I don't own Love Hina, and I don't own Sailor Moon

Sailor Ronin
Chapter 1: So You Want To Be A Magical Girl?
By Raithe (original concept stol… er, borrowed from Irritus)

Keitaro Urashima wandered around the Hinata-sou worriedly. "Tama-chaa~aan!" he called out. It simply wasn't like her to miss a meal.

As he entered the front hall, a piercing shriek drew his attention.

Motoko was backing into the inn-turned-dormitory through the open front door, swinging her katana wildly. The source of her fear quickly became apparent when what could only be described as a monstrous, flying turtle followed her inside, keeping carefully out of range.

Keitaro stood frozen in shock as the teenage brunette finally gave in to her phobia and fainted. The thing prodded her with its head, and uttered a loud, puzzled "Myuuh?"

The light bulb in Keitaro's head clicked on. "…Tama-chan?" he hazarded, approaching the turtle. It turned to face him, and 'myuuh'ed happily when Keitaro reached it and started patting its head. Keitaro loudly called out into the hotel, "Su! Get over here!"

"Coming!" came the distant reply.

The turtle butted its head against Keitaro as its stomach growled. "Aww, poor girl. Well, don't you worry, I'll make a good meal for you!" Its eyes widened as it 'myuuh'ed with joy, giving Keitaro a huge lick and drooling expectantly.

Thumping brought his attention to the other side of the room, where a short, tanned, and blonde teenager had just entered, barely keeping up with the small, flying turtle tied to her by a rope. "What is it, Keitaros?" she asked in her usual hyper-active tone.

"Just what did you do to Tama-chan?" he demanded, indicating the beast behind him - which was still licking him as if he were a huge lollipop.

"But I haven't done anything yet…" she whined, only to trail off at the sight of the giant turtle.

"Well, clearly you have! Now, untie Tama-chan and help me get Tama-chan back… to… normal?" Keitaro finally realized what he was seeing and turned back to the monster. He found his face scant inches from row upon row of serrated teeth.

Keitaro's brain locked itself into an infinite loop of 'I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die', preventing any other thoughts or actions.

"Moon Healing Escalation!"

As the new voice finished its incantation, the 'turtle' sounded a frightened 'Myuuh?' and began to glow almost blindingly bright. After a few moments, the glow subsided, revealing…

…The exact same turtle monster. The only difference was that it was no longer about to eat Keitaro's face.

As one, Keitaro, Su, Tama-chan, and the monster turned to face the newcomer - a ridiculously dressed teenage girl with long, blonde pigtails, holding a crescent-moon wand.

The girl gazed at the turtle, then her wand, then the turtle again, and said, tone embarrassed, "Eh-heh, that… that usually works. Give me a second…" She started whacking her wand as if it were a misbehaving television set, and the monster trumpeted an angry 'MYUUH!' and charged her, moving far faster than anyone expected it could.

The girl let out a surprised squeak and ran, the two of them doing several laps around the inn's front yard before finally heading down the stairs to the street, all while Keitaro watched in bemused silence.

"What the hell was that?" he wondered aloud as they ran out of sight.

"Myuh," Tama-chan answered succinctly.

A cry of 'Moon Tiara Magic!' came from the bottom of the hotel's stairs. A moment later, a bright flash appeared, and one last 'MYUU-' could be heard.

"That. Was so. Cool!" Su proclaimed, bouncing up and down in excitement.

"…I think you need to work on your definition of 'cool'," answered Keitaro. "I'm gonna go take care of Motoko and try to pretend this never happened." He turned and left, carrying the swordswoman's unconscious form as Tama-chan followed.

Su simply stood there, rubbing her hands together in giddy anticipation. She had things to make.

That evening, a quintet of exhausted teenage girls met in the residential-miko's shrine.

"Eight youma," stated Makoto. "Eight in one day, all over Tokyo and even outside it. And those are just the ones we found."

The others nodded in tired agreement. "Could any of you sense them?" asked Rei. When the others shook their heads, she turned back to the first girl "What about your computer, Ami?"

"Nothing. It couldn't even scan them," answered the short, dark haired girl.

"And I couldn't purify them, either," whined Usagi, thinking back to the turtle youma she'd fought earlier.

Minako sighed. "If this keeps up, there's no way we can defend Tokyo, even with the Outers' help. What would cause eight youma to appear all at once?"

"Make that fourteen youma," said the black cat entering the room, with a second, white one close behind her. "The Outer senshi say they defeated another five between them, and Artemis and I just took down a rat youma outside the shrine."

Makoto rubbed her temples. "Fourteen, none of which we could sense, and which can't be purified. At least these were weaker than the youma we normally face, but…" She turned to the two cats. "Luna, Artemis, what do you think it means?"

"I'm… afraid there's only one thing I can think of," started Artemis.

"An invasion," finished Luna.

The next week was a very tense one for the residents of the Hinata-sou, as well as for the rest of the near-by prefectures, though to a lesser extent.

Su had all but locked herself in her room, obsessed with what she would only refer to as her 'new project'. Strange noises – stranger than usual - could be heard at all hours, along with rather disturbing giggling.

She left her room only for three reasons. First, to eat – and she ate lightly and quickly, a cause for concern in and of itself. After the first two days, Shinobu began leaving trays of food outside Su's door, though she never saw the trays again afterwards.

Second, to pick up the steady stream of packages being delivered to the dorm. She'd developed some sort of sixth sense about when they would arrive, always managing to scoop them up and disappear back into her lair before the others could get there and snoop.

And third, as Keitaro painfully discovered one evening, to soak in the dorm's hot spring.

On top of this, there were news reports several times a day about strange monsters appearing all over Japan. Some of them attacked any they came across. Others gorged themselves on food in stores and markets. Still others seemed to do little more than wander around. There were rumors of the military planning to evacuate Tokyo, though as yet nothing more than that.

The only thing the monsters had in common was that each was defeated by one of nine costumed teenage girls. Usually, they worked alone, but sometimes they fought together in teams. According to the news reports, they were known as the Sailor Senshi, and were apparently quite famous in Juuban, though no one in or near the Hinata-sou had ever heard of them.

Occasionally, one of the Senshi would actually be caught on camera. Whenever this happened, high-pitched squeeing would emit from Su's room, and the strange noises would become even stranger and more frequent for a while.

Finally, one week after the turtle incident, Su burst from her room screaming, "It's finished!" She saw Shinobu cowering a short distance way and, in the grips a of full-on manic episode, grabbed her by the arm and started babbling incoherently in Molmolian while dragging her through the dorm. Once they'd reached the common room, she dropped the terrified girl on a couch, said, "Gottagettheothersbye!" and dashed off.

Shinobu simply sat there, panting, trying to get her breathing and heart-rate back down to human levels. One by one, Su dragged the others into the room in a similar fashion, and in short order the entire dorm plus Mutsumi and Haruka had been gathered.

Su ran from the room once more as everyone looked at each other, equal measures of confusion and fear in their expressions (except for Haruka, whose face was unreadable as usual). Finally, Su reentered with a yell of "TA-DA!" wearing an outfit that was clearly meant to mimic those worn by the Sailor Senshi.

The top and leggings were cherry red, the knee-length skirt and elbow-length gloves azure blue. A blue radiation symbol stood out on her chest, and several similarly-marked pouches circled her waist. She had a high-tech-looking visor over her eyes and forehead, proudly displaying the triple eyed marking that adorned all her inventions.

The others sat in shock while Su posed and basked in what she presumed to be their adoring silence for a few moments, and then she announced, "I am Sailor Fusion! Here to battle the evils of the world through over-whelming technological force! What do you think?"

Naru instantly realized where this was headed. "I have studying to do," she said simply, and left for her room.

Su stared after her. "Aw, poo…" she whined, but then perked up. "Oh well, there's still the rest of you." She fetched an eye-marked box and privacy screen from near the door and turned to Shinobu. "Shinomu, you can be Sailor Loli!" She pulled a sky blue outfit with a very short skirt out of the box.

The young chef took one look at it and instantly turned crimson. "You want me to where that? I couldn't..."

"Sure you can!" Su dragged the reluctant girl behind the screen as Motoko clamped her hand over Keitaro's eyes for good measure. After a few seconds and several indignant shrieks, Su dragged her back out, now clothed in the embarrassing outfit. The skirt turned out to be even shorter than it had looked before, and Motoko clamped her other hand over Keitaro's face as well, inadvertently cutting off his oxygen.

Shinobu stood there, silent, turning redder by the moment. Finally, Kitsune began, "I think-"

"Nooooooooooo!" Shinobu screamed. She ran crying out of the room, though not before managing to trip, tumble, and land with her panties firmly in Keitaro's face just as he'd struggled free of Motoko's grip.

"Urashima…" The swordswoman growled, drawing her katana.

Su frowned after Shinobu, ignoring the hapless man's pummeling. She turned to Haruka. "Haruka, you can be-"

Haruka simply looked at her.

"…Kitsune, you can be Sailor Fox!" She pulled out a much more modest red and brown costume from the box, this one complete with twin fox-tails and a fox-eared headpiece. She handed it to Kitsune, who looked it over appraisingly. "So? What do you think?" she asked excitedly.

"I think I'll make a few modifications and add this to my toy closet."

"No, I meant, will you join me in my crusade against evil?"

"Oh, that. …Nah." She leaned back on the couch.

Motoko finished her beating of the accidental pervert, noticing Su's upset expression. "What did I miss?"

"Oh, nothing." Kitsune answered. She gestured at the little mad scientist. "Well? Who's next?"

"…Sarah, this one's yours. Sailor Panda!" She pulled out a black-and-white outfit, modeled after its namesake.

Sarah took one look at it, and slowly turned her head to Keitaro, still laying face-down on the floor. "You… told… her?" she ground out. Before he could even protest, she leapt onto his back and put him into as tight a choke hold as she could manage – which was very tight indeed.

"Told me what?" Su asked innocently. "I just thought you'd look cute in a panda outfit."

"…Huh?" She looked at the blue-faced man beneath her, and relaxed her grip. "…You're still a dork, though," she informed him.

"But what is it you think he told me?" Su repeated over the ronin's gasps for air.

"Yeah, tell us!" urged Kitsune.

"I must admit, I'm quite curious, myself," added Motoko.

"Oh my, this should be interesting!" spoke up Mutsumi.

"Myuh!" put in Tama-chan.

Haruka simply rolled her eyes and took a drag from her cigarette.

The nine-year-old foreigner looked back and forth between them all. "Uh, that is, you see… Oh! I think I hear Papa!"

"Hmm? I don't hear anything…" began Mutsumi, but Sarah was already dashing out the front door.

Kitsune watched her exit, and then rounded on Keitaro as he picked himself up off the floor. "So, what's this 'secret' of hers? And how come you know it and not us, hmm?" She smiled at him sweetly as the others turned their attentions to him as well.

Keitaro shook his head adamantly. "I promised her I wouldn't tell anyone, and I won't!"

"Oh really?" She walked over to him. "Well, what if I…" She whispered something in his ear that made him blush.

"Oooh, and what if I gave you some melons!" added Mutsumi as she leaned closer, the view making his blush deepen even further.

"Stop it, you two," commanded Motoko, coming to his rescue – though likely that was unintended. "As much as I would very much like to know, as well, it would not be right to force someone to break a sworn oath." She glanced at Keitaro, and added, "Even if he is without honor already. Now, Su, please continue this… 'meeting'."

Su fumed inwardly. She was 0 for 5, now, and even Motoko wasn't taking her plan seriously. It was almost as if the others weren't interested in becoming super heroes at all! "Umm… Mutsumi, will you join my fight against evil?"

"Sure! Sounds like fun!"

Su beamed at the female ronin. She knew she could count on the turtle lady! "Great! You're Sailor-"

"Melon?" finished Kitsune, seeing the would-be Senshi pull yet another outfit from the box, this one striped dark and light green.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" she asked, handing the outfit to Mutsumi.

"Oh, just a hunch."

Mutsumi went behind the folding screen, and Motoko covered Keitaro's eyes again. "I will tell you when you can look," she hissed at him. Keitaro went very still.

After a few moments, Mutsumi returned from behind the screen, and Motoko relaxed her grip. She was in a pose like the one Su had made. Keitaro had to admit, she filled the thing out quite… nicely. In fact, he thought the chest looked a little tight…

"It comes with this!" Su announced, passing her a large, similarly striped bazooka and breaking Keitaro out of his libido-fueled reverie.

"Oooh! So, I just point it and pull this?" she asked, aiming the bazooka towards the gathered residents. Everyone dove for cover as a melon-striped cannonball shot from the over-sized weapon… behind Mutsumi. It sailed harmlessly out through the still-open front door, and exploded in the air a second later.

Everyone peeked out from behind the furniture and saw Mutsumi laying motionless on the floor, eyes closed in peaceful death.

Haruka palmed her face. "Damn it, not again. Su, you know Mutsumi isn't up for this kind of thing! Kitsune, help me carry her back to my place, will you?"

"Aw man…" Kitsune complained, but complied after a sharp look from Haruka. The each grabbed an end and started to carry her home.

Su decided to consider that a partial victory, for her ego's sake. She started fishing through the box again. "Tama-chan can be…" She pulled out a bright yellow, turtle-shaped dress. Based on the smell, it was made entirely out of bananas. "…Sailor Lunch-Break!" she finished.

Keitaro grabbed the outfit from her hands. "No."

"Myuh," Tama-chan seconded.

Su pouted, but then brightened. "Well, how about Motoko as Sailor Kendo!" She brought out another outfit.

Motoko stared at it. "It's pink."

"It comes with this cool katana!" Su said, holding up the sword in question.

"It's hot pink."

"And if you press this button, the katana electrifies, and all your sword moves become more powerful!"

"It is an eye-searing hot pink."

"And it glows in the dark, too! I thought the color really suited you."

"You cannot seriously expect me to…" She faltered at Su's falling expression. "I mean, perhaps if it…" Su started making puppy-dog eyes. "…I shall think on it."

"Yay!" Su cheered. Motoko took the costume and, making sure that it was well hidden within her hakama, retreated to her room.

Su looked around the mostly empty room. "Well, Keitaros, I guess you're the last one. I'm… afraid I couldn't think of a cool name for yours."

Keitaro cringed. If she though 'Melon' and 'Kendo' were cool names, he hated to think of what she considered to be 'uncool'.

"The best I could come up with was… Sailor Tempest!" She pulled out a powder-blue dress.

Keitaro found himself simultaneously relieved by the name and utterly horrified by the costume. "I'm not wearing a dress, Su."

"But I worked so hard on it!"

"No."

But-"

"No!"

"Oh, fine."

Keitaro breathed a sigh of relief.

"You can be the Tempest Ranger, instead!" She pulled out a full-body suit, this one colored black and dark blue.

"…If you had that, why did you want me to wear the dress?"

"Because I thought you would look good in it, of course!"

Keitaro banged his head against a table a few times. Even without the dress, he had no desire to go traipsing around the city fighting monsters all day. "Look, Su, I'd love to play with you, but I really need to study, and…" Su turned on the puppy-dog eyes again. "This is pointless, anyway! How would we even find the monsters! The senshi can-" Tears glistened in her eyes. "…One day. Tomorrow, I'll go around Tokyo with you, and if we don't find any monsters, you'll put an end to this, alright?"

"You're the best, Keitaros!" She glomped him. "Oh, it's gonna be so much fun, fighting evil, vanquishing monsters, stopping crime, having epic battles with Vegeta and The Joker and…" She continued babbling for several minutes while Keitaro tuned her out and struggled vainly to extricate himself from the hyper-active mass of girl.

Finally, she let him go. "See you bright and early tomorrow, Keitaros! Oh, and don't forget to read the instruction manual in the suit's pocket!" She dashed off to the kitchen, leaving Keitaro alone with Tama-chan and his newly-acquired super-suit.

"What have I gotten myself into?" he asked the hot-springs turtle.

"Myuh," She commiserated, landing on his shoulder and patting his head with a flipper.

Keitaro returned to his room that night, only slightly worried about what the next day would bring. Sure, he'd waste an entire day doing nothing, but it was worth it to put an end to Su's games before they got too far out of hand. He didn't really believe they'd run into any monsters. Tokyo was huge, and the news said that fewer and fewer had been appearing in the last couple of days. He figured the chances of them actually running into anything worse than a stray dog were astronomically low, and he'd be doing his best to steer Su away from anything dangerous, anyway.

Spying the manual that came with his suit – a hard-bound booklet at least half an inch thick - he picked it up and started to flip through it. After a few seconds, though, he shrugged and tossed it aside. He had more important things to study, after all.

What was the worst that could happen?

Su was true to her word, bursting into Keitaro's room at the crack of dawn and ousting him from his bed with a low-flying kick. This led directly to him being dragged blearily through the halls in nothing but his boxers, and ultimately resulted in two beatings and a partially traumatized middle-schooler before Su would let him go back to his room.

Once he was fully clothed, wide awake, and had eaten, Su once again took hold of his arm and pulled him out the door. She had her dress and his suit (and he'd made sure it was the suit) in a pack slung across her shoulders.

They spent the next few hours wandering randomly around Tokyo, occasionally hopping a bus (at Keitaro's expense, of course). Nothing happened, and Su was becoming more and more hyper and impatient as the day wore on.

In a different part of the prefecture, Motoko Aoyama stalked the streets on her own monster hunt. She had kept herself hidden until Su and Urashima had left for the day. She was worried that Su would beg her to come with them if they met, and that would mean that she may be obliged to wear the… 'outfit', should Su's search prove successful.

And there was nothing and no one that could ever make her wear something that retina-destroyingly hideous. Not even her elder sister.

Of course, not everything Su had given her was without merit. She fingered her new sword as she walked. As katanas went, it was not a great blade, nor even a good one. It was heavy for its size, the balance was strange, the length was awkward, and the grip was too large for her hands. Even the ornamental cord and amulet hanging from its hilt – designed to look like a power plug, of all things – were more tacky than anything else. She would need to replace those at some point.

However, all of this was more than balanced by one simple thing: The power button. She had spent a few minutes testing it before she had left, and it did indeed make her attacks far more powerful once it was turned on. And not just her basic swings, which now had the added kick of an electric jolt; Due to what she could only assume was some kind of alien technology, the katana actually amplified her own ki when she channeled it through the blade, making the special attacks developed by the God's Cry School three – no, five – times more powerful than anything she could manage on her own.

Some would call that cheating, and to an extent, Motoko agreed. However, given the sheer number of monsters appearing, she felt justified in taking every advantage she could get.

Especially if she ran into another one of those demonic hell-beasts from the previous week.

Of course, carrying this blade – she was thinking of calling it Raijuu – meant that she had to leave her beloved Shisui in her room. She had no idea how she had avoided being arrested for breaking the sword ban for so many years, but she had no desire to tempt fate by carrying around an additional blade as well.

So, Motoko walked the streets of Tokyo, ready and willing to do her part to rid the world of monsters and demons. Let Su and Urashima play at being heroes; while they wasted their time wandering fruitlessly, she would be helping to save lives and the city.

Three hours and no sign of a monster later, Motoko began to see a flaw in her plan.

It was around lunch when the two would-be heroes found the first hint of a monster, in the form of a police barricade.

As they approached, a harried-looking officer held out his hand to stop them. "Sorry, you two, no one's allowed past here for the time being. One of those senshi is fighting some giant crab-monster thing, and it's doing massive damage to the area. It's far too dangerous for civilians."

Su sighed, walking away dejectedly. Both relieved and puzzled, Keitaro waited until they were out of earshot and said, "I thought you'd be suiting up and running into battle."

She sighed again. "Nah, the senshi claimed that one already. We need to find our own monster to fight. Come on, let's go find someplace that sells bananas and get lunch."

That afternoon found a very frustrated Motoko wandering through Shinjuku, berating herself. She could not believe she had forgotten to think her plan through! Now she was stuck wandering the streets like… like… like Urashima of all people. Her hand tightened on her katana's hilt involuntarily, and the people around her decided to give her a wide berth.

Suddenly, a roar split the air, and people a few blocks away started to scatter in all directions. Elated that her time had finally come, she pushed through the fleeing crowd towards the source of the disturbance.

Finally reaching it, she rounded a corner, coming face-to-thigh with an enormous, green-skinned humanoid monster, easily a story tall and wearing nothing other than a loin-cloth. It carried an equally enormous club, and its head was topped by a pair of wicked bull horns – an oni, if she recalled her folk-lore correctly.

She grinned, deciding to strike while its back was still turned. Rampaging monsters deserved no honor, in her book. She turned on her katana, hearing the hum of electricity, feeling the potential power. She began channeling ki into it, sensing her strength being multiplied and multiplied again. She reared the blade back, preparing to strike.

"God's Cry School: Evil Slashing-"

The blade lost power. A faint electronic voice said, "Power supply at zero-point-three percent. Please recharge."

Motoko stared at her katana in shock. She eyed the cord, ending in a plug that she had assumed to merely be the influence of Su's obsession with technology. She examined the slip of paper attached to it, which she had taken for an amulet, and discovered that it read [Warning: Batteries Only Last 5 Minutes. Plug Into Senshi Suit To Recharge.].

Her eye twitched as she gazed at what was now little more than a sub-par sword. Turning her attention back to the oni, she discovered that it had turned its attention onto her.

Oh well. Time to do things the old-fashioned way.

Sailors Neptune and Uranus raced through the city towards the youma's last location. They'd been on the other side of the area when they'd heard the roaring, caught in the middle of a crowd, and it had taken them far too long to find somewhere private to transform for their liking. Add their exhaustion from the amount of fighting they'd been doing, and… it was just not a good situation.

And on top of all this, the thing had simply disappeared. How something that obviously large (based on the volume of its roars) could vanish was beyond them.

Rounding a final corner, they discovered the answer: the street was covered in a layer of the ashen dust that these strange youma so often turned into once destroyed.

"…I guess one of the other senshi got here first, eh?" commented Uranus, annoyed that they'd run so far for nothing.

Neptune nodded her agreement. She certainly hoped that was what had happened, but she had a nagging feeling that there was something more at work...

Late in the evening, nearly dusk, an uncharacteristically depressed Su finally declared, "I give up." She turned to her companion. "You were right, Keitaro… I guess there's really no way we can expect to fight something we can't even find. Let's… let's just go home."

Keitaro hated to see Su like this, but it was for her own good. "It's alright, Su. You had good intentions," he reassured her as the streetlights began to turn on.

A blur flashed through the air, and a light crashed to the ground, cut clean through, sparks erupting from its base. People began screaming and running in a panic.

'So… very… close!' Keitaro thought to himself, too annoyed to join the hysterical crowd.

"Hello there, humans!" came a voice from above them. "We've come to give you a special message!"

He groaned inwardly. 'And they're even being cliché about it…'

"Too long have you humans claimed both the day and the night!" continued a second voice. "From this moment forth, it's us youkai's turn!"

A third voice, this one more feminine, finished, "You thought it was bad before? Well, the real war starts now!"

With that, more blurs raced along the street, signs and lamps falling and gashes appearing in buildings in their wake. People fled in all directions, miraculously avoiding the falling debris as they rushed for safety.

And throughout the mayhem, Su began smiling wider and wider. She wordlessly took Keitaro's arm, leading him into a nearby alley. She was practically bouncing with excitement as she went.

"See! See! I told you we'd get to fight monsters! Now come on, we have to suit up."

Keitaro rubbed his forehead. "Look, Su, these monsters seem more dangerous than the ones on the news. I think we should leave them to-"

"But you promised!" pleaded Su.

"Well, I didn't expect something this bad to show up!" 'Or anything at all', he silently added.

"…Fine then," she declared, stomping her foot. "If you won't help, I'll just do it myself!"

"What? You can't-"

"Then you will help?"

Keitaro knew he'd been forced into a corner. "…Yes, I'll help."

"Yay! I'll transform first."

Dropping her bag to one side, she spun in place, yelling "Fusion Mode Transform!" As she finished, she struck a pose, one hand raised skyward.

Nothing happened.

After a second of waiting, Keitaro raised a hand hesitantly. "Umm…"

Su broke out of her stance, grabbing the bag and zipping behind a dumpster. Clothes went flying for a few moments, and she returned, now dressed in her senshi outfit. She struck her pose again, beaming.

"It worked! OK, Keitaro, now it's your turn."

Keitaro sighed and fetched his suit from the bag, debating whether to actually change outfits or just pull it on over his clothing. He decided on the latter, and began to put it on.

"Hey!" Su admonished. "You can't do that! You need to do a transformation sequence, first."

"Tempest Mode Transform," Keitaro muttered unenthusiastically, flipping a hand in the air in a lazy approximation of Su's pose. He finished donning the suit, finding it to be surprisingly comfortable despite the layer of clothing beneath it.

"Hmmph. I don't think you're really into this," Su complained. "Oh well, we're work on it later. Let's go fight some evil!" She started towards the mouth of the alley, but then suddenly doubled back. "Almost forgot," she explained, and hit a button on Keitaro's collar.

A mask and helmet snapped up out of the suit, encasing his head. A video screen turned on in front of his eyes, giving him an orange-tinted view of the alley. Numbers and lines bordered the edges, none of which he could make heads or tails of.

"Now you're ready. Come on!" She ran off again, beckoning Keitaro after her. Keitaro followed her reluctantly, reflecting that at least with the helmet on, no one would be able to recognize him.

They reached the street, finding it empty of people and in complete ruins, though at least there were no signs that anyone had been injured or killed. The only light came from the few undestroyed lamp posts. The monsters had moved on, continuing their rampage in a thankfully more brightly lit section of the street.

Once they were close enough, Su announced, "Halt, evildoers!" Surprisingly, they did. "In the name of humanity and Science, you shall pay for your crimes! For we are… Sailor Fusion!" She struck another pose. "Aaaaand…" After waiting a moment, she hissed, "Say your name!"

"The Tempest Ranger," Keitaro monotoned obediently.

Silence for a moment, and then howling laughter came from the rooftops.

Su grinned, muttering "Gotcha!" She pulled a red and blue sphere from one of her pouches, yelled "Super Fusion Blast!" and lobbed it at the roof of a near-by building. A second later, it exploded, sending… something, Keitaro couldn't tell what, flailing through the air.

It caught itself after a moment and became a blur once more. "So, you're not as stupid as you look, eh?" it said. "Fine then, we could use some fun."

Two more blurs joined it, dashing at high speeds around the pair of supposed heroes. Su tried to throw a few more grenades, shouting out random attack names with each one, but the blurs merely changed direction without warning, dodging the blasts. Keitaro was fairly sure that Su was doing more damage to the city then the monsters were.

Suddenly, one of the blurs made a bee-line for Keitaro's head. He managed to throw himself to the ground at the last second, feeling the rush of air as it passed over him and hearing his suit rip. He rolled to stand up, luckily dodging another blur as it carved a gouge in the street.

"Use your water cannon, Tempest!" Su called, dodging her own blur in the process.

"How?" Keitaro yelled back, panic clear in his voice and desperately dodging attack after attack.

"Just press the button like the instructions said to!"

"I didn't read the instructions!"

"Well, why didn't you… Look out! Mini Fusion Grenade!" She lobbed another grenade, this one tiny, straight at Keitaro, who decided to do the intelligent thing and flee in the opposite direction. As he turned, he glimpsed one of the monsters out of the corner of his eye just before it blurred away. It looked like… a child? Something metallic had glinted in its hands.

Keitaro got several feet away from ground zero before the miniature explosive went off; far enough to avoid injury but still close enough to get caught by the blast wave. His balance faltered and, struggling to remain upright, he felt a chain wrap itself around his neck from behind. It was pulled taut as something else hit the back of his knees, and he fell onto his back on the pavement. Stars appeared in his vision as his head hit, and he heard something crack. He prayed it was the helmet.

Before he could recover, another monster landed on his stomach, driving his breath out of him. Now he could see that it wasn't a child, but rather a child-sized rodent with light-brown fur – a weasel, maybe? It had a wicked-looking curved scythe as large as itself.

The weasel grinned toothily, drawing back its scythe. "Time to die, 'hero'," it mocked, and made to bring the weapon down onto –and through – Keitaro.

Finally able to draw in breathe again, Keitaro let out a single, terrified scream… and heard his voice oddly distorted and amplified. The weasel-monster's eyes widened in shock as it was thrown away from Keitaro at high speed. It finally came to a stop when it slammed into the side of a building, almost two stories up.

The monster started falling to the ground, and one of the others – female, by its voice – shouted "Ichirou!" Keitaro turned his head as he struggled to his feet, and saw one of the two remaining blurs break off from harrying Su. She caught her comrade before it hit the ground, revealing herself to be another, slightly smaller and lighter-furred weasel. This one had a belt of pouches similar to Su's, a pair of small sickles tucked into it.

As Keitaro finally stood up, she laid her unconscious comrade gently on the ground and turned to face Keitaro, anger smoldering in her eyes. "You'll pay for that!" she spat. She pulled out her sickles and charged him, becoming a blur once more.

"Wait!" Keitaro yelled, desperate. Once again, his voice was distorted and amplified, and a wave of force – made visible by the dust from Su's sundry explosions – expanded out in front of him. The weasel dodged to one side as it came, but the wave clipped her, sending her staggering through the air and into some trashcans. She stood and targeted him once more, but then paused, grinning.

She blurred off to the side, moving to circle Keitaro, and he pivoted to keep her in sight. After turning nearly all the way around, he saw what she was doing: Su was a few yards behind him, facing away from the female weasel, all her attention on the last blur and the chain wrapped around her arms.

Keitaro's mind shut off, blocking out the panic that had been overwhelming him. He found himself running with all his might to intercept the monster threatening his friend. He noticed, in a detached sort of way, a strange feeling tingling through his body, and he recognized as the same sensation he felt every time he ran after a girl.

Sure enough, just before his path would have crossed with the weasel's, he tripped, his outstretched hand catching at her waist. Had she been wearing a skirt and panties, he would have pulled down the one to reveal the other. As it stood, he merely pulled down her belt, tangling it with her legs and bringing her to a skidding halt.

He hurriedly crawled over to her, grabbing her tail before she could resume her dash towards Su. With a flash of light and a loud crackling, electricity started arcing out of his glove and into the creature, standing her hair on end as she convulsed. Surprised, Keitaro released her without thinking.

She raised one arm weakly, and muttered, "Cheater…" Then she fell limp.

Before he could do anything more, the final blur shot over his head, dragging Su along behind it on the chain so that she fell on top of him, flattening him to the ground once more. The chained loosened as she fell, and was drawn into the blur as it landed next to the female weasel, resolving into yet another weasel. This one was as large as the first youkai, but had more muscle and darker fur. The chain it wielded was wrapped around it like a sash, a long, broken handle dangling from one end – Keitaro assumed that the blade had been broken off somehow in its fight with Su.

As Su tried to stand, it picked up the fallen monster - and suddenly whirled on Keitaro, delivering a vicious kick to his head and stunning him. "Never hurt my family!" it hissed, drawing back its foot again for another blow. However, it stopped when it saw that Su had almost finished standing, and instead turned and ran to where the first weasel was staggering to its feet. Carrying its sister and supporting its brother, they disappeared into the night.

Su and Keitaro watched them leave. The hyper-destructive senshi turned to Keitaro, a huge smile plastered on her face. "That was fun, huh, Tempest?"

Keitaro took his time standing up, using the opportunity to fight the urge to strangle the younger girl. Once he had himself under control, he fixed Su with a glare. "How can-" Once again, his voice was distorted and amplified, a wave of force sending Su tumbling end-over-end into a nearby alley.

She crawled back out, apparently unharmed, and shouted, "Your Thundering Yell got stuck on somehow! Hit the buttons on your cheeks of your helmet!"

Keitaro felt around the mask, finding and pressing the buttons in question. "Err… sorry about that," he apologized sheepishly, his voice now normal.

"WHAT?" Su yelled.

"I said 'sorry about that'!" he yelled back.

"WHAT?"

"I said… You know what, let's just go home."

"WHAT?"

This time it was Keitaro who led Su into an alley, stripping out of his suit and motioning for Su to change as well. They made their way home with no further incident, though Su babbled happily and loudly the entire way.

Sailor Moon rushed through the night streets as quickly as she could. She'd heard the explosions more than fifteen minutes before, but had gotten swept away by a crowd while still in her civilian clothes, and was too tired to keep up a fast pace for long.

Finally, she reached the source of the noise… and found nothing but devastation. There was no sign of a youma anywhere, not even the dust they became once defeated.

She fell to her knees in despair.

It had finally happened.

She had arrived too late.

The girls were waiting for them when they arrived at the Hinata-sou, almost an hour later, though Motoko seemed almost as tired as Keitaro. "So, you two had a good time, I see," said Naru icily as Su started describing their 'adventure' to the others in excruciating detail. Naru jerked her thumb at the common room television, and Keitaro noticed that it was playing a news report about their battle. There was no footage (thankfully), but someone had apparently witnessed the entire embarrassing thing.

The red-headed ronin pulled him into the hall. "How could you be so irresponsible?" she demanded. "You were supposed to keep her out of trouble, not encourage her!"

"Well I tried!" he protested. "But they just appeared out of nowhere right next to us! And Su was gonna fight them with or without my help."

Naru sighed. She was all-too familiar with the way the young foreigner always seemed to get what she wanted. "Fine, I believe you… this time. At least this whole charade is done, now."

"Err…" Keitaro started, bringing forth a homicidal glare from Naru. "I… kinda promised her that we'd do this again tomorrow. But it's the last time, I swear!"

Naru worked her mouth silently. Then she slugged him. "Fine, then! Have fun playing hero with Su! But it's your fault if she gets hurt!" Naru stalked off, leaving Keitaro in the hall, nursing his jaw.

He sighed and went to his room, resolving to make up for lost time in his studies. And to read that blasted manual.

Usagi Tsukino was far too miserably to sleep. Instead, she sat in front of her television, changing the channel at every commercial and drowning her sorrows in ice cream.

She came across a late-night news channel. "In case you missed it, here's a repeat of our coverage of a very unusual monster attack earlier this evening…" She sighed, reaching for the remote again. She had no desire to watch as her failure was broadcast to the nation. "…where two new heroes emerged."

Usagi choked on a spoonful of Rocky Road.

The news cut to a recording from a few hours before, an interview with some middle-aged salaryman. "We're here with Yousuke Sanada, who witnessed a monster attack less than an hour ago. Mr. Sanada, could you tell us about what you saw?"

She spent the next half-hour glued to the television.

Author's notes

Well, that's the first chapter. It ended up being shorter than I'd intended, unfortunately. This one was mostly set-up, but it will pick up later.

In case you're wondering, this starts around the end of the seventh volume of Love Hina. As for Sailor Moon… it officially takes place 'whenever'. There's really no point in canon where all nine of them are present, but they're still weak enough to fit the story requirements. Just think of it as an AU where they all show up earlier, but still have the same personalities and relationships for some reason.

As I said at the top, this idea was originally Irritus's. Basically, we had an idea swap; I got this, and he got a Love Hina/Touhou crossover that he may or may not write at some point before the heat-death of the universe.

UPDATE: Corrected a few errors, cleaned up the writing.

I'll be using a lot of creatures from Japanese folklore in this fic, so, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I'll post short descriptions of them in the Author's Notes as they appear. Keep in mind that my portrayal and their portrayal in the original folklore may not necessarily match up…

Oni – A violent, horned humanoid monster, similar to an ogre but more intelligent. They tend to wield clubs and wear loincloths, and can vary in size from fairly small to down-right huge. For some reason, they are scared of beans. I don't know why.

Kama-Itachi (literally 'Sickle Weasel') - A weasel-like youkai with long, sharp claws which invisibly ride the wind. They attack travelers on mountain paths, inflicting cuts that don't bleed. They tend to appear in groups of three: One to knock the victim down, one to slash them, and one to apply medicine to stop the bleeding.

Bakekame (literally 'Monster Turtle') - I made this one up. If there can be Monster Cats, why not Monster Turtles?

And before you ask, Mamoru and Chibiusa will not be appearing in this fic. Because I hate them. I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!