The fic starts out and stays in third-person unlimited perspective. That means the reader will know everything that the author deems important enough to mention in the area that is the current focus, such as the Tendo dojo or Furinkan high school.

I don't own Ranma 1/2, and I'm almost sure I'm not the first person to come up with the "give me just one day" scenario, but I don't recall ever reading such as a fanfic in the Ranmaverse, so I'm writing it now. A friend of mine is doing an alternate post-story write, pending this thing's release.

---

Prologue: Give Me A Day

---

"Ranma, you jerk!" echoed the shout of feminine anger. Propelled by a fist of righteous fury, the 'jerk' in question was launched into the air.

As he spun overhead of the Tendo dojo, Ranma Saotome was, for quite possibly only the second time in his life, truly angry. "What did I do THIS time?!" he grumbled. "I can't take much more of this."

Ranma noted that he was arcing toward the koi pond. "Figures," he growled. "She can't really hurt me anymore, so she tries to embarrass me. Tch. Uncute tomboy." He adjusted his flight so that he wouldn't accidentally injure himself on the landing, and made splashdown.

Muttering darkly upon surfacing, Ranma-chan made her way to the kitchen to beg some hot water from Kasumi. 'Enough was enough,' went the saying, but Ranma was long past the 'enough' line, even with his seemingly unlimited patience, and he planned to make that fact known--but to do that, he needed to be male. The bright red hair and constantly-shifting weights on her chest would ruin the needed image.

Thanking Kasumi for the kettle and making use of the heated water therein, Ranma walked into the sitting room, kneeling down at the table. 'I killed someone--a GOD, no less--to save her life, and she still treats me as less than DIRT! That's just too much. These crazies around here are lucky Jusendo happened. If I hadn't been able to take out some steam fighting Saffron, I'd have probably killed someone closer to home,' he thought.

Ranma sighed. He had come to see the dojo as his home now. And it seemed he would soon lose it. But if he didn't...someone could lose their life, which was worth more than any living place.

"Ranma-kun?" asked Kasumi's soft voice from the kitchen doorway. "Is something wrong?"

Kasumi's soothing voice made Ranma feel his anger slowly slipping away, allowing him clearer and more rational thought again. He calmly exhaled, looking over to face her. "Nah, I'm fine." He glanced into his peripheral vision, seeing Soun and Genma playing...something involving cards with monsters drawn on them. Faintly, he could hear Akane smashing cinderblocks in the dojo. Equally faintly, even though it was closer, he could hear Nabiki's abacus clicking upstairs as she ran over the latest facet of the finances. He could hear absolutely nothing of his mother.

Bringing himself back to the here and now, Ranma focused on Kasumi again, carefully wording what he needed to say. "Could you gather everyone in here? I have an announcement to make."

"Certainly, Ranma-kun," replied Kasumi with a smile that was fake enough to look like a wax mask.

For some reason, Ranma's blood went cold. 'She knows!' his instincts screamed. 'Of course she knows, idiot! She pays attention to every detail when she cleans, so of course she'd see that I’m packed up to go! The question is what she'll DO about it,' he chastised himself.

It didn't take long for the entire family, both Tendo and Saotome, to be assembled. Akane, predictably, opened the floor. "So now what, pervert? Going off on another training trip to defeat someone who showed up and challenged you?" she snarled.

'So angry,' Ranma mused. "Somethin' like that. But takin' the trip is enough this time."

"Excellent idea, son!" chortled Soun. "You and Akane can leave to train immediately. We can have your wedding in the dojo awaiting you as soon as you return!"

"Forget it," said Ranma. The statement registered instantly in Soun's brain, which adjusted what it heard to interpret that Ranma wished to train alone and have Akane await his return in a wedding gown.

"Of course, of course.’Absence makes the heart grow fonder,' they say," he said.

"You don't get it. I ain't marrying Akane. In fact, I don't even plan on comin' back from this trip."

Kasumi's eyes widened in understanding. That had been why he'd packed all of his possessions up! 'He's leaving for good? But...he and Akane...!'

'Oh, come off it, Kasumi,' a voice chastised in her mind, a voice she recognized as her mother's, a voice her mind often used to remind her of something she should already have known. 'Akane is probably the biggest reason behind him leaving!'

Kasumi noticed that Ranma had gotten up while she and everyone else was stunned, and had gone upstairs. He came back down, bearing a fully-loaded backpack.

"Now, see here, boy," began Genma, leaping at Ranma's back. His progress was reversed when Ranma back-kicked him outside and into the koi pond.

"Stuff it, Pops. No, make that 'Saotome-san,' since I AM givin' up my family. YOU made all those promises in my name, you can deal with 'em." He turned back around, this time confronted by Kasumi blocking his path. "Now what?"

"I challenge you, Ranma," said Kasumi, ignoring the incredulous looks from all present, including Ranma himself (though part of her did wonder if it was dropping the "-kun" or the actual challenge that caused the looks) as she continued, "I challenge you to give me one day--and only one--to convince you to stay here."

Ranma paused, considering Kasumi's unique 'challenge.' "One day?" he asked.

"That's all I ask," Kasumi replied. She wasn't entirely sure Ranma would accept, but it was all she had left.

"Just one?" he asked, to clarify.

"Just one." Kasumi didn't dare hope that he would accept, but...

"And what will we do on that day?"

"Anything you want. No limit." 'Oh, please, Mother, let him accept...!' She clenched her eyes shut, afraid of his denial.

Her eyes snapped open when she heard his pack hit the floor. "Alright, one day. I'll fight your emotional attempts every step of the way, but sure. You have one day, Kasumi Tendo, to convince me to stay, using any means you deem necessary."

"You pervert!" yelled Akane, jumping up. "This is all some plot to take advantage of Kasumi, isn't it?! Well, forget it!" she shouted, swinging her fist at Ranma.

The entire household froze at the loud 'pap!' sound of Akane's fist being caught in Ranma's hand. Even the two fighters seemed frozen in time for all present. Then, the moment passed. Ranma spun, Akane's fist in his grip. He released her after completing a full circle, then sent her off the ground with a simple uppercut. Following, he jumped after her and kicked out once, the air around his foot seeming to shift and warp as it moved, the kick impacting and firing Akane into the boundary wall just beyond the koi pond.

"My little girl! Ranma, you--" Soun began, but was cut off by Ranma lifting him off the floor one-handed and pinning him to the wall. Uncomfortably, the older man noticed that Ranma's vice-grip on his throat was very similar to the Master's, as were the coldly angry eyes the boy turned on him.

"Don't you dare criticize me for defending myself, Tendo-san. I'm never going back to being her punching bag just because the world doesn't revolve around her," growled the young man. "Your daughter is willing to go to any extent to keep me here. You should be happy--but I won't let you or anyone else interfere! I respect Kasumi too much to let her efforts go in waste because of idiots getting involved! Got it?"

"C-certainly, Ranma," coughed out Soun. He collapsed to the ground, gasping and wheezing, when Ranma released him. 'Angering that boy is like angering the Master!' he realized. 'Truly, if anyone is the Master's equal in the Art of Anything-Goes, it is that boy! I never knew Ranma could project the fear aura of the demon head...!'

"This means not suddenly shifting the engagement to Kasumi and then trying to push us together, too."

"Got it, Ranma," wheezed Soun.

Ranma nodded, accepting Soun's agreement, then turned around to the back yard. "I'd better at least make sure those two are still alive," he muttered, glancing at the panda floating in the koi pond and the bruised and battered Akane lying in the rubble of the boundary wall.

---

Well, there's the prologue. Several people I showed this to thought it sounded pretty good. I know who the pairing is, my friend who's writing the alternate knows who the pairing is, and it really shouldn't take much effort to tell who the pairing is. On a side note, if I happen to receive e-mails or reviews telling me to make it 'such and such a pair' or else...I'm going to point and laugh derisively alongside my in-training ninja buddy, archer 'sister,' and that weird guy with the Xbox that has so many mods that it makes my eyes burst when I look at it.

Ahem, chapter one is going to detail Kasumi's thoughts after this mess as she explains everything that happened to Nodoka, since I realized after the fact that she was never mentioned in the prologue. I need to come up with what she was doing. Shopping, probably. Also, Kasumi is going to re-examine her own feelings for the pigtailed boy, and why she tried so hard to stop him, even giving the undertone of offering him her body if that's what would keep him at 'home.'

Ahem. Review at your leisure.