Disclaimer: I still own nothing, Ranma is the property of Rumiko Takahashi and I'm just borrowing her world.

As a warning, I will get a little dark in some parts of the story, some of the characters may behave pretty OOC. In my opinion everyone changes, and frankly some of the things they'd gone through could change anyone.

Again this is a Ranma/Akane pairing story, if you don't like that pairing, go find another story.

Enjoy :)

Akane watched Ranma run off to school and smiled.

She was very happy with the changes Ranma had made recently, the wedding fiasco had taken a lot out of her and she'd been very worried things would just go back to normal. When Ranma had started giving everyone the cold shoulder, except her and her sisters, Akane had been pleasantly surprised. Shampoo and Ukyo had asked her on occasion to speak to Ranma for them, and she had tried, but Ranma had made it clear he would only speak to them when he was ready and not a moment sooner.

Akane went into the dojo, Ryoga was going through a kata. She sat down and watched him until he was done, noting how bruised up his face looked and how he seemed to be moving slower than usual.

Finally noticing her he spoke "H.. Hey A.. Akane" with his usual nervousness.

"Hi Ryoga, Ranma said you would be willing to help me with some balance practice."

Ranma had set up a few sets of gymnastics bars, instead of being set up normally for a routine they were set up, some for walking on and some balanced precariously.

After they got started on training the nervousness left Ryoga and he helped her learn a variety of routines to practice her balance with the equipment.

As she trained her thoughts were on Ranma, he'd changed since they came back. It wasn't just the nice things he was doing either. He denied it when she'd asked, but she knew without a doubt now that he had said it and meant it.

"On this bar you'll need to bend your knees more deeply when you first get on. That's right, find your balance then straighten out. Good job Akane! You're doing better than I expected."

Akane smiled and after a minute of practicing her balance on the bar jumped down.

"Do you think I'm ready to start training to run on fence tops like Ranma?"

Ryoga eyed her critically for a moment, "Sure," he said "won't hurt to try."

"By the way, not to be rude, but what happened to your face?"

He looked embarrassed by the question, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head, "I asked Ranma to go all out with me last night, I lost." Ryoga smiled at her, "Now that that's out of the way, I feel like me and him can truly be friends."

Akane didn't say anything in response to that, just rolled her eyes. Boys! She thought, as she led Ryoga outside.

As Ranma was running home from school he was pleasantly surprised to see Akane jogging on top of the fence on the opposite side of the street. **Ring ring**

Shit Ranma thought Shampoo!

Ranma launched himself high into the air vaulting over the street and catching Akane, rolling away with her on the grass as the bike crashed into the spot she'd been occupying a moment earlier.

"You jerk!" She looked over at the fence and saw Shampoo dazedly picking herself up. "Oh, never mind," she corrected herself "she's the jerk!"

"Sorry Akane" Ranma said quickly picking her up and cradling her in his arms. "hold on tight." With that said he bounded up to the rooftops and started the route back home. After a moment Akane settled into his arms with a sigh and wrapped her arms around his neck. With her head on his chest she heard a noticeable change in his heart rate the instant she did it, and she smiled to herself.

Within a few minutes they'd made it back to the Tendo household.

"I'm going to the Nekohanten." Ranma said setting her down.

Akane's face reddened, "You wan't to go back to her?" she said her anger rising.

"It's not like that" Ranma said backpedaling, "I want to talk to Cologne to see if there's any way else around their.. laws."

After calming herself down she thought about that, "That sounds like a good idea," she said apprehensively "but I want to go with you!"

After arguing that point for a few minutes they finally walked off towards the Nekohanten together. Akane almost considered grabbing Ranma's hand, but figured he might not be ready for that yet. In fact, she wasn't quite sure if she was ready for that step yet.

"Good day Ranma and Akane" Cologne greeted them when they walked into the Cat Cafe.

"Good day elder." Ranma replied respectfully.

A couple of facts didn't miss Akane, the first, Cologne didn't call Ranma son-in-law. The second, Ranma was being respectful, even calling her elder.

Noticing the confused look on Akane's face Cologne spoke up "Ranma spoke to me a few weeks ago, and we may have found a solution, Shampoo won't be happy. But she won't have much say in the matter."

Cologne hopped into a back room on her staff and came out a moment later holding some scrolls in her hand. "My pursuit of Ranma all this time wasn't simply motivated by my granddaughter's love life. Besides, it's obvious to me he will never love her as she wants him to, and that would cause her far far more pain in the end." She said laying down the scrolls, "Ranma is very powerful, and will be a huge asset to our village if there ever again arises trouble with the Musk. "His potential is limitless."

She looked critically at Akane "I've been watching you too. Akane you've grown so much stronger since I first arrived, I never would have thought it when I first arrived, but after knowing you I think you have a lot of potential as well."

Setting down the last scroll on the table she unrolled it. "This, is a spell which will allow me to adopt you both as official members of Joketsuzoku tribe. It's a long ritual. If we start now we'll be done by morning time. And it will need the sacrifice of some blood." Seeing their apprehensive looks she drove on before their foolish looks had a chance to turn into foolish questions "There will be many benefits for you as well. By being adopted your family automatically gains the protection of our tribe, and you are permitted to train in our magic and martial arts. I can reveal secrets to you that I am not even allowed to mention now."

She laid the scroll down in front of them, the words were in Mandarin, magically they rearranged themselves into perfect Japanese.

"Read this over, I don't demand you decide tonight, but the quicker you can decide the smoother things will go. Shampoo is leaving on a boat for China tonight for two weeks to visit with her mother."

"I'll do it" Ranma said standing up "this idea feels.. right"

"Me too." Akane said, although not as enthusiastically.

After making a quick call to the Tendo residence they'd started the ritual. Cologne had been right, it took nearly till morning to finish the ritual. The walked back and both stomped into their respective rooms and promptly fell asleep.

As a part of their agreement, they now had to go to the Cat Cafe to train with Elder Cologne twice a week. Cologne added workouts to both Ranma and Akane's daily routines and started training them in kata's known only to her village. Ranma recognized a lot of the moves now, since the style was very like Shaolin. That is to say, it seemed similar to Shaolin, on the surface. There was a subtlety to the style that Shaolin didn't have, something that made the result that much more effective. Genma still sparred with Ranma sometimes, but for his own sake to stay somewhat in shape.

Now that Ranma had decided to take school seriously he viewed it at a challenge, and defeating challenges is what Ranma Saotome excels at.

Ranma's nightly training with Akane was paying off in various ways, first off Akane's skill had made enormous leaps. Ranma felt that at this point she could probably handle both Ukyo and Shampoo at the same time, and maybe even give Mousse some trouble. He was also rarely getting splashed with cold water anymore. He chalked it up to the fact that at the moment he just didn't give a shit about the curse one way or another. Finally Akane gathered her nerve one night and asked a question that had nagged at her for some time now.

"Ranma?"

He turned to look at her.

"What changed things?" She saw him look change to a confused one, "Not that I'm complaining, but I'm curious what changed things? Why are you more focused on school now? You're not mean to me anymore, and you've helped me learn so much!"

He stared at her for a moment, and she felt cheek start rising to her cheeks before he finally answered.

"You."

"What about me?" She said motioning to herself "While I've enjoyed the changes, I haven't asked you to change a thing."

He turned away from her and sat down.

"You died."

She started to reply but he cut her off "You died in my arms Akane, I held your limp, lifeless body in my arms. It felt like my whole world had ended..."

He wiped away some tears, and started laughing. To her ears the laugh sounded forced, and very nervous.

"Then I lied to you." He looked up at her, his face showing his shame.

"You, agreed to go with our parents crazy little scheme, and you asked me i lllove y y you. I said that I never said that. But I lied, I did say it."

His voice had been barely audible at this confession.

"Oh Ranma, you baka!"

Ranma looked up at her, his face clearly showing his deep-rooted fear of rejection.

"I love you too dummy!" With this she kissed him. It was a sloppy, tear filled first kiss. But they both felt like they were floating on clouds when they walked inside to go get cleaned up after the workout.

They came to an unspoken agreement, neither of them was willing to go public with their new views on the relationship. After the wedding fiasco both knew they had to get rid of all entanglements before announcing anything that would draw in the would-be-suitors.

As angry as Ranma was with Shampoo, he was twice as furious towards Ukyo. Shampoo at least brought up in such a way where her behavior hadn't seemed as wild to her. The village thrived on a warrior mentality, targets were for eliminating. Ranma knew now that it would soon be made abundantly clear to Shampoo that Akane was no longer an acceptable target. If she still was foggy on what that meant, Ranma would be happy to clear up any misunderstandings. He proudly acknowledged that Akane could and would be the one to do so if it came to that.

Ukyo was another matter altogether. The only reason he'd never told Ukyo he didn't love her was because he did love her. Now that he understood that love and understood his feelings for Nabiki and Kasumi he realized he'd always cherished Ukyo as if she was a sister. So he'd never been able to bring himself to break her heart like that. But she'd crossed the line, her actions at his wedding had shown him that she had no respect for his decisions. She only cared about her own happiness. Although he realized it was partially his own fault for not telling her how he'd felt before, she still acted on her own accord to do what she did.

When he left school that day he hadn't planned to go to Ukyo's, but that's where he found himself. Standing in front of Ucchans Okinomiyaki, not looking forward to the conversation he was about to have.

The only customers were a few kids from school, among them were Diasuke and Yuka.

Ranma looked at them, "You two, stay put please. Everyone else get out!"

The other students having seen enough of Ranma's fights knew better than to protest and stood up and quietly left the restaurant. Each leaving a tip on the table, they felt sorry for Ukyo after seeing the look on Ranma's face. Ranma nodded in gratitude to each one as they left the restaurant. As the final customer was leaving Ukyo came out of the back.

"Where's everyone going, oh Ranchan!"

"What can I get you hun?" Ukyo said, trying to calm her nervousness by routinely making Ranma his favorite Okinomiyaki.

"Stop Ukyo." Ranma said, giving her a hard look "Sit down, we have a lot to talk about. That is to say, I'm going to talk, you are going to sit down, shut up and listen."

An hour later Ranma had told Ukyo everything he wanted to say to her, while avoiding the fact that he'd completely given his heart to Akane.

"... I saw you as as sister, and I still do Ukyo. But after the wedding I see you're too wrapped up in your quest to tie me down as your husband to respect me or my decisions! Until you are willing to apologize to my family, the Tendo's and to Akane, we cannot be friends anymore. I hope you bring yourself to do so soon, I'd love to have my sister back." Ranma then stood up and walked out of the restaurant, leaving Ukyo behind sobbing into her hands as Diasuke and Yuka attempted to comfort her.

That's the end of Chapter 2.. Haha, can't promise the chapters will continue coming out so quick.. I expect my next update to be in a couple days.. but I guess I just felt like writing a lot today. Please R&R. Thank you!