Sendai
By M. Zephyr

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is a trademark of Rumiko Takahashi and VIZ Communications, and its characters have been borrowed without permission. This story was written for non-commercial purposes only.

Ranma x Akane. There is an author's note at the bottom of this chapter dealing with the entirety of the story.

Chapter 1. Aftermath

In the Nerima ward of Tokyo, in the nation of Japan, a crowd of well-dressed people were dispersing from a particular property on a Sunday afternoon at the beginning of March. Some looked confused, some a little frightened, others shaking their heads in resignation. A few had to be escorted to the gates, all the while congratulating themselves on how they had helped to prevent the one they loved from being forced into a dreadful mistake.

A young man slipped away from the remaining crowd of his relatives and potential future relatives who were still gathered in the dojo, and made his way wearily into the house and up the stairs to the guest room which had been his home for almost two years. His black hair was pulled back into a pigtail, as was his custom, and he was wearing a badly charred tuxedo, which he began to pull off as soon as he was inside. He winced as he removed it, his muscles aching in protest at the movements.

‹What a disaster,› he thought to himself.

Why couldn't their fathers have left them in peace for just once? On the trip back from Jusendo in China he had begun to think that he and Akane were starting to get along better, that maybe the two of them could actually develop some sort of real relationship. Then the two men had to try to surprise them with a wedding ceremony, which had been predictably destroyed by the various individuals who believed themselves to be in love with either Akane or himself.

‹Whatever understanding she and I may have been coming to has probably been set back months at least by those two idiots. This may even have been the last straw.›

He was feeling very depressed. They had come through so much together. At Jusendo, he had killed another trying to save her, but she had died in his arms anyway. He knew she had been dead - she was cold, she was not breathing, her heart was not beating. He had mentally screamed out his love for her, and by some miracle she returned to him. She had looked up at him and smiled, and told him that she had heard everything. He still wasn't sure what she had meant by that, since he had said nothing aloud at the time.

‹Do I really love her? I certainly told myself so, and believed it at the time. Even now I know I have strong feelings for her, and I think it probably is love. But does she feel that way about me? I'm sure now that she doesn't hate me, despite our fighting and insults; there have been too many times where she has helped me. But could she ever love a freak like me? If only Happosai hadn't drunk my cure! I came so close to finally being rid of this curse!›

He sighed again, as he pulled on his trademark black slacks and red Chinese shirt, wondering if he would ever be able to straighten out his life. Perhaps he was simply fated to a lifetime of unhappiness.

‹I'd better be careful. I'm getting so depressed that I might pull off one of Ryoga's Shi Shi Hokodan's, and the house can't really take much more punishment.›

He pulled himself out of the window, and jumped up onto the roof. It was the one place he could ever find around the house where he could do a little thinking in peace.

The young woman with short black hair paused to wipe the last of the tears off of her face. Her expression was forlorn, the beautiful smile that sometimes adorned it completely absent. She was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, and cast another miserable look at the wedding dress lying crumpled on her bedroom floor. She had not had the energy to put it away properly when she removed it.

‹Would he have married me? Did I really want him to, or was I just hoping it would end the chaos in my life? We certainly didn't manage to free ourselves from the chaos today. I know I care about him, but he never tells me what he's feeling, or else he turns around and denies it immediately after. But with all of the things he's done for me, he must care about me. I so desperately want some normality in my life.›

She stepped over to her window, and looked out at the sky. Whenever she tried to picture what her life would be like if he left, it felt so terribly empty. But when she tried to picture what it would be like to have him in her life permanently, she found it difficult to visualize.

‹If only everyone would leave us alone! If only we could have a few seconds now and then to talk, to get to know one another. Sometimes I want him so badly, but other times I feel like I barely know him. I just wish there was some way to get rid of the parents, the suitors, the rivals, even my sister Nabiki. If it were just Ranma and I, then maybe we could figure out what our relationship really is.›

A knock came at her door, and her father's voice spoke softly, asking if she was all right.

‹I don't want to talk to him right now. Damn him for forcing this situation today!› She looked up. ‹Ranma often sits on the roof when he wants to be alone to think for a while. Maybe if I go up there I can be left alone to think.›

She climbed out of her window and, taking hold of the edge of the roof, she leaped up out of sight just before she heard her bedroom door open.

Up on the roof, two teenagers found themselves facing one another for the first time since the bombs had exploded between them earlier that day. Ranma was surprised to find her joining him up there, and nervous as to what her reaction would be to the earlier events. Did she blame him? Was she angry? Her expression was closed, not giving him any clues. Akane saw his nervousness, interpreting it correctly, feeling a twinge of regret that he would so automatically worry about her temper. She had not expected to find him up here, thinking that he would have started on cleaning up the debris, but perhaps they could take advantage of the circumstance and actually talk to one another for once.

"Ranma. I should have guessed you'd be up here."

He wondered if perhaps, instead of coming up here looking for him, she might have been looking for a place where no one was likely to find her.

"Um, hi Akane. Would you like me to leave?"

"No, that's all right. As long as you don't mind."

She settled down to sit on the roof, a half meter to his right, facing in the same direction. The day was cool, but the sun was shining warmly and there wasn't any wind. They sat there in outwardly companionable silence, for once undisturbed by other people, but inwardly their thoughts were churning. It was perhaps half an hour before either of them spoke again.

"Um, Akane? I just wanted to say you really did look beautiful in your wedding dress today."

The girl continued facing the sky rather than turning toward him, but a hint of pink tinged her cheeks.

"Um, thank you, Ranma."

She paused, hesitating for a moment before continuing. "Can I ask why you ran away from me today as soon as I told you about the Nannichuan water? It was a wedding gift after all, so you would have gotten it afterward. That was what started the mess."

"It may have started it, but the wedding would have been wrecked anyway. Shampoo, Ukyo, Kodachi, and Kuno had nothing to do with the water and they would have attacked anyway. Mousse and Ryoga would have wrecked things too, regardless. And with Happosai present, I really doubt that anything would have gone smoothly even without all of that."

Akane could only sigh in agreement.

Ranma continued, "As for why I ran off that way, I would have thought that was obvious. If I could be cured of my curse, you wouldn't have to feel like you were being forced to marry me just to get me my cure. If I wasn't a freak any more, maybe it would even be possible for you to ... like me." He finished this last sentence very quietly.

This time Akane did turn her head to face him. "Ranma, I wasn't marrying you only to get the water to cure you. I ... I do like you. I don't think of you as a freak. You've had your curse ever since I've known you, and I'm used to it by now. It's just part of who you are. Sure, it would be nice if you didn't have to worry about it anymore, but it doesn't bother me any longer.

"The real reason that I let them talk me into going through with the marriage was because of what you said to me back in Jusendo. I think that the only reason I'm alive today is because you told me then that you love me. But then, when I asked you about it earlier today, you denied it! Just like you always come back with denials any time that you give me a glimpse of your feelings!"

Ranma turned to face her. "I ... I didn't deny it, Akane. It's just, you know me, I always manage to say things in a way that sounds different from what I meant. When you said that to me earlier, I was shocked. I knew I hadn't said that ..."

"Ranma!" Her lips were compressed in anger that he was denying it again.

He held out his hands in a gesture which pleaded with her to slow down. "Wait, wait, okay? Just listen. I knew that I hadn't said it out loud. But inside my head, I practically screamed it. You surprised me by saying that you heard it, when I knew I had only thought it."

"Oh." Akane said, quietly. After a moment she asked, "So do you? Love me, I mean?"

She looked very vulnerable at that moment. Ranma tried to choose his words carefully. The last thing that he wanted to do at the moment was to hurt her yet again. He turned to face out toward the sky again.

"I think I do. I felt pretty certain at Jusendo when I was screaming it in my mind. On the other hand, sometimes I feel torn by doubts, especially when I'm feeling worried about how you feel about me. I know, without any doubts at all, that I care about you a lot. I have trouble picturing what my life would be like without you. But we've had so little chance to get to know one another, that sometimes I'm just not sure if it's fair for me to use the word 'love'. All the fighting, the insults, my saying things that hurt you, your hitting me with that damn mallet, those things make me not sure. I think that a lot of it's just habit, left over from when our stupid fathers forced us into this engagement without asking us, but it would be nice to have a little time together once in a while to find out for sure."

Akane sighed again. "You know, that's a pretty good summary of how I feel too. Sometimes, I just wish that everyone else would go away and leave us alone so that we can find out who we really are. Well, maybe not Kasumi, she's never really interfered, but everybody else. But that's never going to happen, so long as we're both living here."

Ranma sat up a little straighter. "Akane, I think you may have just said something important there. I need to take some time to think it over. I'd like to discuss it with you later. Can we meet up here again tonight to talk some more?"

"Um, sure, Ranma." She sounded a bit puzzled.

"Thanks." With that, he jumped down and headed off. From the direction he was headed, he was probably going to his second favorite thinking spot, a secluded location under a bridge.

She looked after him in fond exasperation as he disappeared. ‹I wonder what he thought of? What did I say anyway?›

The sky was dark as Akane climbed back onto the roof that night, and for the moment she was still alone. Ranma had returned to the house just as everyone was sitting down for the evening meal, and they had had to endure a lecture from her father about the wedding being postponed until the fiancée problems had been resolved. Neither of them had really paid much attention to him.

A few minutes later, Ranma sat down beside her again. A couple more minutes of silence then passed, as she waited expectantly while he seemed to be getting his thoughts in order. Finally he took a deep breath.

"Akane, I told you earlier today that I care about you and maybe even love you, and you said the same about me. We agreed that it would be nice if we could have some time to ourselves so that we could finally work out how we really feel about one another. Then you said, and I repeat, 'but that's never going to happen, so long as we're both living here'."

"Okay, all of that is true, but what's so significant about it?" Akane sounded a little confused.

"So long as we're living here, we'll never be able to have the time to ourselves that we need to figure out our relationship. We'll be interrupted by fiancées, or rivals, or eavesdropping parents, or we'll be too worried about Nabiki recording what we're saying or taking pictures to ever express ourselves openly. But a lot of that could be avoided if we weren't here, if we were somewhere else."

"But where else could we be?"

"That's what I was thinking about after I left, before I came home for dinner."

He took a deep breath and continued, trying to put a lot of persuasion into his voice. "It's only two weeks until the end of this school year. What I want to suggest is that the two of us disappear after that. Run away, basically, I guess you could say. Go and live in a different city. I've actually got enough money saved that my pop and Nabiki don't know about. We could use it to start us off with a place to live, and then we can both get part-time jobs that should bring in enough extra money, especially during the summer break. We could enroll in a local high school for our last year, and live away from all of the craziness here for the next year while we learn what we really are to one another."

Akane looked dubious. "Do you realize how many problems there are with that scenario? Let me start listing them. No high school will be very happy dealing with two teenagers with no adult in charge. No apartment managers will want to rent to us. And I'm not too sure about living alone with you almost like we were married. Our parents, the fiancées and the rivals will be able to track us down eventually, through school records if nothing else."

"Yeah, I know, I've thought about all that, and I think I have some answers. The most important part of the equation is that Doctor Tofu told me where he was going before he left town."

"Doctor Tofu?" She sounded startled.

"Yeah. He made me promise not to tell anyone where he was, because he couldn't bear to face Kasumi anymore when he couldn't control himself around her. But I was thinking that maybe we could live with him so long as we were contributing money for rent and bills and so on. I called him up on the telephone earlier, before I came back home, to ask how he would feel about such a plan. He said that he'd have to think about it but I think he sounded more surprised than opposed. That would take care of the housing situation, and would give us an adult to deal with the schools, not to mention a doctor who wouldn't insist on dealing with our parents. It means that we wouldn't be living alone together, which hopefully will deal with your concerns."

"You really think he would agree to all of this?"

"Yeah, I think he will. The doc's a good guy, he's in favor of us getting together, and he understands the problems we face. He'd have to find a new place to live, larger than his current apartment so there'd be room for us, but that shouldn't be a problem.

"Now as for everyone following us," he went on. "Our parents will no doubt be upset with us, but the fact that we're there together should mollify them a bit. They want us to be together, after all, and they'll probably see that as an encouraging sign. Besides, it's only a year before we might be leaving home to go to college anyway, so we'd only be jumping the gun by about a year. And the place is far enough away that they couldn't interfere in our lives a lot very easily.

"With regard to the fiancées and rivals, let's go down the list. Shampoo, Cologne and Mousse might be able to afford to close the Nekohanten here and reopen there, but if so, we're no worse off. They also might not. They ought to be starting to get frustrated by now, and it would be an expensive move with no sure payoff. Ukyo would have a hard time moving there - she doesn't have external financial backing like the Amazons and she does have a successful restaurant here, so it wouldn't be very easy for her to try to start over again in a different city. Kodachi and her brother are pretty much tied to their estate, I can't see them wanting to move to another city, forced to live with fewer luxuries, although they'll probably visit just to cause trouble. Ryoga will no doubt show up from time to time, but that's no worse than happens already. Besides, if we get the right kind of apartment, it'll be a lot harder for them to waltz in whenever they want to."

Akane felt like her head was swimming. The idea was preposterous, but he was working hard at making it sound reasonable. "Did you really mean that about going to college next year? I thought that you hated school?"

"Um, well, yeah," he replied nervously. "I've been doing a bit of thinking about that since Jusendo, too. I don't like school much, but I do like the idea of teaching in a dojo, whether or not we get married and inherit your dad's dojo. I want to teach effectively and be able to manage the business side of it and so forth. That means I probably ought to think about going to college and getting a degree in physical education. I guess I'm going to have to start staying awake in class and putting more effort into my homework. I can make better grades than I've been making - a lot of that has been purposeful slacking off because my pop always ragged on me if I seemed to care too much about my schoolwork. Besides, if he's not around to do that, it'll be easier for me to try harder."

"What about training? Our martial arts?"

"Again, we'd face the same problems next year if we go away to college. What I'd hope for is that we can find a nice dojo or gymnasium, near where we live, where we can practice."

Akane was shaking her head. This was too much, too fast. It felt like her brain was overflowing. "But ... we'd have very little time. As you say, it's only a couple of weeks to the end of this school year, and then just a few weeks until the first term of next year. Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until summer break, after we finish the first term?"

Ranma looked pained. "I don't want to wait. I want a chance to get to know the real you, and to escape from all of the pressure. I think the school would put up less fuss if we start the year there than if we try to transfer in later. But the biggest reason is that I don't want to put up with all of the nonsense for another entire school term. Who knows what our parents or some of the others might decide to try during that time?"

She had to nod at the justice of this remark. "But do you think that we could really get away with it? Do you think that our families would let us go?"

"I wasn't planning to ask them, or even tell them. What I was thinking was I'd say I'm going on a training trip right after school ends. They'll insist that I take you along, especially if we both act like we're resisting that idea. We'll take our packs, but not packed for camping, instead we'll take the basic necessities for moving someplace else, and we'll just go straight there. I was thinking that we could bring Kasumi in on the conspiracy, and maybe sometime before we're due back, while nobody is suspicious yet, she can pack up the rest of our stuff that we need and ship it to us."

"You make this sound so reasonable, but there are still a lot of things that could go wrong."

"You need to think less negatively. This could work. Try to imagine what it will be like if it goes right."

Akane stared off into space and quiet reigned for several minutes. Eventually she stood up. "I need to think about this, Ranma. I can't possibly agree to this right now, I need time. I'll let you know in the next day or two."

She walked to the edge of the roof, and swung down through her bedroom window. A little while later she crawled into her bed, but sleep was a long time in coming that night.

Author's note:

Warning: The below contains minor spoilers for the story.

This is a Ranma/Akane romance. If you do not care for that pairing, then you are reading the wrong story.

This story is already complete, consisting of sixteen chapters plus an epilogue. Each chapter will be posted after a final editing. You may start it and confidently expect to read the end, barring sudden death or the spontaneous combustion of my computer and backup disks.

This is a resolution story. It starts immediately after the failed wedding at the end of the manga, which within this story is presumed to be a couple of weeks before the end of Ranma's and Akane's second year in high school. Chapter sixteen concludes with their graduation from high school. The epilogue hits a few high points in their life after graduation.

A lot of the story, though by no means all, is relatively waffy, with no truly major crises for the characters. Mature situations increase as the story progresses, although there are only a couple of lime scenes. The focus is intended to be on the characters, and there are only a few fight scenes, little of the supernatural, and even Ranma's curse does not have much of a presence. Some characters may seem to behave a bit out-of-character, but as far as I'm concerned, they're in-character for the purposes of this story. There is a presumption as the story begins that Akane and Ranma are more mature than they were at the beginning of the manga, which is only to be expected given the amount of time which has passed, the things they've been through, and that they are shortly to be turning eighteen.

Happy couples by the end:
- Akane and Ranma
- Kasumi and Tofu
- Ukyo and Konatsu (after some angst for Ukyo)
- Nabiki and an unnamed offstage character are mentioned at the end.

If you like Ryoga, then you might not like parts of this story, since I regard him as honorless and detestable, and therefore do not treat him nicely. Shampoo also doesn't get a happy ending. (Mind you, I don't kill either of them or anything dark like that.)

This story was written to please myself, to produce a resolution to the story that I liked. After writing it, I decided to post it out of the chance that some others may like it as well, but I will be unconcerned should it turn out that everyone hates it.

I am grateful to my wife for reading this story and making numerous suggestions.