There will be: language, nudity, sex, violence, death, and rather detailed descriptions of such. I'm an adult, and a writer. I revel in the coincidence that I'm also an adult writer.
I only own what someone else does not.
It took her fifteen thousand years. Riding the cresting rise and fall of countless empires and civilizations. A gambit that would leave the world dead and cold... unless she rose again. Nothing else mattered. Nothing. Not life, or death, or eternal madness, or damning the galaxy to the cold death of time and space torn asunder.
Betrayal is just one of a million tools, in the machine she'd wrought, just for another chance. And nothing will stand in her way.
Eclipsed
Chapter Nine: Interface Me
–
Things just couldn't settle down into anything like normal, Ranma groused as she carried a pair of newly-bought microwave ovens and a hammer up a flight of stairs. "Why'd we need these again?"
"You'll see," Setsuna offered, now in her civilian clothes – which equaled her dress jacket and skirt from earlier that day. To say Ranma felt not only under-dressed but like some kind of domestic violence advertisement was an understatement, considering she still had blood on her face, singed patches in her hoodie, and a combination of soot and mud caking her pants up to the knees.
Then there was of course the news crew waiting outside the blast area, which shot any ideas of maintaining her anonymity in the foot. She expected the Joketsuzoku to be around by five the next evening. The redhead made a note to call Nabiki and let her go ahead and sell the information for a commission – maybe some good could come of this. That thought caused the martial artist to peer to her right, meeting an equally surreptitious gaze from her companion, who was currently carrying the small girl from earlier. "Well, more than some," she reconsidered to herself.
Still, Setsuna's presence couldn't be considered a wholly positive thing, the redhead mused internally. Things had just gotten massively more complicated. This morning, all she had to worry about were Ranma's issues. Fiancees, family, finances, school, and her School. Gross simplifications of a mass of problems that at best, would result in a lot of broken friendships, honor, and hearts, and at worst her life. Now, she had Kinuran's memories, impulses, instincts, and habits creeping up on her, as well as the complications of the Senshi past and present. And she knew damn well if Setsuna was involved with them, she'd be as well before the week was out.
That was a whole other thing to think on, and one she wasn't prepared to deal with quite yet.
As for the reason she was still female... Ranma actually shuddered at the idea of resuming her birth form, currently. Too many memories as a woman had just been stuffed sideways into the martial artist's head, and right now mismatching her gender to them just seemed like a quick ticket to a long stay in a padded room. Once 'Kinuran' was settled, she'd switch back. The redhead shot another glance at her companion, getting the expected 'We really, really need to talk' look in reply.
"Might be a while then," Ranma muttered to herself tiredly.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, Setsy," she replied automatically, grimacing afterward. "This is going to play hell with school, I just know it."
The taller woman laughed wryly. "Maybe I should take a vacation."
"Like hell," the redhead muttered. "If I have to go back to school after having thirty years of Terran Space Academy shoved in my skull, you're sure as hell coming with me."
Setsuna snapped her attention to the young woman at her side. "You recall all that?"
"All? Nah," Ranma muttered, wincing at her headache as they made the top landing inside a darkened house she'd entered without much notice sometime during her thoughts. "Comes and goes. Right now it's just enough to make my head feel like scrambled eggs."
The dusky-skinned Senshi smirked. That seemed to be the usual reaction most of the other Senshi had to their returning memories as well. "Well, whatever you recall certainly can't hurt. Your academics this time around are rather... amusing."
"Oi, laugh it up," the bloody young woman groused irritably. "Unless you've spent a few years getting beat on by wrinkly old men with bad tempers, I can still kick your ass seven ways to Sunday – and that's without my tap engaged." Ranma flinched. "...if I still had it."
"Well it just so happens..." Setsuna trailed off at the almost hungry gaze Ranma was leveling at her. "Um. Why don't I make us some tea?" She offered with a nervous laugh, opening the door to a small upstairs den and feeling an unnamed need to dodge that particular bullet.
Ranma nodded, then shifted the microwaves in her arms, more for a need to see than any discomfort at their negligible weight. "What about this stuff?"
Indicating a direction with a tilt of her head, Setsuna began walking. "There's a guest bedroom where she'll be alright. Leave them in there with her and the hammer."
Blinking in confusion, the redhead recalled the taller woman mentioning the little girl was actually some kind of machine. Still, the whole thing seemed kind of... callous. She paused, standing in that doorway while the little girl stood beside her, hand tucked in her jacket again like she tended to whenever given the chance. "Shouldn't we... I dunno, stay with her? She doesn't seem all that well, Setsy."
The Senshi grimaced as she considered that and her companion's current mental confusion. Machine or not, the little girl certainly looked like a child. Rounding the corner of the kitchen, she took in the scene of Ranma ruffling the girl's hair lightly, while the seeming child clung to her and knew this had to be taken care of first. Taking the girl's remaining hand, she lead her back into the room. "Well, to be honest right now it won't do much good. She may not even be linguistically capable, and certainly has no concepts of social behaviors programmed," the woman noted, settling the machine in the guise of a child down on the simple bed in the guest room. She smoothed the youth's hair back, taking in the deep amber eyes blinking back at her. "Comforting her won't work – she has no concept of it yet. I vaguely recognize her model, I think. She'll understand basic commands in Lunarii, but that's it."
"Up to you then," Ranma pointed out with some bemusement at what had been explained. "I'm still a bit rusty I wager at speaking a language I learned before I died last time."
"Guess that's one definition of a dead language," the emerald-haired woman muttered with some mirth. "Fine, lets see if her core functions are alright and at least get a name.
"Please state unit identification," she directed at the small figure, causing her attention to snap onto the Senshi's face.
"TN-R0-Z348829," the small girl chimed in a musical voice in way of reply.
Ranma tilted her head, then grinned. "Tenrou. Suits her."
Considering Ranma's statement and apparent understanding of Lunarii, Setsuna had to agree. She was somewhat surprised at the redhead's grasp at the language she'd just a moment before claimed no talent in. "Full of surprises," she commented with a smile to Ranma, before addressing her small guest. "Command access request."
The small child tilted her head curiously. "Limited provisional access granted. Administrative functions locked." The girl looked to Ranma for a moment. "Please verify or deny access from primary Administrator."
Setsuna raised a brow. "Apparently she likes you," the woman noted dryly. "She's picked you as her primary user."
"I noticed," Ranma muttered with a sigh. This just took the cake. In broken, halting Lunarii, she replied, "Access granted to Setsuna Meiou, unless otherwise stated."
"Accepted," the little girl chirped. "Will you please state your preferred address, Administrator?"
"Ranma Saotome," the redhead replied.
"Imprint file updated, address accepted," she replied with a content smile.
Setsuna blinked. "Um. Imprint? Clarify."
"Biometric imprinting is required for proper operation," the child-machine stated primly, examining her empty sleeve with something verging on annoyance.
Something about that tickled the woman's memory, but she didn't waste time on it currently. There was a lot left to cover that night, and this was just the appetizer. "Fine. Command access – current unit identification adjustment. Backup current identification value. Rewrite current value to Tenrou. Acknowledge."
Blinking up at Setsuna once, the small figure nodded. "Unit identification is now set to 'Tenrou'."
The Senshi nodded once. "Alright. Those," she indicated the microwaves that had yet to be unpacked, "are for you. Use the hammer to render them more... digestible. Then enter a maintenance cycle for one-third current planetary revolution."
"Acknowledged," the newly named Tenrou chirped, taking up the hammer with an eager look on her face.
Setsuna turned to a bemused Ranma. "We should probably leave her alone until tomorrow. This could get messy."
The resonating clang of a hammer striking a doomed appliance punctuated her sentence, eliciting an amused expression from the observing redhead. "Well, I feel better at least," turning, she made her way back to the kitchen before grimacing at her state of dress. Or rather, the state of her dress. "You know, this furniture looks kind of expensive."
Humming in thought, Setsuna shrugged. "Something like that."
"Got a change of clothes?"
"Ugh, right. Forest for the trees," the taller woman muttered, stalling at pouring some water for the redhead's tea as she too noticed the ruin that Ranma was wearing. "There's a small bathroom connected to my room, go start a shower, and I'll find something for you to wear."
Ranma favored the woman with a warm smile, leaning forward from where she stood to lay a light kiss on the taller, still-seated woman's forehead. The two women froze at the familiar gesture, until the redhead cleared her throat and made a hasty retreat into the bath, face inscrutable. For her part, the elder Senshi tried to keep her own returning memories still, not daring to hope for something she'd worked thousands of years for, even if it was put in her reach.
Ranma stood in the shower – cold by her own decision – leaning against the tile as her head swam with memories she'd never made and questions she'd likely never have the answers to. A mirthless laugh bent her features into a parody of a smile. "And here I am, trying to start over somewhere normal, put all the madness behind me just to jump into something worse."
"It isn't so bad," a quiet voice interrupted the martial artist, though she recognized it easily enough. It bothered her more than she'd admit that Setsuna bypassed her instincts for danger, her senses automatically registering her as a non-threat.
"More leftovers from Kinuran," the redhead thought with narrowed eyes, as she forced herself to relax under the chill spray. "For all my screaming at her earlier, I still don't... she still didn't think of her as an enemy. The hell is going on with me..." she wondered to herself silently.
"The Senshi handle most problems without much notice from the world around them. If you wanted, you could ignore them the same way the rest of Juuban does, and no one would blame you," Setsuna prattled on, oblivious to the internal war being waged in front of her.
Dredging herself out of her thoughts, Ranma rejoined the conversation. "Others wouldn't, but I would," she replied tiredly. "I can't just sit by and let people get hurt. If I can do something, I will."
Setsuna shook her head slowly. That was pure Kinuran. "Not every fight has to be yours."
Ranma barked a hoarse laugh from under the cold spray she rested in. "Now you sound like mom." The martial artist could practically feel the curiosity rolling off the woman on the other side of the frosted glass, and considered the wisdom in humoring her. Then again, this was Setsuna Meiou – Senshi of Pluto, Guardian of Time, and Overwatch of the Time Gates. If she wanted to know bad enough, Ranma knew she would, even if she didn't quite understand why the certainty in her heart was just that.
"Long story short, mom got worried after a big fight I had, that if things kept on like they were, she'd lose me," Ranma explained quietly, focusing more on the feel of the cold water running down her naked back and the rise of her hips than the words she was speaking. She needed that chill, right now. "Or, well, lose her chance at grandkids," the redhead bit out with more than a little venom in her voice.
"Harsh view."
Ranma nodded at the Senshi's succinct opinion. "True. But still, that's the bottom line. Best I can figure from talking with Nabiki about it, mom can't reconcile her idea of being a mother to me anymore. She's got too many expectations wrapped up in how I should be, what I should be – and I just don't match. All those instincts got dumped onto the idea of grandkids." Shrugging, the petite woman scrubbed the blood and soot from her hair, wincing as the shampoo irritated the wound on her scalp. "She failed with me, so wants to make it up through them. Doesn't matter much anymore, though."
"I see," the emerald-haired Senshi voiced, though in truth she didn't. Even taking Ranma's records into consideration, the situation she'd just learned of sounded strange. Likely, she amended, due to a lack of information. Something else to rectify in time, provided she had a chance. More pressing to her, was the tone Ranma used in regard to this Nabiki person. "Out of curiosity," she began with a careless tone, "who's Nabiki?"
Ranma paused, turning her head to regard the green-topped blur on the other side of the glass. "Remember all those fiancees I mentioned? Sister of one." She noted the indistinct figure of Setsuna nodding, and smirked, an odd impulse taking her. Leaning against the door, she let it open a sliver, giving her an unobstructed view of the emerald-haired woman. "Do I detect a hint of something in your voice, Setsy?"
Looking up from her thoughts at the suddenly clearer voice, Setsuna stared openly at the display she was given. Ranma's body was pressed against the glass, the chill there and in the water she was using clearly demonstrated by the state of her tightened nipples. Leaning on the glass, the redhead's form was on proud display, taut muscles with clearly defined tone under damp skin much clearer than the frosted glass a moment before had given her view of. In a surge of long-forgotten memory, Setsuna recalled a similar scene, from her youth. It was the start of the odd dance between the two – Kinuran and herself. Mouth dry suddenly at the view and that memory, Setsuna wrenched her gaze away from the display of appealing skin and lithe, toned muscles. "Curiosity? It was a question, after all," she finally managed to babble out, clearly discomfited.
The redhead blinked, recognizing Setsuna's awkwardness for what it was, backed by decades of memories not her own. "...yeah, whatever you say, Setsy," she allowed blandly, closing the door again and leaning away from the glass. They'd never been lovers – Setsuna and Kinuran – but they did share a bond. It wasn't for lack of affection that they never acted, but circumstances. Ranma nearly laughed at the idea, until she noted her own stuttering arousal at those thoughts. Memories, damn them.
"And I thought cold showers were supposed to fix this crap," she muttered, scrubbing harshly at her skin, trying to dislodge her thoughts along with the remnants of the soap there.
"Did you say something?"
"Nothing," she bit out, putting her head in the spray of water overhead. "I'll be out in a minute."
Setsuna felt more than understood the dismissal, Ranma's mood swing clear to her regardless. Frowning and feeling more than a little unsure, the taller woman nodded and silently left her guest to her own devices, the clothes she'd found for her folded and set on the nearby sink.
As she banged her head lightly against the tile, Ranma cursed roundly at her thoughts. Kinuran's thoughts. The problem now wasn't so much that the woman's ghost had acted or behaved differently, but that she didn't. Hardly at all, in fact. It was deceptively easy to fall into those same instincts and habits, putting herself in those memories. Ranma tried to differentiate them, interposing her birth form over those situations, but... it changed nothing. Perhaps this is what the masters meant – those focused on meditation and transcending the anchor of the body. How, if in one life one left too much undone, took too heavy a burden of Karma into the next, it would follow. She certainly felt burdened, with those hundreds of years of memory burning their way across her brain now.
Yet, she was still Ranma. The martial artist considered that, and calmed. She didn't need to do anything with this new facet of her existence. Kinuran was dead – she had no compulsion to take up that life again, or desire to do so. She could just as easily go home, sleep, and tomorrow return to class with nothing more than a vague discomfort around the figures of Haruka, Michiru, and Setsuna.
She laughed at that lie. She could no more shrug off the responsibility of this new knowledge any more than she could do so, if a random threat aimed itself at those she knew already. The words she'd spoken early echoed, in her own and a voice from memory. "If I can do something, I will."
With that simple statement, she realized that it wasn't Kinuran's ghost she had to make peace with, but simply the impact of her memories and the life she'd left too soon. Her own life. Her memories. Turning the taps off, the petite martial artist stepped out of the chill shower stall and addressed her image in the mirror. A young, adolescent Kinuran stared back, the memory of that time in her life as clear as her own if she willed it. Yes she resembled Nodoka, but this was utterly different. This was a resemblance. This was a reality in reflective.
Shifting forward, she addressed the phantom behind her own eyes, leaning against the mirror with a tense hand. "Just because you're here, because I'm here... don't expect me to fall into that trap of fate," the martial artist warned, blue eyes flashing. "This is my life. Your life. Our life. We may have left some things undone, but that's long behind us. Some things remain to do... I know that much. We wouldn't be who we are, or were, if we could ignore that."
"I'm not going to waste this life." A half grin, one she felt another wanted to show, graced her lips. "Or this chance."
She stifled a laugh. "I'm glad we could have this talk. Lets just not make a habit of it, yeah?"
"Works for me."
Chuckling, Ranma inspected the clothes she'd been left, and began getting dressed. Setsuna's image flashed through her mind again, followed by the condensed emotion of a lifetime that had lasted longer than some nations. Love, lust, pain, betrayal, reconciliation, relief, anxiety, loss, despair... reeling, Ranma leaned on the basin and felt a few tears escape her eyes. Snarling, she scrubbed them away, cursing not her memories this time, but her utterly unprepared mind for them. For this. For now, and... what she was contemplating.
She laughed mirthlessly, looking up at the mirror to see a pitiful young woman, caught in a moment of harsh clarity. "God, and I thought I loved Akane..." swallowing thickly, Ranma considered that it was just memory. Just... but she'd not changed at all. Even now. The glances, the secret, private conversations. How easily she took to her presence while she bathed, and how simply she slipped through her defenses.
Ranma looked to her clothes once more, a shaky hope blooming in her breast. A simple tee and a pair of boxers... perfect. The redhead smiled. "No, not going to waste this chance..."
–
Setsuna sat and stared into her tea, wondering if she'd put enough bourbon in it to get her through what needed to be said soon. Her consideration on the excuses, explanations, and apologies she need to prepare died a hasty death as a pair of lithe arms circled her shoulders, and a breath of warm air whispered across her ear. "Suna," a familiar feminine purr lilted from behind her, the pleasant warmth of a distinctly female form pressed against her shoulders and back accompanying it.
She shivered, leaning into that presence out of instinct with her heart in her throat, her own arms reaching up and back before thoughts could be connected to action. She halted, seeing the amusement in Ranma's blue eyes before the younger girls lips slipped down to her own. The momentary warning bells that this woman kissing her was a student in the school she worked at were silenced, when the stifled memories of millennia of unfulfilled desire reared up to the fore. Neatly, she compartmentalized her work as nothing more than a surveillance mission, and covert resource for the Senshi. Nothing more, and nothing less. The student-teacher morality barrier died a brief and quiet death, unlamented.
Humming in mild disappointment, the dusky-skinned woman blinked her eyes open to the appraising glance of her companion as she pulled away. Smiling at the warmth she could see in those eyes above her, the Senshi reached up, tracing a finger along the curve of her chin lightly. "Feeling better?"
"Feeling whole," the redhead replied, letting her arms rest in a light embrace around the taller woman where she sat. She smirked slightly. "I can see why you cultivate that stoic mask." Seeing Setsuna raise a brow, the martial artist's expression grew into a playful grin. "You still blush like a Plutonian."
Setsuna laughed suddenly, swatting at the redhead. "Oh shut up."
"What?" Ranma dodged back easily, grinning impishly all the while. "I've never seen someone blush cocoa before. It suits you."
The Time Senshi wrinkled her nose cutely, a wholly alien expression from what she normally allowed herself. It amused and stunned her at how easily those old barriers, long-standing and timeworn, came down around her reborn friend. She reconsidered that after a moment's thought. "No, it shouldn't surprise me," she amended. "After all, it was all for this."
Settling not across the table, but in the chair nearby, Ranma favored the woman with a warm smile. "Sorry about earlier. I needed to come to grips with with some things, and it took a little effort."
Setsuna laughed quietly. "You realize that the others still haven't acclimated, right?"
Ranma shook her head, indicating a negative, while a distant part of her mind found the ease at understanding things better now definitely a welcome addition. Rather than congratulate herself on her expanded vocabulary thanks to Kinuran's experiences, she answered Setsuna's question, as she could. "Honestly, outside of memory, I don't even know much about these Senshi beyond what's been in papers and news."
"Really?" The taller woman blinked at that. "And you just moved to Juuban, but it wasn't because of...?"
"No, I... suppose I had my first memory as a dream, the day I settled in the ward," the redhead considered, then laughed. "First I recall, I mean. I'm almost sure now I've had others, before. Feels like longer ago than it was. Last night, in fact."
That pulled Setsuna's attention quite solidly away from the warmth she was feeling a moment ago. "What? Only a day?" Her mind reeled at that. The Gates had only been unlocked to her that long. Things were moving quickly, far more quickly than she had expected in fact. "No one else has handled recovering their memories nearly so well or quickly," she replied to Ranma, filling in the silence.
Ranma nodded, sipping her tea. "Well, honestly? This may be the weirdest thing to happen to me, but its not winning by a wide margin," she quipped with a grin, as Setsuna rose and moved to a small, nearby cabinet. "And like I said, it comes and goes. So, why don't you tell me what I've missed? You seem to be in the know."
"Long conversation in the making, there," Setsuna warned, getting a shrug in reply. Feeling it appropriate, she took out the bottle she'd doctored her tea with and a pair of glasses. "Luckily," she noted while turning and lightly kicking the cabinet shut, "I've got just the thing to get conversation flowing."
Ranma raised a brow at the implication. "I get the feeling I'm going to need a note for class tomorrow."
"Don't worry, I have a feeling the school nurse will be more than sympathetic," Setsuna assured.
–
