Title: Like a Woman Scorned
Author: Shareon
Summary: Sailor V had once known Ranma Saotome. Her multiple humiliating defeats at the hands of the insufferable boy had haunted her throughout the years. A chance meeting in Japan brought new hope for revenge, but her most recent attempts were equally disastrous. However hell hath no fury... (A conclusion to "Hell Hath no Fury" by Bob Lobster.)
The stale water had mostly evaporated off her body by the time Minako reached her apartment. This left her hair flat and lifeless, very much like her mood after her latest defeat at His hands. Not only had she been casually thrown into the Furinkan school pool, He had stolen a kiss from her and then escaped with nary a trace. She had gone past anger, past fury, and had fallen into depression.
She didn't even have the comfort of an excuse after that last fight. She was no longer a newly discovered crime fighter, learning the ropes at the barrel of a gun. She was no longer exhausted after a hectic day of searching for insidious evil. Her last fight had been as close to a fair one as she could expect, and she had still lost handily.
It was thoroughly depressing. In the past Minako had not only confronted but defeated supernatural evil the likes of Beryl. However a single crazy lout had humiliated her without even breaking a sweat.
Just thinking about her most recent defeat had her wiping away tears which had started pooling in her eyes again.
Artemis was pacing back and forth when Minako despondently pushed open the door to her apartment. Cats on their own were expressive, but Artemis was a talking moon cats which took things to an entirely new level, not to mention that Minako had lived with him for years. Minako recognized his anxiety, but she didn't care. She wanted nothing more than to forget her most recent defeat. She had been beaten in combat 34 times. 34 agonizing, shameful, aggravating times. Each loss was forever burnt into her memory, but this was by far the most humiliating one she had ever experienced. It was the first time she had ever had it happen in front of a live audience.
"How did it go?" Artemis asked. He knew, but he already knew. He could read Minako just as easily as she could read him. The lingering traces of chlorine which surrounded her only helped to corroborate the story.
Minako didn't answer. She just let the door close behind her and dragged her feet forward.
"At least you didn't get dunked into a trash can this time," Artemis tried to rally.
"I don't want to talk about it," Minako said. Artemis might have meant well, but she really didn't want to be thinking about her recent defeat. She was sure the nightmares would return in the evening, but maybe she could buy a few hours of tense peace until then. She wanted nothing more than to take a long bath to wash away any trace of her latest failure, and then read some magazines or watch some TV.
Artemis gave up. He had thought he had known Minako reacted whenever she had been beaten up at the hands of Him. This had been demonstrated numerous times, most recently just a day earlier when she had come back full of furious rage and plans for revenge. Not this time. Minako was completely defeated, and in truth it scared Artemis a little.
Minako was soaping herself on autopilot in her bathroom when she heard the door to her apartment open and close. She didn't let it bother her. If it was a danger then Artemis would have raised the alarm. He didn't, so she didn't. She just kept washing herself before finally taking a bucket and rinsing away the lather and the last traces of pool water which had covered her.
Once she was in the bath Minako tried to let herself relax. However she instead found herself flashing back to each and every one of her past defeats by Him. The time He had tripped her through a broken fence and off a cliff. The time He had stuck her into an oil barrel with only her arms and legs free, and then flipped her over so she had to walk like a crab until she had managed to free herself. The time He had thrown her into a garbage dumpster and then unloaded another can on top of her. The time He had hogtied her with her own ribbon and then had the gall to insult her father, the one who had provided for her and sheltered her whenever her mother had been in a particularly abrasive mood. She hadn't even been able to answer his insults, seeing how He had also gagged her that particular time.
Before she realized it, tears were leaking down Minako's face again. She wiped them away. She had no luck relaxing in the bath. Despite herself her thoughts kept drifting to Him. She needed to do something else.
Minako toweled herself off, tied up her hair to dry, and threw on something ratty but comfortable. There was nobody else around besides Artemis, and she was sure she wasn't going to leave her apartment. She just couldn't bring herself to care.
Ami's appearance was definitely not something Minako had expected. She was sitting at a table pouring over a binder of papers. She looked up when Minako approached.
"I suppose you're here to say 'I told you so,'" Minako said.
Ami said, "No. I'm actually here to cheer you up. I only saw part of your fight, but from what I heard it sounds like it went rather well."
"If by 'rather well' you mean I humiliated myself again then yes, it went fantastically. I'm sure people are already starting to talk about the incompetent Sailor V and how she really is just a useless cheerleader," Minako said. Her goal of finding some brainless activity to do to distract herself was foiled. She couldn't exactly kick Ami out, but she really didn't want to be talking about her most recent encounter with Him. The reminder only deepened her latest emotional scar.
"Not at all. From what I heard when I was leaving Furinkan, you now have several new fans," Ami said. Artemis twitched his ears up in interest from where he sat on one of the chairs. He then jumped up to the table such that he didn't have to strain his neck so much to look at the others.
"If you are going to lie at least make it a plausible one," Minako said. She resigned herself to her fate and took the seat Artemis had just vacated. She was going to need to talk about Him, whether she wanted to or not.
"I'm being serious here. Apparently crazy challengers are a regular thing for Saotome-san. You performed as well as any ghost or dragon or anybody else; and you managed to not kidnap anybody or destroy anything in the area while doing it," Ami said.
Artemis asked, "What are you talking about?"
"Here, look at this. I bought this from one Nabiki Tendo," Ami said. She quickly flipped the binder back to the first page and turned it to face both Minako and Artemis.
The first page read "Ranma Saotome," and had two pictures along the top. One was the boy whom Minako had grown to loathe, but the other was of a red-headed girl. It was a shock to realize that Minako recognized her as the girl who had described Ranma's escape from their latest battle.
Artemis jumped onto Minako's shoulder so he could get a better angle as Minako rapidly flipped through the pages. He was her advisor, and he had to know as much about Him as he could in order to provide her with sound advice. Whether or not she took it was up to her.
"Wait, he's scared of cats?" Minako asked after seeing a particularly interesting section describing his weaknesses. She turned to look at Artemis. "Maybe you can help me get my revenge on him."
Ami said, "You had best not. You haven't seen the part about the Cat Fist technique yet."
Minako turned back to the papers. A few lines later she reached the substantially larger section about his abilities. She asked out loud, "That does say concrete, right? He can cut through concrete with just his hands?"
Artemis didn't answer, instead asking, "Tea ceremony? Is that really a martial art?"
"Razor-sharp bandannas?" Minako asked.
"Ghost cat?" Artemis asked. He was struggling to keep up with Minako. She was voracious in her quest to find something, anything, to beat Him. If she had put even a fraction of that effort into schoolwork she could have given Ami good competition for the top grades in her class.
"Hair growing curse?"
"How many fiancees?"
"Tornadoes? Even Sailor Jupiter can't do tornadoes." Minako turned to Artemis. "Can she?"
"Have you reached the part with the eight-headed dragon yet?" Ami asked.
"No... wait... yes," Minako said. "Are those really moles? This picture has to be faked."
"I don't know. It all sounds crazy to me too, but the parts I read all lined up with what everybody in Furinkan was saying," Ami said. "The latest bet was whether you were going to develop some new crazy martial arts technique and come back to challenge him, or if you were going to jump straight to an engagement with him."
"Engaged? With him? Why would I want to marry a jerk like him?" Minako asked incredulously.
"Apparently to get his help in fighting youma," Ami said.
"I'm not going to marry him. I'm going to destroy him!" Minako shouted. The realization that she hadn't ruined her reputation forever had gone a long way to burning away her despair, leaving instead a smoldering fury behind her eyes.
"All the students there were saying you two were either already betrothed or about to become engaged. A teacher or two said that too. Nabiki was offering good odds," Ami said. She handed over another last minute addendum not bound with the other papers. It described how the names "V-chan" and a "Ka-chan" had recently come up in the past few days, but how nobody knew who or what they were.
"To him? I'd just as soon get married to him as..."
Something clicked in Minako's mind. An idea formed.
"Just as soon what?" Artemis asked anxiously. Minako had the look of being far too clever for her own good.
"Just as soon as I can get ready. I've got to prepare," Minako said. She jumped to her feet and ran back to the bathroom. "Where's my hairdryer?"
Being a Sailor Senshi brought numerous advantages.
The first advantage, and one which was rarely taken advantage of, was that the transformation sequence included make up. It was very thorough, to the point of including nail polish even though it was always hidden under the uniform's gloves. Minako was sure that even that obscured manicure served a purpose of some kind. Somehow.
The other most relevant advantage was that it let Minako, in the form of Sailor V, jump across roofs and sprint through streets faster than any car could ever hope to travel across Tokyo.
Combined together, these two advantages allowed her to reach her destination in short order.
Ranma's biography had helpfully mentioned he was staying along with his father and the Tendo family at the Tendo Dojo. She was waiting for her moment. She was eager to move, but she had plenty of time left in the day. She would only have one shot at this and timing was everything.
Once she was sure her target was in place and everything was ready, Minako casually walked up to the door. A sign on the door declaring that those wanting to engage the owners in savage combat should use the back door slightly put her off. She knocked on the door despite it.
"Hello. Can I help you?" A young woman with long brown hair answered the door. She wore an apron over her simple dress. Minako recognized her as Kasumi Tendo.
"It's Sailor V!" Akane Tendo practically screamed from behind Kasumi upon seeing Minako. "Visiting here! Come in, come in!"
Minako let herself be pulled forward onto the small garden path between the gate and the house's front door. She said, "Yes, I'm looking for Ranma Saotome."
Akane froze, her hand still locked around Minako's arm as she had been escorting her in.
"Ranma-kun? I'll go get him. Please make yourself at home while you wait," Kasumi said. She walked back into the house.
"What do you want with Ranma?" Akane asked. She mechanically released her hand and clenched it to her side.
"V-chan!" Ranma Saotome shouted from the doorway. He was beaming with a smile at her visit. "You here for another lesson on how to fight? We got dinner soon, but I'm sure we'll be done long before that."
Minako had to mentally calm herself. She was starting to understand Ranma's psychology and techniques more, but that didn't stop the casual insult from stinging. Unlike their past encounters, though, she hid it as best she could and began her counter-offensive.
"What a mean thing to say to your fiancee."
Ranma froze. Everybody froze. Ranma had stopped bouncing on his toes, and Akane had a smile of frozen fear locked on her face.
"What's this I hear about another engagement?" a burly voice bellowed. Ranma was roughly shoved aside from the door a moment later by the tall form of Soun Tendo as he barged out of the house to confront Minako. Just behind him, Minako could see the bald head of Genma Saotome peeking out from around a corner.
"What're you talking about? We're not engaged," Ranma complained from the side. His face had horizontal crease marks from where he had been shoved into the wall.
"Yes we are. Your father sold my father your hand in marriage for a potato. Back before you had left England," Minako said. It took her every effort to say this with a straight face. It was only that she knew her audience had heard even crazier stories that let her keep her nerve.
"A potato? That's it?" Ranma shouted. This was directed back to the door of the house.
Genma rushed out into the courtyard at the accusation, carelessly shoving Ranma out of the way a second time to do so. He turned to face the others, and shouted "She's lying! I didn't do it!"
"His engagement negotiating skills must have continued to degrade after Kaori Daikoku," Nabiki Tendo wryly commented from the house.
"That's not true. I'll have you know that for our boat trip to China I managed to get them to include all of the meals for both Ranma and me as part of the deal, too," Genma bragged. His proud face stayed in place for two seconds before he suddenly paled
"Genma..." Soun growled out.
"It can't be true. We can't be engaged," Ranma almost pleaded.
"That's right. If you were engaged then why were you fighting him at Furinkan?" Akane stammered out.
"That was before I found out the truth," Minako said. She held up the information binder she had received from Ami. "He didn't remember me at all. Now that I know, how could I blame my beloved for his mistake. I had long suspected that he had forgotten our promise, but now I know he forgot the engagement too."
"Promise? What promise? I never promised you nothing," Ranma said.
Minako channeled her inner-Usagi thinking of Mamoru as she recited the lie she had made up during her trip across Tokyo. "Yes you did. We were engaged in a past life. We promised each other we would be together forever. But then the war with the Negaverse came, and I had to go off and fight with the others. I went off to the front, but the thought that you were safe at home waiting for me to come back was the one spark that kept me going until the end. Now that we're together again, you can help me rebuild our kingdom." It galled her, but Minako forced down her pride and sacrificed it for the greater good. She deeply bowed to Ranma. "Please take good care of me."
"I knew it! You keep calling her V-chan, V-chan, V-chan. It's just like Ucchan! Who else is there? Who's Ka-chan?" Akane shouted at Ranma.
"Genma!" Soun shouted.
"Growf." Genma had somehow managing to douse himself with some water. He held out a sign saying, "I'm just an innocent panda."
So far everything was going according to plan, but Minako still had one more thing to do. It was the hardest part of her plan. She girded herself, and said, "Don't worry, Ranma-sama. Now that we're together again I'll make sure that nothing else will ever come between us." She lunged forward and glomped onto his arm, clinging to him in a way which would have done any Chinese Amazon proud.
She could feel Ranma freezing into place against her chest.
Minako whispered in a sultry voice loudly enough to ensure everybody could hear her, "Do you want to tie me up again?" She pulled one of her ribbons free.
"You didn't tell me that part," Nabiki said.
"You... two-timing... No... Five-Timing... PERVERT!" Akane screamed. She manhandled a stone statue from the side of the path like a giant club and attacked Ranma. It was an especially impressive attack in that she had managed to completely avoid Minako, despite her clinging to him like a jacket, and subsequently tore Ranma from out between her arms. Akane could teach the Sailor Senshi a lot about how to avoid collateral damage.
Ranma was smashed across the small courtyard and into the wall next to the gate. He stuck there, embedded in the wall, for a second before slumping down in a daze.
"Darling!" Minako shouted. She pranced over to him in emulated worry. She knelt down next to him, close enough that that she could have been kissing him. In a quiet voice she whispered, "Gotcha."
Minako then disappeared out the gate before breaking into a fast sprint back to Juuban. She knew she would sleep well tonight.
Author's Notes:
My goal was that this story would be able to stand alone, albeit starting in media res and requiring the reader to make a leap of faith or two of the plot. However it really was meant more as a conclusion to "Hell Hath No Fury," by Bob Lobster (who to my amazement still responded to my request for permission to write this even after over a decade since the original story release). As such it's unavoidable to talk about spoilers of that story in these notes, so if you don't want to know them then I would suggest you stop reading here.
"Hell Hath No Fury," was a very interesting take on a Sailor Moon/Ranma crossover with some very funny moments. However the ending was particularly annoying to me. I dislike abandoned stories in general, but the sudden negative tone in comparison to the light comedy prior to it was especially grating to me. I thought about it for a bit and decided to put together this short story to bring it to closure in my mind.
One thing I like about this story is that Ranma gets beaten, albeit in an unusual way. I think the tenor of Minako's confrontation with the Saotomes and Tendos fits well with the zaniness of Ranma canon. I also love the irony of Genma actually being innocent for once, but that nobody actually believes it due to his past deeds and reputation.
It was very interesting in writing this story in that that for once I didn't really need to think about the long term ramifications of anything. For example, there are numerous implications and problems if a rumor of Ranma being engaged to a Sailor Senshi started floating around. Likewise what would happen if Minako's alluding to a past life and kingdom got somebody thinking the wrong thing? However due to the nature of this story I completely ignored all of that and just went with it. Truth be told I'm not sure if this casual disregard for long-term implications is better or worse, but it definitely made for a different writing experience.
This is also a bit different in that this is the first story I've had pre-read. That was also an interesting experience. It was definitely an emotional roller-coaster to read the feedback, but I very much appreciated it and I think the story came out much stronger as a result. Most notably was the feedback about Ami being far too casual, and Minako being far too melodramatic at the start of this story. I tweaked both as a direct result of that feedback. That helpful assistant had also corrected numerous bad phrasings and spelling mistakes. Overall I think it was a definite successful experiment.
In any case, this was just a quick light story. I hope you enjoyed it.
Last Updated: May 26, 2016