DISCLAIMER: Relatively standard stuff. Existing characters are properties of the people who made them up. Mitsuki, and several other characters are mine, and so's the story, hence ownership and copyright of them belongs to me. Contact me at if you want permission to use anything I've written for whatnot purposes.

JUSTICE

by

Raymond Cooper

Terrorhawks!

The mechanical beast towered above Sailor Moon, and the crowd pressed towards the senshi from behind, waving whatever they had to hand in a threatening manner.

"Why are they fighting us?" Sailor Moon whined, while Mercury and Venus turned from the giant bird-like robot to the crowd behind.

"I think it's the bad press we've had of late," Nemesis commented. "People are just going right against anyone who's not a normal person."

"But they love Yoshihiro!"

"What do you expect?" Mars replied, "they all think he saved everyone in Tokyo, instead of trying to kill them all. He's championing the cause of the common man. Showing them that everyday people can be superheroes, not just magical people."

"A complete backlash against the fact we weren't here while we were stuck in the System," Mercury added. "It is understandable, there were monster attacks during that time, and no one but the police and Self Defence forces to stop them."

The giant bird machine extended its neck upwards, and crowed loudly, the volume so loud the sound pushed most of the senshi to the ground. Saturn stood her ground, looking up. She seemed to be looking for something, but didn't find what she was looking for. Sailor Moon thought she looked a little dejected, and realised she'd been looking for Ranma. The crippling sound let up, and the other senshi stood up again, Jupiter just in time to avoid being hit by a rock thrown at where she had been lying a moment earlier.

"Hey! What was that for?" she yelled at the crowd.

"Everybody!" Mercury called about the growing clamour from the crowd. "Please! Turn around and go back! Go away before you get hurt!"

"She's threatening us!" someone yelled.

"Get them!" someone else yelled.

"Oh dear," Mercury gulped, before the crowd broke towards them like a storm surge on a flat beach. "Um, Sailor Moon... we might want to be moving from here at this point in time."

The giant robot bird let out another loud crow, but thankfully not as loud as the previous one, and the senshi managed to keep their footing this time. Unfortunately, so did the crowd, and they continued to advance.

"We can't move without endangering these people!" Mercury noted with a worried glance at the shrinking distance between the crowd, the senshi and the robot.

From a distance came a rumble - the sound of tortured engines straining against confinement. Moments later, the crowd stopped as a grey missile streaked overhead. Halfway down the fuselage were a pair of wings that swivelled as the missile banked and turned in a wide circle around the monster, before coming to land horizontally nearby. Another runble, much louder, could be heard in the distance, but from the missile's belly dropped an elevator. A young man in a blue uniform stepped from the lift, eyed the robot, and raised a watch to his mouth to speak into.

The senshi were too far from him to hear what he said, but they did see his glance flick between them and the crowd. At that, Nemesis thought to give a worried glance behind her, only to find that the lead elements of the crowd were now within striking distance. Once held a metal pipe, raised above his head, and brought it crashing down on Nemesis. Although intended for her head, she brought her forearm up to block it. While the pipe bounced off and did no damage, it was the trigger that the crowd needed, and as one they surged forward.

"Let's go!" Sailor Moon said, before jumping high. The other senshi followed suit, and they alighted on a nearby rooftop, aware that the man in the uniform was still watching them. Without the senshi present in the immediate area, the crowd hesitated, then began to flow backwards, away from the robot which even now started towards them. "What's got into them?" she wondered aloud.

"Fear, mostly," Saturn murmured. "Fear of what is different. It's always been there, but in a more positive aspect, which is what we're used to. We're used to people who stand back and act surprised, impressed but cautious as if we could snap and kill them then and there, but we don't see the people who stand back and hide, wondering what we're going to use our great gifts for."

"And they're these people?"

"No, these are the people we've always seen, feeling it's okay now to give those feelings vent because everyone else is."

The robot bird took a step forward towards the crowd, who panicked, broke and fled, streaming around buildings, down streets and alleyways. It crowed again, windows in the area bursting into fragments. Sailor Moon made to step forward, but Saturn's hand was on her shoulder. When she turned to question the younger girl, no explanation became necessary as the source of the second rumble powered overhead.

Painted green, with yellow and red striped highlights, Sailor Moon recognised Yoshihiro's battleship that he had used in his attempt to breach the dimensional lock sealing the Dark Kingdom away from the kingdom of Earth. White lettering in what she recognised (but was still unable to read) as english stated "THUNDERBIRD 2". A wave of heat washed over the women, then the vehicle rumbled to a stop. Moment's later, it lurched forward, and then the brakes were applied again, landing legs extended, and with a muffled crump from the sealed surface underneath the vessel, the middle of the ship dropped to the surface of the parking lot.

"What the hell?" Nemesis asked of no one in particular. Saturn's eyes narrowed.

The central section was some kind of transport pod, with large garage-style doors in fore and aft. Obviously, the front one opened, because some vehicle drove out, down a ramp onto the ground.


Ranma struggled with the controls of the vehicle, dubbed 'Firely'. It was a bright orange on the outside, but inside, it was an organic mess of black and neon green. More a near-brainless living creature than vehicle, the Firefly bucked and refused initially to respond to Ranma's attempts at control, until he punched something that was softer than the rest, and after that the vehicle had been more co-operative. At the bottom of the ramp, Ranma took one of his hands off a nerve sack and wiped his forehead; this was harder work than he'd thought it would be originally. A small viewscreen blinked open next to him, showing Ayumu's vacant face.

"General Ranma! The senshi have left :"

"That's good, Ayumu. Tell Satoru to keep watch, though. They'll prob'ly come back." Ranma paused, darkly. "They always come back. An' it'll screw up everything." At least, he reflected silently, they didn't try attacking the TestHawk. He came back to himself, realising Ayumu's gaze had become more vacant than usual, her eyes sliding this way and that. "Tell Akio to circle nearby, and in addition to his... duties... have him keep an eye on the senshi from Thunderbird 3. We need to know if they're coming closer as soon as possible."

Ayumu saluted in a lazy, distracted way. "Yes, sir, General Ranma :D" She clicked the screen off.

Ranma shook his head, and grabbed the nerve cluster again, threaded his fingers between tendons and nerve endings, and pinched and pulled until the mighty beast surrounding him turned and faced the TestHawk. "Okay, Firefly, now you get to show your stuff. Let's see what you can do." He tweaked the beast, and a huge gout of flame leapt from an oriface below the canopy screen. It baked the TestHawk, who stepped forward under its basic programming, and howled at the vehicle. The Firefly bounced backwards a little, the back wheels hitting the edge of the ramp and sliding up a little bit before it decided it wasn't going to take this kind of abuse without a fight. The flame intensified, and Ranma flinched as the insides of the cockpit grew warmer. The TestHawk skittered forward, and then tried to sidestep the flame, but the stream of fire ran across the robot's body and passed over the seam joining the left wing to the torso. With a terrible sound of sticky tape failing, the wing slowly tore off, at which point the TestHawk toppled over on its right side.

The screen next to Ranma flickered again, and Ayumu stood there, looking embarrassed. "Whoops."

"... what? What just happened?? Why did the TestHawk's wing fall off?"

"I ran out of rivets, and General Umiko didn't have any more, so I made do with what I could find around the base."

"Where did you find that much tape?"

":D In the TV room."


In the otherdimensional pocket base of Yoshihiro, the transdimensional receiver array that hung on the TV room's wall, linked to the television to allow the monsters there to watch their favourite shows, pulled away from the wall, the blu-tack holding it up no longer able to hold its great weight. Not only did the array crash down and smash into tiny pieces, though, it fell across the only TV working in the base.

Needless to say, the crowd watching "Ukyou's Unlikely Ultimate Challenge" weren't too happy when the show died just before the final round and ritual humiliation of the contestants.


Ranma removed his hand from his eyes and gave a silent sigh. Nothing more could be done about it at this moment, so he focussed on the job at hand. The TestHawk was regaining its feet, and true to its programming, was unfurling its wing claws from the remaining wing structure. It made a feint towards Thunderbird 1, but the pilot, Satoru, dodged back onto his lift platform, which shot back up into the craft and jetted off with a theatrical blast of smoke. Like all of the Thunderbirds, the missile-like craft relied on advanced technology that had long since relegated such things as thrusters and other forms solid fuel engines to the scrapheap, but for the sakes of those watching, the craft had to at least appear human-built.

In a sense, they were... or at least, they were built by post-humans.

With the smaller ship gone, the TestHawk pivoted faster than Ranma thought it could, swinging its wing claws in low, but Ranma managed to get the Firefly to move and the claws merely scraped through the outer shell of the vehicle. While not a crippling blow, the beast within roared, and it spun, flinging Ranma to one side of the darkened cabin into a damp wall, before letting loose a giant wall of flame towards the robot.


"We've got to go down there!" Sailor Moon said, watching the Firefly take a hit. She wasn't sure which of the two monster she was wanting to defend, maybe both, maybe neither, but she knew they had to be down there, trying to sort things out before someone got hurt. Even if it was a monster that got hurt, that wasn't something she could live with.

Mercury was already powering through options displayed on the inside of her visor. "If Sailor Moon, Sailor Mars and Sailor Jupiter take on that giant... bird... robot, the rest of us should be able to tackle the armoured ground vehicle and battlecruiser. Sailor Mars, we've seen that fire melt through the outer hull of that robot, so you'll need to melt a large enough hold that Jupiter can fire off a large enough electrical bolt that will shut the robot's core processor down. Sailor Moon, they'll be relying on you to cover them as well as attracting the attention of the robot, so they can -"

"No."

"Pardon?" Mars asked Saturn.

"If you want to take on the robot -" Mercury began, but Saturn interrupted again.

"No." She dropped her glaive to her side, then also let her transformation drop. "No. We should do neither. Not... not like this."

"Why do you say that?" Nemesis asked.

"Because it is what he would be wanting us to do."

"He's evil now. Or, at the moment," Sailor Moon amended her thoughts quickly, remembering various earlier Dark Kingdom takeovers of the senshi and their allies. "Of course he doesn't want us to interrupt his evil plans. He's not wanting us to interfere. So, logically, we should interfere." Hotaru turned, and started to leave the rooftop. Sailor Moon reached out for her arm. "Hotaru!"

Hotaru stopped, held fast by the elder woman's hand. "Sailor Moon, trust me on this. If we join in now, we'll look worse to the people of Tokyo. I know this will happen. We need to plan, do something different."

For a long moment, the other senshi held their breath as Hotaru's level gaze held Sailor Moon's concerned eyes. "Do you believe this, with all your heart?" Sailor Moon said, eventually.

Hotaru nodded once, decisively. "I have been thinking about this. About Ranma. He's an enemy now. But some part of him... some small insignificant part... is still our teacher. A student doesn't best their teacher by acting the same as they always have. Ranma, the Dark General under Yoshihiro, has won this round. We can win the next, by meeting him on his new playing field, where we can make him as unsure of the outcome as we are."

"Then... we shall go." Sailor Moon's hand dropped. She sounded flat and hollow, as if giving up this once invalidated everything she ever believed in. And, Hotaru reflected, it probably did. She didn't back down, she didn't give up, she fought, and that was why powerhouses such as Saturn and Nemesis and Jupiter, and Neptune and Uranus and Pluto, and Mercury, Mars and Venus had all bended knee to the house of Serenity. Singly, they were strong. Together, they were unstoppable. Bonded and tempered by the love and guidence of the White Moon, they were unbeatable.

But... some battles could lose one the war. That was what Saturn had seen. Hated by those they were to protect. Not a reason to stop defending them, but perhaps that defence could be better performed in another way. Sailor Moon had to see that. Not all battles could be complete victories. She knew that, as well, Hotaru knew. She'd lost friends, she'd lost her lover, but through it all, Sailor Moon had won, and in the end, there had been happy endings. The senshi had been reborn when time turned backwards. Mamoru had survived. Her future child had been rescued. Ranma had come back to life.

The victories brought their own pain. It was a pain she was willing to accept, if that meant happy outcomes for others. Sailor Moon's love for others was boundless.

It was also her major weakness. It was her personal blindspot. She believed in the inherent goodness of others, in the justness of her cause, in the rightness of her feelings. Usually, this was not a problem. But, by someone who knew that, it could be used against her. Ranma couldn't expect to win, not without having killed them all at his funeral, and yet he wasn't going to give ground. He was going to use whatever weapons he had to fight against them, like he always had against the Dark Kingdom, against his opponents in Nerima, against any of the troubles he had come his way. Like Sailor Moon, victory for Ranma was absolute. There was never any doubt in his mind he could triumph over anything. If only he had more training, if only he studied this new technique, if only he could move that little bit faster, if only he could trick his way through something. That was Ranma. But unlike Sailor Moon, Ranma knew not every battle could be won, and some battlefields he must conceed. It was the end result that mattered.

Two people, to whom losing was unthinkable, to whom their rightness was assured. Sailor Moon looked to the far future, the formation of Crystal Tokyo and the new Silver Millennium. Ranma looked to the immediate future, where his safety, and that of his family and friends, was assured. Beyond that, he would take it as it came.

Hotaru was sure he was trying to teach them something new: to look at the present differently. She could be wrong, but she was hoping desperately she was right.

She also knew, deep in her heart, Sailor Moon would win, as she always did. And so would Ranma, as he always did. But while Sailor Moon's goals were as transparent as always, Ranma's goals were... a little different. And unknown.

Strangely, though, it didn't scare her. He didn't scare her. Not Saturn; Saturn wouldn't care. But Hotaru... felt she had nothing to fear. Ranma, in any incarnation, had yet to attack her directly. The closest he'd come was when she had been swamped by Yoshihiro's power, become entranced by his strength and scent, and he'd physically fought with her to have enough time to talk her down. This didn't feel like then, not completely, but she was sure the meaning was the same - his silence, his defection, it was a message.

It was starting to become clear to her. As Hotaru left the rooftop, the senshi behind her dropped their transformations and followed, grumbling except for Mitsuki, who was strangely silent.


"Akio reports the senshi have left the building :O"

The brief blossom of joy Ranma felt was only shown by the savage grin he allowed himself as he twisted the Firefly around and forced it to breathe another gout of flame. Turning up the intensity, raking the flame over the TestHawk in a certain specific series of directions activated the giant mechanical bird's destruct sequence, and a hip joint detonated in a blaze of pyrotechnics.

A second complicated sweep, and the remaining wing separated from the body. TestHawk roared, the force of the roar pushing Firefly backwards, but the monster managed to strain against the force and regain it's original position. In the pause between roars, Ranma directed Firefly to fire full strength on the TestHawk's head.

Another explosion. The head came apart along predetermined lines, pyrotechnic charges exploding from within to create showers of sparks and a blanket of smoke. For a moment, the mighty beast remained upright; then it toppled over onto it's back, and the threat was gone.

Ranma slumped back into his harness and breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment, he had thought his plan might not work. The confidence he projected wasn't felt as deep as he made it seem. Something new had to be done, and he was doing it. He'd seen the way in the System, and so had Kaname. She had known what was coming, and had warned him, had shown him how the future would turn out. A dreary mess, just waiting for the end. There had to be a way to stop that from happening, fight the death of life from the inside out. But... there was so much happening. So much to happen. This Crystal Tokyo thing was scary. To Ranma, it still seemed like there was no choice in the matter, but Kaname had assured him there was, it was just a choice that was inconceivable by humans at their present level of development, and humans needed more to happen to them to change.

Perhaps he should have told the senshi. At least Hotaru. She would have understood. No doubt Usagi would have as well, but the others might not have seen it that way. Usagi would still be working towards the building of Crystal Tokyo now, while she felt she was on a roll with the rescue of the people from the System, but in reality, she'd be forcing that future on everyone if she tried going about it now. And Ranma guessed that laying the groundwork for that future now was something that she wouldn't have been happy delaying. Besides... besides, there was more at stake than Crystal Tokyo.

The premonitions he'd had while in the System came back to him again.

There was something wrong with Crystal Tokyo. It wasn't just the choice, but the bleakness of life outside the barriers of the city. The frozen world, the declining humanity. It wasn't right. Maybe that was why he was determined not to let Usagi kick off Crystal Tokyo now. But there was still the other vision.

While in the System, when Nabiki had shown Kaname how to fight outside the box, Ranma had momentarily broken through Kaname's subconscious and spoken with words influenced by the computing power behind the scenes. He hadn't known what they were or what they meant, but Natsumi had willed it, and as much as Ranma had absorbed from the System, Natsumi was still the undisputed god of the cyber-realm. She had given him words that hadn't made much sense until he was at the decision point, when Kaname had him on his magical whirlwind tour of time and space.

He wouldn't be with the senshi. He would not stand beside them. And a false idol would have risen. Ranma didn't think it was him, but after the Crystal Tokyo debacle Yoshihiro had almost pulled off a month earlier, he thought it might be him. The false idol who would give hope to millions. And already yes, he was making inroads in that area. Public perception of him was of some reclusive rich billionaire who had saved Tokyo and some seven million loved ones. The reality of the moment had been glossed over. His wonderful, masterful speech had played over and over on televisions worldwide, and while no one really knew where he lived, Yoshihiro was worshipped as one of the select few who were in the elite global pantheon of movers and shakers.

But there were also to be tears of an infant.

That took some more thinking. Ranma thought it was metaphorical, though. Almost verse. A temper tantrum thrown by the loser or something. One final burst of incredible violence to end things, and then all would be silent. That was, if things worked out. Ranma didn't exactly believe in destiny; otherwise he wouldn't be fighting so hard against it now. Having seen the future - only one possible future, he reminded himself - he felt it only right to push against it himself and make things -

What? Better? He could only hope. He couldn't know for sure, and that also worried him. In trying to make things better for all, he could screw things even even worse. And was it arrogance?

But the thing that really worried him... Kaname had been pushing him. She'd shown him what was happening to his friends and family while he was dead, and she showed him things that Yoshihiro was saying, agonising to himself over his own decisions and his own future, and she showed him how things would end up if they continued as they were - but had she merely been manipulating his own thoughts and fears into doing what she wanted?

No, Ranma shook his head, Firefly bucking under his fingers as he reversed the monstrous vehicle back into its pod, he had to believe that whatever Kaname had been wanting him to do, whatever she had been silently urging for him to accomplish, it had to be for the best for everyone. Regardless of whether she really was a guardian angel or a goddess or whatever, she had only wanted the best for everyone while she existed in the System, and had freely given up her own life to help reach that goal. Ranma shuddered; that mental image of her dropping was still raw. Not being able to save something that had been part of his mind... it hurt him as much as if Kaname had been Akane. Or Hotaru. And despite their differences, Ranma still loved both fiercely.

So. Kaname was right to push the buttons she had. Yoshihiro was aimless, and liable to cause more problems than not if not given some form of direction. Ranma could give the direction, but only if focussed and aligned with Yoshihiro. And that meant committing to what the senshi considered to be evil. That meant Ranma had to either discard his conscience and work as that aspect of his personality wanted him to act - without regard for consequences - or he had to find a way to work within those guidelines that meant he did the job he was supposed to. He had to drain the life force of normal humans, and fight the senshi, fight to restore the Dark Kingdom to the primary plane of existance.

Power wasn't evil; it was what one did with power. This was skirting close to the line, if not jumping wholly across it.

The magical fights and martial arts fights, they were not the way of the future. The way things were going, people needed big, bright demonstrations of the power and skill of those around them. And as Japanese society was becoming more and more insular in recent years, and especially with the threats growing from within its own borders from monsters, psychics, mages and alien plants, the only way to fight was to be human. Exemplary examples of humanity. Defenders of truth and justice, staunch opponants to those who would do the state and the people harm.

Hence, International Rescue.

There would be a few high profile international cases, of course, that wouldn't be farmed for energy, they would be farmed for PR purposes, but most of the rescues would be here in Japan, where Yoshihiro's otherdimensional base occupied much the same spacial position as the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and energy could much easier be siphoned to the base. The international flavour would make people cheer human ingenuity and spirit, making the role of the magical and otherworldly much more difficult due to shifting loyalties in the people they were intending to save and protect.

Ranma sighed. That was always going to be the hardest bit. He would have to keep his face from cameras. If he was seen, he would be recognised - too many people outside the senshi knew his face as a rival, and would flock to Tokyo and cause problems. Not just for Ranma, no, but also for themselves. The senshi would keep his involvement relatively quiet, but those in Nerima might not.

In the case of Ryoga, once he stumbled across Ranma, it would all be on. Kuno at least seemed to be fairly stable these days. Still given to melodrama, of course, but he seemed quiet. Perhaps his time with Hotaru had helped.

Firefly snuggled back into its support cradle, and Thunderbird 2 lowered itself down again even as the pod's doors slid up into the closed position. Once the pod had been locked back into position, the craft lifted off, and Ranma climbed out of the hot cabin, and made his way to the bare-bones flight deck of the main ship.

"Everythin' going all right?" Ranma asked Ayumu.

She smiled. "Everything is going A-OK D"

"How... uh... how did Akio get on?"

Ayumu's head tilted to the side. So, alarmingly, did Thunderbird 2. Ranma steadied himself on a console. "Akio says the power transfer system worked perfectly."

"That's... that's good... Ayumu, please, for the love of god, look where you're flying!"


Hotaru watched the green ship right itself again moments before the lowered wingtip would have hit an office building, and then lowered her eyes back to the grass beneath her. The others were sitting around her, wanting to voice their questions, but for the moment staying silent. She wasn't sure herself yet just how to explain it to the others any better than she had on the rooftop.

In the end, she decided not to explain. She couldn't. Whatever Ranma was doing, for the moment they had to act like he was the major threat to their existance. He knew them. He knew them, in all the ways their enemies had not in the past. He had been inside their barriers, knew what made them tick, how to hurt them and how to minimise their involvement in his plans. The other senshi would be thinking this; she could see it on Rei's face, and Makoto's, and Minako's. Mitsuki was... troubled, but not by external events, apparently. She hesitated, staring into the distance, before removing her medication from a pocket, shook two pills out, and swallowed them with no further hesitation. Not once did she look at the pill bottle. Ami stayed seated, quiet, looking at the grass.

While the others looked troubled, Usgai merely gazed at Hotaru with as-yet unspoken concern. After a few moments of silence, Usagi shifted to her feet, and smiled brightly. "C'mon everyone! Instead of sitting here, let's go have some ice cream! C'mon, Rei, c'mon, Makoto..." Usagi began hauling people to their feet and pushing them. Hotaru required no urging. The subject was rested for the moment; it would not stay so forever. For this small reprieve, she was grateful.

And indeed, late that evening Usagi joined Hotaru on the rooftop, overlooking the front yard of the Ai Sou. She had trouble getting up the ladder and crossing the shingles; when she sat, Hotaru found that had been due to the two cans of soft drink she held in her hands. Usagi handed one to her with a slight smile.

"I'm not as dumb as I look," Usagi said.

"Sometimes you can be," Hotaru smiled back.

"But not this time."

"No."

"Do you miss your parents?"

"Yes. Dad... and Michiru and Haruka as well..."

"Setsuna didn't have enough time to tell us what was happening before she stopped by; maybe there was trouble. We should -"

Hotaru's ghost of a smile halted Usagi's words. "Thanks for being considerate. But they are... safe. You would know if they weren't, and so would I." She touched a hand to her heart. "Here; they're all very special to me. And I would know if something had happened, at least as much as you."

Usagi nodded. "So, are you ready to talk about today now?"

Hotaru shook her head. "It's not something I can explain. Ranma... Ranma is now evil. We have to treat him like that. That's what he's wanting us to do. But we can't fight him like we normally would. We need something else. We need a new way of fighting."

"The martial arts training -"

"Maybe. But he's better than us, and they're using vehicles, and there's new monsters as well. Robot monsters."

"Badly-built robot monsters. Looks like something out of a sentai show," Usagi commented dryly, before she noticed the surprised look on Hotaru's face, just moments before the younger girl grabbed her face with a hand on each cheek, pulled her close and kissed her.

"That's it!"

"That's what?" Usagi called, but Hotaru was already gone.

Hotaru ran through the house, but stopped to breathe before entering the kitchen. As expected, Ami was there, tapping away on her laptop with a slight smile on her face. Hotaru figured she was probably talking online with Keitaro; they hadn't really had a chance to catch up since the senshi had busted out of the System a month earlier and Hotaru guessed they were making up for it now. But she didn't have time to waste on niceties.

"Ami," she interupted briskly with excitement colouring her pale cheeks, "if that's Keitaro, can you do me a favour?"

"Yes...?" Ami replied, dubiously.

"Good. Ask him..."


When Ranma arrived, Yoshihiro's throne room was quiet, for a change with satisfaction instead of dread. Kneeling before the throne was a mighty demon of some kind, with raven-like wings of the purest black and a beaked head. It rose when bade by the Master and handed him a plain brown folder with a handwritten label stuck to the front. "Thank you, mighty lord, for the audience. I do hope the information is of some use for you. It would really be a thorn removed from both our sides and would benefit to all."

"That is as it should be," Yoshihiro agreed. Umiko caught sight of Ranma in the doorway, and her eyes narrowed. Ranma was extremely aware she didn't like him, and wasn't surprised when she left Yoshihiro's side and made her way over to him, slinking like the cat-thing she was. At least for a change, she looked human. The fur, the cat ears, the slashing claws and the tail were a bit much for Ranma's self-control.

"Your audience was set for later."

"We finished maintenance earlier than we thought," Ranma replied. "I thought I'd come see if the Master had the time free to see me now instead of waitin' any longer."

Umiko hissed. "Have a care, General," she spat, putting as much venom into the word as she could. "To see the Master, you must still go through me. And Rozen is to see him first."

"Rozen?" Ranma started. "What's the Master need the assassin for?"

"What else?" Umiko giggled delightfully at the innocent naivety. "Assassinating people."

Ranma felt dumb. "Oh." Beyond Umiko, the demon flared and slipped sideways into whatever plane it had come from. Yoshihiro glanced up and his blue eyes met Ranma's.

"Umiko," Yoshihiro's voice demanded instant attention. "Has Rozen arrived yet?"

"No, Master. We're expecting him in the next few minutes."

"Good. Send Ranma in. We won't be long." With a glower and ill-grace, Umiko left Ranma pass into the throne room. He knelt at the base of the throne's dias, and lowered his eyes before Yoshihiro's words had Ranma stand. "The report I had from Ayumu was positive."

"Yes," Ranma replied honestly. "We didn't take quite as much life force as we expected, but some work needs ta be done on the systems we're using before we can fine-tune everything well enough to get exact amounts. But the mission went well, yeah."

"That's good," Yoshihiro mused, starting to stroke his chin. "I've just had... some most interesting information. As you just saw, a demon plane contacted me with a view to sharing intelligence. As a goodwill gesture, they provided knowledge of a student at a private academy here in Japan who is working to avoid a coming catastrophe."

"A what? How? Is she psychic?"

"I do not believe so; instead, I understand she is from the farfuture, and has returned here to wake people to the danger about to explode under their noses. I believe this disaster she is working against is our conquest of the world. However, I cannot say for certain. So. We will need to take steps to neutralise this person immediately."

Ranma fell silent in thought, wondering if 'far future' meant Crystal Tokyo, or beyond? And then started considering the possibility that it may have been that particular future this student may have travelled back to stop. Did that mean she was an ally Ranma could recruit as a lieutenant? Someone capable enough to pull his plan off? But before any brilliant plans came to mind, Umiko stepped in. "Master, I have an idea. And it would mean all her friends in her class would also not be able to cause trouble."

"Then by all means, Umiko, let's hear what idea you have for this class," Yoshihiro frowned and checked the folder the demon had given him, "3-A at Mahora Academy..."

SAILOR MOON SAYS:

Not a year! (This seriously is cause for celebration and also cringing, yes)

Also, since last chapter, I now have a job (but don't start for another week). My pre-reader is also on holiday, I hope he's enjoying himself greatly (and not buying me birthday presents, remember?) and will get back soon. Really soon.

Ahhh. And Star Wars miniatures have released their starship battles game yesterday. I am so broke; I spent about $200+ on boxes of the stuff yesterday just so I could get a Star Destroyer. Also got a Venator SD and Interdictor and a fleet of Nebulon-B frigates, so really happy.

Not helping with the writing notes, though ;) This chapter obviously has a lot more of the inner thoughts as I said last time. Ranma's walking a fine line, Hotaru's almost an accomplice until she figures out where she stands. It's been a lot of fun

Next time: (god I wish I could play an electric guitar riff here) we find out what Hotaru is asking from the Hinata Sou crowd. And introducing the master assassin Rozen and his seven deadly daughters!