Needs a title Chapter 3, a ranma fanfic

Hi! Sorry it took me so long to update, you can kind of expect that with this story. Umm... just to let everyone know I'm basing this and all my Ranma 1/2 fics off of the manga and not the television show. It hasn't affected the story yet, but it will, so sorry all you Sasuke fans out there, he doesn't exist in this world.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

Akane stared at the very naked, very wet, very male Ranma kneeling on the floor. She felt the familiar combination of admiration for the rare sight of a lone nude Ranma and rage. 'I give him plenty of time to get out of the bath before I arrive, and he sits around waiting for me,' she thought venomously.

"You pervert!" she shouted at him, quickly covering herself with her towel. She took a little pleasure at the sight of his eyes widening and the way his muscles moved while he scrambled for something to cover himself with. 'There's nothing quite like a confused and naked Ranma to warm a girl up in all the right places. Probably why the bathroom is Shampoo's favorite place to stage an ambush,' she thought, darkly amused but still pissed off.

"Akane!" he shouted, it almost sounded like he hadn't been expecting her, but she knew better. "Wh-what are you doing here?" He finally found his towel and wrapped it around his hips. Akane was torn between disappointment and anger. She decided that anger was probably her safest option, 'Because if Ranma ever found out…'

Akane really wanted to slap him, but that would mean walking the five or so feet between them, and she only walked up to slap Ranma when he was being an insensitive jerk, not just a pervert. Instead she glared at him a few seconds longer, then spun around and slammed the bathroom door shut.

She seethed outside the bathroom door for a second before she put her gi top on. She jerked the belt tight and stomped out of the bathroom. Growling softly under her breath she made her way to the garden and picked up the closest statue to the door.

"Akane," Nabiki asked coolly, "What is it? What's that for?"

"There's a pervert in the bathroom," growled Akane, glaring at her sister as if Ranma changing genders was all her fault.

"Why don't you just kill him with your bare hands?" Nabiki asked curiously.

"B-because," Akane spluttered, loosing a little bit of her anger in the face of her sister's calmness.

"That's odd," Kasumi said quietly, sounding worried. "Ranma' was in the bath just now."

Akane held onto the statue as she felt both of her sister's attention turn to the hallway. "Who… Who…" she heard Kasumi stutter.

"Who are you?" Nabiki demanded, sounding in aw of the fact that someone could get into the house without her noticing.

"I'm Ranma Saotome," the now clothed male Ranma said, looking at the floor in front of his feet. His face was a charming color of pink, that Akane decided she kind of liked, but only when she was the cause. "Sorry 'bout this."

Akane carefully put the statue back where it belonged, before she went to her room to change into a nightgown. Mentally Akane reminded herself not to flatten him with a table this time, she had strained her thumb when she did it last time, and it had thrown her off her fight the next day.

Ranma knelt next to his father, across from the Tendo girls. He was still embarrassed about what had happened earlier, but he wasn't going to let the image of Akane's nudity distract him from telling his story. 'Yeah, my female body's better, but it's kind of hard to be turned on by your own body. Only idiots like Kuno do that,' he thought as he watched Akane's reaction.

'I'll explain it once more," Mr Tendo started. "This is my old friend…"

"Genma Saotome," Pops introduced himself. "And this is my son…"

"Ranma," Ranma said, trying very hard not to stare at Akane, even though he could feel her staring at him. She was looking at him seriously, the same way she looked at him when she suspected him of something, but didn't have any proof that there was anything to be suspicious of. 'Not that that ever stops her from jumping to conclusions anyway.'

He really wasn't paying attention to what was going on. He vaguely heard Nabiki and Kasumi talking, but he was too busy ignoring the fact that even though Akane's night gown was modestly cut, he could still see quite a bit of her leg because of the way she was clutching at it.

"Hyah!" was the last thing Ranma registered before he felt himself being thrown into the koi pond.

"Hey!" he protested uselessly right before he hit the water with a resounding splash. He barely managed not to hit his head at the bottom with the force that Pops threw him. When she surfaced she blustered out, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Now he's a girl!" she heard Kasumi say quietly.

While her father was weeping at the humiliation of having a girl for a son Ranma snuck up behind him and kicked him into the koi pond as well. "Who are you to talk?!" Ranma demanded as a wet annoyed panda bear loomed out of the water.

"Daddy?" Ranma heard Kasumi whisper quietly, "Why are you friends with them?" 'I've always wondered that,' Ranma thought idly as she glared at the panda.

"They weren't like this before!" Mr Tendo said softly, but dramatically, "Not before they went to China… and undertook that terrifying training exercise!" Ranma expected to here thunder rumble at the tone of voice that Mr. Tendo used. 'So that's where Akane gets her ability to turn every little thing into a drama,' she thought as she showed Pops where the bathroom was.

Ranma was very careful to keep his head from getting wet this time around when he was changing gender. He was pretty sure that was the main thing that contributed to his cold last time. That and probably all the temperature changes he was going to undergo throughout the evening.

While Ranma and his father were changing forms, Akane sat with her family in silence. If Kasumi hadn't been there, there would be talk, but Kasumi never liked talking about people behind their back, so any discussion of the Saotomes was out. Unfortunately Ranma was the only subject Akane had on her mind.

'Why are so many things different from how I remember them?' she questioned. The things Nabiki and Kasumi were doing seemed on par with how she remembered the evening, but anytime she was alone with Ranma, everything changed.

She stared deep into the tea cup that she clutched in her hands. Akane knew that she had changed some of her actions, which in turn would change some of Ranma's actions, but some things Ranma had instigated, like it was him that brought up martial arts this time.

'Ranma was probably just lonely for company,' Akane thought, as she took a sip of tea. By the time she had swallowed her sip the Saotomes had returned.

"Ah yes," Mr. Saotome started, as though the trip to the bathing room had only taken one panel instead of several minutes. "It was two fateful weeks ago..."

Akane watched in fascination as the flashback took place. In her minds eye she saw Ranma in his old training gi, with his hair in a ponytail instead of a braid standing next to his father, who looked the same way then that he did now.

"Are you prepared Ranma?" Mr. Saotome asked gravely.

""This place isn't so impressive," Ranma sneered. The guide began explaining about the dangers of the spring, but before he could finish warning them, Mr. Saotome sprang onto the nearest pole.

"Ranma, follow me!" Mr. Saotome shouted, and like an idiot Ranma did. They each landed gracefully one a pole and assumed a fighting position.

"I won't go easy on you!" Mr. Saotome warned.

"That's how I want it," Ranma smirked, then they flew at each other. Mr. Saotome gave out a battle cry as he kicked at Ranma. Ranma of course dodged the blow, causing Mr. Saotome to plunge into the spring of drowned panda. Ranma stood on his pole and taunted his father, until a panda came jumping out of the water at him.

"Wha...? Wha...? Wha...?" Ranma questioned intelligently.

"That is "Spring of Drowned Panda"!" the guide informed him. "There is tragic legend, very tragic legend of panda who drown two thousand years ago! Now whoever fall in that spring take body of panda!"

Upon hearing this Ranma tried protesting that the situation was too much for him, but Mr. Saotome didn't listen. Ranma ended up falling into the spring of drowned girl. When she surfaced, she ripped open the top of her gi and stared at her newly developed breasts.

"...You see what I mean?" were the last words Akane heard before the flashback ended. Soon everyone was sitting in her family's living room again. It was so silent that the could hear the faint tinkle of the wind chime outside.

"The legendary ground of accursed springs," Father said melodramatically. "Its true horror has always been shrouded in mystery, but now..."

"Feh," Ranma said angrily, remembering that day in Jusenkyo was a sure fire way to tick Ranma off. "Whaddya mean "true horror"? Old Man," Ranma said turning to his father, "what's the big idea dragging me off to a place like that anyway?"

Predictably, if you had been around them for any length of time anyway, Mr. Saotome threw Ranma into the koi pond and shouted, "You sound like a woman! Were you not prepared to give your life for the sake of your training?"

"My life yes," Ranma muttered, he leaped out of the koi pond and splashed his father with a bucket of water that he had gotten somewhere, "My manhood is another story!" It was at this point that Akane tuned them out. This argument had taken place so often that she had it memorized by now, and she really didn't feel like hearing it again.

"Stop it," Kasumi ordered quietly, then grabbed onto Mr. Saotome's giant panda arm. "You just went too far Mr. Saotome!"

"Yeah! Even for martial arts training!" Nabiki agreed. It was always fun to watch Nabiki and Kasumi tag team someone for information. Kasumi played the good cop and Nabiki played the bad cop and that person was telling them their entire life story before they even knew that they had been played.

"Whatever made you do something so dangerous?" Kasumi demanded. 'Looks like she playing the bad cop today,' Akane thought idly.

Mr. Saotome placed a beat up paper back book on the floor. Kasumi picked it up and looked at it. "It's a Chinese map and guide book?" she questioned.

"Something about..."training grounds," Nabiki read.

"You can't read Chinese can you?" Kasumi demanded. Mr. Saotome opened a celebratory ball and confetti fell out. Ranma punched him on the back of his head.

This whole time Father had been out of the room. Shortly after Ranma hit her father, Father appeared with a giant kettle and poured what looked to be very hot water. "So," Father said, "When doused with hot water, you return to your human form."

'Didn't they just explain that?' Akane questioned in her head.

Ranma watched with trepidation as Mr. Tendo approached Pops with a giant kettle. She knew that the water would me much hotter then it had to be, mostly because it almost always was. 'In fact, I really don't know how hot the water has to be before it can change me back,' Ranma thought idly as she watched Pops get scalded by the hot water.

"So, when doused with hot water, you return to your human form," Mr. Tendo stated.

"Well, it needn't be quite so hot," Pops said with a barely concealed whimper of pain.

Mr. Tendo approached Ranma, "When doused with cold water you become a girl," he stated, as though he hadn't seen that happen twice already. "But hot water turns you back into a boy!" he shouted, trying to pour the boiling water onto Ranma.

"Hot water!" Ranma shouted as she flinched out of the way. "Not boiling!"

Suddenly the kettle was gone and Mr. Tendo was patting her shoulder in a comradely fashion. Ranma knew what to expect now, but wasn't sure what to do about it. 'I have the feeling that this is where everything goes wrong,' she thought to herself as she watched Mr. Tendo suspiciously.

"No sweat. Your problem isn't so terrible after all," Mr. Tendo said, turning Ranma to face the girls.

"My daughter Kasumi, nineteen, and Nabiki, seventeen, and Akane, sixteen," each girl looked surprised at the introduction, except for really Akane, whose expression Ranma couldn't read. "Pick the one you want, she's your fiancé."

"Oh, he wants Akane," Kasumi said, pushing Akane forward.

"Oh definitely," Nabiki agreed.

"H-Hey!" Akane argued feebly. "Why...?"

Before anymore of Akane's question was asked, Nabiki interrupted. "Well, you hate boys, don't you?"

"So you're in luck, he's half girl," Kasumi said cheerfully. 'Great,' Ranma thought, 'Rub it in.'

"But, he's a pervert," Akane protested weekly.

'I am not!' "Waddya mean pervert?" Ranma demanded.

"You looked at my body!"

"Hold it! You walked in on me!"

"It's different when a girl sees a boy!"

Ranma heard their parents laughing, and wanted to avoid the next bit. 'No way am I getting' hit with a table again.'

"They're already a perfect couple," Mr. Tendo laughed. Pops joined him, which really annoyed Ranma.

Ranma glared at the two, and noticed the Akane joined him in glaring. The force of their stare got their parents to stop laughing and Mr. Tendo's hair to stand on end. Ranma caught Akane's eye, and for a second they smiled. Unfortunately they caught their parent's gleeful expression and turned away from each other in a huff.

'We definitely can't let our pops know that we like each other. We'd get married before anything interesting happened. Although it would solve a lot of problems...' he thought as he looked for the kettle of hot water Mr. Tendo was holding.

Akane took her bath, she was still a little sweaty from her sparring match with Ranma. She felt mixed emotions about what had been happened this night. Last time she remembered being very angry, and having a sore thumb due to the table event. This time she was excited that Ranma took her seriously during a sparring match, angry because he still saw her naked, proud that she was doing a much better job at keeping her cool. Of course most of all she was confused, because so many things had changed, even more then she had control over.

Akane took the quiet opportunity the bath provided to wonder what it was that had made her go back in time. The last thing she remembered was going to sleep about a week after the wedding. None of the fiancées showed their face, except for Ukyo, who was in Akane and Ranma's class. Ukyo gave them their space.

The more Akane thought on the matter, the more she realized that there was a fuzzy spot in her memory. Most of her brain told her that she had gone to sleep the night before, and just woke up this way. Another, smaller, pat of the brain told her that there was more too it then that, but every time she tried to remember what it was, she found herself thinking about something else.

'Must not be that important,' she thought as she dried herself off with a towel. Then she wrapped her hair in a towel, and opened the door. Too late she realized that she had seen Ranma naked twice this night. Once as a boy and once as a girl.

Akane braced herself to be angry, but was a little disappointed when there was no sign of Ranma. She quickly dressed in her pajamas, and made her way to her bedroom. On the way she saw Ranma, leaning against the door frame of his and his father's room,as a boy.

"Good night Akane," he said, smiling smugly.

"Night Ranma," Akane said suspiciously, then she smiled at him and went to bed.