Since Paul Gallegos appears to be releasing the Ranma Preludes series on 
RAAC, I'll presume that he's done with them.  As such, I thought I'd post 
mine here for the edification of all, and hope that it's the same version 
as the one that hits RAAC whenever it does.  Love to hear what everyone 
thinks of it, as 2 of my 4 prereaders disliked the ending. ^_^




Strangers in the Night

A Hibiki Family History

by Sean Gaffney

All characters copyright Takahashi, blah blah blah.  Thanks to Mark 
Doherty, Mike Koos, and Richard Lawson for prereading comments and help.


     1913.

     The young couple strolled along the path, feeling happier than they 
ever thought was possible.  They had just married the day before, and 
had spent most of the night in her room making love.  Now they were on 
their honeymoon, touring around the outskirts of Nagasaki and trying to 
take in the sights.  It was difficult, because the sights they most 
wanted to take in were each other.
   
     Even as they walked, their hands roamed over the other's body, 
showing little bits of affection.  They paid little attention to where 
they were going; Hiroyuki had a good sense of direction and could get 
them back home with little trouble.

     So they ignored the signs saying that the tourist area ended here.  
They ignored further signs saying that going beyond this point was not 
only strictly prohibited, but very dangerous.  And when they came to a 
beautiful grotto, nestled in the middle of an outcrop of old stones, 
their first thought was not of the beauty of the place or of the 
peculiarity of the untended shrine above it.  Their first thought was 
that this was a private place all to their own, and they wanted each 
other again.

     And so Hiroyuki lay his new wife down on the moss and lichen, and 
they stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, making love, giggling, 
and growing even closer together.  It was a perfect day for them.  
Nothing could spoil it.

     That was perhaps why they were excessively surprised to see the 
demon towering above them.

     It stood about twelve feet tall, and looked almost like the Western 
depictions of devils, being tall and red with a forked tail.  However, 
its face had an Asian shape and a serene countenance.  For a demon who 
had just caught two people fooling around on top of his burial ground, 
he looked rather calm.

     The wife, Sakura, screamed and attempted to cover herself.  The 
demon waved a finger, and she was thrown ten feet against the stones, 
cutting her foot open.  Seeing this, Hiroyuki tried to attack the demon, 
but he merely stretched and sent the young man flying into another 
rockface, with enough force to leave him groggy but conscious.

     The demon stared at them, and now his visage grew angry.  "You defy 
me here in my own den.  You have the temerity to conceive a child here.  
Warnings have been placed along the way, yet you ignore them.  Do you 
have anything to say in your defense?"

     Despite her pain, Sakura only had ears for one part of the demon's 
speech.  "Conceived?  I'm going to have a baby?"

     Now the demon grew to twenty feet tall, and smoke started to pour 
into the grotto.  "I see that your future child is your defense.  Very 
well, then, I will make sure that you and that child never know any form 
of happiness!"

     Hiroyuki got to his feet, and attempted to charge the demon, but 
the smoke coming from the grotto now obscured the entire landscape.  He 
could still hear the demon's voice, however.

     "From this day forward, you shall never find your way.  Though you 
walk for years, you will never be able to find a place of peace.  You 
are cursed to wander the paths of this world, seeking solace but finding 
none.  This is my curse on you!"  And at this point the smoke turned 
bright red, and the demon began to cackle.

     Hiroyuki panicked.  "Sakura!" he shouted, and ran over to the place 
where he had last seen her.  But when the smoke dissipated, he found 
himself not in a grotto but in a small forest.  He tried to pinpoint a 
direction but his previous sense seemed to have abandoned him.  
"Sakura!" he screamed, over and over again.  It took him four days to 
escape the forest, and that was when he learned he was one hundred miles 
from where he had been.

     Sakura too attempted to find her way to her husband.  She walked 
for a bit, but could not recognize any of the landmarks.  Eventually she 
found herself in Tokyo, and was forced to find work in order not to 
starve.  The demon had been correct, she was with child now.  A child 
that would grow up without a father.

     Hiroyuki and Sakura Hibiki lived for another sixty years.  They 
never met again.

***

     The demon, still chuckling, returned to his reign.  He was met 
there by a similar creature, blue in tinge, who had an odd grin on his 
face.

     The first demon held out a hand.  "Pay up.  I'm sure you'll agree 
that the curse was horrible enough.  I've never seen a couple so in 
love, and I made sure they'll never meet again!"

     The second demon showed no sign of moving.  "Indeed you did, it was 
very heartbreaking.  I might even have paid you, except for one thing."

     "Hmm?"

     The second demon grinned.  "You did the exact same thing to that 
couple that were screwing on your stone *last* week, remember?"

     The first demon paled.  *Oh no...*

***

     1977.

     Takuya Hibiki walked along the familiar streets of Tokyo, trying to 
see if he could recognize a landmark.  He hadn't been in this area for a 
few months, but the businesses wouldn't have changed too much in that 
short a time.  In his hand he held a notebook with detailed descriptions 
of buildings, monuments and other obvious landmarks.  He would have 
tried to draw a map, but he knew that they were useless to him.

     He remembered when he had finally discovered his family's secret.  
He had been three years old, and walking along the beach, trying to see 
if he could find any food.  Suddenly someone had given out a cry and had 
lifted him up and taken him to an apartment.

     The woman, she had told him, was his mother's best friend.  Upon 
hearing of his mother, Takuya's head snapped up.  He had no memories of 
her, but the number of people who had asked him where his mother was had 
ingrained the concept into his head.  To him, mother equaled home.  He'd 
never had a home.

     The woman told him that his mother was lost again, just like he had 
been.  However, she had left a note to be given to him.  Takuya stared 
at the paper, but couldn't read it.  The woman then took it and 
explained it to him.

     In the note, his mother had apologized for not being able to take 
care of him.  She explained the Hibiki curse for misdirection that 
plagued their family, and how it doomed the members of that family to 
walk the entire length and breadth of Japan, never being able to find 
each other.  She had met his father, and foolishly let herself be talked 
into a one-night stand.  When the night was over, he was gone and she 
was pregnant.

     The note gave him advice and instructions on living on the road, 
and also came with a small card, which his mother told him if used 
properly could get him money to buy food.  She told him finally how much 
she loved him, and hoped that he would grow into a fine and strong young 
man.

     Twenty years later, Takuya still had the note.  It was tucked into 
the very front of the notebook he carried with him, and he had read it 
countless times.  Once he had even attempted to organize a search for 
her, but that proved fruitless.  The very nature of the curse insured 
that he would never meet her.

     Though his life growing up was lonely, it was not altogether 
horrible.  He had learned when to depend on himself to get through a 
crisis, as well as when to ask others for help, even if he knew he would 
probably never see them again to repay them.

     The half of the notebook that was not filled with landmarks for aid 
in navigation was filled with addresses.  Every day, Takuya thanked the 
gods for the postal service.  The curse did not extend to letters, and 
therefore he was able to communicate with the people he had met over the 
years, even if he couldn't see them.

     Right now he was just returning from the post office, where he had 
mailed off his latest article to the publishers.  Five years ago, he had 
found himself in the lobby of one of Japan's biggest magazines.  The 
editor had taken a shine to his 'rough-hewn' lifestyle that he described 
and asked him if he would like to join the staff.  Swallowing his pride, 
Takuya had explained why normal employment wasn't an option for him, but 
the editor seemed to take this in stride.  Half their writers had never 
entered the office, apparently.  All Takuya needed to do was write down 
whatever interested him, and mail it off.

     As a result, Takuya was currently a fairly well-known roving 
reporter-slash-correspondent.  His fairly innocent and simple view of 
the complexities of Japanese society was a big hit with the modern 
reader.  The publisher had, much to Takuya's annoyance, made a big play 
of the fact that he didn't know Kanji, probably in an effort to lend 
more of a down-home mystique to his character.  But as he was unlikely 
to meet the man again, he didn't worry about it.

     He had a few copies of the magazine in his pack, but not all of 
them.  His articles would not help him to survive in the wilderness, as 
his tent and stove would.  His fans called this a return to common sense 
and family values; Takuya just called it blindingly obvious.

     Unfortunately, not all things were blindingly obvious to him.  Just 
now, for instance, the woman he smashed into on the sidewalk in front of 
him.

     He was about to apologize and help her up when the woman got up of 
her own accord and started beating the crap out of him.

     "You creep!" <WHAM>  "How dare you - " <WHAM> " - accost innocent 
women on - " <WHAM> " - the street?  What kind of - " <WHAM> " - pervert 
are you?"
    
     Takuya grabbed his head and tried to lean against the side of the 
building.  "One that's in great pain."

     The woman suddenly seemed to look at him for the first time.  She 
flushed.  "Um...were you attacking me, or just not looking where you 
were going?"

     "That second thing," Takuya moaned.

     "Oh dammit, I'm sorry."  Now the woman bent down and tried to help 
him up.  "I just tend to get carried away sometimes, I mean you know how 
men are, no offense to you of course, but they're all perverts, and 
what's a woman alone of the street supposed to do?"

     Takuya got his first good look at her.  He suddenly understood why 
she might be bothered by perverts; she was absolutely gorgeous.  Fairly 
tall for her build, she had a lovely face framed by soft black curls, 
and a body that he had to immediately look away from lest he nosebleed 
and get beaten up again.

     He really wanted to see more of this woman.  It was not a thought 
he'd had in recent years.  After all, relationships were somewhat 
impossible given his family's curse.  But still, he couldn't just let 
her walk off.  Not just like that.  He felt...odd around this woman.  As 
if she had something that he had been missing.

     He quickly looked around, and discovered they were close to a small 
restaurant.  As it was only ten feet away, he should be able to make it.  
He turned to her and grinned.  "Well, I'll tell you what?  Why don't I 
buy you a drink to make up for running into you, and you can buy me a 
drink for hitting me?"

     She blushed red, and looked up at him.  Suddenly her face grew 
suspicious.  "You're not trying to get me drunk so you can rape me, are 
you?"

     He blinked.  "No."

     She blushed again.  "Oh.  Well, OK then."  She looked around 
quickly and spotted the restaurant he had seen earlier.  "How about over 
there?"

     "Perfect.  Oh, I'm Takuya Hibiki."

     She took his hand, smiling shyly.  "Mika Kawada."

***

     Neither of them wanted to leave.  They had spent four hours here 
engaging in inconsequential small talk.  Takuya didn't want to mention 
his past, for obvious reasons, and Mika seemed equally reticent, so they 
didn't talk about themselves.  They talked about the recent weather, and 
about the elections, and about the cherry blossoms blooming on the 
trees.  Mika seemed to be as avidly interested in nature as Takuya was, 
and this was another thing that added to her charm.

     Aside from her somewhat short temper, she was wonderful.  Somewhat 
shy but once she opened up you realized she had a nice, open look on 
life.  They seemed to have so much in common.  Plus there was her 
beauty.  He occasionally found himself just drinking in her eyes, until 
he noticed he was staring.

     The temper was a problem.  At one point, he had grinned broadly, 
and she had screamed and started rooting around in her purse.  When he 
asked what was wrong, she had talked about him sucking out her blood and 
leaving her deflowered and white corpse on the steps of Tokyo Tower as 
an example to others.  It took him a while to explain that his fangs 
were hereditary, rather than vampiric in nature.

     Still, she had come out of it quickly enough, and seemed genuinely 
cheerful the rest of the time.  That was why this was so painful to him.  
He wanted to see her again.  And he knew that was almost impossible.

     She seemed to realize that the evening was coming to an end as 
well.  "Um...guess I should get going."

     "Yeah, I have to go, too.  Um..."

     He wanted to ask for her address or phone number, but wasn't brave 
enough to do so.  He stared down at his fingers clenching on his napkin.  
"It was lovely meeting you."

     Her eyes lit up, and he drank in that expression one last time.  
"Oh, you too!  Sorry for the misunderstanding!"

     He smiled back.  His next sentence was ripped from his throat 
before he could stop it.

     "See you around sometime."

     And maybe she had noticed a bit of his mood as well, for she seemed 
to look a little sad now.  "Yeah...see you around."

     Then she turned and walked out of the restaurant, leaving Takaya 
alone.  He sighed, feeling depression wash over him, and paid the bill.  
*See you around...right.*

***

     The second time Takaya met Mika, they were both shocked but 
pleased.  There was no restaurant in the immediate area, but that didn't 
stop them from once again talking for a number of hours.

     The third time they met Takaya was starting to get a little 
suspicious.  His family's curse ensured that this sort of thing just 
didn't happen.  He talked, but with a sort of polite distance.  He 
noticed that she was the same, and wondered what she was up to.

     The fourth time they met they tried to kill each other.  Takuya saw 
her walking up to him and his features darkened.  Before he could do 
anything, however, she had grabbed him and proceeded to slam his head 
into the ground multiple times.

     "What are you doing?  Why are you following me?  *How* can you 
follow me?  Are you some weirdo?  I just..." at this point she broke off 
and just stared at him.  "How can you do it?"

     He got up, throwing her off of him and onto the ground.  "I might 
ask the same question.  I've never met the same person more than twice 
in my life, so how is it that I keep meeting you?"

     "YOU?!"  She seemed to get upset again.  "Listen, buddy, *I'm* the 
one with the family curse!  You don't know *anything* about living your 
entire life alone, being forced to raise yourself, having to...what?  
What is it?"

     Her words had shocked him.  For a moment he just stood there with 
his mouth agape.  Then he grabbed her hands.  "What did you just say?"

     After picking himself up off the ground where she had hurled him, 
he held out a hand.  "Wait, wait!  Did you say 'curse'?

     The anger seemed to drain out of her, and she looked down.  "Hai.  
My family has had this curse for generations.  It's almost killed us.  
We're born with -- "

     "A terrible sense of direction." Takuya finished.

     Mika stared at him, an expression of disbelief on her face.  He 
grabbed her hands, more gently this time.

     "We need to talk."

***

     "So you have it too?"

     "Well, as far as we can tell it seems to be the same curse."  
Takuya was trying to keep his voice level.  "I mean, we both have 
trouble finding our way even as far as the bathroom, neither of us can 
find the same place twice...it fits."

     Mika's eyes were wide.  "But in that case, why do we keep running 
into each other?  Is it because of the curse?  Or..." she looked down 
and blushed faintly, "is it something else?"

     Takuya looked down as well.  He wanted to say that it was destiny, 
fate, any one of a thousand cliched things.  But he couldn't seem to 
form the words.  Besides, considering they had been trying to kill each 
other only a few minutes earlier, he wasn't even sure if he should bring 
it up.

     "Are we sure?  I mean, it could just be a massive coincidence.  We 
need to have more evidence that we'll keep meeting."

     Mika looked up, suddenly serious.  "In other words, you want us to 
split again and see if we keep meeting?"

     He didn't *want* to, but he found his mouth saying so anyway.  
"Yes."

     "No."

     Her voice was almost inaudible; he wasn't sure he'd heard her.  
"I'm sorry?"

     She looked up.  There were tears forming at the corner of her eyes.  
He felt a stab in his heart; he didn't want her to cry.  He'd do almost 
anything to avoid it.

     She started to speak, haltingly.  "I don't want to leave you again.  
I mean...I want to stay with you.  I've never been able to talk to 
anyone else before.  It's always just been a quick meeting and then I 
get lost.  But we can talk."  She looked up, and took his hand.  "I 
mean, I *want* to talk to you.  I like talking with you.  I...I mean, 
I...I like you."

     For a few moments, Takuya merely sat there, staring at her, his 
mouth wide open.  He was sure he looked like a haddock sitting there.  
He could feel blood rushing through his head.  She liked talking to him.  
She liked him!  He felt as if the angels in heaven, after so many years, 
had finally smiled on him.

     After a moment, he noticed she was looking at him oddly.  He 
attempted to recover and smiled weakly.  "I lo-like you too, Mika.  I 
feel...different when I talk to you."

     For a moment, all they did was stare into each other's eyes.  Then 
Takuya remembered what they had to discuss.

     "Mika, even if we do try to stay together, it's not going to last.  
It's not as if our sense of direction gets better when we're around each 
other.  It's just that it seems we keep coming back.  Eventually, one of 
us is going to get lost."

     She had started crying again.  "I don't want to take the chance of 
losing you.  I don't want this to be a giant coincidence."

     "Can you think of anything we could do to prevent it?"

     She shook her head.  "No."

     "Then what have we got to lose?"  He leaned closer to her, and 
grasped her hand.  He thought about kissing her.  He started to close 
in, wanting to press his lips against hers...

     She pulled away at the last minute.  "No, please.  Not yet.  I want 
to make sure.  I need to know that I'll see you again."

     He understood.  She didn't want to get more attached to him than 
she already was.  She didn't want to admit it to herself.  He 
understood, but still felt as if she'd slapped him across the face.  He 
smiled nevertheless, and stood up.

     "Well, I guess I'll...see you around, then?"

     She smiled at him, but he could see the sadness behind her eyes.  
"Yeah.  See you around."

     And then he forced himself to turn from her face, and headed for 
the door.  He got himself totally lost only thirty seconds after leaving 
the restaurant.

***

     New Year's Eve.  By some amazing stroke of luck, Takuya had 
actually found himself in the middle of Tokyo on this evening.  There 
was a large crowd gathered, chattering excitedly to each other.

     Takuya was making a show of glancing around, writing things down in 
his notebook.  He might even write a little article on the Japanese 
crowd as a living organism in modern society.  In reality, though, he 
was savoring the human contact and trying not to get depressed.

     He hadn't seen Mika in eight months.

     He had been so sure, at first.  So sure that he would see her 
coming around the corner, or that he'd smash into her again on the 
street.  Sure that this was not a coincidence, but a happy 
synchronicity.

     Sure that they loved each other, so there would be a happy ending.

     As the weeks, and then months went by, he found himself sinking 
into a depression.  He got increasingly jumpy, sure whenever someone 
approached him that it would be Mika, that they would be reunited.  He 
continued in that vein until one evening when he came out of his funk to 
find himself standing by the bank of a raging river.

     As he stared into its fury, he briefly considered letting himself 
fall in.  It had taken his meetings with Mika to make him realize how 
dark and lonely he felt.  The river knew where it was going.  It would 
carry his body straight and true, on its way to the ocean.  He wouldn't 
have to worry about getting lost.

     In the end, though, he turned back from the river and went on his 
way once more.  Depression simply wasn't the Hibiki way.  He would put 
his life back together, and get on with it.  Curse or no curse, he was 
the one who controlled his destiny.

     Occasionally, though, usually when he was in a crowd, the 
loneliness pressed in on him again.  The realization that most of the 
people in the crowd were young couples, out here to ring in the new year 
together.  The realization that he could never find anything like that, 
never know such happiness.  Even if he had almost tasted it once.

     He looked up, and found that he had somehow made his way to the 
base of the tower.  The crowd was incredibly dense here, as the people 
started counting down the final minute before 1979.  He found himself 
jostled by the people, and thrown off balance.  Falling back, he thumped 
into someone and landed on his side.  He didn't like to crush the 
backpack when he could help it.

     For one insane moment, he was sure he had bumped into Mika.  He 
would turn around, and she would be laying there, staring into his 
eyes...

     But it was some other young woman, giving him a dirty look before 
getting up and making her way through the crowd.

     For a moment, Takuya stayed on the ground, trying to calm down his 
beating heart.  *Back to reality, get up and face the new year,* he 
thought.

     That was when a hand reached down to help him up.

     He looked up, and saw Mika's face.  Tears were streaming from it 
freely, and she was almost sobbing.  Yet there was a smile there that 
almost made the whole city light up.

     He barely felt himself move, taking off the pack at the same time 
as he took her in his arms.  From what seemed like far off, he could 
hear the countdown hitting one, and then the new year being announced.  
None of that made much of an impression on him, however.  He was too 
busy kissing the woman in his arms, adding to her tears with his own.  
They paused for breath, and then kissed each other even harder, putting 
their whole bodies into it.  The crowd around began to applaud, and 
other couples soon took the hint and paired off.  Pretty soon the base 
of Tokyo Tower was filled with the happy sighs and coos of young lovers.  
And in the center, Takuya and Mika finally released each other.  For a 
little moment.

     "I love you, Mika."

     "I love you too, Takuya."

     Then they went back to kissing, holding on to each other for dear 
life.

***

     The demon snarled as it took in the scene, then stalked away.  
Seeing two humans so happy made it break out in hives.  Unfortunately, 
turning away meant that it was facing its companion, the one who had 
been chiding the first for years about its error.

     The second demon chuckled, and held up a smoking printout.  "Do you 
want to see the final results?"

     The first demon tried to push past him.  "Go away."

     Ignoring him, the second demon went on.  "They managed to convince 
some bystanders to get them to a temple, and were married that evening.  
Later that night, they managed to conceive a son, thus cementing the 
combination of your two curses.  The curse should thus dilute with each 
successive generation."

     "They won't get lost?"

     "Oh, they'll get lost, but they'll be able to make friends and 
acquaintances.  They'll be able to meet, and fall in love.  And as we 
just saw demonstrated, they'll always come back to the one they love."

     The first demon seemed to slump against the wall.  "I had 
hoped...it took them long enough."

     The second demon laughed curtly.  "Love works in mysterious ways, 
boyo.  Certainly a lot more mysterious than you.  By the way, in case 
you hadn't gathered, you've got an appointment with the big boss.  He 
wants to talk to you about your memory lapses."

     The first demon paled, and started to run in the other direction.  
Before he could get very far, however, he vanished in a pillar of red 
fire.

     The second demon chuckled again, and headed back to the surface.  
It reached the spot where, 67 years ago, two families had had their 
lives ripped apart by a foolish demon and his curse.  Now the families 
had united, and in a few generations the curse would be gone, and their 
memory avenged.

     Smiling, the demon looked around quickly to make sure he was alone, 
and then shed his skin, revealing a glowing white body with large 
feathered wings.  He leapt up into the sky, returning to his own master 
to give a report.

THE END


Dedicated to the memory of Frank Sinatra.