Subject: [FFML] [sF] Tongue in Cheek
From: "Nikholas F. Toledo Zu" <niftol@i-manila.com.ph>
Date: 9/29/2000, 10:26 AM
To: Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List

"Why...?"  His breath came in shortening gasps of equal parts blood
and death.  "Why?"

There is no reason, the Greater Being showed.

"People... cannot die for being... inconvenient," he sputtered.

They often do, She created.

He did not see, the only thing reminding of him of his trickling
life was the sound of draining, an eternal flow.  "What... 
about...?"

Her?  The Author shook her head.  Forever in the background.  She
was to join you.

"No..." he whispered.  "Let... her... live..."  I will join her...

And Dr. Tofu died, without another soul aware.

---

The will is the strongest sense of the human soul.  It may be
broken in some, but those broken would never return, never find
the completion that eternity promises.

For some, the road to completion goes full circle.

---

Anyone would have done.  Why was it her?  Why was it then?

Ryoga wanted to forget, but forgetting was a path, and he strayed
so quickly that his U-turn was such a tight orbit.  It still
took him the months and weeks of despair that made the soul
crumble as its bits made plaster for the calluses on his feet.

He came back to the house, though.

"Damn," he breathed.  "If I see - if I find - even if I hear -"

The splash was too large to ignore, too soft to be a stone.  The
wall gave and he saw the body in the water.

---

Why did he save me?  Why did he arrive when he did?

Little did mankind know of the story flowing from the dark rivers
of Life.  Ryoga was Hibiki: they came when they did because it was
necessary.  It was imperative.

He was a man with a purpose, but it was often confused with the
vessel.  It was Ranma for a while, to bring him to bear the fruits
of hard training and labor.  Then it was Akane, to help him 
discover his emotion and motivation, bring introspection within
the clamor of vengeance.

She thought she had lost hers.

Father was ill, very ill.  Nabiki said that Akane and Tatewaki 
were not to be disturbed, their new life together sacred and 
fragile.  They were well provided for, but Father didn't want 
them to be near, wanted them to leave, crying out for their 
proximity, but knowing well that he was crying their tears, as
he had cried years ago at what would be his wife's deathbed.

Soon, he cried out her name every moment, relying on her 
presence to survive.  She submitted, never flinching.  Not
until his very presence was her existence.

She had been airing out the futon.

When she came back, he was sitting.  The carp were jumping, and
he had sit on the patio, but he was slouching.  She held his 
shoulder - and knew.

She did the first thing that did not make sense.

She said the first thing that did.  "Why?"

"Kasumi!"  Ryoga was aghast at her condition.  She was shrunken,
sunken.  He brought her up, less than a feather, and lay her next
to her father's corpse.  She turned and wailed.

"Oh my God!"  He covered her eyes with his arm.  "I'm sorry!  I'm
sorry!"

Her whisper barely escaped her lips but he heard.  "You... 
you're... sorry...?"  She was crying, but smiling.  "Thank...
thank you..."

He rose up, surprised.  A tear fell from his face.

---

It took much time for them.  Much time to grow, much time to
learn.  He took her away, slowly.  She invariably got them back.
Each time, further, and longer, away.

Purpose bonded them.  And time allowed them to grow.

---

Ranma had already gotten over his own tragedy, in his own way.
He didn't look for comfort when circumstance and a twisted past
brought by karma - but these were excuses for failures on his
life, failures to save his love.

Hoshino was the one who exorcised the spirit of the drowned
girl from him, freeing him from the curse.  But the spirit had
grown strong and he was unable to compensate for the cleaving
of his soul.

She had taken care of him, fell in love with him, and gave a 
piece of herself to eventually save him.  But his prowess was
gone.  It was part of his anger that left him - the anger that
she was becoming, and content to contain itself until the time
was ripe.

It had taken a small amount of chi to weaken the spirit-washer's
will, and the birth of Reimi had pushed, pushed harder.  She 
knew that part of her life was in her soul's mate - and she bore
the rest in her only child.

Reimi was Hoshino, and he was Ranma, as Ranma himself was both.
He saw his son grow, and grew alongside, a bond that crossed
the spirits, and replenished him.

He had never forgiven what had been his female side for that.

So neither of them had been too surprised when Ryoga married 
Kasumi.

---

Ryoga would be the first to admit to their marriage as caused by
comfort.  Kuma was born merely five months from the wedding, to
the day, and Kasumi was once again the doting mother.  But he
held him proudly, and, only Reimi saw, as he kept room and watch
over Kuma, nudged him with a snout full of love.

Reimi stayed with them, and begged off returning home with Ranma,
if only to become a babysitter.  They weren't related by blood,
of course, but Kuma needed kinship that Ryoga never had, or at
least someone to try and instill the navigational sense needed.
It would never work, he knew, but at least they would find the 
bathroom.

Reimi kept quiet, the 6-year-older brother to the young Hibiki.

---

Why?  his soul asked.  Why?  Could my life be so meaningless as
to be the point of irony in the hands of love?  Why?

The Creator must be so cruel to grant wishes of human souls, only
for the pleasure of writing a quirk of nature, a soliloquy of
burning, laughing embers in the sky?

Why must I be born as the son of my love, the lovechild of she 
with another?  Why must I encapsulate her happiness with someone
else?  Why?  Why?

The stars were laughing thru a hole in the dojo's roof.  Kuma 
knew... everything.

---

"WHY?"

---

Death by one's own hand merited the disposal of the soul into the
limbo of self-destruction.  But the soul of a Hibiki was always
with purpose...

Let me be!  he shouted in the airless noise.  I don't want to go
back!  Let them be happy where they are!

As with all Hibikis, the destination is sometimes not part of the
flight path, in fact, it may just be the opposite.

---

Oh, no, not again...

---

Reimi walked into the room where his wife and newborn daughter 
were resting.  Akemi's parents were fussing and tousing and
being grandparents, where Akemi smiled beatifically, fully
phasing when their eyes met.

He tried to gauge Tatewaki Kuno's gaze upon him, less angry
than before, but still pretty pissed, behind the happiness
surrounding.  Akane's eyes were teary, the frustration gone
as though it was never there.

"Airen," he whispered into her ear, and they touched foreheads.

"Wooda airen," she seconded.

He felt it.

He felt the pervading sense of tranquility, and a small jagged
patch of disbelief.  He sensed, and knew.

Who are you?

I... I don't know... father?

He nodded, and settled for that.

---

"I know you," Dr. Tofu told Ranma, and his grandfather saw him
in her, in his granddaughter.

---

Switch 
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