A/N: Well, I wasn't going to post this till sometime near Friday, after FCATs are done, but you all raped my inbox with favs and reviews I just had to let you have this. I received a total of 5 reviews, 2 author alerts, and 7 story alerts * victory sign*. That is more than I got for my last fic over all (minus the reviews). Thank you to TendoAkane92, Tai Khan, jdcocoagirl(you especially), Scourgeofthegalaxy, and Moon Miko.

Anyway in this chapter we get to see why Akari was sent back, but you'll have to wait a bit for the actual scene where she is sent back, and you'll never guess who shows up to do it. :P

PS: Thanks to Hitokiri Hero, who continues to plow through my horrible, blocky, raw writing and turn it into the sparkly clean story you all read.

Disclaimer: Akari: YuriFan5 doesn't own Ranma ½, but if he did he would be the happiest guy in the world.

YF: Damn straight!

Akari wasn't even sure how this had happened. Everything was such a blur. She remembered introducing herself with a bow, "Hello, my name is Akari. Please take care of me." And she had been met with a predictable, almost like clockwork, deluge of questions. The rest was a blur of comments related to how late it was, how impolite it would be to turn away a guest this late, and sleeping arrangements. Now here she was, sleeping in the same room as "Akane" . It wasn't like she hadn't already done this when she was younger, but it was different then. She stared out the window from the bed "Akane" had insisted she take until she fell into an uneasy sleep.

**Akari's Dreams**

I've seen this before. This is when mother left for her battle. Akari, some how having a semi-lucid dream, watched as the events unfolded before her.

"Akane, don't worry, I'll be fine." Came the confident voice of her beloved mother. A younger Akari ran forward and begged her mother not to go, pleading and spouting out a very Soun-ish stream of tears. Younger Akari was firmly but gently placed in the strong arms of her father.

"Ranma," came the voice of her father, her mother turned, an inquisitive look on her face. "Be careful."

"Aint I always?" Her mother gave her father her trademark grin and walked off with a confident smile… the last smile Akari would ever see her wear.

*Flash*

The scene changed, and now the view was from her father's arms, as the family watched the fight from afar. Mother appeared to be winning against Cayenne(1), and it was a safe bet that she wouldn't be destroying Nerima or any other part of Japan. Just as the battle seemed won, Cayenne looked to the side, and seeing our family, shot a bolt of ki out of her finger at father.

"Akane!" The cry rang out and mother rushed to save her. She probably would have made it too, except that she was hit in the back by an attack from Cayenne. Suddenly the world was spinning and now father was in front of Akari, and no matter how much she struggled to change her dream, she was forced to watch in horror, just as she had then, as the beam pierced father through the heart. Father had a shocked look on her face, and then she smiled down at Akari, knelt and placed her gently on the roof, and then collapsed.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" A cry rang out from where mother was, just steps away from us. Mother rushed over to help, but realized it was too late. She leaned in, tears falling on father's chest, and listened to father's dying whisper.

She never did tell anyone what those last words were.

Akari, who had been recently receiving some basic Ki training, felt the Ki in the air near mother and father grow so thick it was visible as a red pulsing light. Mother walked over and picked up younger Akari, giving her a kiss on the cheek, and placed her in Auntie Kasumi's hands. She turned to face Cayenne, who was laughing insanely.

Everyone noticed the way mother's head hung, the tears falling freely. The pulsing red light withdrew until it disappeared around mother, like it had been sucked up by a vacuum. Any normal observer would have thought the ki had dispersed, but those with martial arts training, saw that it was quite the contrary. Instead of glowing faintly like she was before, now looking at mother was like staring directly into the bulb of a light house beacon. Even the non martial artists present cringed as they felt some primal fear telling them to go and run far away from the scene that was about to unfold. Mother pushed off of the roof we were standing on with the force suggesting of hidden JATOs somewhere on her person. She flew at her lover's killer, and a scream rang throughout all of Nerima.

"KANSEIKEI SHISHI HOKODAN!!"

A pillar of red light big enough to engulf the entire park they were fighting over shot up, making even the non martial artists tremble in fear at the raw power displayed by this soon to be twice over god killer. For five whole minutes the pillar soared into the sky, and then, as if it were a slinky, lifted off the ground at the same time the other end came slamming back down. To anyone without a high vantage point, it seemed that it had gone up and then slammed back down almost instantaneously, but those on high could see that it had done a full 180 in the upper atmosphere and come back down, gaining power from passing all of the rest of the attack on the way down. Kasumi covered young Akari's eyes, but when she uncovered them again, it wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. The crater big enough to build several football stadiums inside coupled with the loud boom she had heard made it pretty obvious what had happened. When they got there, mother was standing there panting, no sign of Cayenne anywhere, although there were a few things that looked suspiciously like teeth scattered around.

Mother just gave them a long, sad look, and then collapsed in tears.

Mother cried for the majority of five days, only stopping to eat, even then crying onto her food. She isolated herself, staying locked in her room. She appeared once, on the day of father's funeral, garbed in black pants and a black version of her favorite red shirt, the dragon on this one was in gold. She didn't make eye contact, nor did she speak to anyone. Akari remembered never seeing mother this upset, even when she had found out that grandfather Genma had disowned her for choosing to live the way she had, which Akari hadn't understood until far after both mother and father were dead. When it came for mother's chance to speak about father before he was finally buried, she walked up, leaving Akari with Auntie Kasumi, which she seemed to be doing a lot of recently, and whispered to father. She placed a kiss upon his forehead, and two small drops fell on his chest before mother straightened up completely, and slowly walked away.

None of us ever saw mother again until that fateful day. When we got back to the Tendo residence, mother's things had been taken and her pack was not in the closet. Word came drifting in of great deeds done by a buxom red head that showed very little emotion. We heard that she had killed Happosai, and walked away with a shrug. We heard she beat Tauro close to death but stopped at the killing blow, and slowly turned with a sad look on her face and walked away.

There were as many rumors of mother dyeing as there were people in Tokyo. One of the most outrageous, and therefore all the more likely, was that mother had lifted a mountain up and dropped it on herself. Another said that she went to the top of Mt. Fuji and walked to the very highest part where no one can breathe the air because it was so thin, and spent a whole five minutes just slowly inhaling and exhaling, until finally slamming her fist into the ground, causing an avalanche and burying herself alive. Lore has it she threatened the few hikers present, all of them with oxygen tanks, that she would kill anyone who tried to dig her up.

Akari knew what really happened, since she received a discreet letter from a traveling antique seller in tears, saying it was her mother's wish that he pay his debt back to her by delivering the letter. Apparently, mother had retrieved his cart from a gang of bandits, claiming she was testing herself against their leader. She only gave him the letter after he insisted he do something.

Akari scanned the letter, and rushed over to the house. She grabbed her life's savings and rushed out of the house before anyone could question her. She ran and ran and ran, swam the ocean, and continued to run. She didn't stop running until she got to Joketsuzo.

The letter had read (in poorly written kanji):

Dear Akari,

I hope this letter finds you in good health. I find that the more times I try to kill myself and end my misery, the more I realize that my one true flaw is that I am too strong. The irony of this statement weighs heavily upon me, since I spent my life devoted to the Art and consequentially, gaining strength. Now all my strength is resisting my every effort, as if some cruel power is trying to keep me bound here.

I am going to give others one last chance to take away my misery, before I do it myself. Normally I would just act un-womanly around mom until she enforces the Seppuku contract, but even if I got on my knees and begged her, she would not do it, claiming I was not in my right mind. I am going to Jusendo to see if I can get Herb and Saffron to finish me off. I figure their combined power might be enough to at least wound me enough that I will die from it, but more than likely even if they do agree to do it, my tough body will recover before I can die. If by some chance I survive this encounter, I will walk north into the frozen lands, to where it is so cold the very moisture in your body turns to ice. There I will make myself a tomb in the ice and leave this painful existence behind so that I can join Akane in a better place.

I want to ask you to not show this to anyone until at least a week after you receive it, which should give me enough time to see the job through. I realize I haven't been the best mother, and I probably shouldn't expect you to do this for me, but I must ask it anyway.

Please, let me go. I can't stand this anymore. I can't even describe the agony I am in. I ask you, unfair as it is, to please grant your mother one last boon. I had hoped to see you graduate middle school last week (Akari was touched mother had remembered), but alas I am so engrossed in my pain that it dominates my consciousness. How was your graduation party? Are Kasumi, Nabiki, Mother, and Soun taking care of you? I hope you live a happier life than I did, and that you find someone as meaningful to you as I did.

P.S. You can tell Nabiki to stop sending her spies after me.

Love you forever,

Ranma Tendo

*Flash*

Akari clambered up the last bit of the rock face, and, peering over the edge, saw mother, Saffron, and Herb talking. As she started to pull herself up, she heard her mother's familiar voice, albeit strangled to death with pain, "What do you mean you won't?!"

"Ranma, as much as I admire you as a martial artist and sympathize with you, I simply cannot kill you out of the blue, and no amount of provoking on your part will change that." Saffron gave mother a determined look.

"The same goes for me Ranma," came the feminine voice of girl-form Herb.

"We'll see about that."

*Flash*

Mother crashed into Akari, knocking her off the edge of the cliff she was squatting on. When she noticed, she cried out her name and dove after Akari, tears in her eyes. As she caught up to Akari, she embraced her and turned around, cutting a deep gouge in Akari's heart as she realized that this was the same protective position that father had been in. She knew mother could have survived on her own, but with Akari's added weight and the way she positioned her back towards the ground, cradling Akari protectively above her, it was clear what would happen. Before she could cry out, they impacted and she lost consciousness.

It couldn't have been very long before she regained her senses since the dust from the impact hadn't even settled yet… Either that or it had been a really hard impact. She sat up and scrambled off of her mother, taking her mother in her arms. Her mother looked at her, smiling despite the trickle of blood running down her chin from the corner of her mouth. She opened her mouth to speak, and Akari leaned in to listen.

"Live… well… for me… Akari." Her mother looked up at the sky. "I'm coming… Akane." She whispered these last words to her daughter, and then her head rolled back and she went on to a better place.

"Noooooooooooooo! Okaa-san!!"

**Real World**

Akari sat up yelling "Noooo!" She startled Akane out of her sleep and she looked over in concern.

"OKAA-SAN!" Akane jumped to her feet and turned on the light to see what was wrong, but all that happened was that the girl kept crying and calling out "Okaa-san!", so she sat down and rubbed the girl's back, whispering words of comfort and cradling her to her chest.

"Otou-san, please forgive me!" Akari crushed herself against Akane, crying into her shoulder. She kept repeating, "Please forgive me." "Please forgive me, Otou-san." "Otou-san please forgive me!" Akane had no idea what this girl was talking about, but it was obvious that for some reason she was asking Akane for forgiveness, and she looked like she really needed it ,so Akane whispered to her, "Shh, shhh, it's ok. I forgive you." Over and over she repeated it until the child slowly calmed her hysterics until she passed quietly into a more peaceful sleep. As she tucked the girl in, she noticed the entire household was watching her from the doorway. She looked at them, shrugged, turned off the light, and laid down in bed and tried to get back to sleep.

(1)- Ya know, like the pepper.

A/N: Muhaha, the curtain rises. Flamers go put themselves to better use in TF2.