Well, my last update, the Angel Of Light Epilogue, got roughly the same response as EVA 25-26… SO, I hope this goes over a little better. Sorry again for slow updates, but at least I am updating, right?
Chapter 35, Trouble At The Shrine.
She didn't want to move. Every time she'd moved, the little men with the mallets had started up in her head again. Unfortunately, someone else had other ideas. "C'mon, wake up." A soft, though deep, voice said as a hand shook her gently.
Nodoka, formerly of the Saotome clan, cracked her eyes open reluctantly and immediately winced from the stabbing of the morning sun light into them. "Urk, what happened?" She managed to croak out, her mouth tasting rather a lot like carpet.
The male voice came again, actually sounding slightly amused. "You drank a little bit too much last night, aunt Nodoka." He said, pushing a glass of water into one of her hands. "You'll feel better in a little while."
"Ranma?" She asked, looking over to the side of the bed to see the pigtailed martial artist sitting there, another glass of water and a few other things sitting on the table next to him. Immediately, her cheeks reddened. She was Ranma's mother, and here he was, sitting at her bedside and helping her get over a hangover. "I can't believe this." She muttered, though she did take a small drink from the water, the cool liquid helping wash the taste out of her mouth.
He shrugged. "Did this for Genma enough times." He stopped, contemplating for a moment. "Well, with him it usually started with a kick in the side."
Nodoka giggled in spite of herself, the movement causing her to wince again.
"Bout the only time I could wake up before the old panda." Ranma explained.
"So, why are you doing this for me?" Nodoka asked, after taking another drink from her glass of water, and a couple of small pills that Ranma had offered her.
He shrugged. "I know how it feels." He explained, getting a surprised look from her.
"When did you get drunk?" She asked. It didn't really seem to be something that Ranma would do, but she supposed he must have done something to blow off stress in Nerima, and this may have been it.
"Long story, involving Kuno and a giant bottle of sake." He said, shortly, before handing her the next glass of water that was sitting on the side of the bed. "Mind telling me why you had to get yerself smashed?" He stopped, contemplating how to say what was next, but eventually decided that he would suck at being tactful anyways. "I guess yer visit with your parents didn't work out too well."
Nodoka winced as the memory of the confrontation the day before flooded back into her mind. "It…. Didn't go the way I wanted it to." She admitted, softly.
"You wanna tell me about it?" He asked. Smirking ironically, he continued. "I'm kinda an expert on really bad first impressions."
Nodoka winced again, this time not from her massive headache as she heard the way Ranma had said those words. "I think we both made our mistakes then, Ranma." She said, softly, prompting a nod from the younger boy. He didn't say anything else, simply waiting, so she sighed and began to recount what had happened during her meeting with her father.
"…And then Setsuna-san came." She finished, after a few minutes of talking.
Ranma winced. "Yeah, that sounds like it coulda gone better." He muttered, and then perked up slightly. "Well, at least you know it's repairable."
Nodoka's head whipped around to look at him from the lowered position she'd brought it back to during the course of her tale, and she looked at him in surprise. "What?"
"Well, he didn't chase you off the property with a Katana." He said, smirking. Seeing that her face was beginning to cloud up, he quickly continued. "Look, We're…" He struggled to find the right words, but shrugged in defeat when he couldn't. "Due to honor I can't call you mom anymore, but I still want to. In spite of the stupid seppuku thing, and the manliness stuff, yer… I love you." He finished. Fortunately, it was much easier to say to her than to Haruka and Akane, probably because of the difference between the two types of love.
Picking his words carefully, he continued. "Despite all the stuff I did, the hidin, the fact that I ain't all that good in school, the fact that I ran from the family…" He trailed off, looking away. "You… you still came ta look for me. All I'm sayin is that neither of ya screwed up quite as bad as me 'n you have, right?"
Nodoka wasn't sure what to say. Ranma's point had been delivered with the subtlety of a sledge hammer, but he DID have a point. There had been no cursing, no swearing, no gnashing of teeth or death threats… Maybe…. She turned to her former son with a radiant smile. "Thank you, Ranma." She said, ignoring the effects of the hangover, which had actually been fading for a while now, and leaning over to hug the boy.
He looked sheepish. "It's no problem." He said, before his eyes rested on the clock next to her bed. "Aw, crap." He muttered, causing Nodoka to pull away and look at him in concern.
"What is it, Ranma?" She asked.
"I'm gunna be late for school!" He yelped, jumping up from the chair. As he did so, his knee knocked the table next to her bed. He cursed in pain, the sound abruptly increasing in pitch as the glass of water that she'd set down on the table when she'd started to talk jolted from the blow, dumping its contents over his lower body.
Nodoka stifled a giggle as a panicked and annoyed redhead ran for the door. 'What a manly son.' She thought, her giggles getting worse, as she fell back into her bed to sleep in for another hour.
HR.
Haruka frowned as she walked down the road that lead to school. Ranma had insisted that he should make sure Nodoka was all right before he left for school, but he'd still been in her room when Haruka had had to leave. She hadn't wanted to interrupt them, in case he was having a private conversation with his mother, but she hoped that nothing bad had happened. Seeing the building approaching and the large clock that had been mounted above the front doors, the blonde's steps began to quicken. She hadn't realized she was that late.
As she was about to enter the front door, she saw a red blur dart past her. "Wow, he's moving fast this morning." She muttered, recognizing the blur as Ranma's female form. Shrugging it off and deciding that she'd ask him what had happened when they got home, she walked through the door that the redhead had left wide open in her passage, heading off to class.
HR.
"Kaolinite!" The voice snapped into the shadows, causing one of them to emerge into the light at the middle of the room, where Dr. Tomoe stood.
"Yes, doctor?" The red haired woman in the lab coat asked, sounding as if she was phenomenally bored. "Is there something you want?"
"Eudial has found a likely spot for us to plant the Daimon egg in order to obtain a pure heart crystal. I wish for you to do it." The professor said, handing the woman a small egg shaped object, and a crinkled piece of paper.
She read it over, and frowned. "If you have Eudial and the other witches 5 searching for likely heart crystal locations, why do I have to go plant the eggs?" She asked, annoyed.
Tomoe frowned. "You are currently free, since Hotaru is at school. Besides, you aren't questioning my orders, are you Kaolinite?"
Kaolinite flinched. "No, professor." She said, grudgingly.
"Good!" He said, then smiled. "We wouldn't want to disturb those other girls' education now, would we?"
Kaolinite just looked at him oddly, before disappearing.
HR.
Ranma grumbled to herself as she walked down the hall to her wood shop class, wishing that she hadn't been careless enough not to have noticed the time. As it was, she had almost been late to English class, and had ended up sitting through the entire class as a girl. She wouldn't have minded that so much, if half of the guys in the class hadn't stared at her.
She sighed, but then brightened. There was a bathroom next to the shop class, so she would be able to turn back into a guy before second period.
As she turned into the short hallway where both the wood shop and the small classroom that was used for hands off lessens were, she saw the last remnants of the younger class leaving their room for lunch break.
In the very back of the line was the small black haired girl she'd helped before. Smiling, she waved.
The girl seemed startled, but tentatively waved back, so Ranma walked over to her. "You doing okay this week?" The redhead asked, concerned.
"Y… yes, ma'am." The girl, Ranma thought she'd been called Hotaru, said as she bowed.
"Hey, don't call me that. Name's Ranko." Ranma said, having gotten back into the habit of using that name already. "Those guys ain't bugging you anymore?"
Hotaru shook her head.
"Good." Ranma said. "Tell me if anything happens." Suddenly, she thought of something. "If I'm not around, my brother'll help ya. He wears the same kinda clothes as me, but his hair's black."
"Thank you, Ranko-san." Hotaru said, shyly, before turning around and walking down the hall. As she turned the corner, her eyes seemed to change from their normal, deep violet color to a jet black, but then they returned to normal. She shook her head, shaking off the sudden dizzy spell she'd just had, and went off to have lunch.
HR.
Rei Hino stared into the sacred fire, the bags under her eyes and her slight pallor telling anyone who wanted to look that she hadn't slept for the past couple of nights. The dreams had actually started on Saturday morning, waking her from a sound sleep with visions of the other Senshi being destroyed running through her head. That had been the only true 'vision,' she believed, but she'd had nightmares representing it every night since.
She hadn't been able to get the images from her mind, and as she meditated, the fire flashed chaotically, a mirror to her thoughts.
Sighing in defeat, the fire Senshi stood, dusting the front of her robes free of ash. "I should tell the others." She muttered, turning away and walking from the inner sanctum of the shrine.
Stopping by the small booth where she or Yuuichiro occasionally sold fortunes, she grabbed one of the little sticks, carefully reading the Kanji that was written on its side.
'The air will protect you.' She read, and smiled. 'It's a nice thought.'
Exiting the main shrine building, she walked up to the large cherry tree in the middle of the grounds, tying the fortune to one of its branches. Just as she did so, the sense that warned her of evil flared in the back of her mind, though it was far too late.
Within seconds, the tree had changed, warping its shape into a deformed parody of a woman, a case full of larger versions of the fortune telling sticks strapped to its back.
Rei tried to back away, but it grabbed at her, catching her by the throat. Rei desperately clawed at its arm, but it didn't seem to do anything as a beam of black energy shot from a star on the thing's forehead and hit her in the heart.
"Vile Youma, how dare you attack a shrine where young people come to pray and go on dates! I am the pretty suited soldier of love and justice, Sailor Moon, and in the name of the moon, I will punish you!"
Rei looked to the side, her sight fading as her energy left her, only to see Sailor moon standing in her usual pose, one arm pointed at the thing that had drained her energy. 'Sailor… Moon…' She thought, right before falling completely unconscious.
HR.
Mamoru Chiba sighed as he sat at the counter in a small restaurant, looking at the test paper that Usagi had thrown at him. "Maybe I was too hard on her." He thought, looking at the barely passing grade.
He'd gotten the test from a depressed Usagi earlier in the day, and had immediately started to tease her about how badly she'd done on it. He was only trying to help her, to make her do better, but maybe he'd gone overboard. He hated hurting Usagi's feelings, but he was usually honestly unsure what was her being a cry baby, and when he'd really gone too far.
"I'll apologize to her next time I see her." He mumbled, finally. Just as he said that, a girl that looked a little like Ami, only older, set a bowl of ramen down in front of him. "Finally caught it, huh?" He asked, smiling at her.
The blue-black haired girl smiled in return. He'd been watching her run around the floor of the restaurant, desperately trying, and usually succeeding, at the task of catching numerous bowls at once. He was honestly not sure what it was for, but it was fun to watch. "So, not that it's any of my business, but who are you going to apologize to?" The girl asked, sitting down next to him.
He looked at her, surprised. "Don't you have work to do?"
"I'm on a break." She explained, shrugging. "I'm not moving from here until Cologne-Sensei tells me I have to."
"Cologne-Sensei?" He asked, surprised at the oddness of the name.
The girl merely shrugged, pointing a finger over the counter at a wrinkled old woman who was busily cooking a pot of noodles. "So, who are you supposed to apologize to?"
Mamoru thought for a moment of telling her to go away, but decided not to. "Usagi. She's… my girlfriend, sort of." He said, not sure how to explain a destined love from a past life.
"So, what happened?" She asked, leaning against the counter.
"You ask a lot of questions, don't you?" Mamoru asked, annoyed.
The girl shrugged, and looked away. "I can leave you alone if you want. You just looked depressed."
Mamoru sighed. "I teased her about a mark on a test, and I think I went a little overboard." He finally said.
She looked him up and down for a moment. "Hmm, sounds like something Ranma would do." She said, taking on an unreadable expression.
"Your boyfriend?" Mamoru hazarded, and was surprised when her unreadable look turned into a kind of sad smile.
"Ex-fiancé." She said, simply.
Mamoru was about to respond to that when he felt something in the back of his head. He recognized the feeling. He'd felt it several times, and it usually meant Usagi was in danger. He didn't know how or why the feeling came, but he obeyed it without thinking. Quickly, he grabbed his wallet, slammed a thousand yen bill down on the counter, and started running out of the restaurant.
"Wait, your… change?" Akane Tendo asked, blinking as the door swung closed behind the strange older man.
"Tendo, back to work!" Cologne snapped, and Akane jumped up, pocketing the bill, as yet another set of bowls started flying through the air.
Akane just dismissed the rather odd customer, jumping back into her training with an odd mixture of resignation and excitement.
HR.
Haruka walked down the street in the Juuban market district, contemplating how to kill another half hour's worth of time. She'd gone to her last class a little under an hour ago, only to find that the teacher had called in sick. At the moment, that left her with very little to do for the time until Ranma left his own class. She'd started on her way home, but had then decided that she wanted to get something to eat. Since she only knew a couple of restaurants in the area, and one of them was a lot more expensive than she wanted, she had started heading towards the Peeking Duck.
As she came around the corner that lead up to the Chinese restaurant's entrance, she saw a strange man in a black suit jacket running out of it. For some reason, something about the man drew her attention and she found herself quickly following after him as he charged down the street.
At first, she thought he'd robbed the place, but Mousse wasn't chasing him down so she quickly rejected that possibility. Following him down an alley between an apartment building and a shop, she ducked behind a large dumpster as he stopped at the end and took a cautious look around.
With her watching from behind her dumpster, the strange man withdrew a red rose from inside of his jacket, though it looked as if it hadn't just been stuffed into such a confined space. The rose began to glow, and enveloped him in red light before a tuxedo clad figure stood in his place. 'You've got to be kidding.' She said, and then gasped when the tuxedo clad man jumped straight up to the third level of the apartment building's fire escape, and from there onto the roof of the shop.
Numbly, Haruka withdrew her transformation pen. Looking around to make sure that no one else had followed them into the alley, she raised it. "Uranus Planet Power, Make Up!"
HR.
"No, no… Not like this…" Sailor Moon whispered, as the strange new Youma pinned her and three of the other Senshi to one of the outer walls of Rei's shrine with oversized prayer sticks.
Mercury, Jupiter and Venus couldn't move, in the same position as she was against the wall, and Rei lay on the shrine grounds, passed out. The creature stood over Moon, a crystal that she'd seen it extract from Rei's chest clenched in one hand.
"Ha, now I can destroy you, too!" It cried, leaning forward and sinking its teeth into the broach at the center of Moon's front bow.
For a moment, the blonde haired Senshi was relieved that the thing hadn't actually bitten into her actual skin, before the thing bit down hard and she heard her broach give a loud crack. Abruptly, she felt the power of her Senshi form fading from her, and Usagi Tsukino was now hanging by her caught school uniform.
"No…." She gasped, her broach falling to the ground, its front badly cracked. Just as the Youma was about to strike her with another blow that would likely finish her off, a red rose streaked through its hand. It screamed, and Usagi sighed in relief. "Tuxedo Mask?" She asked, looking over to see said man standing on the shrine's wall.
He merely nodded, withdrawing his black cane from behind his back, and charging at the Youma with it.
Usagi's hopes soared for a moment, before the Youma backhanded the Tuxedoed defender, sending him flying into the ground. "Tuxedo Mask, no!" She yelled.
"Hey, ugly!" Another voice came from the wall where Tuxedo Mask had first stood, and Usagi whipped her head around again to see a Senshi, her ribbons yellow and skirt blue, glairing at the Youma. "World Shaking!"
The Monster turned to face this new threat, but it didn't do so fast enough as the ball of gold energy impacted into it, sending it staggering backwards several steps.
The new Senshi jumped down to the ground in the Shrine's courtyard, taking up an offensive stance. Shooting a glance at Tuxedo Mask, who was dragging himself up from the ground slowly, she spoke. "Get those other Senshi loose. I don't know if I can take this thing myself."
"Right…" Tuxedo mask replied, hauling himself the rest of the way to his feet, and staggering over to Usagi first. Even though he wasn't strong enough to fight the Youma, its odd sticks were easy enough to break, and soon Usagi and the other Senshi were all free.
"All right, let's get this thing!" Jupiter said, cracking her knuckles.
Venus and Mercury nodded, and the three started charging their attacks. Just as they reached full power, the mysterious new Senshi let off another world shaking attack, and the four blasts hit at virtually the same time. The creature stood no chance against the combined barrage and was almost instantly destroyed, leaving Rei's heart crystal on the ground.
Usagi immediately ran over to her black haired friend, Mercury quickly following, while Venus, Jupiter and Tuxedo mask took up defensive stances.
"What's wrong with her?" The Odangoed girl asked, looking imploringly at the blue haired Senshi that was scanning her.
It was at this point that the newcomer spoke up. "That crystal." She said, pointing at the item that the Youma had left behind. "It contains most of her energy." She walked forward, scooping up the small object and looking at it. The inner Senshi all tensed up, but the blonde merely ignored them.
Stepping forward, she knelt next to Usagi and held the crystal over Rei's heart, before letting it go. "Abruptly, it sank into place, and Rei's sleep became more peaceful.
"She's in a normal sleep state now." Mercury said, willing her visor away from her eyes.
Usagi looked up, her eyes filled with tears of relief, and smiled at the new Senshi. "Thank you, Miss…" She said, obviously waiting for a response."
"Sailor Uranus." The blonde responded, automatically.
"Then thank you, Sailor Uranus." Usagi said, bowing and looking very serious.
Uranus shrugged, remembering what Ranma had said when she'd asked the smaller redhead what they were supposed to do as Senshi, two days before. Startled, she blinked. It hadn't seemed so recently. "It's what Senshi are supposed to do, right?" She said.
Usagi smiled and nodded, as Rei groaned and she and the other inners all returned their attention to the just waking Sailor Mars.
Uranus realized that the others had their hands full, and were obviously worried about this girl for some reason. Making a quick decision, she turned and left, leaping over the wall of the Shrine grounds.
HR.
Ranma walked from his music class, sighing in relief. He'd been getting more and more nervous all class, something in the back of his brain telling him that there was something wrong. He wasn't sure what it was, but the feeling had finally gone away just a few moments ago. At the moment, all he wanted to do was get home and make sure that Haruka was all right.
Stepping onto the elevator that would bring him down to the main floor, he hit the button and the lift started moving rapidly. To his annoyance, it stopped once, but he blinked as he saw who stepped on. "Kasumi?" He asked, surprised to have met her in the same place, two weeks in a row.
"Ranma-Kun." Kasumi said, smiling. "You're just the person I wanted to see." For some reason, the look on her face when she said that made the pigtailed martial artist very nervous.
END.
Notes: Yes, the Youma was probably described incorrectly. Sorry, but I plead the same case I did with the angels in Angel Of Light. I'm visually impaired. Still, any other errors, shoot.