One thing to say.
New Favorite story.

First, let me say that I do in fact favor the Ranma/Akane pairing. I had a feeling about where this story was going from the beginning, but I stuck with it because it was an interesting idea and I wanted to see what you would do with Akane's character. After finishing it, I have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, I feel that the story had a satisfying conclusion, supported by the story and the characterizations that preceded it. I can see how you arrived at your portrayal of Akane, as someone who does not take martial arts as seriously as the other martial artists in the series, and even then mostly for the ability to beat people up/defend herself. She did, after all, have to deal with the hentai horde and Kunou even before Ranma showed up; and it seems fairly canon that Soun hasn't been invested in her training for some time, possibly contributing to her lack of single-minded devotion to the Art. There's even precedent for her using a quick power-up to beat Ranma when she ate the Super Soba (and when she used the Battle Dogi, but I think that might be anime only), with predictable results.
On the other hand, the story has kind of an unfinished feel to it (though I'm guessing that was your intent), with only the issue of Akane's eligibility as a fiancee for Ranma resolved. Plus the fact that I'm not sure I can really be happy with any story that tosses my favorite pairing out the window, but that's prejudice and perhaps not entirely rational. :P I won't present any rabid arguments for why your analysis of the situation could never be right, at any rate.
Regarding the technical aspects of the story, I recommend using brackets on both sides of Chinese speech rather than just on one side like this.> Doing so would clarify where the characters start speaking. Having to go back and check where the character started speaking took me out of the story time and time again. As for the formatting, a space between paragraphs would aid readability.
Of course you posted this story seven years ago, so you might not want to bother editing it... but just in case. :P
Thanks for an interesting and well thought out story.

Very well written. I read this years ago and thought it was good then. It holds up well in a reread.

This is an interesting story,and I'm glad I found it.

Akane sometimes comes over as too much of a bully, but overall you do a good enough job of showing us how she is drunk on power. I would suggest tweaking the events leading up to the savage beating of Shampoo a bit and show us a bit more of the fight. Make it less a vindictive beating and more of a fight that got out of control especially on Akane's part.

And yes I would class this as a romance story because the emotions of the characters and the relationships between them are so important. Which is the defining feature of romance stories, not kisses or other such common tropes associated with romance stories.

Very enjoyable story. For me the best part of it was at no time did I feel that this was going out of character at all. Characters acted quite well within their limits and the story felt well grounded and quite possible. All in all the relationship blooming between him and Shampoo seems quite believable...But still for such a relationship to work he'd have to deal with automatically being considered inferior due to his gender by the Amazons in China as well as dealing with Shampoo turning into a cat his most hated animal...So while I don't think a relationship between the two would work you definitely planted a seed that is quite indeed believable. I also love how you made certain to state that by no means was everything settled, simply that Shampoo had a much better chance in the running then before.

All in all excellent story. Thank you very much for writing it.

Part 6

"I'm not... afraid," they whispered quietly.
[Number agreement: 'they' is a plural reference. Though for the necessity of an obscure second-person reference, it's sometimes used otherwise, those situations only really work when the subject _might_ be plural. In this case where the person (already identified as boy) is clearly singular, it makes sense for 'he' but not 'they'.]

Their face winced
[Pronoun agreement: 'His']

movement aggravated the scores of injuries
[Superfluous 'the']

the child reached out their hand
[Pronoun agreement: his]

around their legs, waist,
[Pronoun agreement: his]

they looked beseechingly
[Pronoun agreement: he]

towards their father.
[Pronoun agreement: his]

the smells of the fish
[Unnecessary plurality]

coming into their eyes.
[Pronoun agreement: his]

Xian Pu, wake up, >
[The idea of using extra/alternative punctuation to indicate Mandarin is clever (I've seen it in other stories), but it appears that your choice has been half consumed by QuickEdit (another reason I'm still allied with KQEC, see profile for more). Every single opening angle bracket is missing. One alternative that I've seen that QuickEdit didn't eat was using ordinary double quotation marks, and placing a hyphen immediately inside the dialog (“-Mandarin-”).]

But Ranma was... >
[Repetition of 'but' starting the sentence. Either one could be altered, but I think the simplest solution is just to remove this one.]

"Right. I'll do that... hey!"
[Points: +1]

But all were cross and mastered,
[Verb tense agreement: crossed]

his body was still fairly
androgynous,
[Extraneous soft return.]

who the predator and who the prey
[Missing existence verbs: 'was'. The sentence looks awkward without them.]

his turned his head
[_he_ turned]

Part 7

she was
feeling at the moment.
[Superfluous soft return.]

Nabiki had no idea why a Kiss of Death hadn't been issued yet,
[Maybe because Shampoo already gave Akane a Kiss of Death?]

And my five primary senses all tell me that you're being perfectly honest with me."
[I feel this is out-of-character with Cologne. There are many ways to read a person, and the most effective ones combine a plethora of factors. Body posture, voice tone, the way the muscles around the neck and eyes are tensed, more vague yet first-hand-discernable flickers in the eyes...these are important and difficult-to-disguise factors that use the common Western-recognized five senses (which don't recognize everything humans have, they're just the easiest to measure). Would Cologne be using that (those) other(s) to tell Nabiki's lying? Sure, but she'd also be using her long experience to pick up the betraying hints Nabiki doesn't think she's giving. The middle Tendo may be good, but however you spin it she's still only a teenager and can still be beaten with experience.]

does she
not?"
[Superfluous soft return]

on Kholkoz High's baseball team.
['Kholkoz' is most definitely not a Japanese name. It doesn't fit Japanese syllable construction.]

"I suppose that you're going to start training for drunken martial arts now?"
[The funny thing is, drunken fu is real.]

driving her to istraction for far too long.
[distraction]

Ranma seemed to know have missed
[Superfluous 'know']

but intoxicating addictive at the same time.
[Although it should be 'intoxicatingly' in this context, I think only one of those words is necessary.]

Between okonomiyaki chef's bizarre cooking-styled fighting, and the psychotic gymnast's hit-and-run distance style, neither felt like a true fight.
[Interesting evaluation, and both feel true to the character outlook.]

Part 8

the door to the Nekohanten was thrown up with enough force to actually crack one of the hinges.
[The front door to the Nekohanten is sliding, it doesn't have hinges.]

to crack the remaining hinge,
[The Cat Cafe's door is sliding, it doesn't have hinges. Only the interior doors in the living space are Western-style swinging doors.]

person who does martial artist.
[martial _arts_]

the Ranma you had those feelings for... wasn't the real Ranma. I don't think he ever was."
[I think this drives quite strikingly at the misconceptions that a lot of the characters (particularly Akane) had over the course of the series.]

Part 9

You're right. Ranma and I... aren't alike.
[This is a remarkable step of maturity that Akane is making.]

food,
exercise, friendship,
[Superfluous soft return]

Your story around Ranma's need for somebody to meet him on his martial arts point was fair, hindered mostly by the spacing and a few technical issues. Fortunately, the characterization seemed fair and it was great to see almost no character bashing (though, like I said, I disagreed with the use of Cologne). The only thing I really would've asked for would be more narrative, more of the action and what/where/how, because the vast majority of this story was dialog. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, Isaac Asimov is dialog-centric, but I like a little more meat (narrative) on the story.

Part 3

She still hadn't understood why her Great-grandmother had grilled her last night on the codes of the Amazon warrior.
[Given what is shown in the canon (manga and anime), I don't think that would be necessary. Shampoo would know her duty and stick with it. The review was still good, it lets the audience know those vital little tidbits ahead of time.]

reading, "Belong to Shampoo".
[Shampoo's always had trouble speaking Japanese, but during the “martial arts calligraphy” arc (and a few others in the manga) it's shown that she's good at written Japanese.]

He's been acting really nice. I'm not going to hurry things up. If it's good, then it's good."
[Despite the unusual events (for Nerima), I think this is a very good depiction of her character and how she'd actually act in a circumstance like that.]

How had...
[Interrogative missing its question mark. I think the ellipsis should have a question mark placed at the end.]

"Well done, Great-granddaughter. Well done, indeed."
[I knew who it was as soon as the descriptor 'small' was used, but the problem remains that this looks too dark...machiavellian for Cologne. Might she engineer something like this? Quite possibly, but I think that instead of this ambiguous 'well done', a statement of pride (which would help keep the audience focused on Shampoo's determination instead of brooding on Cologne's plan and the acceptance of whatever pain came) would be better suited.]

NO! >
[The first thing I noticed was that there isn't any opening angled bracket (or punctuation of any kind). I don't know if this is because QuickEdit is consistently eating it, but every time in this story the opener should show it's not there. However, after re-reading the section, I think that cutting this 'no' (or Akane's, but I think that one is rather necessary) would strengthen the transition and the odd yet interesting symmetry of the scenes.]

He-she... was a good fighter!
[I think the order 'She-he' would better reflect the events back then and her recollection of them.]

Where is that determination now?"
[Stubbornly trying to hide her injury from Ranma.]

Her hair was still matted with blood
[This implies that she wasn't even cleaned, and I doubt that she'd get into bed while still bloody and dirty. That wouldn't help the healing process, and Cologne would know it.]

replaced by his good-
twin."
[First: 'good twin' may be a compound but doesn't need (and probably shouldn't have) a hyphen. Second: superfluous soft return, though I think I'll stop pointing them out as the spacing story-wide is weird.]

"And for once, my Great-granddaughter didn't start the fight," Cologne confirmed grimly.
[As the story currently goes, this is a lie. She was sent out to go find Akane and fight. If Cologne hadn't told Shampoo to do so, if she found Akane pretty much just by coincidence (which is what ends up happening) then I wouldn't see any problem with this little manipulation-that-is-not-quite-a-lie, largely because it wouldn't be a lie at all then.]

"She should be alright in a few days."
[Fast as martial artists heal, Shampoo was battered to the point where she thought her legs were so broken she wouldn't walk. As proud and stubborn a person as Shampoo is, that means that she has _serious_ damage. Something more along the lines of a week.]

And no mention about a Kiss of Death?
[Why would that be necessary? It's Shampoo's business, and technically she already gave Akane a Kiss of Death.]

That didn't fit with anything that she knew about Amazons and their rather over-inflated sense of pride.
[Although this is possibly in-line with Nabiki's views, I doubt that it's a truth of objective reality. Cologne's warned Shampoo against taking Happosai lightly (at least, I think she did), and there have been a few times where she rebuked her child for underestimating things.]

I don't want you getting' hurt-ACK!"
Shampoo held Ranma firmly by his neck.
[I don't see this - that's one of the distinctive characteristics of Shampoo, she almost never strikes Ranma (though she's not _totally_ innocent). Particularly with her as injured as she's supposed to be, though even despite that I could see her lunging at him, maybe grabbing fistfulls of his shirt. Doing that and throwing him up against the wall? Sure. I could easily see her yelling at him, but choking him? I can't even think of any times Akane's done that, and Akane's the most liable to actions in anger.]

to let my Great-granddaughter help you out.
[Doesn't quite look like Cologne's speech patterns.]

"Fortunately, Akane Tendou doesn't use weapons.
[Actually, she's been seen with weapons (a shinai and bo are two that spring to mind), Soun's been seen with a naginata, yari, and others; implying I think fairly strongly that the Tendo school includes the use of weapons. Although, since either way she wouldn't have any weapons here, the statement might go 'she _didn't_ use weapons']

Many Amazons thinks
[think]

"None of your business, Nabiki. Why dontcha go ask her yourself?"
[I _think_ that this is something snapped or said sardonically, but there isn't any speech tag to give any clarifying detail. Such would be appreciated, as there are numerous points in the story like this that, although they get by without significant narrative, would be strengthened by some.]

The Amazon still looked a mess, and walked with a visible limp.
[And that's all we get. Nothing about residual bruises, black eyes, scab tissue. I get the point, I'm just saying it would've been nice...]

If not, she be wife to him already!
[I doubt it, but this is probably a verbal prod in any case.]

The reason that Akane keeps beating you is because you're afraid to go all-out against her!"
"Well, actually-"
[Points: +1]

she had stuck a fake boken to the dummy.
[Spelling: bokken. And it's a fake sword, anyway, she'd just use one of her own (she shows up with them on occasion in the anime, and I've seen her with it at least once in the manga).]

Was it possible that...
[Interrogative missing its question mark. I know not all authors do it, but I'm one of the many who do and advocate to the others to attach a question mark after the ellipsis.]

He planned on fighting seriously her sometime soon.
[Flip 'her' and 'seriously' and then it will be grammatically workable.]

Part 4

"Get hurt part of training, ne?
[Obligatory Japanese. I'd leave it as a short statement, that would be in perfect line with the rest of her line here.]

"It for people who not have other person to practice with!"
[Except for the necessary teacher... Just thought I'd mention.]

Shampoo was hyperventilating by now.
[Hyperventilation is when breathing becomes shallow and you lose control of respiration. Gasping or gaping for breath, sure, but if she's hyperventilating then she's probably also collapsing and it would take at least a few minutes to stabilize enough oxygen to regain control of breathing.]

barely supporting her weight right now.
[This segment is unnecessary, I'd cut it as it only acts as repetition – I like the comparison to boiled noodles, that's plenty to figure out that she's hardly on her feet.]

"Shampoo not tell. except Great-grandmother.
[Punctuation: I see a period instead of comma after 'tell'.]

"Not... too bad, I guess."
Akane's face lit up like a cherub. "Really? You really mean that?"
[I'm shocked that Akane took that as praise. It's not exactly a glowing recommendation.]

You expect that I'm going to charge you for this help? I draw a line between family and business.
[She doesn't draw a line between family and business, it's always business, that's Nabiki's character. She charges everybody, family included. She even nearly exposed Ranma's curse to his mother Nodoka, something which could have had him killed, just so she could extort a little money from him. The most I'd believe is her offering a 'family discount'.]

Part 5

Next to Ranma, she was possibly Happousai's favourite target to grab at.
[Though I can't think of any instances where Happosai's glomped Shampoo. I'm sure he would if he had the opportunity, but he seemed more keen to fondle Akane.]

Shampoo inexperience
[Possession: Shampoo's]

I... don't want to push him around like they do."
[How ironic to see this coming from Akane. Not that it's out-of-character, quite the opposite, it's just that she pushes him around at _least_ as much as the others, every one of the Fiancee Brigade has a wide jealous, possessive, self-centered streak (to one degree or another on each count). That's one of the things that makes them more interesting and more real, when it's not done overboard. Unfortunately, as a comedy instead of drama the series never tends to really address those issues - that's one thing I agree with Adonhefka on.]

Part 1

[First thing to say about this chapter: overuse of soft returns. Even though the text is relatively separated by paragraphs, it ends up looking like one, awkwardly-right-indented block of text. I almost stopped reading from the first chapter, which is a shame because there's a good story in here. It's just not easily accessible to the readers.]

"Blind idiot," Shampoo agreed,
[When he's not directly bothering her, would she be giving him any attention at all?]

Cologne smirked also. "She's quite right, boy. Go ahead and keep trying. But Shampoo will never be yours in this lifetime."
[This seemed OOC for Cologne - the matriarch may have smirked at his stupidity and enjoyed the entertainment, but browbeating was never her thing; and rarely did she ever rub failure in somebody's nose (the one example I can think of is with Ranma, in which it seemed pretty clear to me she was galvanizing him on). The best depiction I've seen of her was in Adonhefka's “Dreams of the Earthbound”, which explains why she allows Mousse to remain around, and why she taught Ryouga but never seemed to try to train him again despite the fact that Hibiki proved himself to be capable of equaling Ranma martially.]

Keep disgracing yourself...
[I don't see how this barb would be constructive, and that's one thing Cologne always was: every word and action was geared towards a greater goal. Even after going through the story, I don't see how this harsh conversation fit in with her character. It seemed to be more by luck than by Cologne's guidance that Shampoo openly acknowledged that her means of courting Ranma and ignoring Akane were ineffective.]

incidentally sending Ranma sprawling downwards towards the river in the process.
[It's a canal, not a river.]

"I ain't doin' nothing!" Ranma shot back, mustering as much dignity as was possible while hanging upside down.
[Points: +1]

She'd been there when the old woman had 'helped' Ryouga.
[I guess this supposition would be an observation from Akane's character. Again my personal opinion was that she actually _did_ want to help Ryouga, and the Bakusai Tenketsu was just a mechanism for that opening. Whether she felt she was successful in that particular gamble is something I've never been able to decide.]

will of you after this?"
[will _think_]

I miss ne geography
[any]

off doing errands/plotting.
[errands _or_ plotting. The slash often looks tacky, or reminds people of computer code instead of building narrative.]

skilled in a great number
medicinal arts.
[This is one of those weird soft returns that I've encountered that comes not just mid-paragraph, but mid-sentence.]

but things went very badly for the government,
[Staying out of their eye would have been the only way to avoid being destroyed. Even if they'd destroyed an entire armored division, the very fact that they'd comitted would have made it a matter of political pride and they'd have sacrificed tens of thousands just to keep their reputation. The very same reasoning that made the Roman empire throw so much at the roughly 10 rebels at Masada, they know that if they fail to put down one, then others will hear and then there shall be many; China may not be as diverse as the Roman empire, but it's still made up of dozens if not hundreds of peoples and it's still tenuous if not fragile.]

But if this worked, she would never have a chance
[you mean if it _did_ work, 'she _would_ have' a chance?]

take it or
leave it.
[Another soft return breaking up a sentence.]

Part 2

"It's impossible!" he declared.
"Exactly!" the teacher agreed enthusiastically. "The law of odd powers prohibits this comparison from being valid. I'm glad you were paying attention for once-"
"There's no way she won fair and square!" Ranma continued on heedlessly.
"I knew it was too good to be true..."
[Points: +1]

He'd held out even longer this time than last night.
[How would he do that when he'd effectively been poisoned? At the very least he'd lost all that energy he spent puking, and then the energy he wouldn't be getting from the food he can't eat...]

Alright boy,
[Missing opening quote marks.]

Now about your upcoming fight with Akane Tendou..."
[I still don't think it would have been wise for Cologne to _tell_ Shampoo to go after Akane, doing so would have tipped her hand. Given the events, she'd very likely let slip that Akane had been making some curious improvements, and Shampoo just overheard that the Tendo beat Ranma, so the elder just 'expressing curiosity at the recent developments and Akane', possibly asking Shampoo if she knew of anything, which would increase the amazon's curiosity. From there, it would be a very small step (if necessary plot device) to have Shampoo confront Akane, perhaps initially not to start a fight but just to question Akane. Akane already starts the fight later, so Shampoo wouldn't actually need to do any more than be there.]

but he had a hunch
[but _she_]

Certainly Akane was powerful. But she
[Based on the idea flow, I think a comma would have been better than a full stop (the period) after 'powerful']

"Anything-Goes, remember that! If you can't beat her normally, then we'll just have to cheat our way to victory!"
[Strange as that 'sounds'...at first glance, that is very true to Genma's character and this teaching shows in Ranma.]

Ranma and Shampoo in this story are rather single-minded. As local Cologne said: Ranma's only aim in life is The Art and nothing more, and same with Shampoo. That is too bat to be true. Obviously Shampoo's main priority is to be good Amazon, possibly best. This means being good (best) fighter, but also this means being respected citizen back home, and also - being mother of true Amazon children. And with Ranma things also are not so primitive. He wants to master The Art, but also he wants (is taught to want) to be 'a man among men'. This concept easily includes some social aspects and possibly unpacks to rather exhaustive set of traits and achievements.

In short: author, you have oversimplified those characters.

So far so very good. No, make it excellent. I have read over 200 stories about Ranma and your plot is well thought and built, and your style is smooth, flood-free and not dry.

Amazing.

Grammar wasn't perfect, but it was more then acceptable.

Plot wasn't to intricate. Yet that the beauty of it.

Character Depth, was indubitably a high point.

If one were superficial it wouldn't seem that great. Doesn't sound that great either. Yet the whole entire story in itself is a success.

Added to my Favorite Stories list.

I love this story. I do think that you have tweeked the chars ever so slightly off cannon, but i think it makes this story better not worse. and you could proboly convince me i was wrong if we argued about it. maby.

YAYS! IS CUTE!

I absolutely love this story, but I have a question about the homework topic. How the heck did Ranma even get into calculus if he sleeps in class? Was this a veiled reference to hidden intelligence or was it just some random topic off the top of your head?

Hi I just finished reading Power and am writing to say that I fully enjoyed reading your story. After the first chapter of reading this I instantly got hooked on it. And as I finished it I couldn't help but feel sad that I finished it . =P Hopefully you are continuing to write more stories to keep Ranma fans entertained! Oh and is there a continuation of this story by any chance?? :P