red rose to match your beauty fair maiden. I am The Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, Kuno Tatewaki age 17." he struck a pose as blue lightning cracked behind him.

"Jerk," Akane replied.

"Urk." was all Kuno could get out as Akane's fist connected solidly with his gut and he went flying to make a crater in the sidewalk behind him. She then sidestepped onto the rose he dropped.

All the guys who were mustering the will power to ask Akane out quickly deflated and moved away.

Akane heard Ranma chuckling beside her, turned to face him and asked, "What's so funny?"

"Oh nothing, the last person to do that was me. But you were right he is a jerk."

"Oh that's nice to know," she said with dry humor.

"Come on let's get ta class. Don't wanna be late do ya?"

They walked into the school and Ranma took Akane to the main office to check in with the teachers.

"Hello may I help you?" asked a sectary.

"Uh yes, this is Tendo Akane, she'll be starting classes today," said Ranma.

The secretary went into a back room after excusing herself and came back and handed Ranma a paper. "This is her schedule."

"Thank you."

Ranma reviewed the paper and handed it to Akane. "Yeah we're in the same class. Gym time. Come on."

After a brief walk Ranma stopped outside the girls locker room and told Akane to double check the water faucets, and that he'd meet her here after gym period.

Akane walked into the girls' bathroom and stepped towards the office, and knocked on the door. "Um excuse me…sensei," when Umi-sensei motioned her to continue she came the rest of the way into the office and continued. "Sensei I was just enrolled today, I wanted to know if I needed a uniform for gym or something."

"Oh, yes you do. Come in here, pick one you think will fit and go change then start practicing on the equipment."

"Hai, thank you sensei."

"Just a minute here's your locker number."

"Thank you sensei."

Akane found her locker and changed. She stuffed her clothes into her locker and moved out to the gymnasium. Akane observed that the boys stayed on their side of the gym and the girls stayed on theirs.

*Whatever, I'll complain later. Maybe I can practice what they're doing, later. I should stick to the assigned for now*

Akane moved over to the balance beam because there was no line. She moved to one end and did a double flip to land on the beam. She landed shaky so she hopped off and tried again.

*Perfect*

She then did a round off, when she completed that she flipped backwards.

*Hey, this is just like a kata*

With that realization she moved to perform a multitude of stunts, containing flips, jumps, and some gravity defying skill. When she stopped for a second she saw the beam had grown a pretty large crowd, so she flipped off and landed on a mat. As soon as she was off the equipment the crowd dissipated leaving only a few in line.

*Hmm that's weird. Ooooohhhh trampoline's empty*

Akane couldn't resist herself those things were always so fun. She ran up to it noticing the rings were empty too. "Hehheh." She flipped landing on the trampoline and jumped up, came back down, jumped, and completed that jump, then she jumped grabbed the ring and started flipping from ring to ring having a great amount of fun.

"Ahem,"

Akane looked down to see Umi-sensei with mixed emotions on her face. Akane did a final flip to land in front of her teacher.

"Is there a problem sensei?" she asked after completing her bow.

"Are you that good in the rink?"

*~*~*~*~*~*

Akane stood in the middle of a rink with an assortment of tools surrounding her. She was testing out clubs giving them throw with a flip or two before they returned to her hand. *Not bad* She turned around to face a smiling teacher.

"So what do you think you can do with those?" Umi-sensei asked.

"It depends, what's the point of it?"

"Be the first to knock your opponent out of the ring or to just knock them out, unconscious. Someone on your team throws you the tools you need from outside of the ring."

"Sounds easy. Can I try?"

"Of course you can, I hoped you would ask that." Umi-sensei said and stepped aside revealing multiple female students who looked very able.

*~*~*~*~*~*

"That was fun!" Akane exclaimed over many piles of unconscious people.

Umi-sensei does a face fault.

*~*~*~*~*~*

"Did you have fun in gym?" Ranma asked as she came out of the locker room.

"Yeah! I made the Rhythmic Gymnastics team."

Ranma does a face fault.

"Jogging to catch up with her, Ranma said, "but those are the…um…toughest girls in the school."

"That's the best?" she asked.

"Yeah why?" he asked as they reached their classroom.

Akane followed him to his seat and stated, "I kinda knocked em all out in about thirty seconds."

Ranma is staring open mouthed at Akane when Fuu-sensei walks in.

"Take your seats, please." Reviewing her notes she continues, "It appears we have a new student.  Tendo Akane, please take a seat."

Akane moves over to the seat to the left of Ranma.

"Right, then let us continue with the lesson. We are in the middle of the Meiji era in China. Can anyone tell me…."

Akane slumped in her seat as the day wore on and teachers switched off.

*~*~*~*~*~*

"All right end of lesson. Lunch break."

All of the assorted groups sorted themselves out and sat in their claimed spots around the room.

Akane was not sure what to do, if she sat with Ranma she'd have to deal with guys ogling at her. If she sat with some random girls she'd have to be nice. She sighed and moved over to some girls.

"Hi, can I eat with you all?" Akane asked a group.

"Yeah, sure thing," one girl said. "So, you're Akane right." she said, more of a statement then a question. "I'm Sayuri nice to meet you."

Akane breathed a sigh of relief, these girls looked nice. Akane settled down outside their little group and opened up her bento. Steam billowed out and when it cleared it reviled a well-prepared feast.

"Wow!" one of the girls said. "Did you make that yourself?"

"No way, my cooking stinks, Shuri made it," she replied.

"Shuri? Isn't that Ranma's brother?" Sayuri asked.

"Huh? Oh yeah. I'm staying with them," she said without thinking.

"You lucky dog! You live in the same house as Ranma!?" said another girl.

"Yeah. Is that some great honor or something?" she asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Saotome Ranma," Sayuri said, "is the hardest to catch guy in the school. He's the best fighter, even better than Kuno." she stopped and the whole group around her gave an admiring sigh and looked at Ranma.

Over in the guys' group a few desks away Ranma was having a sneezing fit.

"But you live with him!"

"Right, hehe this is last period right." she said wanting to escape soon.

"Yeah, why?" one of the girls replied.

"I just wanted to get home early today," she continued, "So, um, if you don't mind I'll be going now."

She packed up the remains of her bento, and walked over to Ranma?

"Hey, um, Ranma, I'm leaving now. Bye." she said and started to turn away.

"Yeah sure thing I'll pack up, wait a sec." Ranma said to her, then turned to the guys. "Bye you all." He said as he turned to follow Akane towards the door.

Ranma looked around in confusion, had she left? He started walking towards the door.

"Hey Ranma where ya going." Akane's voice said behind him. "Let's go out the window."

He turned to face her. "In case you hadn't noticed, that is a three story drop."

"Yeah so?" she said and picked him up and put him on her shoulder. Then she jumped out of the window.

Ranma had a funny feeling he was flying for a few seconds. Then he had the wind knocked out of him when Akane hit ground.

"Now wasn't that faster that going down all the stairs?" she said and headed of toward the Saotome Dojo.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Author's Notes:

Ok, so deal is, I wrote this a bunch of years ago and found it on an old web page thing I used to run. I fixed some of the major stuff, but decided to leave it mostly intact. So don't hit too hard on nit picky things, I probably don't do them anymore anyway. Besides stuff taken from Ranma I was reading it and noticed I also took names from Magic Knights Rayearth. So you all don't sue me either! Read review and enjoy.