Same Time Next Year
By M. Zephyr

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is a trademark of Rumiko Takahashi and VIZ Communications, and its characters have been borrowed without permission. This story was written for non-commercial purposes only.

Ranma x Akane. What if the old woman was not outdoors on the day that Ranma learned the neko-ken? Akane and Ranma first meet at age ten just after Ranma undergoes the neko-ken training and Akane's mother has died.

This appendix is not part of the story in the sense of the story as a literary unit with a beginning, plot and end. That ended with the previous chapter.

Although the appendix is written in story form, it isn't really a story in the sense of something constructed with an idea for dramatic impact. It's more a short description of how I see some of the major events unfolding, given what has already transpired. I'm not really interested in rewriting the entire manga series in this universe, so this is my way of providing a brief answer to the question "What next?" for those who are interested.

The next three years of high school were filled with many events of interest, which Akane and Ranma faced together. Which isn't to say their lives were like a fairy tale, full of happily ever after. From time to time they disagreed, and even had occasional angry arguments, but they always worked out their differences in relatively short order. Besides, such occurrences did provide them with the pleasant opportunity to make up afterward.

As planned, that first morning Akane had walked through the school gate with her arm tucked in Ranma's. Not a single member of the horde attacked them - all were frozen in shock, comical looks upon their faces, and not a few simply fell over and lay on the ground unmoving. The photographs which Nabiki took sold so well among the girls at the school that she didn't even bother to charge Akane for her copies. Naturally, Tatewaki Kuno attacked Ranma, but Ranma was ready for him and knocked him unconscious for his trouble. Kuno continued to be a pest over the years, but was never more than a minor annoyance, and their trouble with him tapered off after he graduated from high school and went overseas to college.

The boy Ranma was supposed to have the duel with before leaving for China had managed to get lost and had arrived several days late for the duel only to find that Ranma had departed the day before. This boy's name was Ryoga Hibiki, and he foolishly decided to chase after Ranma, all the way to Jusenkyo Valley. There he naturally ended up with a curse as well, one that changed him into a small black pig. When he showed up in Nerima, Ranma felt bad that he had been cursed and promised to tell no one about it. However, Ryoga then made the unfortunate mistake of allowing his cursed form to be adopted as a pet by Akane.

Akane was so charmed by the adorable miniature pig that she took him to bed with her, laughing at Ranma for being jealous of a pet pig. Ranma stewed over the situation for a while, then fetched a kettle of hot water and took it to Akane's room. Not wanting to break his promise, but determined to put a stop to the other boy's act, he woke Akane to hand her the kettle of hot water and then pointed at her sleeping pet. Her eyes going very wide, Akane took the kettle and poured some of the water onto the pig, transforming him into a startled, and very naked, Ryoga.

Ryoga was released from the hospital a month later. After that he would show up in Nerima from time to time, usually if he was trying to find his way to some other city, and would cause some trouble. But together Akane and Ranma were always more than capable of dealing with him.

Then there were the various girls who tried to fall in love with Ranma. Kodachi Kuno, Tatewaki's sister, was one. A martial arts gymnast, she was as delusional as her brother and insisted that Ranma must love her. Like Tatewaki, she was never more than a minor annoyance, and finally gave up in frustration after Ranma and Akane were married.

One thing that Ranma had neglected to tell Akane about his trip to China was how he had defeated an Amazon girl by the name of Shampoo while in female shape, for which he had received the Kiss of Death. It hadn't seemed all that important to him, at least not until Shampoo showed up in Nerima to kill onna-Ranma. Akane cooperated with Ranma to deal with this problem, and in the process Shampoo learned of Ranma's curse before anyone was hurt. The Chinese girl reluctantly admitted that the Kiss of Death was inapplicable, since Ranma was a male, although internally she regretted that she had not known this at the time of her defeat so that she could have given him the Kiss of Marriage instead. There no longer being any point to her quest, Shampoo returned to China.

However, her memory of the handsome male Ranma was quite pleasant, and her regret at not having him gradually grew greater. When she arrived at her home she decided to tell a little white lie to her great-grandmother Cologne. Specifically, she informed the matriarch that Ranma had defeated her again and she had given him the Kiss of Marriage. She expected this to get her sent back to Japan to claim her husband. She did not expect to end up with a Jusenkyo curse herself, and for Cologne to accompany her to Japan, but those things happened as well. The punishment she received when Cologne learned the truth was something she would remember for a long time.

However, Cologne's presence in Nerima turned out to be a stroke of luck for Ranma and Akane. It was around that time that Genma's and Soun's old master escaped from the imprisonment in which they had trapped him long ago. Happosai was his name, an incredibly perverted, amoral and thoroughly disreputable old goat, totally lacking in any sense of honor whatsoever. He also turned out to be an old enemy of Cologne. Since Happosai seemed determined to cause quite a lot of trouble for Ranma and Akane, and operating on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Cologne decided not to return home immediately, and instead gave a good deal of clandestine aid to Ranma. Shampoo took the opportunity of this extended stay in Japan to hatch occasional plots to try to win Ranma's love, all of which failed miserably, and which usually earned her a good whack over the head from Cologne's staff when she was invariably caught.

The third girl to show up, and announce her claim on Ranma, was one Ukyo Kuonji, an okonomiyaki chef. Ranma's father had engaged Ranma to Ukyo when they were six years old, conveniently overlooking the old agreement between himself and Soun Tendo to unite the Anything Goes schools through a union of their offspring. The proposed engagement with Ukyo turned out to be a scam to gain possession of her father's okonomiyaki cart, and Genma had abandoned Ukyo on the road instead of raising her as he had promised.

Ukyo arrived in Nerima planning to beat Ranma senseless, but when that failed, she tried to reinstate the engagement instead. However, this scheme ran into the brick wall of Akane's and Ranma's love for one another, and was further frustrated by the acceptance of their engagement by the rest of the Tendo's and, later, by Ranma's mother. In short, Ukyo's claim was ignored by everyone until she gave up in frustration. Eventually, she moved on with her life, and fell in love with and married a young man who came to work for her in the restaurant which she had established in Nerima while trying to win Ranma.

Genma Saotome returned to the Tendo compound once during this interval, thinking that sufficient time had passed that people might have forgotten some of his minor failings enough to welcome him. He was disabused of this notion as soon as he walked through the gate of the Tendo compound and met Kasumi Tendo. She had seen him from an upper window of the house as he was coming down the street, and met him on the path holding a katana. Genma quickly discovered that the oldest Tendo daughter was more lethal with a blade than his own wife Nodoka. He fled for his life and never tried to set foot in the house again. However, he hung around Nerima after that, frequently meeting with Soun Tendo in taverns. Soun felt some residual guilt for having sided with his daughters against his old friend, and assuaged this guilt with money, passing a few yen to Genma from time to time when he could afford it. In repayment, Genma would occasionally get the two of them into some kind of trouble. Whenever this happened, it would be up to Akane and Ranma to help them out of it.

Ranma trained Akane as he had promised, and she advanced rapidly in skill, becoming his near equal by the time they graduated from high school. Many people made the mistake of underestimating Akane, a mistake which they always regretted afterward. For example, there was the case of the bitter young man with a Jusenkyo curse from the pool of drowned yeti holding an eel and crane riding an ox. While in his cursed form, this fellow attempted to kidnap Akane. When he regained consciousness the next morning, he made himself a silent promise that if he ever attempted to kidnap anyone ever again, to never, never, never hold that person within kicking distance of his crotch.

When Ranma's mother, Nodoka Saotome, first showed up at the Tendo's, Genma was not present to cause difficulties. She met her son in his male form, and he proudly introduced his mother to his fiancée. Afterward, the two teens explained his curse to Nodoka. The older woman was naturally very startled by this development, and stayed away for several days while she pondered her feelings on the matter, but finally returned and declared herself pleased with her son's manly behavior. In particular, that he was happily engaged to such a lovely young woman, and that he had shown no cowardice about his curse, such as attempting to hide it from her.

Shortly after this event, Genma ceased to be a problem. As details of her husband's ideas of training became known to her, Nodoka found herself conceiving a great disgust for Genma, prompting her to do something she had always considered a dishonor. She sued for divorce, citing abandonment as grounds. She then personally hunted down her wandering husband to inform him of the suit, and she further described the exact manner and number of pieces into which she would carve him if he ever again came near Ranma, Akane or any member of their family, current or future. Nodoka offered to have Ranma move back in with her, but the boy pled his love for Akane, and she relented and allowed him to continue to live in the Tendo home.

As for Kasumi's insistence that the young couple behave appropriately even though living under the same roof, they did try to be good, and for some time their behavior was all that Kasumi could have asked for. Granted, they did engage in a lot of kissing, and this was often done behind closed doors as otherwise Nabiki could be counted upon to tell them to "get a room." Eventually, however, they did start to bend the rules. It started with accidental touches during after-workout massages, and when Ranma undertook the task of teaching Akane to swim. Gradually, the accidents became less accidental, and started to happen while they were kissing as well. By the time that they were well into their junior year, they had given up any pretense as to what they were doing, and lived in fear of Kasumi catching them. Not that this fear stopped them.

Kasumi had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but had come to accept it, provided they did not go too far, since she could see how deeply in love the two were. In fact, she even ran subtle interference, preventing the couple from being caught by Nabiki or Soun on several occasions. She did have her limits, however, as Ranma discovered one night after midnight, when he decided to try to sneak into Akane's room for a bit of petting, only to run into Kasumi in the hallway. He sheepishly turned around and headed back to his own bedroom.

Eventually, it got to the point where Akane and Ranma themselves decided that enough was enough. Near the end of their junior year, while everyone was gathered in the family room, including Nodoka Saotome, the couple announced their desire to get married during the upcoming summer. To their amazement, Soun put up a bit of a fuss, saying that they had originally insisted on waiting until after graduation, and that he wasn't ready for his baby girl to grow up just yet. After a few days they managed to wear him down, and the wedding took place in July of their senior year.

Cologne used the event of the wedding to set up a trap for Happosai, one which was finally successful. She hauled the old lech back to China to face punishment by her people, and Shampoo perforce had to leave Japan as well. By this time, Ukyo had already given up on Ranma and started dating another, and she attended the wedding as an ordinary guest. As previously stated, Tatewaki Kuno had gone overseas after graduation, so was no longer around to cause trouble. Kodachi Kuno did show up at the wedding with plans to disrupt the event, but was easily subdued by the many martial artists present, barely causing a hiccup in the proceedings. Kodachi gave up on Ranma a few weeks later, proclaiming that he had never been worthy of her. After that, it seemed that Chaos decided it was time to move on and find someone else's life to screw around with, and Akane's and Ranma's lives settled down and became a little more peaceful, if never quite entirely so.

The appendix was originally written with the idea of telling what happened with some of the more important recurring characters. However, a few people have already asked in reviews about a few of the other major story arcs, so let me add a few notes.

Ryu Kumon obviously would not get away with pretending to be Ranma, since Nodoka already met her son. Nonetheless, he would still be after the umisen-ken scroll. Genma would already have returned to Nerima, and not yet have been run off by Nodoka, so Ranma would be able to learn about the umisen-ken from him. After that, the fight with Ryu would probably have gone pretty much as it was in the manga, except that Nodoka would have been there to cheer on her son as well.

The events involving Herb and Saffron would probably have been almost identical to the manga, with the exception that Akane would have accompanied Ranma both times, and contributed to the fight with the Musk and the initial fights with the phoenix people (her involvement in the battle with Saffron would have been the same). I'm not really sure what I would have done with Ryoga in the fight with the musk, perhaps he would have followed Ranma, Akane and Mousse when they pursued Herb, but would not have been part of their group. Ryoga probably would have been permitted to accompany them in China to face the phoenix people.

Their decision to marry would probably have come shortly after the battle with Saffron. Facing such a trial together would have strengthened their love, and both of them coming so close to death would fan their physical desires. It would also encourage them to formalize their commitment to one another after having come so near to losing each other forever.