Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Shadows are Stirring ❯ Epiroogu ( Chapter 21 )

Epilogue

It ended up that Shampoo's thoughts on the matter were rather accurate, and both Ranma and Akane were immensely pleased that they were almost done with school. Around Christmas time, Akane was starting to show signs of being with a child, though they had known since about September.

Dr. Tofu knew the gender, but he had been asked not to tell anyone, simply because the two parents wanted it to be a surprise. He could understand... although he and Kasumi were taking precautions, they both wanted a child eventually, and he would have wanted it to be a surprise, too.

The Saotome child was due for mid April, which meant they would be done school before the birth. This was just as well, as neither of the two newlyweds were really prepared to deal with all the questions and comments from those at school, and Akane had gotten really upset when someone asked her if the child was Ranma's or not. As if she would ever consider being with anyone else...

Romance had apparently been in the air, however. It hadn't even been a month since their wedding before Kasumi announced plans for her own. Dr. Tofu had since moved into the newly renovated Tendo residence, while keeping his clinic open to the public.

Ranma and Akane had both decided to keep calling the house the Tendo residence, even though they were the owners, and were both Saotome now. Akane had pointed out that her father was still living with them, and Ranma had conceded to that point.

Aside from Dr. Tofu and Kasumi becoming much more seriously involved, Mousse had, surprisingly, found a connection with the new student Fenrish. Although several people in the household had been worried about Shampoo's reaction to that news, the Amazon warrior had simply smiled and congratulated Mousse on finding a woman of his level.

For her part, Shampoo had barely even looked at another man since the fight between Akane and herself.

Ryoga had eventually returned to Akari in the woods, and for all accounts and purposed, was doing quite well. The crew in the Tendo's rarely heard from the eternally lost boy, however, despite the fact that Ranma had invited him on as a teacher for the School. Ryoga had initially accepted, but later had told Ranma that it would not be possible for him for quite some time.

Nodoka and Nabiki had ended up sharing a room together to avoid having to remodel the house again. Neither had a problem with this, however, as Nodoka was widely looked at as the Matriarch of the household - stepping in and putting her foot down whenever she thought things were getting a little out of hand - and Nabiki was in charge - officially, now - of finances.

For his part, Soun Tendo was thoroughly enjoying his carpentry work. Even though the house had been finished, he was often found hard at work repairing the Dojo from strenuous workout sessions, and when Nabiki managed to buy the lot next to them as well, he had insisted on expanding the Dojo into a full sized training hall.

Of Taro - whose first name had simply been erased in the end, as Ranma had refused to call him Au Some - and Ukyo, no one was really sure where they had ended up. They had apparently left town together shortly after Ranma and Akane left for their honeymoon. Taro had been seen since, but claimed not to have seen Ukyo for quite some time.

And so life went on in Nermia ward, one of the larger wards of Tokyo, Japan. Although gaining in popularity with the approaching reopening of the School of Anything Goes, things had calmed down more than anyone would have guessed even a year earlier.

March of Ranma and Akane's last year of schooling was marred - not by exams, which they both actually passed, thanks to Akane's insistence of Ranma studying for once in his life - but by weddings. Two of them, in fact. Mousse and Fenrish were the first to be married, and chose the odd day of March 15th. Fenrish had made some comment about it being the Ides, and how the negative history had to be erased from that date by a joyous occasion, but didn't really explain what she meant to anyone.

Although no one knew about it until after the fact, Ryoga and Akari had apparently tied the knot as well five days later in Hokkaido. How they had ended up there, no one asked, but apparently they had a child on the way, due in about seven months. Akane beat Ranma to the punch in pointing out what exactly that meant - he had been planning on making fun of Ryoga, but Akane's comments about how a pig's pregnancy must be shorter sucked the wind out of anything he had come up with.

Of course, by this point in her own pregnancy, Akane was getting rather irritated by even very little things. The fact that Ranma - with his mother and her father backing him up - had forbidden her from practicing for the past three months, and that she wasn't allowed to start again until a full month after she had given birth did nothing to help improve her moods.

However, after twelve hours of labour in Nermia General Hospital, Ranma and Akane Saotome's child was finally brought into the world on April 26th, 1995. Weighing seven pounds, 8 ounces, she was a healthy sized baby girl with a small tuff of red hair on the top of her head. In the end, they called her Saotome Renia, and introduced her to her home two days later.

What else could await the once heirs, and now the leaders of the School of Anything Goes Martial Arts? For once, it finally seemed that the Kami of Chaos had finally sat back to take a break - a rather well deserved one, at that.

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"Well, do we have a deal?"

Silence answered her for a few minutes, until a soft grunt finally met her ears and she pulled the lid off the giant pot. Tipping it over, she dumped the man onto the floor of her small inn where she had taken him earlier.

"I'm not going to take her to Jusenkyo, though!"

"You've got that right, sugar!" she said fiercely. "I don't intend for my daughter to get cursed!"

"You think I meant for it to happen to my son? Or to myself?"

She growled in response and turned away from him to pick up her daughter, who had been sleeping in the bassinet she had made for her. "Any other objections?"

"If you keep me fed like you promised, then I'll train her to be the best."

"Good," she said with a nod. "I'll be right behind you, keeping an eye on things, too. There's no way they'd ever let their son marry a girl who had poor training."

"I raised my son to demand the best!"

"And thanks to you, his child's going to get it too, isn't he?"

"Why is that so important to you, anyway?"

She found herself wishing as she ushered the larger man out of the room ahead of her that she hadn't been carrying her sleeping child, just so she could strike him hard with her weapon. "I couldn't have him! So I intend to make sure my daughter does what I couldn't ever do!"

"They'll never go for it, you know."

"Just start leading us to where we'll begin. My little girl will be ready to start training in a year or so, and I expect her to start right away, got it?"

Genma Saotome nodded and hoisted his pack to his shoulders again. He would not even get the chance to return home to tell anyone before he was being dragged off again. At least this time, it was for a good reason - someone was going to have to beat some training into the little girl that had been shown to him.

Ukyo stopped at the edge of the town to look back in the direction of Tokyo, far to the south now. "Since our honour wasn't upheld with us, Ran-chan... perhaps your child will marry my daughter. I will return when the pain has faded... please don't forget me." She had heard that Akane was pregnant, and given how powerful Ranma was, she knew that the child would be a boy. It was perfect, really... her honour could be restored, and she would be a part of his family in the end after all.

With a sigh, she looked down to the child in her arms and forced herself to smile gently. "Hopefully she will be good enough to win your son's heart. She will fly true... to be the best. My little Maina..."

Akane had gone into labour earlier that day.

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I hope everyone enjoyed this. Stay on the lookout for the Sequel, entitled Turning of the Tides.

Please let me know what you think of this piece, too. I write fanfiction to improve my writing - hearing for people helps with that.

And, just in case the two I provided wasn't enough… I do not own Ranma1/2. That right belongs to several others, chiefly Rumiko Takahashi. I simply own this storyline, and a couple of the moves (basically the ones you don't recognize from the manga/anime.