Finding a home.

Prologue

Disclaimer: 1) these aren't my characters. I don't own any of them. They belong to talented people and crafty companies. 2) This isn't a sequel to Finishing what you start.

I suppose I should feel something, as I'm flying through the air. I should think on how inspiring the view is up here, all Tokyo sprawled out beneath me. I can see little cars and even smaller people scurrying about like ants. Or maybe I should be swearing vengeance. I should be thinking 'I'm going to kill the violent tomboy' or something. But all I can really do is sigh to myself, and wait till I hit the ground. From the rapid way its approaching, that won't be long now. I prepare for the final stages of my descent checking to see if there's anyone in the way of my 'landing pad'. All clear. Good. Now I just land.

SMASH

The concrete beneath me shatters under the pressure of my landing. A spider web of stress fissures creep out from around me, and I just lay there for a couple of seconds. The first couple of times I had had this happen to me, it had hurt. A lot. Now I barely have to shake my head twice before I can stand, and take a deep breath before I could walk away. It was kind of depressing.

Being depressed is stupid. I mean, what good does it do? It doesn't help you come up with a plan. It doesn't win you aid from those around you. Hell, it doesn't even make you feel better. I mean, getting depressed is all well and good for that pig-head Ryoga, but I have to keep my head up. I have to keep moving forward. I have to uphold my family's honor. I have to...

Screw it. I have to get drunk off my ass. I hear it helps when you feel like shit.

I stand up and stretch up a bit before I leave. Behind me is a new pothole in the outline of a human. I might be imagining this, but I think I can make out the impression of a little pigtail in the settling dust surrounding the concrete. Wow, how cool is that? Now where can I go to get a drink? I've never really tried it before, having seen what drinking had done to my dad.

I set out down the street, the sky darkening. The sun had set a few minutes ago, around the time Akane had concluded her attempts at cooking. Now I'm willing to admit that I have a few rough edges. I'm not the most polite of people, or the most socially adjusted. I think the biggest problem I have is honesty. I honestly tell Akane that she's a tomboy. I honestly tell her that she's strong as a gorilla. I honestly tell her that no sane man without a death wish would ever touch her cooking.

Honesty really doesn't get you anywhere in life. Except for maybe a couple hundred feet into the air, which it did me. A lot.

I heave a sigh. How long had I been here in Nerima? Five months? Six? And why am I still here? Nothing has gone right for me while I've stayed here. I thought that maybe I could have a few friends. I hear that friends are good things to have, but so far all I've gotten is Ryoga and Mousse. I don't think they really count as friends. When I had found out about the whole fiancé bit, I had crossed my fingers behind my back and hoped for a chance. Meet a nice girl, maybe start a relationship. Instead I had gotten Akane. And Ukyou. And Shampoo. And Kodachi. And...

That's really too many 'and's.

I stop for a moment to take stock of where I am. It's now completely dark, and the street I'm standing on is lit by the soft glow of some fluorescent street lamps. A few moths pitifully bash themselves into the lights, fooled by the synthetic glow into ignoring the moon. Moth's instinctively fly towards the brightest light around them. Usually that light is the moon. I suppose its natures way of leading them to where they have to be, to keep them flying around. To lead them home. But now-a-days the sky's are filled with electric lights, false glows. The poor creatures can't make out the brightness of the moon in the sky, and are instead led astray by streetlamps, or to their deaths by flames.

I suppose that should be some kind of metaphor. Yes, I know what that word means. I'm not an idiot, just under educated. Anyway, I suppose that is some kind of metaphor, but right now I couldn't care less.

I'm shaken from my thoughts by a shout a little way up the street from where I'm slowly trudging along. A man stumbles out of building in front of me, yelling something cheerfully behind him. He certainly looks happy. Maybe alcohol really is a good thing. A street lamp with colored lights depicting bottles of alcohol announce the place as a bar. Well, this is what I'm looking for. I trudge up to it as the drunk man trudges past. He nods at me easily as he stumbles off, and then begins to sing cheerfully.

I stop before I open the door and enter the establishment. Do I really want to do this? So far I had kind of prided myself on the fact that I've never gotten drunk before. I've always thought of drinking as a stupid thing to do, deadening the reflexes and poisoning the body. I mean, look at my old man. He drank and look how he turned out. As I hesitate, I chance to look up the street and freeze. Coming down the intersection two blocks away was a certain Chinese girl on a bike carrying a case of take out ramen. That settles it. I'm in the doors of the bar before you can say, 'lather, rinse, repeat'.

Inside my sensitive senses are assaulted by the sudden onslaught of sensations. Loud music blares in the background from a prismatic jukebox and dim lights pulse in one corner. The harsh smoke of a dozen lit cigarettes makes me cough. A fair sized crowd inhabits the surprisingly spacious main room. I'm not used to this many people around, and to tell the truth, I'm a little intimidated by their numbers and appearances. I don't care how well trained you are, enough shaved heads, pierced noses, and tattoos will freak out anyone.

I'm just about to call myself a fool and leave when a voice booms out beside me. "How old are you, son?" I look to my left and find the bouncer. Six foot five and about three hundred pounds, he looks tough. But I'm a highly trained martial artist, and I could tell by his stance, his posture, and his muscle tone that I could take this guy five drops our of five. He apparently isn't as good a judge of fighting prowess as I am, because he continues. "You should leave. I don't think you can handle this kind of place."

I straighten my back. No one talks to me like that. "You want to arm wrestle over it?" I grin viciously.

Afterwards he decided to let me in after all. I was nice and popped his shoulder back in.

I walk to the bar, and plop myself down between two other customers and get the bartenders attention.

"Wha'da'ya want, kiddo?" he asks me. His tone is neither antagonistic nor condescending. It sounds like a question he's asked a lot.

"Whatever," I tell him. "Just pick me something alcoholic." He nods and fetches me a generic brand of beer. I pay for a drink, and after the first gulp, and the consequential sputtering and hacking, I take my bottle away from the bar. I didn't like being in the center of all of these strange people, especially when they're laughing at you for coughing up your beer. Taking a position near the door, I nod at the bouncer, who warily nods back, still rubbing his shoulder. I've never been to the land of the drunk before, and I had no idea how long it would take to get me there. That didn't really bother me that much. I had the time and the money.

People tend to think that I'm broke most of the time. It's probably from the way that Nabiki always cheats me. The truth of the matter is I just pay to keep her off my back, and it's not really that hard to get some cash. I just dress up like an innocent little girl, and wait for someone to try and mug me. After I knock them out, I go through their pockets for loose change. I figure, hey, I take down some scum and pick up some cash. Win-win. Getting Nabiki off your shoulder is a lot harder. She will hover around you until she divines someway to fit you into her life. I figure the easiest way would be to be fitted under the 'scam' section. As long as she thinks of me as a sucker, her attention should be diverted onto other things. God help me if she decides to think of me as 'potential fiancé'.

I turn my attention back to my beer. Time to deal with my depression in a mature fashion.

Gulp.

----

I don't know how much time had passed, but I was getting ready to complain to the barkeeper about that weird buzzing sound in the background, when I noticed her. Now, I'm not a pervert. Let me get that straight. Hell, I have trouble looking at a woman's body sometimes without yawning. Not that I'm gay, but it's just that after you've had a pair of breasts, you don't really need to stare at them quite as much as you used too. I hardly ever just stop and watch a well hottie go by anymore (that's becoming too risky with the fiancés out there), but this one caught my eye.

She was wearing something that looked kind of like a twisted cross between a school uniform and a Roman centurion's armor, and she was wearing it well. She had longish honey-blond hair mostly tucked under strange headgear, and she just had a look on her face. A look like she was lost or desperate for something.

It might have been what she was wearing, or how she carried herself, or just the way she looked. Maybe I just recognized that look on her face. I've seen it on my own when I'm in the bath alone sometimes. All I know is that the moment I put my eyes on her, I can tell she's something different. She just seemed to scream it. I shake off a second of stupefied staring (no doubt caused by the beers) and stretch my ears to hear what she was asking the bartender over the noise.

"Do you know the place where stars are born?" she says. "Strong stars, weak stars, their light, their power, all of it is born from there."

The words strike me like a physical blow. Where stars are born? My brain feels like it explodes, and beneath the pain I can almost see a place. A huge pit, filled with the most beautiful star lit liquid I have ever seen. The image and the pain is gone in a second, but the memory of the surreal landscape remains, hovering in my brain like a fog. I only barely hear the bartender's response.

"Listen lady," the bartender said. "I don't think I can serve you anything. You sound like you might be a little drunk already." She just nods resignedly. Its painfully obvious that the question had been an honest one. It was also painfully obvious that the answer she got here wasn't that an unusual one. She turns to leave the bar.

Just as she's about to leave, I surprise myself by talking. "I know where stars are born," I say, in a voice just above a whisper. I don't know how she heard me, but she stops in her tracks and gives me a quick look. I can almost see her sag again when she identifies me as the one who had spoken. I can only imagine how I look. A sixteen year old with a pigtail, Chinese clothes, and five empty beer bottles scattered around the booth in front of me. I don't even know why I had said that. Maybe I'm drunker than I thought.

"Somehow," she sighs, "I doubt that." As she turns to leave again, once more my mouth moves without me telling it to.

"Zero Star of Sagittarius."

She freezes completely. I can almost see her begin to shake. The bouncer next to the door starts to move over to give her a hand, but she pushes him away without even trying. I wince in sympathy when the poor guy bounces of the wall. It just wasn't his night. I fuzzily wonder how she managed to do that, when she turned to me again and pinned me with the most intense stair I have ever had the opportunity to take.

"What?"

"I said, 'Zero Star of Sagittarius.' The center of the galaxy." Where did that come from? I've never really studied astrology or astronomy. I can't tell one constellation from another. I don't even know what zodiac sign I am.

She slowly moves across the distance between us, walking like she's in a dream, and takes a seat in the booth opposite me. She leans forward and studies me intensely. I sigh, and ignore her stare as I take another swig of the beer in front of me.

"What makes you say that?" she asked me quietly. I can read a desperate hope in her face. I don't know what she's thinking right now. Maybe that this is the end of whatever it was she's been looking for. I feel a surge of regret, knowing that I can't help her anymore.

"I don't know," I answer truthfully.

"How do you know that?" she insists.

"I really don't know," I insist.

"Why did you just say that then?" she asked, her expression loosing some of its shine.

"Look," I tell her. "I don't know why I said what I said, or what it means. It just kind of came out."

"Well then," she asks desperately. "What do you know?"

I stare at her a second, before I reach a conclusion. I must be drunker than I thought. I extend my hand. "I know my name's Ranma Saotome."

She stares at the hand, dumbstruck, and makes no move to except it. I can imagine what she's thinking. 'The kids just a drunk spouting gibberish and trying to hit on me.' Oh well. Maybe I was. The first part anyway. I was not trying to hit on her.

I sigh again. "I don't know how I knew what to say, or why I said it." She keeps staring at my hand. "But I do know that sometimes weird things happen around me. Maybe what I said was nothing. But maybe it isn't." I withdraw my hand. Oh well. I had tried to make friends. I rise to my feet, and discover that I'm drunker than I had thought. I lean against the side of the booth I had been in. I take advantage of my enforced slouching position to dig into my pocket and pull out some bills. I don't know how much they are, but I toss a lot of them onto the table. That should cover it. As I leave I tuck a twenty into the bouncers front pocket. "Thanks big guy. Better luck next time," I tell him, and stumble out into the night.

The air around me is cold, and it bights into my blurry haze. This hadn't been that bad actually. The sky around me is black now, all traces of sunset gone. The electric lamps with their insect satellites blot out most of the stars, but a few of the brighter ones are still visible. I stare at them for a second, and than point a finger into an empty space in the center of the sky, and make a shooting noise. "The Zero Star of Sagittarius." I don't know how I know it, or why I pointed there, but I was suddenly sure that that's where whatever it was, was.

As I lean against the wall for a second, I hear a soft chime of the door to the bar opening. I don't turn my head, but I can just make out a metallic looking school uniform and blond hair in my peripheral vision..

"My name is Galaxia," she tells me.

"Hello Galaxia," I smile blearily at her. "Sorry about this."

Author's note.

If any of you don't know who Galaxia is, then shame on you. Read the manga, or find a translation on the web. She's all the way in the last arc.