All over the little town of Nerima, Japan, there prevailed a peace unheard of before. The effect was unnerving. In Tendo Dojo, a girl of sixteen with her dark hair cropped short, was wearing a pastel yellow nightdress and looking forlornly at the pale satin wedding gown lying on her bed.

*Yesterday should have been my wedding day.*Akane thought.
*All because of that baka… *
But thinking of Ranma brought a smile to her face.
"Baka…" She whispered.

But school that day had been horrible. The cancelled wedding dinner had led the ever self-confident Tatewaki Kuno to believe Akane had feelings for him and he had happily stirred up such feelings amongst the male student body, resulting in hordes of male students prepared to defeat Akane and Ranma in hope of winning her hand. Then there were the remarks and insensitive questions of her friends and classmates. And then there was Shampoo, Kodachi and Ukyou. Believing whole-heartedly that "their" Ranma had cancelled the wedding for them, they had rushed to him head-over-heels with their gifts of food and roses, which Ranma happily devoured. Just then, the whining of her pet pig P-chan jerked her out of her thoughts.

"I'm sorry P-chan." She whispered affectionately in its ear.
"Let's go to bed."

Carefully lifting the heavy gown off her bed, she slipped in between the covers and P-chan snuggled up to her. Sighing softly as she looked at the gleam of the gown in the dark, she switched off the light beside her and soon fell asleep. She never even noticed the soft click of the closing of her bedroom door, or even the soft sound of footfalls the teenaged boy with dark hair tied in a pigtail made as he slowly made his way back to the room he shared with his father, much less saw the softening of his face as he watched her sleep.

Morning sunlight stole in through the windows of Tendo Dojo as the sun slowly made her way up. The larks sang their sweet melodies from the trees…and an outraged yell was heard coming from the bathroom.

" You perverted old creature! Get away from me!"
Yelled a pretty red-head as a bald, tiny and wrinkled old man ran out of the bathroom laughing, trying to escape the angry Ranma-chan as she ran out topless of the bathroom.

"Give me back my top! Hey! Come back here!" Ranma-chan yelled as Happousai escaped into the opposite garden.
"You have a dozen of those tops, Ranma. Just go get one of them before we are late for school!" Akane told her. Resigned to her fate, Ranma-chan quickly grabbed a top and a kettle hot water as Akane raced off to school.

"Hey Akane! Wait up!" Ranma shouted after Akane as he hurriedly splashed the kettle of hot water on himself and put on his top. Just as he finally caught up with her, he noticed something…

"Akane…where's P-chan?"
"Gosh…I didn't notice…I didn't see him this morning!" Akane told him worriedly.
*Where in the world would has that pig-boy gone?*Ranma thought.

He certainly hoped Ryouga hadn't noticed him last night. Visiting Akane last night certainly hadn't been a good idea with P-chan sleeping in, but he'd figured Ryouga would have attacked him if he had known Ranma was there, but what if…Ryouga wasn't exactly emotionally stable even with Asuka around. Ranma had never been a worrier, but Ryouga was after all a good friend…and Ranma wasn't as insensitive as he usually seemed.

School that day went as usual, with Ranma failing all his tests, the battle for food at lunchtime, Akane giggling over magazines with her friends and Miss Hinako falling asleep during lesson time. Then came an announcement from the Principal. All students would have to stay back after school for the welcoming of four new students. The bell soon rang. The students assembled slowly in the hall, shuffling and chatting with each other. When all the students finally quieted down reluctantly, the Principal started another of his long nonsensical speeches. Finally, after the whole student body was practically itching to get out of the stuffy hall, the speech ended.

"And now, let me introduce your new schoolmates." The Principal's loud voice boomed. "You can come out now, girls."
From the backstage, emerged three girls. The first was a tall, slender girl with bluish hair, and a pair of liquid blue eyes to match. A murmur went through the crowd. "She's pretty enough to be a model!" Some of the students whispered. The second had a bookish face but passable emerald eyes behind her glasses and golden hair that curled around her face. The third was definitely the cutest of the three. She was a little too short for her age, but she had a really sweet smile and reddish brown eyes that so big and clear they all but covered her heart-shaped face. The interesting thing about the girl however, was that she had her long red hair done up in a pigtail, just like Ranma! All his classmates started commenting on the resemblance. "Hey Ranma, is this girl some relative of yours or something? Why don't you introduce her to us…" Ranma himself was just as shocked upon seeing this girl, but just did all he could to quiet the guys around him. He wanted to know her name.

"I'm Umi Ryuuzaki. Please call me Umi-chan." Said the girl with the blue eyes.
"I'm Fuu Hououji. Pleased to meet all of you." The bookish girl told the student body.
"And I'm Hikaru-chan, Hikaru Shidou! Pleased to meet all of you!" The red-haired girl said excitedly.
Then there was a call from the audience…"Didn't you say there were four, Principal? Where's the other one?"

The audience saw something that looked like a white blur jump from the rafters of the hall and land on the stage next to the other three girls. She was very fair and dressed in white from head to toe, and even had pure white hair. But her eyes were an icy blue, totally devoid of all emotion.

" Sorry for the wait," She spoke in a voice as icy as her eyes.
"I am Tenshi Kori. You may call me Tenshi."

"Tick…tock…tick…tock…"
*Stupid clock.* Thought Ranma as his father snored loudly beside him.
*And stupid old dad too.*Frowned Ranma as he got up from his makeshift bed. A chill ran down his spine. He could still remember those icy blue eyes that had looked at him from the stage just as the Principal had announced that they could go. No matter what those guys from school said, she was certainly not his idea of kawanii.

*Akane.*He smiled.

No matter how many times he had called her "uncute", she was still his favourite fiancée. Walking out of the room, he noticed someone was sitting by the pool. Carefully creeping out, he was surprised to see Akane sitting on the steps, her features very pleasing under the pale moonlight.

*Strange, how I never noticed it.*Ranma mused.*I always thought Ryouga was nuts to fall for such an uncute tomboy. Maybe I'm the one that's crazy to be watching her silently every night like some hentai.* He took a deep breath and approached her quietly. She didn't notice him until he was right behind her.

"Oh Ranma, it's you!" She whispered. "Why are you up so late? You couldn't sleep?"
"Yup. You too?" Ranma asked softly as he sat down beside her. She shook her head. "I just couldn't get her eyes out of my head." Akane told him, and she shivered involuntarily. Ranma started. He was sure she meant Tenshi. "She is a rather strange person," Akane went on. "Jumping out of the rafters and things like that." *Not to mention the skill and swiftness of her movements. * Ranma thought. None of them, not even him had noticed Tenshi up on the rafters. Imagine what would have happened had she wanted to attack anyone of the students. The idea was almost scary. With Ranma lost in his own thoughts, Akane couldn't think of what to say to him, afraid of disturbing his thoughts. She looked at the full moon casting her pale rays over Nerima, and slowly fell asleep with her head on Ranma's shoulder, and dreamt of falling into a deep, icy blue sea, and screaming as she was engulfed by a blanket of white.

As the leaves on the trees slowly turned into a radiant red till the trees looked like they were on fire, and the cool autumn winds blew through the classrooms, Ranma and Akane went on with their lives, mixing with the new girls, who just happened to be in their class. As of always, Ranma, who only studied for the mid-year and final year examinations, had to spend a few hours revising with Akane and surprisingly, decided to spend some time in the library with his friends. Hikaru, Umi and Fuu soon became fast friends of Akane and Ukyou, and Hikaru often brought her dog Akari to the Dojo. Ranma naturally didn't mind, but Shampoo was clearly annoyed. She wasn't used to being chased around by enormous Alaskans.

"Can Akane not ask friend to bring nasty dog?" Shampoo asked Akane when delivering some ramen. "Nasty dog no like Shampoo, yes?" The dog rubbed his grayish muzzle against Akane's elbow and barked his disagreement at Shampoo. He just couldn't understand how the purplish cat he had been chasing had disappeared after jumping into a tub of hot water, and where this fierce purple-haired girl had come out from and smacked him on the nose.

"Maybe you smell of cats or something." Hikaru told her. "Akari doesn't like cats."
"Shampoo _is_ cat." Shampoo remarked haughtily. "Shampoo no like dog chase."
"Huh?" Umi stared hard at Shampoo. "Shampoo, I think you need a Japanese tutor or something. It's so hard to understand what you're saying."

Ranma on the other hand had noticed something about these three girls…Hikaru, Umi and Fuu. It was clear they had come from totally different schools, yet they acted as if they had known each other for a very long time. Also, they had this weird "ritual" of going to Tokyo Tower every weekend. Okay, so what in the world is so interesting about Tokyo Tower? There was certainly something off about it. However, Ranma had to admire the ease at which Hikaru welded her sword. Not every girl could do that.

Then there was Tenshi Kori. "Weird" was too mild a word to use on Tenshi Kori. That girl was certainly out of this world! She was quiet and reserved in class, never mixed with any of her classmates, simply disappeared after school and was definitely a martial arts and academic talent. Ranma never failed to notice the perfect somersaults she executed during physical education lesson and Akane always commented on her fantastic results. Even Hikaru thought her strange, and she was the one who talked to animals.

With all the excitement of the new students and the coming of the exams, Akane didn't even notice that P-chan hadn't been around for some time…