I don't own Ranma 1/2 (it's Rumiko Takahashi's), Sailor Moon (Naoko Takeuchi's) or Ah! My Goddess (that one's Kosuke Fujishima's). I write this for my own enjoyment, I don't make any money off it, and it's a shame 'cuz I'd really need it.

Right here, right There

or

Akane's Lolita complex

"We can't keep going, Akane. I know you won't acknowledge it, but the age difference is too pronounced now for us to be comfortable about it."

Akane wanted to say that no, she wasn't, she didn't care, you baka, I'm as old as you are! But deep down she knew, there was just too much difference now; people had started talking, and curse her weakness, she found herself listening to the voices more and more.

Both Ranma and her were well over two centuries old, now. Technologies came and went, trends cycled as they always did, a magical kingdom had established itself over Tokyo, but its queen was a ditz and nobody listened to her. Of course, life was now generally happier, but the fundamental human nature, that of trying to hurt the others, hadn't changed. And people, people that were only a tenth of her age were talking about Ranma as if he was a sugar-daddy, and her a young ditz lured in by an old pervert.

They had discovered that their adventures at Jusenkyo had repercussions on them: they didn't age as fast as others did. Seeing how Shampoo reached one hundred before she started sagging, and Ranma's first white hair appeared well in the second half of his second century, it was determined that exposure to Jusenkyo magic would slow down the aging process, and the more you were exposed, the more potent it became. Shampoo was only now starting to look like Cologne, Mousse and Ryoga were playing Happosai VS a stone golem, Ranma looked at the beginning of his sixties from his being drenched in pure Jusendo water several times...

And Akane, whose body water had been completely replaced with Jusendo water, laced with Saffron's ashes, wasn't looking a day over eighteen.

Until now, the age difference hadn't really mattered: Akane, through training, had always looked older than her real physical age, and Ranma's fitness kept him in an ageless appearance. But time goes, and little by little people started to notice. Since most of the people who knew the story had died decades, even cenuries ago, nobody remembered the Saotomes as being anything else than the local dojo's instructors and part-time vigilantes.

Of course, they had had children; several of them in fact. But, when Akane found herself pregnant at the same time her grand-daughter got married, her own children started frowning. So, Ranma and her distanced themselves from their family, effectively cutting most links, except for a pager they could use in case of dire emergency.

When their last grandchild passed away, effectively erasing them from their families' memories as something other than urban legends, they decided to start anew somewhere else and left Nerima for Nekomi. But be it a problem with one of them, or the subconscious unwillingness to go through the pain of seeing her family drift apart, Akane couldn't have any more children (not for lack of trying, but, well...).

They had been alone, except for their students, for a century now. Akane had started taking care of the neighbours' kids, missing the cries of children in her house. Ranma always brought back as much interesting events as always, so life wasn't completely boring.

But for a few years now, people had started mistaking them for father and daughter instead of husband and wife. And as loathe as she was to recognize it, it had started to affect her. At first, Ranma was oblivious. Then he simply shrugged. Then he gave a half-hearted attempt at looking younger, before discarding it as being foolish. It really started to hurt when he tried to avoid appearing in public with her. Nothing much, only once or twice refusing to go shopping. Since they had been together all the time before, almost never losing sight of the other for more than a few hours, these few times compared to the time they still were together were nothing in quantity. But Akane noticed. And the worse was, she didn't know if she was miffed or relieved.

To hell with others! They were now so good at fighting, but also at so many things, they could settle on an island, heck, even a planet, and live by their lonesome for centuries to come!

They would be lonely, but Ranma didn't really care, and herself...

She would. Not much, at first.

But then, Ranma would get too old even for her. Damn her fickle heart! She would be pushed to meet more people, and she just knew, a tragedy would happen.

This took only a minute for her to think about. Ranma had left her thinking for a while.

"I think we'd better split up, Akane. This is not really something we can fight, you know..."

They had decided he would be the one to go. He had wanted to roam the world again for a long time now, he would leave in the morning.

They didn't sleep that night, trying to lose themselves in the other for the last time ever.

Time flies... Decades, centuries. Akane had spent almost a decade grieving over her loss. Then her natural tendency to look out for people had her taking care of her neighborhood more actively. On a whim, she decided to track what had become of her progeny, going as far as visiting them, introducing herself as belonging to a long lost branch of the Tendo-Saotome family trees.

While there, she could see a little boy, with eyes a grey so hard it was almost blue, chasing around (or was he chased?) a little girl with dark blue hair and a wooden mallet.

"They're distant cousins. When they're together they always fight, but as soon as they're separated, they become withdrawn and just don't stop training. We don't know why they're like that, but then, we're thinking about moving out. Maybe being away one from the other would be the best thing for them."

"Certainly not." Akane's voice was hard.

"But-" the mother (who was actually Akane's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grand-daughter (whew!) started protesting.

"I look at them, and I remember a story I heard, about our ancestors, who were fighting like that all the time. Everybody thought they were the most mismatched couple ever, and they lived together for more than fifty hears, having eight children." She then smiled wistfully. "Looks like the pattern is repeating itself."

The two children had fallen over in exhaustion, the little boy sitting, his back to the wall, the small girl curled on his lap, obviously enjoying the cuddling.

At the same time saddened by the reminder of all she had lost and overjoyed by the fact her family was well and prospering, Akane decided to get back on track with her life again.

Joining the Sailor Scouts as a mercenary, then a 'regular' (she didn't accept wearing the fuku) soldier, she was usually found on patrols in the inner system, taking care of problems either with brutal efficiency, or kindness. More often than not, it amounted to a severe martial arts display, a good walloping with a wooden hammer, then a 'mother-says-so' lesson. At first the Queen was frowning, but after Akane had a 'discussion' with her (almost taking on the top Senshis at first, then having Usagi wailing and Rei shaking her head, uttering a long-forgotten 'meatball-head'), nothing more was said. And so, Akane found herself appointed the most delicate missions (those that needed both experience, power, wisdom and a good heart; a combination that hardly a senchi could fulfill).

A bout with Saffron, stronger than ever, gave her a few scars and reestablished peace in the Middle-Kingdom.

A hidden civilization was discovered on Mars, and they really had no good intentions.

Jupiter was going out of its orbit, an unfortunate meeting with a comet having upset its fragile gravity equilibrium. It soon became apparent that it had been a calculated attempt at playing pinball with the Sol system, and Akane profusely thanked Mercury for having covered her in an environmental, skin-tight silver suit (when she was called the Silver Surfer though, she decided to change the color; red suited her more anyway).

And it went that way for a few centuries. After a while though, Akane got a bit tired of it all and asked the Queen to retire. Serenity agreed, with obvious reluctance. Akane's suit was taken away, she was stripped of her rank, barred from the army registers and simply kicked out of the Palace. Thinking she didn't deserve such treatment, Akane simply blew up half the Moon Palace, killing no one but severely maiming everybody.

It was with a contented sigh that she left the smoking ruins of the center of power in the Silver Millenium empire.

Blowing a disarrayed bang from her face, Serenity flatly said: "note to everybody, next time Akane Saotome asks for something reasonable, don't, I repeat DO NOT upset her." The Senchis, extracting themselves from the rubble, mumbled acquiescement, ranging from 'that she had coming' to 'not fuckin' likely I will'.

Back at her place, Akane found a shrine occupied by a priest had taken the place of her dojo. Because she hadn't been by for a long time and the Empire forbade anybody making use of that land (without explanations about who it belung to) it was decided it would be turned into a shrine to the defenders of Nekomi.

Now she really had nothing left.

Right when she left, a young man on a motorbike with a goddess in his sidecar stopped there and decided to spend the night in front of the temple.

Akane rented a room in a small boarding house, tryig to see what really she could do. she had considerable savings stacked up, and her former house wasn't really important to her anymore. Maybe, she'll just visit the shrine people had erected for her. Well, that could wait.

A year and a half went by.

she was out training, when she felt something out of place. Soon, what she recognized as a tractor beam captured her. She couldn't move! She saw the ground falling away from her very fast. Surprise, added with the strains of a long day and the air getting rarer had her unconscious quickly.

When she woke up, she was strapped to what looked like an examination table.

"Who are you? Why did you take me away? Answer me!"

"Because I could, Akane Saotome."

"So what! Are you telling me that when you feel like kidnapping somebody, you do it?!"

"Not exactly. More like, as long as you were a regular soldier, doing so would have all the Senshis on my back in under a minute. Right now you can't do a thing, the Senshis have grown complacent, nobody can stop me from taking over the Sol system."

"What for?"

"There is a rare form of substance that can be found there in abundance. I want it all."

"What's that?"

"It is a kind of syrup extracted from a very specific plant, caramelized and usually eaten with raw fish and other dishes in the land called... Japan."

"You want to get soy sauce?"

"Exactly."

"That's it?"

"There's also the fact that I like bloodbaths."

"This explains why you want to take over the world instead of just setting up a subsidiary."

"Bingo. Also, I'd like to get a bride from this planet. You'll do nicely I think."

Akane looked at him with a flat-lidded stare. "Great. Here we go again with princes kidnapping an unwilling bride away. What if I refuse?"

"The whole planet's population dies a long, suffering death."

"And if I accept?"

"I kill them fast and painlessly."

"Not much of a choice, is it..."

"There's no other choice."

Akane bent in half, snapping all her restraints in a single move.

"What the... Open fire! Destroy all Terrans!"

Before she could react, one underling had pushed a button, starting a very precise laser pulse. She could see it striking all over China, Japan, Korea, in hundreds of different locations in under a second. Horrified, she charged the underling, wrenching him away from the computer, and simply obliterated it.

Firing stopped. The ship shook, an explosion made it lean to port, and she could feel it descend back to Earth in a drunken slide.

Before she could turn back and survey the damages done to Earth, the leader had seized her by the arm and taken her in a choke-hold.

"Bitch! You've only delayed the inevitable! When we land, my men will take control of the country, then the planet, then other ships will arrive to cart off its population to be sold to the slaves' market! I can assure you it's a fate worse than death!"

Already she could see soldiers in alien-looking armor running over the landscape, firing at whatever was moving. Stars were dancing in her vision, the edges were turning black...

"When we'll have some time, I'll show you what it's like to be a female slave."

A rumble ran over the horizon. Obviously, Akane's training of the Senshis had borne fruit: they were counterattacking.

The rivers turned red, the sky was soon covered in an inky black, smoky veil with red and green highlights, reflecting plasma bomb explosions, magical and technological forces clashing as the Senshis fought against the alien army.

They were winning, but just barely. Akane was fighting to stay conscious, calling all the tricks she knew to keep her higher brain functional: cutting circulation to all her members, increasing oxygen exchange between her skin and lungs and her blood vessels, regulating her adrenalin levels...

Finally, all that was left was Serenity, her Senshis knocked out or too injured to move, facing against the alien leader.

"Who are you, to attack Earth so recklessly? What have we done to you?"

"I'm Tikkop, and you exist. This I don't like."

"Earth is a planet where people try to live in peace.It is criminal to attack us without preamble, for only the sin of existing. In the name of the Moon, I'll punish you!"

"Nope. That's MY job."

Serenity blinked. An old man, draped in an old blanket, and leaning heavily on a wooden cane, was making his way on the battle ground.

"What are you saying?"

"I said, it's my job to save the tomboy and whip Tea Cup's ass."

"Tikkop."

"Yeah, whatever. So, Tea Cup, ready to get kicked back to the stars?"

Tikkop laughed."HA! Pressed to die, Old Timer? I'll be happy to oblige!"

Serenity tried to push the old man away, but he avoided her attempt, and simply, effortlessly, propelled her away from the battle ground. she landed on her rump, with no other damage than a blow to her dignity. And whatever it was he had done to her, she couldn't move her legs. She could feel them, but they didn't respond.

Meanwhile, Tikkop was launching firballs after fireballs with one hand, securely holding Akane's neck in his other. Why wasn't Ranma attacking? Was he that diminished that he could only dodge?

But then it struck her: as usual, she was in the way! GRtting her teeth, she concentrated all her remaining forces in one blow to Tikkop's side.

The shockwave that resulted from the blow, a blow strong enough to stop a 800-meter full capacity freight train launched at full speed on a downward slope (she had done it once before in that very same situation) was enough to shake up Tikkop and make him loosen his grip. Jumping away, Akane found refuge in the hull of the damaged spaceship. From there, she could finally see Ranma.

'He looks so old... How long ago was it? Oh Ranma, why? Why are you doing this?!'

Seeing that Akane was now mostly safe, Ranma stopped moving. Tikkop shook back some feeling in his limbs, cursing his carelessness.

"I should have broken that bitch's neck right away."

"You would have died right away if you had done so." Ranma's eyes were still a steely blue-grey.

"Don't make me laugh. Who would kill me? You?! You're not too bad for a crumbling ruin, but you're almost dead!"

"Maybe. Maybe not. And anyway, I just don't lose." A roguish smirk appeared on his features. He shook away his cloak.

Tikkop laughed out loud."Was that supposed to impress me?! Look at you, you're just old skin on brittle bones! A gust of wind would be enough to carry you away!"

"Well, we dun want that, do we..."

With that, Ranma drew himself up to his full height, squared his shoulders, spread his feet slightly, and his arms came in what appeared a high guard position.

Tikkop just started throwing volleys of fireballs at him.

And Ranma didn't move.

Akane screamd after him, seeing his form disappear in a cloud of dust and sparks.

"Heh. Well, he just wanted to die honorably. Now on to other matters."

"Hey, waitasec. Who said we're done?" A voice said from the cloud of dust.

"Huh?"

"Frankly, these are so cliché it's not even funny. Okay, so then let's get serious, okay?"

Ranma was still there, hands in his pockets, dancing on the soles of his kung-fu shoes, as if he was still a cocky teenager. But not for long. A hard look appeared on his carefree face, and he raised his hands to the sky. The energy-ladden clouds started lighting up, and lightning started striking Ranma.

"When I was younger, I learnt how to control wind, then fire. I dealt with cold, I learnt how to control water and fire through wind, then directly. Sometimes sparks would run along my arms. I could feel an untapped energy there, so big I didn't dare try it. So I sealed it away. Then came a time where I thought I had nothing else to lose, and I restarted studying it. The first try almost killed me, and destroyed a whole mountain."

"Very interesting story. What else?"

"It changed me. I didn't really need to eat anymore, I just needed raw energy. Of course, I soon started loosing weight, but I found out it wasn't all that important afterwards."

"Oh? How's that?"

"Because of THAT!" A cloud of electricity had gathered over Ranma's head, and suddenly the old man inverted his body's polarity. In a line so straight you could have mistaken it for a pillar of light in Heavens, Ranma was struck with a column of raw energy so pure you could almost feel it emanating directly from Kami-Sama.

In a temple, formerly a dojo in Nekomi...

*Driiiing!* *Driiiing!*

"Morisato temple, Belldandy speaking... Oh it's you Father!"

"..."

"I will check, Father."

Skuld appeared next to Belldandy. "What is it Oneesama?"

"Have you tapped directly into Yggdrasil's main power grid again, Skuld?"

"WHAT?! I did that only once!" "..." "Okay, twice! But this time, it's not me!"

"It's not... You heard? Oh, okay. Good bye, Father."

Told you. Reeeaaaal powerful.

When Akane could see again, she thought that Ranma had been pulverized in his attack, and that he had misjudged so badly his opponent was almost unhurt. But then she could see him again.

Bulging muscles, powerful yet lean looking.

Sparks of electricity running along his arms and legs, a scorch mark at his feet ten meters wide marking the width of the energy discharge. There was so much power emanating from him that you could see his pigtail dancing, letting go sparks like a cut high voltage cable.

Cracking his knuckles then his neck, Ranma then took an attack stance.

"Let's get jiggy wit'it."

Akane was good. Amongst the best, even. there was only a few people she knew could beat her, and only one on this Earth. From stories heard during her days as an Outer, she had heard about Tikkop, and knew he'd be one tough cookie. Even at her best, with some assistance from Mercury's gadgets, she would have had trouble dealing with him.

But now, it was a full-out battle between two almost unstoppable forces. She had difficulties following them. She only knew where they were from the shockwaves of their hits, so strong were they. She had to keep her awareness on full to follow any sensation her senses were giving her. It had been so long since she had witnessed such a fight! Right before Ryoga died, in fact. He had come to meet Ranma, saying he didn't want to die in a hospital.

They had fought for two full days, no quarters asked, none given.

Like now.

Then Akane realized. Too late, though. the latest exchange had Ranma being slightly off-timing, something a nuclear clock might have missed, but his opponent gave a strong blow, only partially absorbed by a hastily raised defence, right on Ranma's heart.

Akane saw him cough up blood. Tikkop grinned in triumph.

"Ranma... Saotome... doesn't... LOSE!"

With that, Ranma became a whirlwind of motion, both an angel of vengeance and a devil of the ninth level of Hell. Tikkop tried resisting, but soon fell under the onlsaught of blows. Those were coming so fast, indentations appeared in his body as if by magic.

Then Ranma stopped his onslaught. Tikkop wa standing up, barely, twitching all over.

"Hiryu."

The clouds started rumbling.

"Shoten."

Rain started falling.

"Ha."

A tornado, kicking up dust, rocks, broken metal, etc. surrounded Ranma. Tikkop was caught in it. Ranma flashed once, discharging energy in the tornado. It rose towards the sky in a straight line, like a dragon taking its flight, carrying Tikkop's body faster and faster.

"Toldja I'd kick your ass back to your planet, freak."

Akane ran towards her now female former husband. "Ranma!"

"Hey 'kane, you ok? Long time... no... see..."

With that, Ranma fell forward in Akane's arms.

"Ranma, stay with me. It's going to be alright. The Senshi will cure you, we'll find a way to be together again. Ranma?" Akane was getting frantic.

Ranma had curled onto her lap, a contented little smile on her lips.

"Ranma, stop playing. I know you can hear me, stop playing dead. It's not funny! Ranma! RANMA!"

"...mmbl..."

"What are you saying Ranma?"

"Uncute tomboy. How do you think I could change my body that drastically? I've been dead for one hundred and seventy years. Died of a heart attack. I'm merely a ghost that managed to gather enough energy to become tangible. I only played the old warrior on his last fight to throw him off guard."

Akane was numb. Twin tracks of tears were flowing on her cheeks.

"You're holding a ghost, Akane. Now, I'd like to stay and chat, but the keeper of Midgard's door is looking for me. I wasn't supposed ta come back, y'know..."

"Then why...?"

"Well, I've been waiting at the door for a few years now. And as impatient ta see ya again as I am, I dun really like the idea of ya dying too soon. So Akane, you'd better live. Live! Or else..."

Akane couldn't help but smile under her tears."Or else what, Baka?"

"Or else I'll kick your ass all over Heaven and Hell!"

"I promise, Ranma."

"Good. Then I'll see ya, Akane. But don't hurry." And with that, Ranma pecked Akane on the lips; right then the sun shone through where the Hiryu Shoten Ha had speared the clouds, and she was only a thousand bubbles sparkling in the light. Akane could almost hear "don't hurry, Tomboy."

"I do what I want, Pervert. Humph! The nerve of that guy!"

And Akane sighed.

The End?

A.N.: One of the biggest problems I could find within the concept of immortality is the loss of your friends and family. Ranma's case has been treated several times, while Akane's has always been either overlooked or she simply goes crazy. Since, of the two, she would be the most sensitive to this problem, I decided to use her instead of the overused Ranma.

This fanfic was merely written to illustrate that point. As such, it lacks character development, background information, and uses plot devices such as Sailor Moon's alleged future to allow me to skim over time - while Ah! My goddess! cameos were merely a form of slight comic relief. Also, it gives me an opportunity to write a sequel... If I get a good idea.

C&C welcome!

Mitch 74 (mitch074@hotmail.com)