'Till the End
By Tari

Chapter 1

"Tarou! Now's not a good time for this!" Ranma rolled backwards as Tarou, in his enormous cursed form, attempted to squish him.

Nodoka Saotome stuck her head out of her front door and spent a moment watching her son fight Tarou, then called out, "Son! My guests will be here shortly. Finish up and go take a shower!"

If he had been able to spare the time to slap his palm to his forehead and cry, Ranma might have done so. Unfortunately, or fortunately for Ranma, as he didn't really want to cry in his male form, Tarou didn't give him any spare time as they continued to duke it out with one another.

The Saotome residence had become a small warzone, with pockmarks, craters, and debris everywhere, though most of it was caused purely by Tarou's cursed form. Ranma groaned internally as he dodged another of Tarou's strikes and quickly retaliated with a quick uppercut and ki-blast to the larger fighter's stomach.

His mother had invited guests over—guests who weren't used to the all-out brawls that were daily occurrences in Nerima. He had tried to talk Tarou out of fighting, but the other boy had simply pulled a small flask from his belt, splashed himself with cold water, and begun his attack.

"Yup!" a girl's voice reached Ranma's ears as he fought, "My mom's been friends with Mrs. Saotome for a pretty long time and…" Oh, crap. The guests had arrived.

Ranma grimaced as the speaker, a teenaged blonde girl with her hair done up in two huge ponytails, let out a frightened scream. "IT'S A YOUMA!"

Both Ranma and Tarou paused their fight to blink. They glanced at each other, utterly confused, then shrugged it off and continued their fight. Ranma noted absently that the girl had probably either fainted or run away. He couldn't hear her making any more noise. Ranma spared a moment to glance towards where the girl had been standing. 'Heh', he thought as he concentrated on Tarou again, 'Guess I was right. No one there.'

He and Tarou ignored the energy spike from around the corner of the block. They were almost done with their fight.

"Stop! Whatever you are, we won't let you hurt that boy! I am the Agent of Love and Justice, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon! In the name of the moon, I will punish you!"

Ranma and Tarou paused and blinked again, then swiveled their heads to stare at the wall surrounding the house. Another blond-haired girl dressed in blue and red stood there, striking a pose that rivaled Kuno's in sheer corniness. In fact, since her pose lacked the special effects that Kuno's did, it could almost be said that her pose was more corny than the deluded boy's, however unlikely it seemed.

Strange. Ranma squinted at the girl's head. Those two ponytails seemed awfully familiar. He opened his mouth to ask, but was pre-empted by a number of female voices.

"Sailor Mercury!" A girl dressed in blue jumped onto the wall.

"Sailor Mars!"A girl in red joined her.

"Sailor Jupiter!" Followed by green.

"Sailor Venus!" And finally orange.

Okay, now Ranma was getting seriously weirded out, even by Nerima standards. He couldn't think of anyone with as bad a fashion sense as the girls arrayed before him, with the obvious exception of the other Kuno. There were five girls standing on the property wall in color-coded outfits that looked more fit for wet-dreams than for any sort of actual everyday wear.

Ranma blinked as a disturbing thought surfaced. "Um…" he began, "You're not new fiancées, are you?"

"No!" four voices screamed.

"…does he seem familiar?" questioned the fifth.

"Concentrate, Jupiter!"

"…and why isn't that youma doing anything?"

The two interrupted fighters finally abandoned all hope of continuing their fight, opting instead to simply boggle at the absurdity of the situation. The girls had hopped off the wall and huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. Occasionally, one of them would lift her head to stare at Tarou (who was quickly getting bored) and then drop back down to whisper some more.

Ranma resisted the urge to yawn. He really did. After some struggle, he calmed down. And then yawned.

A spike of energy behind Tarou caught his attention. He turned his head just in time to see Tarou backhand another Senshi, this one with long green hair, across the yard, through the wall and a passing car, and straight into a recently repaired pole that had an oft ignored sign on it: "Do Not Hug."

The older Senshi groaned and struggled to right herself while sporting a killer headache. The pole cracked and swiveled downward to smack into the woman's head, finally sending her into blissful unconsciousness.

The casual bashing of one of their teammates seemed to solve whatever dilemma the group of Senshi had been discussing. "He attacked Pluto! It doesn't matter if he's not a youma, he's definitely not on our side!" The girls split up and began to fan out in front of the now entirely bored Tarou.

Almost as one, the four girls with more commonplace hairstyles suddenly let loose a wave a magic.

"Sparkling Wide Pressure!"

"Venus Love-Me Chain!"

"Burning Mandala!"

"Shabon Spray!"

Tarou blinked and growled at Ranma before hopping into the air and flying away. Below him, the four magical attacks passed through the space he'd just occupied and continued unabated until they reached the next solid object in their path: the Saotome residence.

Ranma gaped as his mother's house was, once again, smashed apart. Nodoka, who had been working in the kitchen, was left standing in the open, surrounded by a sink and a large pile of debris. A knife slipped out of her hand and landed with a quiet thump amongst the debris as she stared in shock at the remnants of her house.

A moan escaped from Ranma's lips, but by the time he spun around, all of the Senshi, even the one that had been knocked unconscious, had already vanished. Ranma let out a small growl. Damaging his mother's house he could understand, since they had been trying to fight Tarou, but that they didn't even have the courtesy to apologize was something that was grating on his nerves. Hell, even the Nerima gang had apologized when they'd destroyed his mom's house!

He sighed, then turned to his still shell-shocked parent. He grimaced at the expression on her face before an interesting thought came to mind. How willing would Nabiki be, he wondered, to help him track down those Sailor Senshi? (Move to later?)

He shook his head to clear his thoughts, then made his way over to his mother. "Mom?" After a short wait, it became apparent that no response was forthcoming, so he tried again. "Mom?" He waved his hand in front of her face.

"Mom! Look! Grandbabies!"

Nodoka snapped her head around, her eyes sweeping over the ruins of her house in search of the much longed for grandchildren. Her eyes came to rest upon her son and she quickly realized that he'd tricked her. She opened her mouth to berate him, and then the full brunt of the situation hit her.

"My house…"

Ranma winced as his mom sank to her knees among the remnants of her house.

"Hello?" A head peeked around the hole in the wall, two blonde ponytails trailing behind it. "Um…"

Nodoka continued to mumble incoherently as she surveyed what used to be her house, entirely missing the greeting. Ranma, on the other hand, had noticed and quickly hopped over to the hole. He glanced at the girl on the other side of the wall and noted two things. First, she was the girl who he assumed had run away earlier. Second, to his confusion, there was an expression of guilt on her face. An older couple, probably the girl's parents, became visible as they stepped in front of the hole and took in the scene.

"Oh, wow," a voice piped up, and Ranma's eyes swiveled downwards to settle on its source, a younger boy. "What the heck happened here?"

"Um," came Ranma's eloquent response. He blinked a few times, then asked, "Are you the guests?"

The older woman nodded. "I'm Ikuko Tsukino, and this is my family. I'm friends with Nodoka Saotome, and I'm pretty sure that this is where her house should be…"

Ranma nodded in return and explained, "You're right. This is where her house is, but it's sorta broken and stuff right now." He absently noted that the blonde-haired girl grimaced as he mentioned the state of his house.

"Oh," he started, "I'm Ranma Saotome. It's, um, nice to meet you." He sketched a short bow to the girl's parents, then continued, "I don't think we can, uh, really have guests right now, you know?"

"Yes, yes… of course not." The elder Tsukino woman glanced around before asking, "Could I ask where your mom is?"

"She's back there…" Ranma turned to wave in his mom's direction. "I don't think she's taken this very well, especially since her house just finished getting rebuilt a few months ago 'n' all…"

"Can I… talk to her?"

Ranma nodded and stepped aside, allowing Ikuko to pass through the hole in the wall. She stepped carefully over the debris as she made her way to Nodoka. The rest of the Tsukino family began to introduce themselves in the background.

"I'm Usagi! Nice to meet you!" The blonde-haired girl smiled nervously as she looked at the ruined house.

"And I'm Kenji Tsukino, Usagi's father. This kid," he motioned towards the young boy, "is Shingo, her younger brother." He smiled warmly at Ranma before glancing up as his wife and Nodoka walked towards them.

Ikuko moved over to her family and began speaking with them. Her husband nodded a few times and, after a short discussion, she gave Nodoka a thumbs-up.

"Ranma," the Saotome matriarch began, "I'm going to be staying with the Tsukino family for a while, since…" She glanced towards the remains of her house, and Ranma nodded. It was obvious why she was going to be staying with another family for some time. "Son, I think it's best that you head back to the Tendo's for now."

Ranma nodded again. He had come to his mom's house for a one-week break, at her insistence, but it looked like his short vacation had just ended prematurely.

--oOo--

Less than an hour later, Ranma was seated on the train that would take him away from Juban and back to the crazy district of Nerima.

He sighed and glanced out the window beside him. He had been looking forward to a break from the craziness, but it had followed him into Juban and quickly cut short his hopeful respite from the mess that was his life. He sighed again and leaned back in his chair as he began to review the latest fight in his mind's eye.

His fight against Tarou wasn't really worth reviewing, since neither of them had learned any new moves since the last time they'd fought, and since they never finished the fight, courtesy of the Sailor Senshi.

Ranma reached out to grab a water bottle from his pack, but his hand closed around empty air as he recalled that his pack had been blown to smithereens by the same magic that had torn his mom's house down. His mental review progressed into the "fight" the Senshi had against Tarou.

There obviously hadn't been a real battle, but Ranma was still curious as to how the Senshi had launched their attacks. His memory didn't provide any real clues as to the answer, though it did let him rule out the possibility of the attacks being ki-based.

He groaned as an image of the Senshi standing in their corny poses popped into his mind—their poses were already bad enough, but the outfits they wore made the poses that much worse.

AN (original): I couldn't figure out whether to say "Bishoujo Senshi" or "Beautiful Sailor Suited Soldier"… and I think I've mentioned it before, and if not, then I am now: I have yet to, and probably never will, watch or read the SM series. I'm working purely off of second-hand info or internet research. P

Another story that I'm working on, tentatively titled Rollback, might need more in-depth knowledge. / I dunno how I'm gonna get that info.

I hadn't actually drawn up an outline for this tale (Rollback has an outline, but it's only detailed for the first chapter. It's vague from there on till the end of the story…), so if there are plot holes, I guess I just totally overlooked them while I was writing this piece. Sorry 'bout that. )

Truthfully, this story began as a simple bit of confusion on my part. I was mulling over that ever-pondered question of how people never figured out who the Senshi were. Halfway through my musing, I realized that it was pure insanity for people to not be able to figure out who there were, and something I discovered when I decided that (somewhat accidentally) led me to begin writing a oneshot. That oneshot became this.

Of course… it's spiraled away from my initial short story and into a multi-part fic.

Till next time,

-Tari