Disclaimer: Hell, no, I don't own Ranma 1/2 or Yu Yu Hakusho, except for merchandise. So, blah!

Chapter Two: Realizations

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The street outside the Kenobishi dojo, early Sunday afternoon. Ranma and a somewhat put-out Akane are walking down the sidewalk, looking around in curiosity: they haven't been to this particular part of town in a while.

"For the last time, Akane, I just wanna fight her," Ranma explains wearily as they walk, the pig-tailed boy still wearing his usual Chinese clothing, Akane in a cute pair of shorts and tanktop with matching sneakers.

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you," Akane snaps.

"Then why are you so mad?" Ranma asks, walking backwards in front of her so he could watch her face.

"With how many girls are chasing you now, you wonder why I worry?" Akane snaps her mouth shut and blushes as Ranma is so stunned he misses his footing and falls backwards. Shoot! I didn't mean to say that out loud! Akane scolds herself mentally.

"Say that again?" Ranma asks as he rights himself. Akane just settles her face into her usual scowl and stomps past, not saying a word. Ranma blinks and follows after, still pestering Akane to repeat herself. This goes on for several blocks until they notice several junior-high students leaving from the same place. All are carrying gym bags and wearing towels around their necks.

"Bye, sensei!" they call as they walk off. "See you tomorrow!" Apparently, they get a response, since they all wave again and resume walking. Ranma and Akane look at where they left and see the roof of the dojo over the wall, as well as a part of the second story to a cozy-looking home. As they walk towards the gate they hear swishing and odd thunks coming from the other side, so they lift themselves up partway to see over.

What they see surprises them: Rei, dressed in a dark red gi is balanced on the tip of a bamboo pole, one of many set into what looks like a miniature replication of part of Jusenkyo. The two watch in admiration as the girl moves from pole to pole in a rapid dance that ends when one of the poles snaps as she lands and sends her tumbling into the cold water below.

They're stunned when a small fox climbs out of the pool and shakes out her fur before fishing out her clothes and dragging them over to a nearby teakettle set on a hot-plate next to a stack of fluffy towels. The fox drapes one over herself before pushing a button at the base of the plate. A wire tied around the kettle's handle lifts it up and tips the contents over the fox. When the steam clears, Rei is kneeling there, decently covered with the towel; Akane still has a hand over Ranma's eyes.

"Huh. This curse is really a pain sometimes," Rei says in exasperation as she walks into the house. Ranma and Akane drop back down to the sidewalk and kinda stare at the ground for a second.

"That explains why she was rushing so bad she stepped on Ryoga," Ranma says out loud. "If she was heading to a job, she wouldn't wanna be a fox when she got there."

"Why are all these people from Jusenkyo showing up all of a sudden, anyway?" Akane questions. "Ever since you showed up, there's been Shampoo, Mousse, Pantyhose Taro, and Herb."

You're forgetting Ryoga, Ranma thinks to himself. Thanks to a promise Ranma had made to Ryoga, he still hadn't told Akane that her cute pet piglet P-chan was really Ryoga in his cursed form. And I want to be far away when you do find out. Her vengeance would be terrible.

The two shake it off and walk through the gate just as Rei walks out of her house, dressed in a dry gi, a green one this time, and spots them.

"Ah! Konnichiwa, Ranma-san!" Rei greets him, bowing slightly. "Who's your friend?"

"This here's Akane." Ranma jerks a thumb in Akane's direction and his fiancée starts looking annoyed.

"Oh, so you're the one every guy in the school is mourning over," Rei chuckles. "The poor unfortunate girl engaged to Ranma."

"Hey, how'd you--"

"Are you kidding? I had at least three guys yakking my ear off about it and a lot more girls telling me how sorry they felt for you since Ranma's got all these girls chasing after him." Rei finishes tying back her hair into a braid and looks at Akane. "Hey, you don't mind if we spar, do you? I don't want to hurt your feelings or anything. If it makes you feel any better, I have a boyfriend back in China so I'm not gonna chase after Ranma."

Secretly, it did make Akane feel better, but she merely frowned. "Why would I worry about you going after a baka like Ranma here?"

"Hey, but you said--" Ranma is cut off by an elbow to the stomach. Rei just looks back and forth between them for a moment, a sweatdrop by her ear.

"Hey, after I beat Ranma to a pulp, I can spar with you, Akane! I bet you don't get too many chances these days to fight with someone other than a student, hey?"

"That's sounds like fun!" Akane agrees, refraining to mention that the Tendo dojo was running on a sudden scarcity of students. Or that Ranma refused to be serious on the rare occasions when he sparred with her.

"Ranma, do you want to borrow a gi?" Rei asks as they walk towards a more open area of the yard. A middle-aged man emerges from the dojo, wearing a blue gi with a flame on the left side and a fox made of fire on the back.

"Ah, no, thanks. Is this your dad?" Rei gives the man a hug as he walks over.

"Hi, Rei. Last students leave?"

"Uh-huh. Daddy, this is Ranma Saotome and Akane Tendo. Guys, this is my father, Kyo Kenobishi. My mother's probably inside making lunch as we speak. Do you mind if we use the dojo, Daddy? Ranma came over to spar with me today."

"Don't see why not," Kyo shrugs. "Just make sure you don't destroy it, okay?"

"Promise!" Rei chirps as she leads them into the spacious hall.

The two spend a few moments stretching before Rei settles into a stance that is eerily familiar…

"Neko-ken?!" Ranma and Akane gasp, and Rei blinks in confusion.

"Cat-fu? What's that? This is a Fox-style defense stance, that's all." Ranma looks closer and realizes their mistake. Rei's fingers are curled outward into claws, her stance more balanced by having her body weight shifted into her legs, instead of on all fours like Neko-ken would have her do. Also, her entire body is much closer to the ground than she would be if she was using Neko-ken.

With a smile, Ranma settles into his preferred, loose defensive stance and looks over at Akane. "Would you do the honors, Akane?"

"Okay," Akane says softly. She picks up a nearby flag and stands between the two, flag parallel with the ground. "Ready. Set. Go!" And she leaps backwards as the match begins.

Instantly Rei shifts into a different stance and vanishes. Ranma has two seconds to register this before an open-palm strike to the solar-plexus sends him tumbling. Akane sees Ranma tumble and Rei appear for a moment, braid flying from her speed before she disappears again.

She's fast! Ranma thinks to himself as he lands on his feet and opens his ki-sense, trying to locate his opponent by her battle-aura. Real fast!

"You can't just sense me, Ranma," Rei says as she hits again, this time a blow to the back. "I can suppress my battle-aura too well for that. Unless you're as good at ki as Herb is."

"That jerk from the Musk Dynasty?" Ranma catches a flicker to his left and lashes out with a knife-edge hand, striking Rei in the shoulder and knocking her into a wall. "I've fought him. He ain't that good at hand-to-hand."

"Ouch." Rei pulls herself to her feet and rubs her struck shoulder. "Guess I underestimated you, Ranma. I won't do that again."

Akane is stunned. No wonder Ranma never wants to spar with her! She couldn't see anything until Rei hit the wall. She had no idea anyone was that fast.

"My daughter's pretty good, ne?" a cheerful voice asks behind the dismayed girl, who turns to find a brown-haired woman with a similar aura of tranquility as Kasumi standing there with a plate of sandwiches in the doorway. "My husband's been training her since she was two and he'd have started earlier if he could've, I'm sure, but we didn't find Rei before then."

"What do you mean?" Akane is surprised. Meanwhile, Rei and Ranma are still sparring in the background, sending up dustclouds, going at each other with a variety of weapons (including bokken, mallets, etc.) and generally trying to beat each other into a pulp. Mrs. Kenobishi has a small sweatdrop by her head as she continues.

"Rei didn't tell you, hmm? Sometimes I think she forgets. She's actually adopted, official since she was two and a half."

"Don't remember my birth-parents," Rei grits as she catches Ranma in a headlock. "Dad told me that he and Mom found me at this place in China. What was it called, Mom?"

"Ju-something or other." Ranma somehow moves and catches Rei in an armlock.

"Jusenkyo?"

"That's right!" Mrs. Kenobishi beams at him. "Have you been there?"

"Uh, yeah." A grunt as Rei heats her ki and drives him backward. "Pops dragged me there on some stupid training journey."

"Which one did you fall into, dear?" his opponent's mother queries while offering the plate of sandwiches to Akane.

"Naniichuan." Rei bursts out laughing and has to put the match on hold.

"A…girl?" she manages between laughs. "Ah! Gomen, but it's just so funny!"

"I don't think so," Ranma and Akane mutter in unison.

"At least you get to go swimming and stay human," Mrs. Kenobishi soothes. "Poor Rei isn't able to swim in anything but warm."

"Yeah, I'm lucky I can swim at all. Thanks for the food, Mom."

"No problem. Just call if you need anything." And the woman leaves. Rei stuffs a sandwich in her mouth and resumes a fighting pose.

"Rephry do go igen?" she asks with her mouth full. The other two just laugh as the match resumes.

***

"That was fun," Ranma comments as Akane puts a Band-Aid on a scratch on his cheek. The three are sitting outside the dojo, which is miraculously intact in the evening sunlight. "I didn't see that last punch coming at all."

"I didn't see that kick, either," Rei counters, already patched up and lounging on the grass. "But I'm guessing it's my ki attacks and defenses that you're interested in, right?"

"Yeah, actually. I mean, I've already picked up a few that I think I can duplicate, but I didn't catch everything."

"Not bad. How about you, Akane? Want to learn anything?"

"Some of those holds and escapes are totally new to me," the black-haired girl admits. "Guess I haven't been keeping up, huh?"

"Nonsense! No one can expect you to learn when no one's there to teach you, ne? I mean, unless you create a new style or something, right?"

Akane gives Rei a secretive wink while Ranma's eyes are closed during the application of hydrogen peroxide. "Right." Rei grins back and mouths, 'tomorrow?' and Akane nods.

"So you're adopted, huh, Rei?" Akane asks, changing the subject. Rei nods, bangs flopping into her eyes.

"Hai. I've got a couple of clues if I ever go looking for my birth-parents, and I've got a great story of how I got adopted by Mom and Dad."

Naturally, the two are curious so Rei settles more comfortably on the grass. "Mind you, I only remember a bit, so the rest is from my parents and the guide.

"I was with my real folks and my brother on a trip to China. At least, I think it was a trip. They were looking at a map a lot. Anyway, we were passing Jusenkyo when this bunch of bandits appeared. Turned out to be about ten men from the Musk Dynasty, protecting someone or other. I got split from my family and ended up falling into the Spring of Drowned Fox. One of the guys found me, fished me out, and took me to the guide. The fool thought I was edible, so he came up with a recipe. But he decided to check first at the man's insistence, thank the gods! So he found out I was human and took care of me for a couple days before the Kenobishis showed up and took me home with them. Mind you, they left a phone number so my birth-parents would be able to find me if they showed up again, but no one ever called looking for a little girl. So Mom and Dad adopted me."

"That's really amazing," Akane says, first-aid kit on her lap. "Don't you miss them even a little?"

"Can't miss what you don't remember, can you?" Rei chuckles and takes something from around her neck, handing it to Akane. "This is pretty much my only clue, however. Ain't much to go by, but hey, beggars can't be choosers." Akane opens the locket that Rei has handed her with a gentle thumbnail, fingers telling her that there's engraving on the back. One side shows a man and a woman, both fairly young-looking, with the man wearing his dark-red hair cut short, the woman with her black hair long. Both are smiling happily at the camera, sporting yellow-and-black checkered bandannas around forehead or throat.

On the other side is a boy and girl, the boy slightly older than two-year-old Rei. Her hair is almost as dark as her father's, while the boy's hair is black like his mother's. They, too, are wearing bandannas, and all four of the family have fangs.

"You, know, that boy looks kinda familiar, don't he, Akane?" Ranma asks, pointing to the boy.

"You're right." The thought suddenly clicks into their minds at the same time and they both look at a startled Rei.

"Hey, Rei, how's your sense of direction?" Ranma asks.

Rei blinks. "Huh? Oh, I guess it's not any worse than most people's. I mean, I get turned around sometimes, especially in new places, but I could cover every inch of my old stomping grounds pretty easily." The other look at each other again and shrug to say, guess not. But that's before Akane turns the locket over and reads the engraving.

'Rei Hibiki'

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Cliff-hangers are fun! *runs away from crowd with pitchforks* Eeeeeeeee!

Starling: I'll finish. Thanks much to anyone who's review so far, though you really should wait until you finish all the chapters present. *Sweatdrops as Niana sprints past in the background still being chased* I warned her…Anyway, please read and review! Thanks!