Characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi

"What a strange girl she is." Akane thought, studying the girl as she lay asleep on the floor, or fainted rather. She found herself marveling at the girl's garments, seemingly of Chinese origin. But her choice of clothes was not the most striking thing about her. Her hair, on the other hand, was. Never before, and likely never again, had she seen a girl with hair such a brilliant shade of red, hair worn in a single pigtail.

However, more peculiar than her hair or her clothes was the manner by which the two of them had met. Under those circumstances, Akane could not help feeling pity for her, in spite of the fact that she usually wasn't very sympathetic to strangers. Her sister Kasumi, on the other hand, was ever sympathetic to the needs of others. In fact, her sister's selfless compassion for others was so strong that Akane often thought of her more as a mother than as a sister, and ever since that tragic day, Kasumi surely seemed taken with the role, undertaking her new responsibilities with that very same selflessness.

Suddenly, the thought occurred to her that maybe the only reason she felt sympathy for this poor girl was because, secretly, she wanted to be more like her sister. And why else would she want to be more like Kasumi, other than for the hope that somehow it might make him like her more? Akane would've been selfish, were that the case, but it most certainly was not.

No, Akane's compassion towards this girl was not an act, nor was it simply a ploy for the attentions of a certain acupuncturist slash martial artist. No, her feelings for this girl, this stranger, were as genuine as her feelings for said martial artist, feelings which she feared would never be returned.

Akane was watching the redhead intently, along with her sisters Kasumi and Nabiki, when suddenly the girl stirred. They watched with sudden anticipation as the girl's eyelids twitched ever so slightly, then as she frowned at something mysterious. Then finally, those eyes slid slowly open, and she was looking at them. Not long after that, with no questions asked, she was sitting up in bed. However, this exertion proved quite painful. Even the simple act of raising her head was a battle, as the slightest motion triggered excruciating pain.

"Take it easy," Kasumi warned, as she sat up. The girl, apparently adverse to her better judgment, winced in pain. Then, to their dismay, the sisters watched as she pulled the blanket close to her, hugged her knees, and cried.

At that moment, Akane realized just how out of practice she was with this whole sympathy thing. Still, she tried her best. Her hand placed gently, reassuringly on the girl's shoulder, Akane said, "Hey, you want to be friends?"

The girl stopped crying, sniffed, and looked up at her. "Friends?" she asked shyly, as though she'd never had a friend before, as though the very concept was foreign to her.

"Yeah, with me," Akane replied, smiling good naturedly. She wouldn't have thought her smile so infectious, but soon the redhead was smiling back at her, seeming to forget, at least for the moment, the throbbing pain in her head. Then, Akane realized the reward of offering comfort to someone else. Quite simply, knowing she had given comfort to this stranger, made her feel better as well, no matter how small the comfort.

"Yes, thank you." She replied weakly.

Again, Akane smiled. Her good mood was not to last, though. All of a sudden, her sister Nabiki, older than Akane by one year, leaned in close to her, and said slyly, "Hey Akane. At least she's not a boy."

At that moment, Akane knew Nabiki was making fun of her. Actually, she was poking fun at what she perceived as her little sister's irrational and often violent hatred of boys. However, Akane refused to give in to Nabiki's bait. She wasn't about to embarrass herself in front of this girl.

"Nabiki, don't start." Kasumi scolded her sister gently, and that was the end of it, for now.

Then, Akane realized that maybe the reason she was being so sympathetic to this girl was simply because she was a girl, a girl and not a boy. She doubted she would feel the same compassion for a strange boy. In fact, she knew there would be no compassion at all.

"Perverts!" she thought angrily. One of them was, surely. A certain upperclassman whose name she loathed to speak, relentless in his pursuit of her, with a notorious penchant for spouting bad poetry. Despite her fuming, Akane knew deep down that not all men were womanizers like Kuno Tatewaki. Her Tofu certainly wasn't. However, being harassed daily by Kuno and almost every boy in school had succeeded in making her immediately suspicious of them as a whole. Never mind the fact that she still beat them every day.

And this Ranma she had heard so much about, the only son of her father's best friend, a young, probably pig-headed, martial artist who had returned with his father from a dangerous training mission in China. Ranma, the fiancé, the only "prize" offered in an arranged marriage set up by their fathers.

"I bet he's a pervert like the rest of them." Akane thought coldly. Suddenly, she was glad to have met this girl, no matter the circumstances, glad in spite of the fact that she didn't even know her name, glad because she was a girl, but mostly glad because she wasn't a boy. She wasn't Ranma.

Then suddenly, there came a knock at the girls' bedroom door. Their father looked in to check on them, or rather, to check on her. Though Tendo Soun was quickly approaching middle age, he looked not a year over forty. His long black hair, having not yet begun to turn gray, lent him a wild look, as did the intensity of his eyes. However, his mustache was well groomed, which dispelled any notion that he did not take pride in his appearance. His figure was what one might expect of a dojo sensei, lean, yet sturdy, tanned by long hours training in the hot sun.

"She's awake, Father," said Kasumi cheerfully, gladder than anyone to see her conscious and alert. She had feared, seeing that nasty bump on the back of her head, the girl might never wake up again.

"I can see that." He replied. "That's a real nasty bump on your head, miss. How do you feel?"

"Like I want to throw up. Oh, sorry," The girl apologized almost automatically, realizing her honesty might be thought rude, and not wanting to be thought rude.

"That's perfectly alright," Soun laughed. "Now, could you tell us your name?"

That was the first indication they had that something was in fact very wrong with her, because when Soun asked the girl her name, she couldn't answer, nor could she answer any of their questions about who she was, or where she came from. It was as if she simply didn't know.

At that moment, they realized the girl was as much a mystery to herself as she was to them. And they quickly suspected the wound on her head to be the cause of her amnesia.