The town was silent and still, only a lone dog barking in the distance broke the peace. The Chinese salesmen took the chance to take the heavy pack from his back and sat down to rest, unaware of the changes he would cause to someone's life in the near future.

XXXXXXX

"Is sure, medicine will work." The Chinese teen shoved to powder packet at her target again as she assured him in complete confidence.

"You sure Shampoo?" The cursed boy asked skeptically, eyeing the brown package.

"Couldn't hurt to try, could it?" The dark-haired girl beside him commented tiredly. The three were standing in the middle of an empty street, the latter two having been on their way home from school before being ambushed by the first.

"Your right," The teenage martial artist offered up a hand for the package to the beaming Amazon. "Give it here, Shampoo. How does it work anyway?" He examined the package's label curiously.

"Find out later Ranma, we're gonna be late for dinner!" Akane started back to their home without looking to see whether the cursed boy was following.

"G'bye Shampoo!" Ranma jumped onto the fence beside the street and took off after his fiancée. 'Maybe this really will get rid of my curse' were his final thoughts before they turned, without fail, to the delicious food waiting for him.

XXXXXXX

"So you are really gonna try it?" Akane sat on one side of the dojo watching Ranma prepare to use the "cure".

"Carefully pour in powder and light-," Ranma was mumbling under his breath while he followed the directions, but paused to call, "A 'course I'm gonna try it, it might actually work," distractedly. "Light, then breathe resulting smoke, a sure-fire way to get rid of any female curse." He continued reading in a monotone.

Finally everything was prepared; Ranma had moved well away from Akane so that she would not get any of it and just as a thick greenish smoke started curling up from the incense-burner, the door to the dojo flew open. A familiar bandana-clad boy stood in the entrance.

"How dare you be in the same room as Akane alone, DIE RANMA!!! " He ran across the room, index finger held out on one hand, preparing to use his breaking-point technique on his long-time rival.

"Ryoga, I wouldn't go ov-"Akane's warning words fell on deaf ears, the boy ran straight into the growing cloud of green smoke that was thick enough to shield Ranma completely from view. As he disappeared from view inside the cloud a blinding white flash erupted from the middle, Akane was forced to close her eyes and shield her face from the wind.

When all cleared, only one figure lay in the small crater where two should have been, Akane went to tend to her fiancée wondering where in the world the Ryoga could be…

XXXXXXX

'Damn… my head hurts.' The person tried once to sit up and had to lay back down when the world span around them. The second time went much better and they managed to get to a semi-upward position.

'Now first-things-first, where am I' They looked around once before a more important thought occurred to them.

'Better yet… who am I?' A quick once-over proved them to be a girl with red hair pulled back into a short braid.

Her clothes were dirtied and slightly wrinkled from lying down, the top was a short-sleeved blouse-like red shirt that was white on the inside including a black belt around her waist, the pants were navy blue and both pieces seemed to be three or four sizes too big.

When she'd found out all she could about herself, the girl turned back to her first question. She was surrounded with large moss-covered trees. The grass was over-grown, coming up to mid-calf, which had helped conceal the other inhabitant of the small forest from her.

He was a boy about her age. A yellow and black checkered bandana held the hair back from his face and his clothes were that of a traveler. This theory was proven when she spotted the large pack thrown to the side carelessly near him.

'Maybe he can tell me who I am…' She knew she had a name, just couldn't remember what it was or where she came from. She stood from where she'd been crouching next to the guy and toed him lightly with her foot.

"Hey guy, get up." She asked/stated, he didn't respond so she went back to kneeling and shook his arm. "Wake up!" she said it a little louder this time; the boy mumbled and shifted a little. Tired with the gentle approach, the red-head came up with a fool-proof plan to bring him to consciousness, then whapped him on the head, hard.

That seemed to get through to him, the boy snapped upright, knocking his already bruised noggin on the girl's forehead. Both fell back down clutching their abused craniums, cursing loudly in unision.

"What the-, who di-…" The boy's confused stuttering ended and his face clouded with anger when he caught sight of the person sitting next to him, he was on his feet and pulling back his fist instantly. Going on instinct, the pigtailed girl pushed herself off the ground and landed on one hand before flipping up into a nearby tree-branch, in time to see the ground where she had been, disintegrate into a small crater under the boys attack.

"Hey! What're you tryin' to do!?" The girl dodged another one of his attacks when he jumped at her, causing the tree to end up much like the, previously flat, ground.

"I'm going to defeat you for all you made me go through Ranma!" He continued attacking non-stop as he said this and left no opening for the red-head to launch her own assault.

"I dunno who you're talking about! I've never even heard-" She started to yell before it occurred to her, taking advantage of his momentary confusion at her words, the pigtailed girl pushed off of her newest tree and kicked to boy as hard as she could in the chest, using both feet. Instead of then jumping back, she sat on him and tried to pin him down as best as she could.

The boy looked surprised when her face appeared right above his. "Do you know who I am?"

"Is this a joke?" His face still showed anger but it had diminished from before. "Cause' it isn't funny."

"Why would I joke about that, stupid?" She scoffed.

"You're Ranma Soatome." It took her a moment before she realized he was answering her questions. The newly dubbed Ranma then inched off of the boy, both were still watching each other warily.

"Okay then… What's your name? And why are you so mad at me?" The boy sat up and, stretching, looked around at his surroundings, taking his time before answering.

"Ryoga Hibiki, you did something really bad to me awhile ago." He said finally.

'What could I have done?' Ranma wondered briefly but decided it was more than likely he would tell her later. Instead she thought of a different, if non-important question.

"Isn't Ranma a boy name?"

Ryoga looked at her in a funny way then, he got up and walked over to his pack. "You don't even remember that much? It'd probly be better to show you on that one." Slinging it across his back Ryoga began adjusting the straps to make sure nothing would fall off.

Ranma stood and went over to him. "How would you "show" me why I have a boy's name? How do I know you're not just lying about all of this?"

Ryoga just shrugged and didn't look up from his pack.

"The first is complicated and you probly wouldn't believe the answer. As for the second, that's just up to you I guess." He finished then and set off in a random direction without one look back at her.

Ranma watched him for a second, then with a shrug and a small half-smile, jogged to catch up.

"Hey Ryoga, where the heck are we?"