This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma, and Kunihiku Ikuhara who created Sailor Moon from the work of Naoko Takeuchi.

This story's main home is ｒａｎｍａｆｉｃｓ。ｒｕ／ｆａｎｆｉｃｓ／ｙｏｕｒ＿ｄｅｓｔｉｎｙ＿ｉｓ＿ａｎｎｕｌｌｅｄ／ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ .

(シーンブレイク)

Your Destiny Is Annulled

Chapter 25
Swimming Lessons

Remember I told you that the last two chapters consist of flashbacks? Well, I lied.

The author.

(シーンブレイク)

"It's no use," Akane concluded, her voice dejected, when she finished spitting sand out. "It's like there's a curse on me." She sighed rolling onto her back to lie listlessly, sprawled right where her husband had dropped her hacking carcass a minute ago. Waves were washing rhythmically over her legs.

"Hmmm..." Ranma frowned as she sat cross-legged at the very edge of dry sand. She was dressed in the same dark blue school swimsuit, as were they all, including a white name tag on their chests reading "Miyuki". Ranma had cut a plunging neckline through hers as it was a bit too tight for her.

She glanced back along the beach.

Usagi was lying in the shadow of a palm tree on a blanket, staring unthinkingly into the deep blue sky. Her face was radiating serene peace.

Ami was walking along the surf edge, barely visible in the distance. She spent a lot of time swimming during these days of relaxation, probably more than she usually did in a whole year, making around a hundred kilometers in total across the sea. But even she eventually got tired of her favorite pastime.

"I don't think so," Ranma retorted sharply as she turned back to her wife. "But you got one thing right. The methods we've been using so far are useless. We won't achieve anything here. It's time to go on, our friends are growing bored." She made an exaggeratedly wise face, borrowed from her pops. "I'll think of something along the way. I believe you could be taught to swim, young one. It just requires something... radical."

Akane shivered involuntarily.

(シーンブレイク)

"Here we go," commented Ranma when Ami typed the command to open a portal to the place from which they were going to leave with no return.

They all wore identical camou pants and baggy jackets of brownish-green color. As they had found, there was a catch in the seemingly unlimited ability of Ahs to create things from nothing. Formulating a proper definition proved to be too complex even for Ami. The only option that worked somehow was re-creating familiar things they had a contact with sometime in the past. And even that required a good few dozen tries to get the right thing.

The portal closed cutting them off from the sun-burned beach. Darkness swallowed the hall of mirrors, pierced only by dim greenish light of the faraway greenish stars of the medallion screen. The portal opened, in the same arch, flooding the hall with bright pinkish-white light. Usagi shrieked jumping away from it so fast that she slipped on the perfect mirror of the floor and skid face first a bit. Ami hastily closed the portal.

Thirty degrees Celsius below zero after tropical heat are a really strong stuff.

"Let's shaman up some winter clothing then," Ranma concluded as she switched her flashlight on. "Does anyone remember the parkas we took to the North, back on Earth? Those that had burned down?"

Everyone remembered these, so after several failed attempts they all had full sets of winter clothing, as well as a discarded heap of useless stuff ranging from summer school uniforms to unrecognizable trash. After buttoning up thoroughly, they walked out into the frosty day.

"It's so beatiful!" Akane noted with admiration as she surveyed the landscape stretching before them.

A snow-cowered plain of a narrow lake was stretching in all directions, flat hills framing it bristling with dark fir forest. The long lake stretched into distance where the individual trees were blurring into a dark wavy line, barely visible in the frosty haze against the backdrop of low, snow-covered mountains. Sun was hanging low, illuminating the landscape from the right, painting the sky and the haze-shrouded mountains those soft but vibrant shades of pinkish- and bluish-white that only appear during really strong frost.

"Yeah," Ranma agreed. Her wife just vocalized her own thoughts.

Usagi stood there scringing and dancing in place. She shrunk back into her collar so deeply that only her nose was visible from under the hood. Ami took pity on her, shamaning up some scarfs. As a result, there were three figures clad in heavy parkas now, striding forward with their hoods up, and one scarf mummy waddling along them, barely able to see. Her hands were hidden in a thick cocoon of scarves playing the role of a makeshift muff. When the desired item was found by trial and error, making more copies of it was as easy as pressing a button.

Ranma and Akane were walking in front, one after another, switching positions from time to time. They'd like to walk hand in hand, which would be harder, for the sake of training. But they were also beating a semblance of path through the knee-deep snow for Ami, who had a hard time even with their help. In the rear, the checkered scarf-mummy of Usagi was waddling, careening left and right, huffing puffs of seam out of its top making the scarves there frost over.

They surmounted several kilometers in this order when the normal girls started tiring out. They made a stop to let them rest.

"Let us carry you," offered Ranma.

"Is it... far... yet?" huffed from under the layers of scarves. Usagi pulled her mitten-clad hand out the muff and pulled some of the frosted-over scarves down, opening a crack from which her eyes glinted.

"No, we only have to reach that hill." Ami pointed at a hill ahead, prominent with it steepness, its rocky top towering over the forest. "The point of departure is there, at the top."

The mummy was standing in indecision, breathing out small puffs of steam. "Thanks, but no," Usagi's muffled voice reached finally from inside. "I feel like taking a walk, enjoying the view before the end."

"What could you see through all these wrappings?" Ranma injected with sarcasm. "Com'on, open your face. It's not that cold—" She choked with snow, slammed into the ground by her wife. Suddenly, a deep cracking sound scared everyone, starting at their feet and rolling away towards the shore. Akane tensed, her face turning blue from fear. Ami was looking around, listening intently in alarm. The scarf mummy started turning left and right awkwardly with its entire body as it didn't have anything even remotely resembling a head.

"Watch it!" Ranma snapped at her wife after spitting the snow out. "You'll break the ice!" Then she saw that the other girl was already scared out of her wits. The redhead narrowed her eyes, there was a nasty appraising gleam in them. "Can you walk to the shore on your own?" she asked Ami and the mummy as she threw back her hood lined with artificial fur and began unbuttoning her parka.

"I think so," Ami replied glancing at the shore, which was close now. "Will you stay here?" She took a mitten off to rub at her numb cheek with a bare hand. The quiet girl genius may like cold, but here it was so much more than just cold. The frost was sharp, biting. Not to mention the small wind making it worse.

"We'll be training," Ranma explained in a too cheerful voice as she took her parka off holding it out to Ami. "Would you please carry...? Wait, no." She spread the parka on the snow, then sat on it and started pulling her boots off.

"What are you doing?" Akane asked, feeling a terrible apprehension. Hordes upon hordes of icy creeps were marching along her spine.

"I know you two are far from average people," Ami added, alarmed. But walking bare-footed through snow at 28 Celsius below the zero..." She fell silent helplessly, seeing that Ranma haven't stopped with the boots. Throwing her pants and jacket off, the redhead continued until she was standing on the parka nude. At 28 below the zero.

Akane shuddered violently. Ami boggled. The mummy of Usagi squeaked in horror, shrinking into itself with sympathetic shivers. She was feeling cold even looking at this!

"What are you waiting for?" the redhead asked Akane as she danced in place. "Start undressing!" She coiled, bending her legs, then made a huge, around ten meters, leap to the side. "Nnng... Mokou Takabisha!" A ki blast slamming into the frozen lake surface made a three-meter wide hole. Into which hole the part-time girl landed, entering the still subsiding column of water and disappearing below the surface. Everyone kept looking, stupefied, at the chunks of ice surfacing in the three-meter wide ice-hole and the waves calming down after licking the snow off the edge.

There was a dead silence for a good thirty seconds.

A small explosion shattered the ice a dozen meters away. When the water column subsided, there was a much smaller hole. A feminine figure popped up up to her waist as she emitted a mix of a delighted shriek and a battle cry. Then she sunk back. Finally, a head rose above the surface.

"Hey Akane! Come! For how long will you keep undressing?" Ranma yelled merrily. She leaned with her elbows on the edge, her pose exaggeratedly blase. But it was still noticeable that she was practically bursting with a desire to move. "Do you want to learn to swim or not?" Water started freezing on the red bangs, turning them into icicles.

"Of course I do," replied Akane fighting against indecision. "But—"

"Then undress and dive!" Ranma said with finality before diving again.

Akane decided at last. Walking up to the first, bigger ice-hole, she started shedding her clothes.

"Wait!" Ami tried to stop her. "That's insane! Swimming under ice is deadly dangerous...! Not to mention the risk of getting a serious frostbite!"

"R..ranma k..knows what he's d..doing," Akane retorted with conviction, clad only in her panties now. Dancing on the spread parka, twisting like an eel on the frying pan, she clutched her chest with her arms — more against the cold than to cover her breasts. "And I t..trust h..him."

Ranma surfaced in front of them, made a deep breath, then emitted another battle cry. "Ditch the panties," she commanded. "Or they'll freeze to your skin." Akane quickly complied, unable to think of modesty as her teeth were clattering. "And you," Ranma instructed the worrying Ami and the mummy shaking in sympathetic horror, "take our clothes and go to the closest shore." She pointed at a narrow peninsula, its point but two hundred meters away. "Make a fire there... Ah, and shaman up some towels. A lot of them." The red-haired head turned to Akane, yelling with devil-may-care mirth: "Com'on, jump in! I'm safeguarding!" Then she disappeared under the water.

Akane took a deep, shuddering breath. Then she jumped. A sharp cry, a splash, and there was only dark water sloshing in the wide ice-hole.

"It's madness," Ami repeated helplessly as she looked at the chaotic little waves.

"Nuh-huh," the mummy objected, holding a lump of Ranma's clothing with both hands. "True masters always train by meditating under an icy waterfall... Or something like that..." She fell silent for a moment, embarrassed. Her conviction returning, she then continued: "Anyhow! They are training! We have to go to the shore, to prepare that fire and blankets!" Turning around awkwardly, she purposefully waddled through the deep snow towards the peninsula, huffing and puffing with small white clouds and almost falling as her arms were busy.

"But that's a completely insane training then," Ami objected with disapproval as she hastily gathered Akane's clothing. "I know they were never known for their restraint," she said as she hurried after the mummy. "But there are limits..."

Behind them, a dull explosion was followed by the noise of water cascading down to the snow, then Akene's deafening shriek full of terror an exhilaration. They both turned around, but the new ice-hole was empty again.

"To think of it, water is never colder than zero, right?" the mummy said with some doubt in her voice, unsure of her knowledge.

"It's not just the water," Ami disagreed, trying to walk faster through the untouched snow field. "They'll have to get out! Completely wet at this temperature!" She fell silent, saving her breath. Then she couldn't bear it any more so she continued anyway: "I get a feeling that their entire anything-goes school is just plain insane. Like they really know no limits or restraint. Their training methods would make any sane person's hair stand on its ends. No one of them is in any way guaranteed from getting crippled, you know! Take the Neko-ken, for example—"

"You are worried he'd follow in his father's steps," the mummy stated, stopping and making a lumbering turn towards the distraught girl.

"I'm not... Yes." Ami sighed in frustration. "I want to believe he's more prudent, but..."

"But what makes this training that much more dangerous than their previous ones?" the mummy asked as it stumbled but caught itself exhaling a large puff of steam. Usagi was obviously exhausted, but kept stubbornly plowing forward.

"Swimming under the ice!" Ami replied hotly. "It's deadly dangerous—"

"For mere mortals who couldn't break the ice from below?" the mummy interrupted her archly.

There was yet another dull explosion behind them, two voices squealing in unison, full of wild abandon.

Ami would have turned red from embarrassment, if not her cheeks being numb from the biting cold.

(シーンブレイク)

Used to the traditional washing off with cold water, Akane haven't felt the cold at first. It was even warmer down here! A firm hand gripped her calf and started pulling her into darkness, away from the dull greenish spotted glow of the ice - not giving her time to think where·she was now. Seconds passed, the cold was beginning to burn. The light was slowly dimming, and there was pressure building in her ears. But Ranma, visible as a vague shadow, kept dragging her into the depth. Akane wrenched her leg free, and then the usual panic caught up with her, making her thrash in water, losing her orientation and the remaining air. Her body burning stronger and stronger, her lungs spasming, Akane desperately reached for the faraway glow of daylight. She was thrashing and windmilling, unable of thinking rationally. She was burning inside and out, burning from the cold, burning with desire for a gulp of air! The burning forced her forward like an irresistible force. Her vision was beginning to darken.

Two strong arms grabbed her around her waist, a warm body pressing against her back. Akane was jerked upwards, towards the light that was dimming with each second. There was an explosion that shook her eardrums, then she was thrown out into the blinding light, with such a force that she left the water completely, flying up into the air. The sweetest, priceless air. The frosty cold burned so sharply that the prior trial looked like a joke in comparison. This shook her system up not unlike a mortal battle! Akane took a hasty, shuddering breath. Then she let out a loud yell that was carrying both the terror she just went through and the exhilaration of feeling incredibly alive! But then she was again jerked down by her ankles. Her hands slipping from the edge of ice, she was again dragged into the depth, before even having a chance to catch her breath.

And again there was dark depth and the desperate fight to reach the surface. This time she remembered all the lessons Ranma had drilled into her. She moved swiftly, pushing with her arms, undulating her entire body to utilize her full strength and turn it into motion. An another explosion, she was being pushed towards the surface, then she and Ranma both yelled in unison. Akane suddenly realized that she was caught in the thrill of this insanity! Water was burning, air was burning, her blood was boiling,a and she completely disregarded that part of her mind where prudence lived.

"Next time do it all by yourself!" Ranma whispered into her ear.

"By myself? Whablb—" The redhead didn't let her finish, diving and dragging her under. Akane quickly wrenched herself free, but this environment was still alien to her. She was unable to even see her husband's movements, and soon Ranma's heel slammed into her belly with brutal force, driving the air out of her lungs and sending her tumbling blindly into the darkness. That's it! Recovering from the blow, Akane spent several seconds trying to tell the down from the up. As soon as she regained her orientation, she hurried towards the blurry spotty-greenish surface. There was the ice, finally. But what was next? Her lungs were spasming, her eyes bugging out from the desire to breathe!·Akane hit the ice with her fist. Water sapped all the strength out of her movement, making it harmless. She rebounded from the ice, sinking back into the depth. She glanced around panicky, but Ranma was nowhere in sight. Truly 'all by yourself'. Her vision was swimming with color spots. Akane got really angry, partly at her husband, but more at herself, for being so slow. She launched "Raitsui Dan" at the resilient ice ceiling. The recoil of the ki blast pushed her even deeper, but there was now a spot of radiant daylight shining overhead! Mustering the last of her strength, Akane reached for it. Finally, she surfaced! She was content to be just bobbing there, taking a great joy in gulping the piercingly burning air. Ranma kept circling her like a shark, and eventually dragged her into the depth again. Did the parasite even go up for air?

This time it went without any stunning blows. Ranma was distracting her, rolling her around. In the end she desoriented her so thoroughly that Akane kept swimming into the depth by herself for some time, before noticing her error. Light was barely reaching these depths, so getting out proved to be as hard as it was the previous time.

Such fun repeated several times, Akane lost count. She finally managed to catch her husband in a hold, launching both of them out of the water to crash down into the snow.

"Ack! Ouch! Let me go, you idiot! It hurts!" Ranma was hollering, pressed into the snow, squirming in a brutal pain hold.

"Oh, and drowning me was so much fun?" Akane growled, twisting the other girl's arm until bones creaked and pressing a knee into her spine.

"Drowning?" There was smugness in the redhead's voice. "It looked to me like you were swimming. And not too bad, at that."

"I was swimming?" Akane asked in disbelieving shock. She froze, still sitting on Ranma's back. "I was swimming!" she yelled in joy as she realized how profound it was. She almost broke Ranma's arm forgetting to release it. "Thank you! Thank you, Kami-sama! Thank you, Ranma!" Tears of happiness were rolling down her cheeks.

"Let me go you idiot!" Ranma roared, convulsing. "Snow! Burns!" She started twisting and thrashing, eventually breaking the hold and throwing the distracted Akane off of herself.

For Akane it was a sharp, sharp transition from uncontrolled euphoria to the realization that falling butt-naked into deep snow at thirty below the zero... hurt. A lot. She yelled, jumping up and away from the dire burning cold of the white shroud. She dashed towards the nearest shore, barely touching the ground. She was feeling being boiled alive.

(シーンブレイク)

((a few minutes ago))

"Bugger," Ami swore as yet another dirty and sodden rag flopped down to the snow in front of her. "Why can't I get it right? Time is running out!" She concentrated as hard as she could, gritting her teeth. A loofah materialized out of thin air with a quiet "pop". Ami was on the verge of tearing at her hair. The shore around her was littered with wooden washbassins, plastic washbasins, shampoo flasks, wet·towels... But a dry towel, even a tiny one, remained an unattainable dream.

"Let me try," Usagi suggested as she returned wit a heap of sticks, barely suitable for a campfire, and one freshly broken spruce branch. "While you could search for firewood." Then she added suddenly, in a whiny voice: "Why have these spruces to be so sturdy, like they made them from iron? I got all sweaty breaking just one branch off."

"Well, I guess there's no harm from you trying." Ami handed her the medallion, having some reservations. "First you push this button here. Then you remember a towel, picturing it in your mind in detail. Then you press this button to create it. And don't you push any other buttons!" she finished in a commanding voice.

Usagi pulled her mittens off to take the freezing cold medallion. She frowned mightily, sticking her tongue out from the side. She tensed, groaning like she was lifting a weight.

Pop, and there was a yellow plastic duck falling into the pile of trash. Usagi gave out a disappointed sigh.

"Keep trying," Ami encouraged the other girl as she pulled mittens onto her frost-bitten hands. She turned towards the forest...

POP!

Ami turned back in panic — Could the meatball head have pressed a wrong button? — in time to see a whole furo bassin falling down onto the frozen lake, splashing hot water around. It wasn't just a basin, but also hefty chunks of the adjacent wall and floor. The combination crashed through the ice, falling apart into tons of broken concrete and tiles. A high wave lapped at the shore dragging most of the trash into the resulting large hole and sodding Usagi's boots.

"Careful!" Ami chided her friend, alarmed. Then she calmed down a bit as she remembered that the bigger the object, the further away from the operator it materializes. "Try not to get carried away, all right? And face the shore, unless you want to risk making a tsunami."

"Don't worry, I got it." Usagi waved her concern away as she stuck her tongue out, trying to imagine a towel.

Ami risked leaving the other girl to her own devices. The girl genius went combing the forest for firewood. But alas, all suitable logs and branches were either frozen solid, wedged deep in the snow — or were still firmly attached as parts of their respective spruces. Usagi's comment was indeed correct, the spruces were sturdy. Ami got all tired breaking just a couple dry branches off when a terrible crash from behind made her start. Full of apprehension, she rushed back to the shore, plowing through the snow that was even deeper here, in the forest.

Usagi was standing there unharmed, hitting the button as fast as she could with a reckless cry of "Orya-orya-oryaaa!" At both sides of her there were... There were two small hills. One was pinkish-white and round, the other one consisted of broken wood and other crushed construction materials. Judging by the remains of a roof, this debris was once the entire Tsukino residence. A residence that fell from a considerable height, judging by the fact that the sturdy seismic-resistant Japanese home has practically shattered. Ami quickly figured it out: the house materialized over the treetops, as there was no room for it on the densely overgrown shore. The result was predictable. Ami breathed in a lot of air to berate Usagi thoroughly: the careless girl could have been killed with a broken tree! But then she exhaled it out from the surprise of seeing the right hill.

The right hill consisted of towels. Of dry bath towels. Of an outrageous number of dry bath towels, and there were more coming accompanied with Usagi's relentless battle cry.

"Enough!" Ami shouted at her. "You'll wear the button out!"

The hill was already reaching about two human heights, flowing around the spruces like a surrealistic anthill.

"Huh?" the blond said, coming to her senses. She have been so occupied she didn't even notice pulling the scarfs off her head and pulling the hood down. "Ack! My ears hurt!" She hastily pulled the hood back up.

There was a muffled explosion heard from the lake. Soon, Akane came into view — naked, yelling, her skin reddened, wet snow flaking off her as she was running blindly and frantically. She slipped, plowing through the snow face first, and her scream turned into an almost ultrasonic screech. Jumping up like she was scalded, snow plastered all over her body, Akane dashed blindly, completely off-course. At this moment Ranma ran up to her, her pigtail sticking askew, frozen solid. "Turn right!" The redhead redirected her panicking wife onto the path towards the towel hill with a well placed kick.

"Aaaah-I'mburning-I'mburning‼！" Akane howled, doubling her speed at the sight of the craved target.

They both reached the hill at once, digging in with yells and squeals, rubbing at each other with towels so roughly they soon were beet-red. The towels were raining down like ash flakes from an explosion, soon covering the swimmers completely, hiding them from sight.

The disturbed surface was shifting and buckling with energetic movements underneath, accompanied with cries and moans of relief. Then Ranma's disheveled head popped out: "Bring our clothing here, all right?"

"Err..." Usagi was suddenly very sheepish. "It's kind of just happened that..." She cast her eyes down, fidgeting with her foot in the snow. "Err... Well, we have firewood now!" she proclaimed with a strained cheer as she pointed at the remains of a house.

"Oh. Never mind, then." Ranma's head disappeared into the towels. Then popped up again. "Then make us new clothing!" She disappeared for good.

The surface of towels stopped shifting, the sounds of shuffling and occasional squealing were muffled, barely audible. It seemed that the two crazy swimmers dug themselves quite deep.

"I suppose we have to do it anew." Ami sighed as she took the medallion from Usagi. "Let's see if we can quickly recall things we've created before." She frowned in concentration. But she was soon interrupted. The occasional squeals coming from the haystack of towels have surreptitiously changed in tonality... Becoming not so innocent...

"Let us leave them alone, so they can... dry themselves without any distraction!" Ami proclaimed, blushing, as she shut the medallion closed and started pushing Usagi away into the forest.

"Ah, so that's it! Our love-doves finally got themselves a snugly nest!" Usagi exclaimed, agonizingly direct. She grinned giggling conspiratorially. "Looks like it's going to be hot·in there, ne, Ami-chan?" She nudged the mortified girl with her elbow and winked.

For Ami, that was the last straw. Unable to hold any more, glowing red-hot, Ami ran away in blind panic. Not even looking where she was going, her burning face covered with her arms, she tried in vain to run away from the images crawling unceremoniously into her mind. These were scandalous by themselves, but then it got worse: Urawa-kun got somehow mixed in! Making a small desperate cry like a wounded hare, her cheeks aflame, Ami rushed on with redoubled effort... There was a flash, her vision exploding in sparks, then she fell onto her back, rough tree bark clearly imprinted on her forehead.

It hurt a lot, but Ami let out a breath of relief as she relaxed in the soft snow. The agonizing apparition went away. She was just lying there, looking into the light-filled sky above the faraway spruce tops. Then sounds of huffing and snow rustling came slowly from a side. Usagi swam into her vision, bent over the supine girl. "Ami-chan‼ Ami-chan, are you all right?" the blond asked with worry. Then exclaimed guiltily: "Ah! Your forehead is bruised! I'm sorry, it's all my fault."

"It's nothing serious," Ami reassured her hastily. "It'll get better soon."

Usagi sighed, then apologized again, her voice melancholic: "Please forgive me. I acted so stupid. I felt so glad that there was someone who hasn't lost their love... I just got carried away."

Ami didn't know how to reply to that. All these days after they rescued her, Usagi held on. But her loss was profoundly irrecoverable. Serenity and Endimion were like two halves of one being, a union that survived the death itself. And now, so stupidly... Like a half cut off the whole, Usagi alone wasn't complete. There was a huge bleeding wound in her soul. Ami was afraid she won't be able to recuperate, waning away despite their best efforts. This was one of the nightmares that kept Ami waking at nights. But what could they do? Even the best doctors are powerless against such wounds.

"I'd go for a walk," Ami said as she stood up, "but with snow so deep..." She remembered Uurawa-kun and sighed wistfully. It was a pity she won't see him again, but that magnetic force, that spark jumping between them — the girl genius turned a bit pink at the thought — it was just an awkward beginning, just an unblown bud. Were they destined to become parts of a greater whole or not, only the other Ami would know. She again felt a shameful relief in knowing how lucky she was, not having found her true love yet.

"Let's make clothing for them first," Usagi reminded her. "Then we..." She eyed the embarrassed Ami critically and declared: "Then I·will bring it to them. It's better for you to start walking towards that hill right now. I'll catch up."

"All right," Ami agreed reluctantly. "But maybe—"

"With their stamina it would have to be a very long walk," Usagi added, her eyes so impish that Ami clearly saw the blond's future: If she fails to find a new love, she'll no doubt become a matchmaker. A scarily energetic and driven matchmaker. "Maybe we could even make it to the hill-top. They'll catch up with us. They can jump from spruce to spruce like ninjas."

They were interrupted by a shrill shriek from the camp. Ami turned to run there, but Usagi stopped her, manually turning the other girl towards the final hill. "It's just the couple we know," she whispered in Ami's ear, "got so preoccupied that they rolled out into the snow."

Blushing furiously, Ami went to their destination. She was seriously afraid the capillaries in her cheeks would burst.

(シーンブレイク)

Four girls gathered on a rocky hill-top swept with frosty winds. A wavy sea of taiga was stretching all around them. The long, twisty lake and a close mountain ridge from the other side were the only notable landmarks.

Everyone knew that this forest below their feet, this feeling of camaraderie and kinship could very well be the last things they would experience in their lives. They stood there for a long time, observing the winter landscape.

Ami was the only one who understood how insane the plan of their "prison escape" was, how full of weakly based assumptions and leaps of faith. Coupled with using energies able to atomize the entire Solar system. Tense with grim determination, she was checking and double-checking the program.

Usagi was feeling cowardice, as always before the real action started. As always, she was trying not to show it, not to let her comrades down. That was a stark contrast to what she had been at the beginning of her career. Losing her only love... It was so painful, so hopeless. To be honest, she'd prefer to just lie down in some hole and wait for the wolves to eat her. But... the others performed a real heroic deed for her sake. They too have, if unintentionally, lost their goal and purpose. They have lost their home. They, too, have lost their families. Ranma would never see his parents again. Akane, torn forever from her father and sisters. Ami had her mother back there. And all of them lost their friends and comrades forever: Makoto, Minako, Rei, the moon cats, the haughty couple of Outers and their nicest, cutest daughter...

No, she had no right to make the sacrifice of her companions meaningless. It was for them, not for herself, why Usagi was forcing herself to overcome apathy and despair, going on in spite of pain. She was trying to become a different person, to be able to start her life anew, from a blank page.

Still, there was one big, warm consolation. Their loved ones haven't lost them. Their home world they lost forever was safe. Somewhere infinitely far away, another Ranma and Akane were fighting against their fathers' machinations. Another Ami was busying herself with study, barely seeing her mother. Another Usagi was being hugged by her Mamoru.

The blonde let out a sad sigh. No, she won't give up, won't falter under the onslaught of fate. But it was oh so heavy!

Standing across Ami, there were ruffled Ranma, her expression still a bit glazed, a dreamy smile wandering her face, as well as Akane, full of energy, flushed and a little bristled.

"Here we go, then?" Ranma asked finally.

"Let's go." Ami raised her henshin wand. "Just in case... I am so glad I was your friend." A brief smile flashed on her tense face, a bit strained but sincere.

"What is the probability..." Usagi gulped and reluctantly grabbed her brooch. "Of us not making it?"

"High," replied Ami. "Less than 50 percent but more than 10. Most probably, a solid third. Give or take."

"I love you, Ranma," Akane said as she put her arm around the disheveled redhead's shoulders. "I will always love you."

"I too," the other girl replied quietly. "But we still have our entire lives ahead. We will make it. You'll see! I will find yet a way to be a guy again!"

They moved to stand in a tight circle, facing inward. Ami opened the medallion, entered the last command and put the copper roundel down in the snow, in the center of their circle. Everyone raised their transformation item: Ami and Akane their wands, Usagi her brooch, and Ranma an empty palm turned upwards like she was holding an invisible ball.

"What are we waiting for?" asked Akane.

"The Ahs-construct must reach the design condition," Ami explained. "Now—"

The ground shook. The sky began to darken. A ring of giant claw-like spires rose around the girls, so impossibly huge that they were looking like ghosts in the distance. The pitch black of their darker facets was almost invisible against the pale sky, the feathery stratospheric clouds flowing around their middle. The nearby mountain range was clearly in front of these monstrosities.

"Are these supposed to pop out?" Usagi squeaked, stealing fearful glances at the titanic constructs.

"Ahs-Asch had removed our power limiters," Ami explained, feeling uneasy as well. "These form a barrier, in case an uncontrollable burst happens. We are now feeding a total output of several galaxies to an untested process."

Usagi glanced around nervously. The darkness filling the sky was swirling, forming a huge twister suffused with lightning over their heads. The day had surreptitiously turned into night. Winds blowing wildly were raising the snow up, this blizzard growing in strength to eventually conceal the mountains, the forests and the titanic claw spires alike. There was only darkness left, pierced with flashes of lightning, full of rumbling so low and ominous it was resonating in their very bones.

"Concentrate," Akane told her. "Stand firm, don't be afraid of anything. We can do it."

"Yes!" Usagi nodded, her features reflecting determination.

"It's ready," Ami proclaimed. "The Ahs-construct reached its design condition. Now it is our turn. Everyone remembers what to do?" She cast a glance at each of them. "We transform. We grab each other's hands before the transformation is done. We perform Sailor Teleport into the imaginary point that should be now implanted into our minds."

"Got it, I'm ready." Ranma nodded.

"I..." Akane frowned closing her eyes. "Ah, there it is. I'm ready."

Usagi frowned mightily. Then she stuck her tongue out. Then she made an even more unfitting grimace.

"Search your soul for a point... Filled with purpose." Ami advised her.

"Ah!" Usagi's face lit up with understanding. "Then I know it already. But... There's something..."

"We have to leave our bodies," Ami began explaining in a soft tone. "Consider it a tunnel effect for death... Well, a temporary state. Nothing could be done here, there's no other way. There are barriers in our path that nothing material can cross, only a soul could."

"Supress your self-preservation instinct," Ranma suggested.

"Ah," Usagi said, so quietly she could barely be heard through the roaring of winds. "It's like that time at the North Pole..." She shivered slightly, but not because of freezing cold wind getting under her parka and burning her bare hand holding the brooch. "Then... I'm ready."

"I'm ready," Ami finished. "On the count of three. One... Two..."

Four transformation phrases were shouted in unison. Magic flooded them, a blinding, burning flow vaporizing their clothing and blowing the girls' hair like a hurricane force wind coming from the center of their circle. Four figures, clad in light, grabbed at once at their neighbor's upraised right arm with a transformation item shining radiantly in it.

Light·flooded everything. The Earth crust was fading before the onslaught of energy like morning mist under hot sun rays. Even the atoms were torn asunder in this boiling cauldron stretching for tens of kilometers, up to the very ring of limiters. If someone could see this from the Moon, they'd observe a thin, blindingly bright beam of light rushing away from the planet, carrying more energy than Sun radiates in a whole year. The beam disappeared as sharply as it flashed to life. A tiniest fraction of its energy had leaked through the limiters and was now billowing up in a ball of plasma, melting mountains and setting forests on fire for hundreds of kilometers around. When the light finally dimmed, an immense mushroom cloud started its unhurried ascent, heralding the departure of four unyielding souls.

Would they make it to the other side? Those remaining in the cursed multiverse of Ahs would never know the answer.

The end

(シーンブレイク)

July 03, 2011. Translated August 17, 2011. My horrible English of 2011 corrected August 08, 2014.

Ding! Tropes unlocked:
Bittersweet Ending
Breather episode
Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex
If It's You, It's Okay
School Swimsuit
Sequel Hook

Thanks for C&C to:
— Crystal
— LawOhki
— Orphus users (11 bugs so far)

IF YOU ARE FOLLOWING THE STORY ONLY, PLEASE FOLLOW THE AUTHOR: THE SEQUEL IS BEING PUBLISED AS A SEPARATE STORY