Total rework from the ground up, kept some things, tossed out and even added some things.

Nerima was experiencing a truly rare night. There was nothing going on for once. Residents of the ward had begun to think that peace would never return and the quiet nights of summer were in the past. Older citizens sat on their porch listening to the cicadas chirp as they have for many years. Children could be heard faintly as the light of day faded into a peaceful night. The people were beginning to wonder if the Tendo family had moved out of the neighborhood or taken a vacation of sorts.

At the Tendo residence, peace reigned for once. It had been a few days since the most recent incident involving a bottle of water, a spirit of a tea kettle, a clone, a fight and the neighbor’s dog. Few wanted to remember said incident so it was best left to the past. Needless to say, Ranma had been the focus of the whole fiasco and eventually found a solution of sorts to the problem. As Ranma settled down on the roof of the house, a faint whistle of a tea kettle could be heard along with the howling of the neighbor’s dog. A brief shudder ran down Ranma’s spine as the sounds dredged up memories.

Quickly pushing the memories away, Ranma began the process of thinking once again. The moon had just begun to rise above the horizon while random thoughts moved through Ranma’s mind. He was reminded of the past two years living with the Tendo family. Ranma often found solace in the sight of the moon for reasons beyond his understanding and could think a bit easier while watching the pale orb.

It shocked Ranma at times to realize that little had changed in the last two years. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. It was always random fiancée A, massive martial arts battle B, prince or royalty guy C kidnapping somebody, or any of a slew of issues that seemed to repeat themselves into infinity. Along with these issues, the fights and bickering would always come up as well. His “best” friends would constantly blame him for things and quickly dump their own problems on Ranma’s shoulders. It was as if the world itself wanted to leave everything on him.

His thoughts always returned to Akane. The past few nights of relative peace gave Ranma the luxury of truly thinking about the situation. Admittedly, thinking was often a long, arduous process that Ranma would avoid at all costs since his training often relied on simply reacting instantly to a situation. Ranma had to stick to this process though since it could potentially cost him everything he held close to his heart. He approached this level of deep thinking as a battle and it was starting to pay off as his thoughts began to gather and sort themselves out. It has been Kasumi to initially offer the approach to Ranma.

Ranma’s thoughts about his relationship with Akane often pointed out all the flaws in their position. Originally, their relationship was rocky because of the constant shouting matches and physical abuses. More often then the pair could get along, they would argue and those arguments would usually end up with Ranma being hit by Akane. What few times they could get along, it seemed as though there was some ulterior motive behind it. That’s not to say they didn’t care for one another. It was obvious that the pair cared deeply for one another through their actions. Many simply thought the relationship could use some maturing since children would often tease and torment the target of their affections. Ranma couldn’t see the connection. Since the Saffron incident, their relationship seemed to go from bad to worse. The couple never acknowledged the events that took place on that mountain. Ranma refused to admit that he had shouted his true feelings for the world to hear and Akane refused to even admit anything happened at all. It was as if the entire day was wiped from her memory. Kasumi mentioned once to Ranma that was how Akane tended to react to trauma of that level and she would eventually remember.

Ranma seriously doubted Akane would ever want to remember what happened. Immediately after things with Saffron, the fathers tried to marry Ranma and Akane. The wedding was thankfully ruined and for a while, things seemed to look up for the pair. They would run to school together and would genuinely enjoy the company of the other. As things often do, habits began to reassert themselves and the pair went back to their bickering and teasing. Several people tried to council the couple but to no avail. Just three months after the events at Jusendo, the couple began to totally ignore one another. It wasn’t even predicted by the typical fight. Technically, the pair had never broken off the engagement this time; they just simply stopped talking. Ranma sighed slowly into the night as he thought of Akane. There had been so much potential and so many possibilities that just disappeared overnight. At least the fathers gave up on trying to put the pair back together and talking. Ranma suspected an outside influence but could never confirm it.

Finishing his thoughts on that matter, Ranma officially closed the book on his relationship with Akane in his mind. There was little hope of salvaging things with her. Next on his list was Ukyou. This situation was just as hard on Ranma as things were with Akane. Ukyou was a dear friend to Ranma but the friendship had been strained beyond any reasonable extent by her constant pursuit of Ranma. It wasn’t that he minded the attention but Ranma only wanted a friend. He was still young enough to have many more years ahead to choose a wife. Ukyou wouldn’t hear of it and took it upon herself to prove that she would be the best choice. The whole situation left Ranma almost as confused as Akane did. Ukyou was a great friend when she wasn’t trying to flaunt the fiancée issue in his face. Since the wedding incident, relations had become strained. Ranma could hardly see Ukyou as a friend since she was so obsessed with him and the idea of marrying him that she would put anybody that could be a threat to that in harms way.

Ranma still talked to Ukyou on occasion but the friendship had taken a major blow it just couldn’t seem to recover from. To be honest, he felt betrayed by his friend. Because of her, in part, Ranma was forced to help rebuild the dojo he didn’t have a hand in destroying. Fact of the matter was, Ranma tried desperately to save the dojo as much as he could but failed. Needless to say, Ranma and Ukyou hardly spoke anymore. He just could never get over her obsession and found it hard to stomach the idea of being with somebody that needed him that desperately.

Shampoo was a different matter entirely to Ranma. He had little clue about why she pursued him so hard outside of her stupid laws. Thoughts would eventually show Ranma that there had to be a reason for the laws and he only had to find the weakness to exploit in the end but the weaknesses were carefully covered by Cologne. Since Ranma didn’t know their dialect of Chinese, he was forced to simply go with the Japanese translation they so conveniently supplied. Nabiki had been the one to point out that the amazons had likely not translated all their laws into a foreign tongue to keep foreigners from overcoming the language barrier so easily. Shampoo was a constant frustration to Ranma since she could not take no for an answer and would not take no for an answer. He was still trying to find a way out of their laws so that he wouldn’t feel guilty for simply breaking it off. The thought stuck gold about why Ranma never simply told Shampoo off and made her leave. If he simply told her to take a long walk off a short pier, he would feel guilty since he was the one to tell her off. He just couldn’t marry somebody that expected him to simply be a servant to them which was what Shampoo expected of him. Ranma wasn’t totally disgusted with the idea of dong house work even though it had been pounded into his head, literally sometimes, that men shouldn’t be doing house work. What Ranma found most disgusting was how the amazons treated men and he just could not live in that sort of environment.

Ranma could easily ignore Kodachi. She was crazy and proved it on many occasions. Though Ranma would sometimes wonder what had caused such a dangerous instability in the girl. He could easily admit most of her family was crazy but Kodachi was above and beyond anything her family was. That left little doubt as to the proper course of action in regards to Kodachi. Ranma could only refuse adamantly and stick to it. Quite frankly, the girl scared him and set up warning signals across the board.

Switching position, Ranma realized why he dealt with all the stuff that was constantly piled up on him was because was afraid to hurt anybody’s feelings. Some used that against him and others simply didn’t know they did it. About the only people that were genuine with him were Kasumi and, amazingly enough, Nabiki. Kasumi was generally a nice person and treated him well enough. She hardly ever changed her mind on a whim. Nabiki was a different matter entirely. She tended to use Ranma when she could and even made extra money off his misery but she was consistent about it.

Ranma began to wonder how he would break the news to everybody about not wanting to marry Akane. He suspected the fathers would react the same way they always did. Genma would demand he follow through because of family honor. Soun would begin bawling about how he was rejecting his little girl. The two would then disappear for hours to end up at a bar drinking again while hatching some crazy scheme to force Ranma and Akane back together again. He grunted slightly as he reached for an itchy spot on his back just out of reach.

As Ranma began to lie back down on the roof with his arms crossed behind his head to act as an impromptu pillow, his ears picked up the sound of Akane working off some of the days stress in the dojo. It was a wonder she was ever able to hit anything since she practiced on bricks all the time. With a final exhale, Ranma stood up smoothly to head back inside to drop the news on the families without the interference of Akane. The sound of shattering bricks came to an end and replaced by the sound of splintering wood which caused Ranma to grin slightly. Leave it to Akane to get bored with bricks and begin hitting wooden practice dummies with a pigtail on them.

These series of events caused Ranma to fully believe there was no way to save the relationship he tried to have with Akane. The family would initially try to force them back together but Ranma had a plan to stop that. He would simply leave. He was near enough to finishing high school to put down roots elsewhere. The only problem would be getting the permission of his guardian. Maybe his mother would cover that.

Padding across the roof silently, Ranma noticed something out of place in the night but couldn’t put his finger on it for a few moments. He mulled over the issue for a moment before the realization hit him. In the years he had lived with the Tendo family, he had become so used to the music Nabiki liked to exercise to that it just sort of became a part of the background noise. She was quite adamant about staying in shape even though she didn’t practice the art. Every night just after the sun set, the same upbeat, driving aerobics music would play.

Curiosity won out over practicality as Ranma found his legs moving him towards Nabiki’s window of their own accord. Cautiously, Ranma began to creep along the roof edging closer to the ledge that would overlook Nabiki’s room. He knew he was in dangerous territory since the whole situation could quickly spiral out of control and totally against him. As he squirmed closer to the edge, Ranma noticed that there was significantly less light than considered normal coming out of Nabiki’s window.

Realizing it was too early for Nabiki to be sleeping, Ranma began to tentatively explore his surroundings trying to stay out of sight. He placed his ear at a better angle and began to concentrate on drawing out any sound that didn’t belong. The faint, muffled sniffling coming from below him almost caused a bit of a panic.

Composing himself as best he could, Ranma let his curiosity get the best of him because of the idea of the self proclaimed Ice Queen of Furinken was not so icy. As he hung from the edge of the roof, Ranma maneuvered himself until he could see into Nabiki’s room through a crack in her curtains. For a long moment, Ranma saw nothing of importance and wondered where the sounds could be coming from.

Through the crack in the curtains, Ranma eventually found Nabiki laying face down on her bed with her head buried in a pillow. Her shoulders shook minimally with each sob Ranma heard. The sight nearly caused him to lose his grip on the roof and tumble down to the ground. Only his superior reflexes allowed Ranma to steady himself on the sill of Nabiki’s window. Any normal person would have never noticed such a small sound in the midst of their misery but people with something to hide or a reputation to protect hardly qualify as normal.

Nabiki peeked over the top of her pillow and their eyes locked. Ranma knew he was caught and would pay in spades for invading her privacy. Ranma prepared for the worst and wanted desperately to run but as long as she kept her eyes locked on his, Ranma couldn’t find the power to run. He was simply frozen in place thinking he had been caught.

While Ranma’s brain was beginning to short circuit, Nabiki was even more surprised to see him hanging upside down outside her window. This situation always happened to her sister and never her. She had the feeling she was being watched but her door was locked and nobody was stupid enough to spy on her when she closed up in her room. Her initial reaction was to try to extort money out of the boy but her mood wouldn’t allow it. The look on Ranma’s face was almost enough to make Nabiki laugh.

Nabiki thought she must look a mess at that point. Giving a glare to Ranma to ensure he wouldn’t move she rubbed her face in the pillow to clean up as best she could given the situation at hand. Nabiki would never say she was vain but there was no reason to present a totally devastated look to the world. From somewhere inside the pillow she muttered, “Come in, Ranma.” The offer was simple and the window wouldn’t be locked.

As Ranma began to reach towards the window to open it, Nabiki cringed into the pillow about how her voice must sound choked up with emotion as it was. It had to sound simply horrible to other people. Knowing Ranma as well as she did, Nabiki knew that Ranma just might be one of the few guys that could listen and not jump to the wrong conclusions or ideas. Strike that, Ranma would come to the wrong conclusions but at least the conclusions wouldn’t hurt. Nabiki watched Ranma slowly crawl through her window like a skittish animal. She only hoped things would begin to work out the right way for her.