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. See the bottom of Chapter 1 for an author's note dealing with the entirety of this story.

Chapter 11. Proposals

One Friday night, about three weeks after the end of school, Akane and Ranma were sitting on the couch cuddling and kissing. They had returned from ice skating a couple of hours earlier, but Tofu and Kasumi were still out on their own date somewhere.

"Mmmm." Akane was voicing her pleasure, but then her eyelids suddenly flew open and she scowled playfully. "Hey, hands above the waist, buster!"

"Sorry 'kane. You mean like this?"

"Oooh. Yes, like that." Her lips met his again. However, only a short time passed before his hands had once more wandered too far and she found it necessary to repeat the warning.

Ranma sat back, looking at her with a concerned expression, one hand reaching behind his head to nervously twist his pigtail. "You know, it is getting harder to keep my hands from trying to explore new territories."

Akane gave him a speculative look. "Well, it's not necessarily easy for me either. Maybe if you put a ring on my finger someday, I'll consider letting your hands scout some additional frontiers."

Ranma cocked his head to one side, considering the suggestion. "Hmm. Maybe I will, at that."

They both heard a key in the apartment door at the same time, and shifted into slightly more innocent positions, although any onlooker could make a pretty good guess about what they'd just been up to. A moment later the door opened, and Tofu and Kasumi walked in. Tofu looked incredibly self-satisfied and happy, and Kasumi looked like she was walking on air.

"Hello you two," Tofu called out. "Behaving yourselves, I hope?"

"Heh, I might ask you two the same thing," Ranma replied.

Akane ignored the joking, as her attention was riveted on her sister, specifically on the awkward, self-conscious way that Kasumi was holding her left hand. "Kasumi ...?" Akane started to ask, a bit breathlessly. "Is that what I think it is?" Her voice ended in a squeal, pointing at Kasumi's left hand. Kasumi's smile grew even brighter and Tofu took hold of her hand in a proprietary fashion.

"If you think it's an engagement ring," he responded, "then the answer is definitely 'yes'. Tonight, I asked Kasumi to marry me, and she said yes." His own smile threatened to become manic as he reported on his new fiancée's affirmative answer.

The two teenagers leapt off of the couch, Akane crushing her older sister in a hug, while Ranma slapped Tofu on the back as hard as he could, causing the other man to stumble.

"Congratulations! It's about time! When's the wedding?"

"We haven't really talked about that yet, Ranma," Kasumi answered, sounding breathless in turn, either from the excitement of the moment or from the lack of air which Akane's hug had squeezed from her lungs. "Since we'll want everyone to be able to attend, including the two of you, then winter break would be the earliest reasonable time, with the break after the end of the school year the next most likely. Unless we decide to put it off even longer."

Tofu pulled Kasumi against his side, and countered her last sentence with a rakish grin, "Not that I feel inclined to put it off for very long, mind you."

"The hardest thing is that we can't tell the rest of the family yet," Kasumi said, with just a touch of sorrow. "Not without giving away the fact that we're living near Tofu." She sighed deeply. "That might be enough of a clue for someone to find us."

"Well, maybe it's time to take that risk," Akane ventured hesitantly. She followed her words with a shrug. "Of course, we don't have to make such decisions tonight."

Kasumi smiled, then took Tofu's hand, pulling him down to kiss him, shyly, on the cheek. He turned his head, making it into a real kiss, then began half escorting, half hustling her down the hall. They disappeared into the boys' bedroom.

"I suspect it's going to be a while before I can go to bed," Ranma observed, grinning wolfishly toward Akane. "So, what will we find to do in the meantime?"

About a week and a half later, Akane and Ranma returned to the apartment for lunch in the period between their jobs. When Ranma went into the kitchen to prepare their lunches, Akane noticed a long rip in the side of his shirt, toward the back, and called his attention to it. Ranma closed the refrigerator door and felt for the tear.

"Huh! I must have ripped it at work this morning." He pulled the tear open enough to reveal a long red streak underneath. "Seems I scratched myself too. Doesn't look too serious though. Guess I'll have to remember to change my shirt before we leave." He opened the refrigerator door again to pull out items for their lunch.

Akane smiled mischievously and suggested, "Go ahead and take off your shirt and give it to me. I'll dump it in the hamper and get you a new one while you work on our lunch, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks, 'kane" he replied inattentively, his thoughts already back on the food. He tugged his shirt over his head and handed it to her, and resumed what he was doing. Akane took a moment to enjoy the line of his back and his hard, muscular shoulders and arms before she went down the hall with the torn shirt.

A moment later she was back, without a shirt, looking like she had just seen a ghost. She collapsed into one of the chairs around the dining table, mouth agape, staring sightlessly.

"Yo, Akane! What's up? You look like you just had a nasty shock!"

"She should have made the 'occupied' signs," Akane whispered. "I don't think they noticed me. I sure hope they didn't. Oh, how embarrassing! I should have let you get your own stupid shirt! I mean ... no, not right now, you can't ... oh, I wish I hadn't gone in there. I hope ... I hope she remembered protection."

Ranma stared at her blankly, then understanding dawned. "You mean ...? Oh, wow! Now that's unexpected." He paused as something occurred to him. "I wonder what they're doing home in the middle of a workday for, anyway?"

Akane just shook her head, more in disbelief than in answer to his question. "I feel like a kid who's just walked in on her parents. Kasumi's always been a bit like a mother to me."

Ranma smirked at her. "Well, I just hope they don't take too long. I'd kinda like to have a shirt to wear when I leave for work, and I don't think one of yours or Kasumi's would look quite right."

A corner of Akane's mouth twisted up reluctantly and she shot him a sideways glance from half-closed eyes. "It would look all right if you were in your female form," she suggested.

Ranma made a face at her. "Akaaneee!" he groaned.

It wasn't until they were finishing up their lunch, that they heard doors opening and closing. A moment later, Tofu walked into the dining area wearing only a bathrobe. He saw the two of them looking up at him and blushed a bright red from the roots of his hair down as much of his chest as was visible in the gap of the robe.

"Ranma! Akane! Um, how long have the two of you been here?"

"Long enough, doc!" Ranma answered, grinning malevolently, while Akane kept her eyes fixed down at her plate, blushing as deeply as Tofu. "So, did you two decide to play hooky for the day or something?"

"Er, sort of. Kasumi was already planning to take the morning off, to do some shopping. I thought she had mentioned that to the two of you. As for me, yesterday a colleague asked me if I could cover for him at the hospital tonight, so I postponed my morning appointments. I guess I didn't think to mention it last night. Since you leave before I eat breakfast these days, you wouldn't have noticed that I was sleeping in this morning. Anyway, Kasumi returned from her shopping while you were still at work."

"Hey, doc, you remember the night of your engagement, when you asked if Akane and I were behaving ourselves? A bit of a double standard, there, huh?"

"Ranma!" Akane croaked, absolutely mortified. "Stop it, baka!"

Ranma did shut up, but couldn't stop grinning. Tofu beat a retreat to find some clothing and perhaps the remnants of his dignity. He may or may not have said anything to Kasumi on his way back, but when she emerged into the dining room, she was fully clothed. Akane couldn't help but notice that she seemed to be practically glowing.

"Hello Akane, Ranma. It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," Akane replied, blushing again, and turned her eyes down, away from her sister's gaze. She stood up, pushing her chair back from the table so quickly that it scraped the floor. "Ranma, if you've finished we really do need to be going."

Kasumi was quietly amused at her younger sister's discomfiture. "Oh. Well if the two of you can wait a few more minutes for Tofu to finish dressing, then we can all ride over in the car. He and I are both working this afternoon, even if we did take the morning off."

"That sounds great, Kasumi," Ranma answered equably. "Akane, could you clear up our dishes? I need to go back there and grab a shirt now." So saying, he got up from the table and disappeared down the hall.

"Um, Kasumi?" Akane was still blushing, even more hotly. "Did you, you know, make arrangement for, um, contraception?"

"That's really none of your business, little sister," Kasumi stated rather primly. After a pause, and realizing that Akane was worried about her, she relented, saying, "However, yes, it's been taken care of."

Akane nodded and wished that she could take the bus to work. She had a feeling that she wasn't going to stop blushing until she was able to get some distance from her older sister and her sister's fiancé. She slapped herself as the image started to replay once again across her mind's eye, and she looked away quickly on catching a glimpse of the amused expression on Kasumi's face.

The Friday night after the 'incident,' as Akane had taken to referring to it in her own mind, she and Ranma went out together to one of the better and more costly restaurants in the area. They didn't patronize it very often because of the expense. Afterward, Ranma took her dancing, which he had come to enjoy. With the hour getting late, they were walking in the park before going home. Akane wasn't surprised that they seemed to be moving toward a favorite bench, which was secluded and private.

Ranma did in fact steer her to this bench, but she was surprised after they arrived, when Ranma just sat there, holding her hands in his and gazing into her eyes.

"Akane, I am so glad you agreed to this, to move here with me. This has been the happiest I've ever been in my life, this time we've spent since we moved to Sendai."

Akane ducked her head, overwhelmed by the surge of emotion which his words awoke within her. She peeked up at him through her lashes. "I've never been happier either, Ranma. It has turned out wonderfully, and I'm very glad you were able to talk me into it."

"On the night of the dance I told you that I love you, and every night since then I've just become more certain. I love you, I love being with you, I never want to be separated from you. Akane, I want to share the rest of my life with you."

He slid off of the bench to put a knee on the ground, while he pulled a box out of his pocket and opened it.

"Akane Tendo, will you make me the happiest man in the world by agreeing to be my wife?"

"Yes, oh yes, Ranma! Thank you! I want to be with you forever, to love you forever!"

There were tears sliding out of her eyes and down her cheeks, as Ranma pulled the ring out of the box and slid it onto the finger of her left hand. Then he was crushed into a hug by her strong arms, as her lips pressed forcefully against his. It was a while before they finally came up for air.

Her cheek lying on Ranma's shoulder, Akane inquired, "So, was this inspired by Tofu's proposal to Kasumi?"

Ranma snorted indignantly. "I was afraid that idea might occur to you. The answer is no, I was already thinking about this before that night, I'd even visited a jeweler's to look at rings. Which, by the way, made me wonder if you already had suspicions when you made that comment that night about putting a ring on your finger. While I was real happy for Kasumi and Tofu that they got engaged, I was also a little perturbed that Tofu got there first. But I had to finish saving up before I could buy the ring."

Akane chuckled softly. "Don't worry about it, Ranma. I'm just so thrilled that you asked me. It wasn't a contest where you had to get to the finish line first." She then pulled herself away from his close embrace and gave him a weak smile. "Of course, another way of looking at it is that we've already been engaged for over two years now, you know."

Ranma made a face and shook his head. "Nah, that was our fathers' idea, not ours. It was never real, or at least not real enough. But it is now because it's our idea. Now we really are engaged."

"Baka." Her tone made the familiar pejorative into an endearment. She took a deep breath, bracing herself, and said brightly, "So when do we tell everyone, and when do you want to get married?"

Ranma dithered for a moment, the thought of the last wedding ceremony sending a tremor through him, but he resolutely pushed those memories aside. "Well, I don't want to cheat the families out of a wedding ceremony," he stated ponderously, "and this time we'll find some way to keep it from being wrecked. It'll take some time to plan it though, so using the same reasoning as Kasumi used about their wedding date, I figure the earliest we can do it is winter break." He paused and gave her a rogue's grin. "I'll go ahead and admit that in some sense we have been engaged for a couple of years already, but that's only because I don't really want to wait too long. We're both eighteen already, so what do you think? How does winter break sound?"

"That sounds good to me, I don't want to wait too long either. How about New Year's Day? I think I like the symbolism of that. Starting a new year and a new life. Together."

"I like it too. Let's plan on it, then." He hesitated, frozen for a moment, then blurted out quickly, "Do you think Tofu and Kasumi would go for the idea of a double wedding?"

Akane's eyes widened with delight. "Oooh, yes, let's ask them!" she exclaimed. "I'd really like that and besides," her eyes dimmed and she continued a little more sadly, "speaking completely practically for a moment, I think it's a lot less likely that anyone would do anything to wreck things if it's also Kasumi's wedding."

She looked so downcast that Ranma pulled her close, holding her for comfort. Speaking into her hair, he continued planning. "All right. As far as telling everyone, what do you say we head down to Nerima in a couple of weeks for a short visit? We can announce our plans to everyone then."

Akane looked up at him with solemn concern. "Would Kasumi and Tofu come with us?" she asked dubiously.

"Well ... of course. You don't expect to announce our plans to get married and keep their engagement a secret, do you?"

"But that means we won't be keeping secret the fact that we're living with Tofu, which means that some of them might find us."

Ranma was impatient with her worries. "Of course, but we'll have to live with that. Besides, we can drive down in his car, which will make it more difficult to track us than using the trains if they're not able to find out where Tofu is living right off the bat."

Akane was not very convinced by this argument. Slowly, she said, "I'm pretty sure that they'll be able to find the city and Tofu's clinic, at least, if they look for it seriously."

Ranma shrugged this off. "Yeah, probably. Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Tugging on a lock of hair, he gave her an impish smile and asked, "So, kissing now, or go home and break the news to Kasumi and Tofu?"

Akane didn't really want to think about the difficulties which would arise when the people in Nerima found out where they were staying, so she dropped the subject as Ranma so obviously wanted and smirked back at him. "Hmmph. Kissing first, baka. Kasumi and Tofu can wait."

A little more than an hour later, the four roommates reenacted the scene from two weeks previous, except in reverse. Akane and Ranma walked in through the front door of the apartment to find Kasumi and Tofu sitting on the couch, looking far too flushed and tousled to be anywhere near as innocent as they were trying to appear.

"Hello you two," Ranma called out. "Behaving yourselves, I hope?"

Tofu caught the reference immediately. His normally cheerful face broke into a broad grin. "Whoa, deja vu, Ranma," he replied.

Ranma gave a warm chuckle. "More so than you realize yet, doc."

Kasumi's eyes zeroed in on her younger sister's left hand. "Akane! Oh MY! Really and truly?"

Akane nodded emphatically. "Yep! Really and truly. He finally asked me to marry him! We're engaged for real, now."

"Congratulations, you two!" their future brother-in-law said, unable to stop grinning from sheer happiness. "So, what with everyone else having said you've been engaged for the last couple of years, how much longer are you planning to make them wait?"

Ranma sighed, considering once again the likely reactions of various people to their announcements. He wished that there were no need to deal with anyone beyond the little group here, where the news was greeted with simple acceptance and joy. However that was not a valid option, and his smile became a little artificial as he asked Tofu for clarification. "To make them wait for what? To hear that we've accepted the engagement? Or to have the wedding?"

"Well, both actually." Tofu's own grin became a little crooked as he picked up on Ranma's mood shift, and realized what sort of thoughts were running through the boy's mind.

Ranma pulled Akane a little closer, drawing strength from her to face the prospect of having to deal with their parents again. "We were thinking that in a couple of weeks, the four of us might make a trip down to Nerima. We could announce both engagements at the same time." He looked at Akane a little uncertainly, but she just nodded her reassurance. "Akane and I don't want to wait too long, so we were thinking, maybe, of having the ceremony during winter break, on New Year's Day if we can manage it."

"New Year's Day," Tofu echoed thoughtfully, eyeing Kasumi with speculation. He had been trying to push for an earlier wedding date with her, and wondered if he might be able to turn this to his advantage. "It would be a shame for a younger sister to marry before the elder," he pronounced in a voice which made him sound like a village wise woman. Kasumi couldn't prevent a smile from touching her lips at this sally.

Akane picked up this declaration and carried it to a conclusion which Tofu had not considered. "Actually, Ranma and I already discussed the possibility of a double wedding," Akane told them, a little shyly. "We both like the idea, if you two wish to consider it."

Tofu's mind raced as he considered possibilities and reached a rapid conclusion. Grinning, to caught hold of Kasumi's hand and squeezed it, nodding his head slightly as she looked at him. Kasumi on the other hand turned to her little sister with a worried expression. "Are you sure about that, Akane? Everyone has been waiting for a couple of years for the two of you to marry, and it really should be your special day."

Akane nodded her head fervently, eyes shining with excitement. "Oh, but Kasumi, I can't think of anyone else we'd rather share that special day with more than the both of you. Think of how great it would be to go down the aisle together, you to Tofu and me to Ranma. It would be wonderful."

"Well, I ... I ... I'll think about it. It sounds nice," she said, a little wistfully. She turned to Tofu and warned, "I'm not promising anything, mind you."

"So Ranma, are you planning to dress as the bride or the groom?" Tofu chuckled. Kasumi smiled. Akane did not.

Ranma just groaned disgustedly. "Oh, ha ha. Old joke, doc."

Nabiki downloaded her email on her laptop in her bedroom, and opened the first message. She read through it again, unable to quite believe her eyes that the words she had read were in front of her. She had never expected Akane, or Ranma, to accede to the request that she had passed on from their father. But there it was in black and white, terse and to the point, and from the account that Kasumi had set up.

Dear Nabiki,

Please inform father and Mr. and Mrs. Saotome that we will be arriving for a visit early Friday afternoon of the weekend after next. We will plan to leave again just after lunch on Sunday. Also please ask them to be sure not to mention this to anyone else, so that we can keep this visit a secret and not be interrupted by anyone.

Love, Kasumi

She printed the message out and took it downstairs to hand to her father, who looked at it blearily, as tears started to fill his eyes. "At last, my daughters are coming home! I must call Saotome at once; thank goodness he thought to give me a phone number where he can be reached! We don't have much time, less than two weeks! We must start planning at once how to convince them to get married!"

When Tofu's car pulled up in front of the Tendo compound, both Akane and Kasumi found tears in their eyes at the sight of the home they had not seen in five months. The two girls stood there, misty-eyed, looking over the wall at the upper story, unaware of Tofu and Ranma pulling the luggage out of the trunk. Then all four walked in through the gate, whereupon a squeal sounded from inside the house.

"They're here!"

A blur flew out of the front door, only resolving itself into Nabiki when she threw her arms around Kasumi, hugging tightly. The older sister patted the middle Tendo daughter gently on the back, laughing gently to herself at this emotional outburst from the usually self-controlled Nabiki.

"Gods it's good to see you. I've missed you more than I realized," Nabiki gasped out.

She let go of her older sister and then wrapped her younger in a hug. "I've missed you too, Akane. I'll bet you didn't expect to hear me say that."

Akane sniffled a bit onto Nabiki's shoulder. "I've missed you too."

Nabiki glanced up over her sister's shoulder. "Hey there, Ranma! And ... Doctor Tofu? Is that really you?"

"Yes, it is, Nabiki-chan." The doctor was grinning. Nabiki was staring at the man in shock. He was just standing there! Calmly! With Kasumi right in his line of sight! And they had apparently arrived together!

"Daughters!" Long hair flying behind him, their weeping father encircled both his oldest and youngest daughters in a single hug. Although Kasumi hugged him back, Akane stood stiffly, a distant, cold expression on her face. Kasumi cast a questioning look at her sister, but chose to say nothing when Akane gave a small shake of her head. Instead she filed the memory away to ask about later.

"Ranma!" Now it was the pigtailed boy's turn to be hugged as his mother launched herself at him. His father followed behind, a little more sedately, but he was actually smiling at his son.

"I don't know whether to kiss you three, or kick you," Nabiki scolded. "And what by all that is holy is Doctor Tofu doing here, and without going crazy? And ... Kasumi! ... What is that on your hand!"

"Oh my, do you mean this?" she asked innocently, holding her left hand up for everyone to see.

"You're engaged?" she practically shouted. Nabiki looked back and forth rapidly between her happy older sister and the broadly grinning and unexpectedly sane doctor. "Do you mean you, and Doctor Tofu? Oh, that's wonderful!"

"Waah, my daughter's getting married!" Tears began gushing out of Soun Tendo's eyes. Akane had already pulled away from him, and now Kasumi stepped out from under the sudden deluge.

"Now, daddy, please stop that," Kasumi scolded. "Yes, Doctor Tofu and I are planning to get married. But I think that you've let your attention get too distracted by the ring on my hand. Take a look at Akane's hand."

All eyes turned toward Akane, as she shyly held up her left hand much the same way as Kasumi had, to let everyone see the ring on her finger. There was a sudden drawing in of breaths from four throats. Soun looked down at his youngest daughter.

"Akane? ... and ..." He seemed unable to complete the question, unable to believe. Genma finished it for him. "... Ranma?"

The two so addressed nodded their heads. Nodoka Saotome pulled her son into an even fiercer hug, forcing all of the air from his lungs and leaving him gasping for breath, while the two fathers linked arms and started dancing around the yard, crying out about how the two schools would be joined at last. The four from Sendai just rolled their eyes skyward - after all, they had all predicted that scene on the drive down. Nabiki was just staring speechlessly at her younger sister, but finally found her voice.

"You mean the two of you have finally done it? You've agreed to get married? Oh my God, quick, I need to know the exact date on which he proposed! Do you realize how much money is riding on that!"

Akane snorted. "I'm tempted not to tell you anything." Nabiki looked scared and her younger sister relented. "Okay, I will tell you, after we go inside and get settled, but only on the condition that you promise to keep everything a secret until after we leave on Sunday."

"Right, right. I promise."

When Akane turned away, her eyes swept over the two men dancing in the yard, and she couldn't control the surge of hurt betrayal she felt. Nabiki saw the younger girl's eyes become bleak, her face freezing like a mask trying to hide some emotional pain. She resolved to ask her about it later.

Everybody started filing back into the house, in order to get reacquainted more comfortably. Genma turned to Soun just before they went in. "I guess those plans to convince them to get married may have just become superfluous. It's almost a pity, they were some of our best ideas yet."

A look of panic suffused Soun's face, as he remembered that one of those plans was scheduled to take place in about an hour. "Oh no! We've got to get to the phone and stop those people before it's too late! It might ruin everything." The two men dashed inside the house for the telephone.

After the four travelers had a chance to put their luggage into the rooms they would use, and freshen up, everyone met back in the family room. They looked at one another across the low table.

"I hardly know where to start," Soun Tendo said. "What were you thinking of, doing this to us? Where have you been living? Oh, I suppose that doesn't matter; now that you've accepted the engagement, you'll be coming back home of course. We need to start making plans for the wedding ceremonies."

"Father, we ..." Kasumi started to answer, but she was interrupted before she could finish.

"Have you been keeping up with your martial arts training?" Genma demanded irritably, "Or have you been letting yourself get soft?"

"Is Akane pregnant?" Nodoka Saotome wanted to know, visions of cherubic grandchildren flitted through her mind.

Ranma's face turned scarlet. "Mom! No, Akane is not pregnant." He paused to take a deep breath. "We are planning to get married during the winter break, and we won't be having children until after we graduate from high school, at the very least. Maybe not until after college. Uh, we haven't really discussed children yet." He said the last a little sheepishly, with a glance toward his fiancée, who only looked back fondly.

Akane then turned to their parents in exasperation, adding, "And no, we are not coming back to live here anytime soon."

"Not coming back home?" her father repeated, his eyes welling with tears. "But you have to. We have to prepare for the weddings."

"Akane and I are planning to have a double wedding during the winter break, on New Year's Day," Kasumi said softly.

The parents all beamed at this.

She continued. "We plan to take care of all of the arrangements for the wedding ceremony ourselves. We would appreciate it if you could handle the reception."

The parents' faces fell.

"But Kasumi, we want to give both of you a wonderful wedding!" The Soun Tendo waterworks were starting to flow again.

Kasumi was not impressed. She gazed at him sternly. "Please stop that, daddy. I'm afraid that your track record with weddings is not encouraging. Akane and I will handle the wedding ceremony, as I said, so that we will know that it is done to our preferences."

"Boo hoo! My daughter doesn't trust me!"

Genma leaned over, grabbed his old friend, and put his mouth close to the weeping man's ear. "Pull yourself together, Tendo. They're agreeing to marry, so don't rock the boat. If they want to plan the wedding themselves, then fine!"

Soun nodded his head at the justice of this, and started drying his tears. Akane decided to address her father's original questions, although her gaze flicked between Nabiki and Nodoka, and tended to avoid her father.

"As for your other questions ... We've already explained our reasons for why we did what we did. There's no point in going over it all again, it will just get everyone upset. We are not going to tell you where we are living, we're not prepared yet for people to know that, however we will tell you that the four of us are all sharing an apartment. Ranma knew where to find Doctor Tofu, and before we ever left Nerima we contacted him and had him make arrangements at his end. As I said, we are not coming back yet. Ranma and I plan to finish the school year and graduate from the school we are now attending, and Ono-sensei cannot just up and abandon his practice and his partner."

"But why can't you at least let us know where you're living?" Nodoka wanted to know.

"Because we still don't want people interfering with our lives," Akane said stiffly. Nodoka flinched from her cold gaze.

Kasumi felt that the level of tension was getting just a little too high, and decided to try to calm things a little. "That doesn't mean that we only want to keep the information from you. The problem is, the more people who know something, the harder it is to keep it secret. There are those who would want to interfere, even violently, and who will do so if they can."

Ranma had taken Akane's hand and was looking at her worriedly. She gave him a wan smile and took a deep breath, calming herself down. "It's taken some hard work for Ranma and me to try to get our relationship straightened out, so we don't want to take any risks of getting it screwed up again."

"Finally," Ranma concluded, "we've already told you in our emails that I've been keeping up with my martial arts training, old man, and that I've been training Akane as well. If you want proof, we can spar later, and I'll kick you around the yard until even your hard head is convinced."

Akane smiled tolerantly at the familiar image this conjured. "Just so long as you don't forget to leave time for our training, baka," she added in a sweet voice, smiling tenderly at the young man beside her. "Remember? We didn't have time to go by the dojo this morning."

"I ain't forgotten, tomboy. We'll have plenty of time." He smiled just as tenderly back at his fiancée, and it was clear to everyone that the word 'tomboy' had become a pet name, instead of the insult that it once was. At the same time, they realized that her use of the word 'baka' had sounded similar to his use of 'tomboy.'

Ranma chuckled mentally as he thought about the surprise the fathers were in for later, when they would watch him working out with Akane. He was pretty sure they weren't expecting just how much better she had become. Her purely physical martial arts skills had reached the point where he would now put even odds on her in a fight with Shampoo, and he was starting to teach her chi attacks.

Akane's gaze passed over her father and moved away rapidly again, and Nabiki decided that she had had enough. "Okay sis," Nabiki asked in a no-nonsense tone, "how about you tell us now why you're upset with daddy?" Soun, Genma and Nodoka looked startled at the question, while Ranma looked apprehensive.

Akane stuttered, not looking at either Nabiki or her father. "I ... I'm not. I don't know where you got that idea."

"Don't hand me that," Nabiki responded forcefully. "You've been avoiding looking at him since you got here. When you do, you look either angry, or hurt, or lost. Now, what's up?"

"Yes," Kasumi added her voice to this. "I've noticed as well, little sister. You were very cold out in the yard when father greeted us."

Akane chewed on her lower lip. Soun asked tentatively, "Daughter ...?" Everyone saw her flinch at the sound of his voice being directed at her.

"Akane," Ranma whispered from beside her, "I think you're going to have to tell them something. You can't just leave it like this."

She gave him a hard to interpret look, then grabbed his hand like an anchor. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face her father, who gave a small jerk backwards when he saw the fire burning in her eyes. She spoke in a voice which was under such tight control that it came out in a cold monotone. "Very well. I assume by now that you are all aware of what Hibiki did to me?" Everyone nodded, but she saw her father, and Genma Saotome as well, looking nervous. "Ranma had an excuse for not telling me the truth about that ... that pig, even if it was a poor excuse, and with the exception of not telling me he did try his best to stop that pervert from taking advantage of me." Her eyes blazed even hotter and Soun involuntarily drew back even further from the fire within her. "However, our dear father also knew the truth. Our father, who is supposed to look after our best interests, and who so far as I can tell did nothing to protect me."

Kasumi put her hand to her mouth, gasping, and looked at her father in horror. The Ice Queen's emotionless facade cracked, as she glared at their sire with loathing. Even Nodoka was looking at him coldly, fingering her katana, as if calculating where best to carve. Soun attempted a desperate defense, which would probably have been best left unsaid. "But ... but ... it made Ranma so jealous, which was all to the good ..." His voice trailed off as the chilled silence became even deeper.

Akane turned away in pain, once again preferring not to look at him. Kasumi was the one who spoke, in tones near absolute zero. "Father, if you had not said that, I would have found it difficult to credit such an accusation. I can scarce believe it now. Do not imagine that you can possibly talk your way out of this; such behavior was inexcusable. I think you should leave this room immediately, or we shall. I know that I, for one, do not wish to see you at the moment. I suggest that you go ... somewhere, and reflect on the magnitude of your error. If you wish to speak to us again, you had better first understand why what you did was so wrong, and be prepared to acknowledge it."

Soun looked in shock at his oldest daughter, then saw that Nabiki and Nodoka were looking at him with similar expressions. He decided to beat a retreat, already sobbing over the fact that all of his daughters were upset with him. Genma decided that it was wiser not to remain himself, and disappeared from the room as well.

Kasumi turned to her youngest sister with a sigh. "You should have told me about this before, Akane. Why didn't you?"

Akane didn't look her in the eye. "It hurt too much, I guess. Besides, I was hoping that you wouldn't have to find out about it. Can we ... drop it for now? I really don't want to discuss it any further."

Kasumi heard the pain in her sister's voice and nodded. At the urging of Nodoka and Nabiki, the conversation then turned to details of how Tofu and Ranma had proposed to the girls.

Much later, while Akane and Ranma took his father out to kick him around the yard as promised, Nabiki went up to her room and pulled out her books. She started running her finger down the bets on whether Ranma would ever propose to Akane, the circumstances, the date, and so forth, marking who needed to be paid off and how much. The big winner to her surprise was Gosunkugi, who had managed to pick the exact date. She could even remember the day he had placed the bet, and that he seemed to have been crying at the time.

That night, as she lay in bed trying to get to sleep, Akane was reflecting on how people acclimate to things. She had become rather accustomed to Kasumi's breathing in the other futon, and was finding it very difficult to sleep without the sound. However, she and Kasumi were alone in their old bedrooms, with Ranma and Tofu sharing the guest room, and the Saotome parents having returned to their house for the night. At least, Akane assumed that Kasumi was alone in her room. There had been some unspoken communication between her older sister and Dr. Tofu that made Akane wonder if perhaps Kasumi wasn't quite missing her presence as much as she was missing Kasumi's. She blushed in the darkness as she tried to avoid considering this speculation.