the front of this story comes from the Spells R Us:Nerima Chronicles
story. Akira is a transformed Akane. Insert standard disclaimers and all
that sort of thing. This is just meant as something enjoyable, don't take it
too seriously. i leave the Great Literature to those who insist on treating
this whole fanfiction stuff as such.
==============
      Akira frowned, realizing that he had to do something. The way things
were were getting entirely too comfortable. It was beginning to feel "right"
to be this tall and muscular fellow with the gleaming smile. Time for Akane
to return, but how?

       Looking around in desperation, Akira felt more of Akane beginning to
slip away and made a choice.

 The wizard merely smirked, looking past the transformed former sixteen year
old Japanese girl. A sign displayed where almost everyone would ignore it,
read "Only Three Per Customer."

 Besides, after he was done here, he could go visit Juuban.

        "Sobe beverages, 'Zen Blend'." Akira looked at the label on the tea
and wondered about the contents briefly. He was really good at English, but
some of the writing here looked to be a _completely_ different language.

 What the heck was a 'schizandra' anyway? The yin/yang symbol with the
little lizards was kind of cute, and Akira picked up the bottle.
-------------------------------------------------
  ZEN BLEND by Gregg, strangely enough.
-------------------------------------------------
 The Wiz frowned. "THAT was not supposed to happen."

 "What *was* supposed to happen from a product called 'Zen Blend'?" A
reasonable sounding voice asked.

 "She would have been turned back to Akane, all right, but would have been
exchanged with some fanfic writer named Zen. Zen would then have been the 16
year old son of Soun Tendo." The Wiz stopped. That had *not* been his wolf.
It had not been one of his cursed antiques, nor the perverted leprechaun,
nor had it been any of the sentient cursed items. His eye caught a short
elven fellow leaning up against a copy of the Unabridged Necronomicon. The
book appeared to be flinching. "Oh Puck."

 "Well, I *was* Toltiir up until a few days ago, but people started
confusing me with that Osciir fellow so I dropped the cat guise. Too bad,
Bast liked it."

 "They're confusing an Elder God with... Never mind. I don't want to know."

 "So, everyone would have remembered the children of Soun Tendo as being
Zen, Nabiki, and Kasumi? Out of those three who would have been the Tendo
heir? Hmmm. Anyway, I got this request from Lian'Ascot, god of temporary
positions to see what would happen, against all odds and usual use of the
Spells R Us curses, if Akane got a major good thing happening out of it. So
I tweaked the odds a little."

 "You call that 'a little'?"

 "As much as you do."
--------------------a cemetary----------------------
 It was a simple marker, with an equally simple little stone plaque at its
base. A few dried flowers, a paper fan, and an origami swan marked the spot.
Nothing elaborate.

 To Soun, Akane, Kasumi, and Nabiki it was VERY important. It was the
gravesite of Mrs Tendo.

 A shadow passed over them after a few moments.

 "Pardon me, Mister Tendo." The staff thunked down, causing the rings at the
top to jingle. "Might I have a word with you?"
-----------------Spells R Us shop--------------------
 "Having a Zen Master intervene is NOT a small change."

 "Who says he's a Zen Master?" The tiny elf shifted into a doglike creature.
He'd been Coyote for a few years too. Nah, he'd done that role to perfection
and it was time to move on.

 "Well, that's not... He isn't. You wouldn't. Not. No."

 Coyote grinned. "Yup. Okami."

 "The Children of Gaia Theurge?! You're mad, mad I tell you!"

 "No, just slightly annoyed." Coyote frowned.
-------Tendo dojo--------------
 Years later, Kasumi looked up from her cooking in THAT way. It immediately
got Nabiki's attention away from the rice cookies.

 "Yes, mother?"

 Nabiki winced. She fully expected this to have to do with some of the
magazines she had hidden under the mattress. Forbes Japan, Popular Science,
Cosmopolitan, not the sort of thing that Kasumi OR Akane would approve of.

 "Oh my."

 Nabiki winced again. Trying to keep a secret in this house was an exercise
in futility. Nabiki knew that the pressure was on and that both she and
Akane were fully expected to join up and become Zen Buddhist nuns. No doubt
Mother was explaining how Nabiki had SEVERE doubts about that sort of life
for herself.

 "Kasumi, Nabiki, Akane," Soun yelled from where he had been going through
the mail.

 "Thank you, Mother." Kasumi sighed and her eyes focussed on this world
again. "Oh, Nabiki. Akane's in the dojo. Can you go fetch her? Father has
something he wants to tell us."

 "Kasumi?" Soun stuck his head in the kitchen.

 "I already know, Father. Isn't this wonderful? Oh, and Mother says hello
and you ought to cut down on the sake."

 Soun trembled and quietly withdrew. After a few moments he mumbled a "yes
dear."

 Nabiki sighed and left to enter the dojo, rubbing her eyes at what she saw.
Akane, unlike Nabiki, had unexpectedly taken to the spiritual training and
was quite likely to become one of the warrior nuns of the order. Either an
Exorcist or Devilhunter. Maybe both.

 One only had to look at Akane sitting in a full lotus position, attempting
to find a true zuzen state to know how far she'd come over the years.
Especially when one noted that she was a couple of centimeters above the
floor.

 "Uhm, Akane?" Nabiki hesitated to interrupt her sister. Akane tended to
scare people. Most of the guys at school thought she was cute until they
found out her dream was to be a warrior Buddhist nun. That and the
disconcerting way she tended to look THROUGH you.

 "I know." Akane's voice was cool and impersonal. It also sounded as if it
had come from far away. "I see them."

 "Them?" Nabiki shook her head.

 "You'll see." Akane settled to the floor. "Too bad. I was almost there."

 "You've said that before," Nabiki pointed out. "What will happen when you
get there and reach this 'true zuzen' state?"

 "You weren't paying attention to the instructions, were you, my sister?"
Her voice still as calm and cold as a snowdrift, Akane rose in a single
motion from her lotus. That gaze that tended to unsettle the boys at school
turned in Nabiki's direction.

 "Kasumi was talking to Mother. She said it was important." Nabiki didn't
want that gaze turned on her, either.

 "I understand," Akane said and shrugged, walking past Nabiki towards the
house. "The concerns of the material world are as nothing to the greater
Truths that lie beyond. I suspect that if you join the Order beside me, they
shall have to purge these worldly instincts from you. Sister Shinrai will be
more than happy to take your training personally."

 Akane allowed herself a small smile that Nabiki couldn't see from her
angle. Akane didn't need to see Nabiki's face to know how pale and fearful
it had become. Things were progressing well.

 Nabiki rushed in to find Kasumi and Akane settled into place and facing
their father. With a slight bow of apology, Nabiki knelt on her own cushion
to listen to whatever odd thing was going on.

 "Ahem. Well. There's this arrangement," Soun began.

 "Yes, father. Well, at sixteen, Ranma's a little young for me. AND he's a
bit immature since he's spent his entire life training in the martial arts
without any friends or peer groups."

 "Kasumi?"

 "Mother told me, Father." Kasumi began pouring tea, though she left a cup
of plain springwater for Akane as was her preference. She put a second
kettle out on the table.

 "Well nobody has told *me*!" Nabiki groused.

 Akane nodded in thanks to Kasumi and sipped at her springwater. "Sister, if
you had bothered to learn, you would not need anyone to tell you that Father
had made an arrangement with an old friend of his to marry off one of his
daughters with the son of that old friend."

 "WHAT?!" Nabiki hated this. As usual, she was the Last To Know.
No Spirit Guides, no "Oneness With The Universe", no nothing. Feh.

 "Yes, the son of a very good friend of mine." Soun nodded. "The son's name
is Ranma Saotome. If one of you three were to marry him, and carry on the
dojo, the Tendo family legacy would be secure."

 "I cannot marry, Father," Akane calmly announced. "Mine will be a life of
constant denial, meditation, and training. Worldly concerns would detract
from that goal." Akane smiled a little, thinking of some of the ordeals and
tasks she could put herself through when she was accepted. It would be
wonderful.

 "Err. Yes, I suppose." Soun sweated a little despite the damp chilly air.
"Anyway, I guess."

 "Mother told me that he's a got a good heart, unfortunately with his
father's inept parenting, you have to dig quite a ways to get to that
heart." Kasumi sipped at her tea. "Oh, and she says that you really ought to
choose your friends better. But you knew she never approved of your choice
of Masters to study under."

 "Not a pleasant fellow?" Nabiki sipped at her tea, aware that Akane was
studying her again and getting nervous under that unblinking gaze. She felt
as if she were an onion, with one layer after another being stripped away
under that gaze.

 "No, and their Master will return to their lives in three months, two
weeks, three days." Kasumi blinked at how pale their father had just turned.

 Soun glanced at the calender, figured out when that would be, and made
plans to be out of town at that time.

 "So family honor demands one of us marry this Ranma?" Nabiki tried to
figure out if she had this down right. Soun nodded. "He's got a good heart
but you've got to cut away a lotta crap that his father's fed to him?"
Kasumi and Akane nodded.

 "He's pretty good at the martial arts," Akane conceded. "However this has
weakened him by neglecting the philosophical and spiritual components of the
Art. All this Ranma knows is how to fight. Not really a suitable husband for
anyone, I'd have to say."

 "Well, shucky darns," Nabiki rolled her eyes. "Family honor you say? DARN,
and I was *so* looking forward to a life of privation."

 "I'm sure we can get you out of this," Akane said in her usual emotionless
voice. "Worldly concerns are so ephemeral, after all. I wouldn't suggest
Devilhunter or Exorcist, but I'm sure Sister Shinrai will have some ideas as
to your vocation within the sisterhood. Just think, you could be in that
shrine on the mountaintop living on snowmelt and without any distractions to
keep you from spiritual concerns."

 "Oh my, that would be wonderful, wouldn't it Nabiki?"

 Nabiki twitched. A stone floor, four pillars, no walls or ceiling, hidden
observers to make sure she didn't go anywhere or do anything except
meditate. Snow, cold, a thin cotton robe. Four trainees a year had to be
hospitalized for exposure, frostbite, or starvation. "Uhm. Gee, I don't know
how I could not enjoy that. But it is family *honor* so I guess that we'll
just see what this Ranma is like before I marry him."

 Kasumi and Akane briefly smiled before returning to calm expressions.

 "Let go of me, old man!"

 "They're early," noted Kasumi with a glance towards the clock.

 "They're late." Akane didn't bother looking at the clock. Another needless
material thing. "You have enough hot water?"

 "Most of one kettle, a second kettle here, the furo's hot, and there's a
third kettle warm on the stove. Mother didn't tell me why."

 Nabiki and Soun ran back, just ahead of a running panda and a girl who was
slung over one shoulder.

 "Hey, pop, you're scarin' 'em spitless."

 "Rough edges doesn't even begin," sighed Akane. "Oh well, let's get this
over with."

 "What is this? Why did this panda come visiting? Why are you pouring hot
water over...?!" Nabiki came to a halting stop as Akane poured some water
over the panda, turning it into an older man in a gi who was staring
fearfully at Akane.

 "Genma? Then this would be Ranma?"

 "Yeah, I'm Ranma. Got any more of that hot water?"

 Nabiki blinked. "He's cute."

 Akane poured a little hot water on Ranma, who got taller and his loose
clothes suddenly fit a bit better. "Yeah, they went to Jusenkyo. Anyway, hot
water restores them to normal until cold water puts them into their cursed
form. Yadda yadda. You know this would never have happened if your yin and
yang were balanced."

 Nabiki lunged and grabbed Ranma by his shoulders. "Are you into personal
suffering? Eat only brown rice? Have no regard for anything other than
spiritual pursuits? Talk to dead people? Float in midair while trying to
attain a state of No Self? Answer questions before they are asked? Believe
that capitalism is wrong? Hate ice cream and candy because they detract from
spiritual growth?"

 Ranma blinked at the sudden barrage of questions and the desperate look in
the girl's face. "Uhm, no?"

 "THANK KAMI!" Nabiki clung to Ranma. "We have something in common. Thank
you."

 "It's not too late, Nabiki. If you change your mind. . ." Akane let it hang
there. Her sister's spiritual growth *would* be derailed if she got involved
with this guy.

 Ranma looked around. "Would someone mind explaining what's going on?"

 Akane sighed. "Kasumi here doesn't have the potential for life as a warrior
nun. I and Nabiki, on the other hand, do have some potential for life as
religious asthetics."

 "I'm also not Buddhist," said Kasumi with a shrug.

 Nabiki didn't let go of Ranma's arm. An image of that mountaintop temple,
herself turning blue in a thin robe, icicles hanging from her hair, her
nearly frozen body being carried off by Sister Shinrai. "It's family
*honor*, Akane. *Family* honor. Someone's got to do it, you can't so it's up
to me."

 "Nabiki," Kasumi's voice sounded approving. "Mother will be so happy to
hear that you're getting married. However, we mustn't rush into this."

 "Well *I* am not getting married to anyone. I've got to go back to China
and get cured!"

 Akane looked over Ranma. "No you won't."

 "Whatta ya mean by that!"

 "Jusenkyo will only cure its curses when it is ready to do so. The spirits
there are capricious and slow to loose their hold on its victims."

 "Oh, and who died and appointed YOU god?" Ranma's voice had continued to
rise. Akane, however, was as calm and uncaring as ever.

 "Nietche." Akane shrugged. "While many of his conclusions are flawed and
self-serving, he did have his good points."

 "Huh?"

  "As for you, your yin and yang are seriously out of balance. Your father
has taught you many martial arts, but has neglected the spiritual and
philosophical grounds upon which the martial arts were built. You are like a
tree without roots, a house without a foundation, you have strength but you
lack completeness and that will bring ruin in the long run."

 "Is that a challenge?"

 Akane didn't smile, that would have given her away. "Very well, a
challenge. If I win, you give your word as a martial artist that you will
treat my sister Nabiki right. If you win, I pull some strings to get you
your trip back to China. Deal?"

 "Deal!"

 The two found they had their audience had followed them to the dojo.

 "It would be best if you weren't here," Akane said calmly. "Ranma is fairly
prideful if I'm reading him right. Losing in front of a group would be
unnecessarily harsh."

 "Pretty confident, aren't you," growled Ranma. "Tryin' to rile me, but I
don't hit girls so you don't have to worry that much."

 "That's a stupid attitude." A trace of anger actually showed through
Akane's calm. "Don't pick on the weak, that's fine. Treating an entire
gender as weak is not. Especially when you are a girl half the time."

 "I AM A GUY!"

 "Start." Nabiki said, tiredly. This wasn't going well. Nothing ever went
well. Why couldn't this guy just be affectionate and get her out of this
madhouse? The image of herself on that mountaintop returned, this time
adding how emaciated she looked after a few days of nothing but snow to eat.

 There was a brief moment while both waited for the other to attack. Then
Ranma started forward and found that he couldn't lay a finger on his
opponent. He started analyzing Akane's style and noted that she shifted
effortlessly from Wing Chun to Jui jitsu to Kenpo to Anything Goes.

 After five minutes, the spectators were mainly sitting. After ten, Ranma
was gasping for breath and had still failed to connect. Akane waited for an
opening and finally moved, savagely striking out as Ranma's head dipped.

 Akane took a deep breath. She disliked this, but there were times when you
had to be brutal. Looking down at the fallen martial artist, she let her
pity for him show. "You never had a chance, Ranma. All you understand is the
basics of physical combat, not the Art itself which encompasses far more
than merely being able to hit or avoid being hit. Your father's teachings
have crippled you, not only as a fighter but as a human being.

 "You can do fine against the petty dojos and part time martial artists.
Against someone like myself who has made themselves part of the True Art,
you have no more chance of survival than a tree without roots against the
flood." Akane sighed again. "What a waste. You've been denied a normal
childhood, no home or mother, no life beyond constant battle. Now you need
to learn something beyond the physical. Not all battles are fought by the
fist alone, y'know."

 Akane walked away, knowing that the paralysis shiatsu would wear off in a
few minutes. Passing Nabiki, she spoke softly enough that only the two could
hear. "Sister, take care of your iinazuke. Be gentle and kind to him now. Be
supportive. He has just had all the hardships he's endured in this life
proven to be completely needless suffering. If you handle this right, you'll
have his undying devotion."

 "He'll probably challenge you to a rematch."

 "I'll win again." Akane almost shrugged. "He's good, but he's so easy to
read it's pathetic. Now if he gets some of the philosophy behind the Art,
devotes some time to mastering the spiritual side, he might have a chance
against me. In another year. Oh, and the paralysis shiatsu will wear off in
another few minutes."

 Akane walked on, not looking back to where Nabiki had crossed to her
iinazuke. Akane _almost_ smiled.

 "They'll make a cute couple," said Kasumi, who hadn't bothered to head to
the dojo.

 "True," said Akane. "Ranma will challenge me twice more before he gets the
idea that the fullness of the Art is not something you can learn in a single
sitting. When he does, and starts researching those angles, he will grow as
a person and as a martial artist."

 "It's nice of you to help out your sister like that."

 Akane raised an eyebrow. "Is that you or Mother talking?"

 "Me. Though Mother approves."

 "Well, I haven't put all mortal concerns behind me yet. After I join the
Order officially, I'll have to renounce all worldly ties including family."
Akane's eyes shone slightly. To become One with the Art, and through the
Art, One With The Universe. It was possible for her, she knew. She had
glimpsed it.
=====================================
 hi people. is this different enough? this is just something i worked out
that i thought would be amusing and different. it's wrapped up here, though
if (like the Genma Ascendent piece) someone wants to take the idea and run
with it, feel free. (For that matter, if someone wants to write the Zen as
Soun's son piece, that's one i wanna read. snicker. chortle. Image of
someone slapping Ranma out of the way with his spatula when a certain chef
shows up.) i personally think this particular concept has been explored
enough here that there is no need to go further. Other opinions will, and
should, vary.
 Akane is *good* at the Art, though pursuing the Zen ideal of nothingness to
the extent she has means that she comes across as not only cold but almost
Vulcan. She is extremely self-controlled and aware of her immediate
environment. Given the nature of the series, what with ghost cats and the
like, some mystical abilities seem mandated for an order of
warrior-spiritualist-monks/nuns.
 Kasumi's spiritual training went a different route and she talks to her
mother. While that may not be unusual, her mother answering is. She knows Dr
Tofu is interested but wants him to make a coherent first move.
 Nabiki went through a lot of the same training as Akane. Think of Akane's
initial success with Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics and you have Nabiki's
success in the spiritual realm. A clearcut case of one's nature at conflict
with one's environment. She's a little less materialistic, and more
affectionate. Sister Shinrai is the humorless authority figure who scares
the heck out of Nabiki, particularly following some training "accidents"
that i wasn't cruel enough to write out.
 Soun is a little more stable, but with Kasumi talking to his dead wife,
Akane apparently cold and dedicated to becoming a warrior nun, and Nabiki
practically ready to flee for China at the first sign of Sister Shinrai, he
has more reason to be unstable than in the canon.
 Ranma has just been challenged to grow up. You know how he is about
challenges. Major kick in the pride. If Nabiki plays her cards right, and
she's more compassionate here, she'd own Ranma by the third episode. i'd put
in WAFFy scenes where they exchange horrors they underwent in training,
Nabiki taking the lead in any affection exchanges, but that's just me.
 Note that my computer self-destructed and i've borrowed a unit until the
phone dies for lack of funds in a couple days. i'm not sure what it was,
though it started in the Temp Internet files, infected further, and finally
corrupted the BIOS. If this story comes across as needing polish, that's
why. Don't bother sending C&C on this one, as it prob won't reach me in time
to do anything with it.
 On the other hand, as my absence will make some people happy, and that's
why i started this writing fanfics stuff in the first place (amusing myself
and others) - then. . .

so long, and thanks for all the fish.
gregg, aka metroanime@mindspring.com