Disclaimer: No, I do not own Ranma 1/2, any of its characters, or anything of Yu Yu Hakusho except for manga and a few videos/dvds. If you think I'm making money off of this, allow me to introduce you to my empty wallet. [grin] However, new characters are all mine!
Chapter 1: Introductions.
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It's the usual, bright sunny day in Nerima district, with the birds singing gaily (with a somewhat desperate note to their songs) outside of a pleasant two-story home with an attached dojo, and the newest student to Furinkan High is still asleep in bed. The neat room has a few wallscrolls of various animes hung above the bed or on the other walls, with several outfits and uniforms visible in the open closet. A glass of water is on the night-table beside the bed, a cute fox-lamp and a fox alarm clock sitting there as well.
The digital time says 8:15 am, and we know the owner has fifteen minutes to be up, dressed, and at school or be late.
"Rei!" A cheerful woman's voice calls from beyond the room as the room's occupant sits up, stretches, and takes a swig of water. "Hon, are you up?"
"Yeah, Mom!" the girl calls back as she sets the glass down and notices the clock. "Oh, crap! I overslept!" Like a bullet, the girl is up, in her closet, and changing. A nightshirt goes flying as well as a pair of loose pajama pants. Out rushes the girl, dressed in a familiar uniform, into her bathroom. A few seconds later she's out and racing down the stairs into the kitchen, where her mother is holding up a bookbag and lunchbox, a piece of buttered toast on top of the box.
"Have fun at school, dear!" Mrs. Kenobishi chuckles as Rei grabs everything in her sprint, pauses to kiss her mother on the cheek, and then rockets out the back door and onto the sidewalk. Tiny flickers of flame mark her path and give a testament to her speed. A quick flashback to the clock shows the time as 8:18.
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"Hey, I hear we're gettin' a new student today," one of Ranma and Akane's classmates tells one of his friends. "Hope it's a really hot babe!"
"Are you kiddin'?" the friend retorts. "With the luck we've had lately, they're gonna be some psycho martial artist that's gonna wreck the school. Not that that'd be a bad thing," he adds cheerfully as Ranma, Akane, and Ukyo glare at him. "No more homework."
"So what d'you think, Ranchan?" Ukyo asks from her desk. The pig-tailed martial artist shrugs.
"How'm I supposed to know? 'S not like I'm Principal Kuno's buddy or anything."
"A simple 'I don't know' would have sufficed," Akane snaps. Before another of the famous Akane vs. Ranma bouts (which usually ends with Ranma getting punted through the roof) the sound of a collision is heard out in the hallway. There is the beginning sounds of a shared apology--Ranma perks his ears up: one of the two voices sounds like Miss Hinako in kid-form, and the other would probably be the new student--a stunned, nay, dismayed silence, then--
"What the hell are you doing here?!" is the chorus from two throats. All the students are stunned as a column of fire bursts the door off of its runners and breaks the window. As soon as it clears--cuts off, Ranma bets--a slender girl with long red hair and an oddly-familiar checkered bandanna tied as a headband runs into the room and screeches to a halt in front of the singed teacher's desk to snap towards the door, "My family moved our dojo here so I wouldn't have to deal with you draining me anymore! I'm not gonna let you suck me dry again!" And then the new student races to the broken window and neatly does a jump and flip and is out the window--which happens to be set on the third floor. Half the classroom rushes over in disbelief to watch the girl land easily and take off running.
Ranma glances back towards the door as Miss Hinako-chan walks in, dusting off her sweater and looking very put out. Thanks to nearly three months of effort, Ranma has finally managed to undo Happosai's work and has shut down the ki-draining ability of Miss Hinako that had given him so much friggin' trouble.
"Old student?" he asks, jerking a thumb at the window. Miss Hinako nods.
"Unfortunately, yes. She's one of the only delinquents that I wasn't able to completely subdue. Her name is Rei Kenobishi. Since you've taken away my ability, I am hereby charging you to get her back here so I can give her detention."
"Are you kidding me?!" Akane gasps. "Ranma'll probably run off, too!"
"Thanks a lot, Akane," Ranma mutters. Miss Hinako sighs.
"Whether he does or not is up to him. Without my Happo-five-yen-shiatsu, I can't really drain him, now can I? Besides, Miss Kenobishi is a skilled fighter and if Ranma defeated me, he can probably defeat her."
"Hey, a challenge!" Ranma lights up. He hasn't had a real challenge for a while, just the boring stuff like trying to fend off all of the girls chasing him and all of the jealous guys like Mousse and Ryoga. Heh, even they hadn't been hard to beat lately. A new sparring partner would be just what he needed.
Before Akane can say another disparaging word--and before the rest of the class can get over the shock of Miss Hinako actually trusting Ranma--the black-haired boy jumps out the window and trots off, following the occasional burn mark in the grass.
It doesn't take him very long. About half-way across the school the burn marks end at the base of a decently-sized tree. As he reaches the tree's base, however, a loud sneeze is heard and the top of the tree suddenly explodes with fire. A very miffed girl is seated near the top, tears of anger shining at the corners of her eyes.
"And Dad wonders why I always head the other direction when he uses pepper," Rei says to herself in a voice on the verge of true tears.
"Don't blame ya," Ranma says, and barely manages to dodge a fireball that toasts the ground he'd been standing on. Startled green eyes look down at him, and Ranma hastily averts his eyes when he realizes that because of the way Rei is sitting, he can see right up her skirt. The red-head notices and quickly jumps down to avoid the problem altogether, confronting Ranma at the same time.
"What the hell do you want?"
"Miss Hinako sent me to bring ya back to class," Ranma admits reluctantly. He really wants to learn this fire-projection technique this Rei chick has. He barely felt that last attack coming!
"Are you serious?" Rei asks, putting her hands behind her head and leaning against the trunk. "What, she ain't gonna suck my battle-aura?"
"Naw," Ranma reassures her, "I finally hit the pressure points enough to block that." Rei face-faults.
"You mean there were pressure points to stop it?!"
"Err, yeah."
"Great, fantastic." With a sigh, Rei pushes herself away from the tree and starts walking back towards the building. "Well, the worst thing she can do to me now is expel me, I guess. Hey, what's your name, anyway?"
The young man blinks and moves to catch up with her. "Ranma. Ranma Saotome. You're Rei Kenobishi, right?"
"That's me. Heir to the Anything Goes School of Fire-Fox."
"Aw, I knew it! Wanna spar sometime?"
"Are you serious?" Rei asks in disbelief. "Spar?"
"Yeah, I'm a martial artist too. I'm stuck with the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, and no one's given me a run for my money lately. Wanna try?" Looking at his sincere face, Rei can't help but smile.
"Okay, why not? My place isn't hard to find. Just follow the signs. My dad's trying to drum up extra business."
"With this many dojos already in town? Good luck."
"At least we'll have one set coming to check it out."
"Whassat?"
"The pyros."
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Later on that afternoon as Ranma and surprisingly, Ryoga, are walking down the street towards the Neko-Hanten, unsurprisingly arguing at the tops of their lungs. Ryoga still has a bandage wrapped around his head from the last fight he had with Ranma. Actually, the two start running when they notice the heavy rain clouds behind them.
"Stupid pig! I told ya, I'm only gonna see how well she can spar," Ranma snarls as they run. He is answered by a punch from Ryoga, which he easily dodges and returns full-force.
"How dare you cheat on Akane?!" Ryoga is, as usual, not listening. Neither notice the blur going from tree-top to tree-top behind them, rapidly catching up. It blazes down and slams into Ryoga, planting his face firmly in concrete and leaving a foot-print as well as flames as the blur races off in the direction of the Neko-Hanten.
"Sorry!" the blur yells in a familiar voice as it disappears. A few moments later as Ranma stands there stunned, the threatening rain comes down and drenches the street, changing Ranma and Ryoga into their cursed forms and putting out the tiny flickers of fire.
"Huh." Ranma-chan picks up the unconscious Ryoga by the bandanna around the black piglet's neck and starts walking. "That kinda looked like Rei."
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"Gotta beat the rain, gotta beat the rain," Rei pants as she runs, feet ahead of the downpour. She knows she whammed someone, but she couldn't show up to her new job late, could she? She finally reaches the Cat Café and ducks inside just as the rain catches up with her and adds a layer of shine to the street outside.
Cologne pogos up, looking a bit surprised at the sudden entrance, but pleased that the girl believed in not being late. "You must be Rei Kenobishi, correct?"
Rei blinks in surprise and then bows. "Ah, hai, ma'am. I am Rei and I'm pl--" A customer enters and the rain follows, soaking Rei and lashing Cologne in the face. When the old woman lowers her sleeve, she is surprised to find her new waitress gone. A very unhappy bark from down near the ground causes her to look and see a dripping wet young fox sitting on the floor, surrounded by Rei's clothes and with the same black-and-yellow checkered bandanna around her neck.
"Well," is Cologne's only comment. The fox lets out a little mushroom-cloud sigh and holds up a sign, its string between her teeth.
"--pleased to meet you."
About ten minutes later, in walks Ranma-chan and Ryoga, the latter still unconscious and still a pig. Up bounds Shampoo, Cologne's great-granddaughter, and glomps onto Ranma. Rei, now back in her normal form and dressed in a clean, dry outfit of Shampoo's, is busy serving tables with incredible efficiency. While Shampoo drags Ranma (and Ryoga) into a back room to get changed and dry, Rei keeps glancing back at Ranma for some strange reason.
When he comes back out, once again male and carrying a still-unconscious but human and dressed Ryoga, Rei's eyes widen a bit and she nearly spills a bowl of ramen in a customer's lap. Apologizing profusely, she cleans it up and gets the girl another bowl.
Shampoo immediately gets the wrong idea and gets more possessive than usual, only to notice that the new waitress seems to be staring at Ryoga, who is finally starting to wake up. The eternally-lost martial artist blinks as a bowl is set in front of him, a very apologetic Rei smiling at him.
"Ano, gomenasai. This is a freebie, as an apology for me landing on your head." The footprint's still there. Ryoga, of course, turns bright red and mutters something along the lines of a forgiveness, poking holes in the table-top nervously.
"You work here, Rei?" Ranma asks in startlement. Rei nods cheerfully.
"Part-time starting today. So what can I get for ya?"
Ranma's stomach growls. "Anything, so long as it ain't got nothin' to make me do somethin' I don't wanna do." Rei laughs and Shampoo turns pink.
"Sure, no problem. I'll just get you a special like I got your friend here." And she walks off towards the kitchen. Shampoo turns on Ranma the second Rei's out of earshot.
"Ranma! Who girl to you?!" Ranma blinks.
"You hired her. Shouldn't you know who she is?" His head is slammed into the table by Ryoga, holding the ramen-bowl in his other hand out of harm's way as the table snaps in half.
"Moron! Why are you talking to yet another girl?! Isn't five enough for you?!"
"Pig-boy owe Shampoo for new table," the purple-haired Amazon girl puts in irritably as Ranma sits back up and rubs his forehead.
"Last time I checked, it's just four, and she's the heir to the new dojo in town. I'm just gonna see how well she fights."
"What?!" Shampoo snarls jealously. Ranma merely shuts up at this point and waits for his food. Shampoo gets even more possessive (is such a thing possible?) until she notices that Rei is more interested in Ryoga than in Shampoo's 'groom'. Then she mellows out again and becomes all purrs. ('Scuse the pun, couldn't resist)
For once, Ranma gets to eat a relatively quiet meal of ramen, since Shampoo isn't being defensive, Rei has Mousse thoroughly cowed and doing dishes and busing tables, and every time someone comes in looking for a fight Ryoga or Rei boots them out again. Surprise, surprise. Miracles do happen.
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Whee! My very first posted fanfic! And to think this all started on a forum board…The next chapters I have up (until Nine, methinks) are pretty much the entirety of the fic that I've already gotten written, hence the massive upload. As per usual, read and review! Thanks much!