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The characters depicted in this story are not mine. Sue me and you get nada, cuz that's how much I own. Blah.

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Unlikely Companions

A fiction novella by Dave Zhang (dzhang@its.caltech.edu). Comments and criticisms welcomed. Copyright 2003.


[This text is in English.] "This text is spoken." 'This text is thought.'
Chapter 8: Charges

Hotaru waited for an hour at home after Haruka left to make sure that Haruka really left, before sneaking out again. She returned to the alley to see the unconscious Yuu exactly where they left him.

She was about to reach her hand out to use her powers to heal him, before she remembered that her Haruka-papa caught him using his powers here, so maybe there were other people around who would beat her up if they saw her using her powers. So instead she gently shook Yuu awake.

"I'm so sorry about that. We should get you somewhere where you can rest. Do you have any idea where to go? I'll help you there."

Yuu, being very much still dazed from Haruka's attacks, thought about this. 'I don't want to have to spend money on hospital, but I don't have enough mana left to heal myself. I really should go somewhere and rest up. The temple? It might get busy and loud during the day. Ah, I'll just go where I usually go to avoid banes of my existence.'

And thus he and Hotaru headed to the Fuji Love Motel, and checked into his usual room, 503. As Hotaru helped Yuu up the stairs, the manager shook his head and muttered inaudibly to himself, as he reached for the phone. "Sorry to do this to you, kid. Even if it's consensual, that girl is way too young."

***

Yuu collapsed onto the bed immediately upon entering the room. Hotaru closed the door behind them and locked it. Then, turning to face Yuu, Hotaru said, "I'm sorry about getting you beat up like that..."

She then broke into a soft cry. "I'm so sorry... it's all my fault. If it wasn't for me, then you wouldn't have had to heal me, and then Haruka-papa wouldn't have seen you use your powers and beat you up."

Yuu groaned in response; many of his body parts were still aching.

Hotaru continued crying as she tried to think. 'I should use my powers to heal him. That's the least I should do. But... but what if he thinks I'm a freak and hates me because of my powers? Everyone seems to hate people with healing powers, even Haruka-papa. What if he does too?'

'But... he has those powers, and I don't hate him. Maybe it's because I have these powers too, so I understand? So maybe he will understand too.' Hotaru stepped forward, ready to heal him, because uncertainty struck again. 'But what if he doesn't? He seems to like me still, but if I use my powers then maybe he'll hate me.'

As Hotaru continued vacillating, Yuu groaned again in pain as he shifted positions on the bed.

'I... I don't care. The least I could do is help him, since he helped me, and then got hurt because of me.' Steeling herself, Hotaru walked up for the bed and took off Yuu's shirt and pants, leaving him in underwear, so that she could see where he needed to be healed. She blushed slightly as she wiped away her tears, and reached out to heal him.

***

Police stormed the room some ten minutes later, and bashed down the door when no one responded. Inside, they found a fully healed nearly naked eighteen-year-old Yuu sleeping contently on the bed, beside a thirteen-year-old Hotaru who was also sleeping, but clearly showed signs of recently crying. Additionally, there was the smeared blood on the mattress (from Yuu's wounds from before Hotaru healed him). Open and shut case.

They slapped Yuu awake after handcuffing him, and beat him repeatedly on their way to the station, while a female member of the police drove the sleeping Hotaru to the trauma unit of the nearest hospital.

***

"What the hell!? Why do the police always catch me and think I've done something bad, and then throw me into this damn prison without letting me explain!? Can't they go and catch real criminals?"

Four figured loomed over him. One clenched his fists and popped his knuckles. "You want them to catch our buddies? Kid, you got a death wish."

***

"Ah, that brightened my day considerably." Yuu kicked one of his four downed cell-mates again in the ribs. "Thanks guys."

He didn't really know how, but found most of his wounds were cured when he got thrown in jail. Funny, he didn't remember healing himself. In any case, he quickly put the martial arts skills he gained in the past two months to good use against the four, and easily beat them to a pulp.

'I should have been able to beat up that jerk who jumped me too, except I was focusing on healing the girl, and he caught me off guard. Next time I run into him though, I'm gonna dish out some serious Anything-Goes kick-ass.' Yuu shook his head. 'I've been talking to Ranma way too much.'

***

"Hey, Ami-chan," whispered Rei. "Where's Yuu? I thought you said he goes to here for school?"

"Maybe he's avoiding you," smirked Minako. "Looks like Rei's hit with unrequested love."

"Um, Mina-chan? That's unrequited love," pointed out Ami.

"IT'S NOT UNREQUITED LOVE!" shouted Rei, before remembering she was supposed to be whispering. When the whole class turned to look at her, Rei's cheeks turned a delightful shade of crimson as she tittered nervously, before burying her nose in a book. Class then continued.

"I'm just trying to find him so I can apologize," whispered Rei.

Makoto raised an eyebrow. "You transferred to our school just to apologize to him?"

"Yes! I mean no! I transferred so I can hang out with you guys."

Minako patted Rei on the shoulder condescendingly. "It's definitely unrequited love."

"That's so cute! Rei-chan followed her boyfriend here to this school! Too bad Mamo-chan is in college already."

"Usagi? Unrequited love means he doesn't really like Rei like that, so they're not dating."

"Oh. We should go punish him for playing with Rei's heart then!"

The four other Inner Senshi sweated. "Um... that's probably going to make him like Rei even less. Rei-chan wouldn't like that."

Rei had turned beet-red by this point. "It's not like that! I just want to be friends with him, after getting off on the wrong foot. So Ami, where is Yuu anyway?"

"I don't know. Ran-chan--I mean Ranma... Ranma said Yuu left to go buy lunch for them, and would meet them here, but Yuu never showed up."

"Maybe he saw you coming with us and ran off?"

"Wow, to think that a boy would run away from someone other than Mina-chan."

"Yeah... I mean hey!"

"Hm..." said Makoto. "That means Ranma doesn't have a lunch today." A wide smile appeared across her face.

***

"Hotaru! Hotaru, are you ok?" asked Haruka as she rushed to Hotaru's side in the hospital room.

"Hotaru is fine. Looks like she wasn't affected *too* physically." Haruka and Michiru both took a big sigh of relief in understanding. The officer continued, showing them a mug shot of Yuu. "But she was found in the Fuji Love Motel beside an almost naked boy. It's hard to say what would have happened if we didn't get there when we did. Do you recognize him?"

"Why that bastard! I'll kill him! Where is he!?"

"He's safely locked up in jail right now. He won't get away. The preliminary trial date is for two weeks from today, on charges of two counts attempted rape."

"Two?"

"Yes. Apparently, he was brought in here two months ago on charges to attempted rape of one Rei Hino. The conditions were rather odd. Apparently he was severely beaten by the other inmates, so much so that the officer in charge waived the bail released him on a promise to show up for the trial. As you can guess, he didn't show up. As far as we know, he hid away right afterwards, and reappeared only today."

"He tried to rape Rei too!? I'm SO going to kill him. That little shit!" Haruka dashed out the door.

"Haruka-papa!"

"Now, Hotaru, you just rest here for a bit," said Michiru. "We'll be back to visit you in a little bit."

***

"You have a visitor."

Yuu nodded. 'Probably Ranma or Cherry. Maybe they can help me explain this mess.'

When he walked out into the exchange lobby though, he quickly recognized that his visitor was the one who beat him up earlier. Yuu's features darkened, but he picked up the phone anyway. "Yes?"

"You little shit! You tried to rape Rei *and* my daughter Hotaru? I'm so going to fucking kill you! Don't think that you'll get away with ten years in jail or whatever your sentence is. I'm going to pound your face so hard your mother wouldn't recognize you!"

'So this is the bastard landed me in jail.' "Oh? I'll look forward to meeting you as well then." Without another word Yuu slammed his receiver down and walked back toward his cell. Haruka, meanwhile, was still clenching her fist and glaring at his retreating form angrily.

***

Yuu considered his options. Looks like the police weren't going to release him as easily as last time, and he definitely didn't want to have to speed weeks here doing nothing. Well, pounding the other inmates might be fun, but that'll get old too quickly. Heck, even training with Ranma is better than the absolute boredom of being incarcerated. Thankfully, he had given each of his friends a cell phone. Now that it was lunchtime, he probably should use up his one phone call.

But who? Definitely not Lancelot; he didn't know enough about twentieth century Japanese customs to be even able to understand what's going on. Miroku, likewise, was a bad choice, for the simple reason that the man was a lech. With Yuu's luck, Miroku will probably try to grope a female officer when he comes to try to bail Yuu out, and land in jail with Yuu. So that left two choices, Ranma and Cherry. If Ranma comes in girl form and claims to be Yuu's girlfriend, that could increase chances of bailing. On the other hand, Cherry probably possesses a spell to just teleport him out. But then Yuu would be a fugitive though.

Finally, deciding that the five of them probably wouldn't stay in this world for too much longer, Yuu decided to call Cherry. When he connected, Yuu gave Cherry a two-minute summary of the day's events from his perspective.

"I see. You are very unfortunate."

"Yeah, I noticed. Can you get me out? Using something you learned in the past two months, preferably?"

Cherry paused a moment to consider. "All right. As much as I hate to use that in the open, I can't have you just rotting away in a cell. You owe me ten hours every day for the next three months though!"

Yuu sighed. He was in no position to bargain. "All right."

"Good!" said Cherry as he gave Yuu his typical wry smile. "Give me the exact location, and I'll be right over."

Yuu did that, including the specific layout of the building. After he hung up and returned to his cell, Cherry was already in there waiting for him.

Yuu's four cellmates had their jaws slack in awe. Yuu quickly noticed, and knocked all four of them unconscious. "All right, let's go."

With that, Cherry teleported himself and Yuu out, back to Cherry Hill Temple.

"You already registered in school yesterday, so when they find you missing, they'll be sure to search there. Which means you'll have to stay here in the Temple. Perfect time for training magic, no?"

"Wait, I could just get a job. And what about you? Don't you have to go to school?"

"Ah, I've had enough of school hundreds of years ago. And you can't get a job for the same reason--police will be on the lookout for you. Unless, of course, you want to wear the facemask that I wore." Cherry reached into his sleeve and took out the ugly mask that he wore before he had his age magically clocked back.

Yuu shuddered. "No thanks."

"Oh, cheer up! If you train all day every day for the next three months, you won't need me to bail you out next time--you can just teleport out yourself. And you'll probably also have learned some passive detection spells by then so that boy won't be able to sneak up on you again."

"That's if I'm not dead in three months from the training."

"Oh, no worries; I can resurrect you if necessary. In any case, you have no choice. You renege, and I send you right back to jail."

Yuu sighed. "All right, let's get started."

***

Rei still looked sullen as the Inner Senshi were gathered to Haruka and Michiru's house. Michiru did not mention specifics, but said that it was important.

"So what is it?"

Michiru calmed Haruka down, and then spoke. "It seems that we may have a new enemy."

"What? But Setsuna said that Galaxia would be our last big enemy. These monsters that are popping up now won't affect the future in any considerable amount."

"Indeed I did say that," said Setsuna as she materialized behind Michiru. "And it should have been so, but at the Time Gates I've seen something recently that was very disturbing. There seem to be a group that pops in and out of our reality. And whenever they are in our world, the future of Crystal Tokyo wanes."

Setsuna continued after she let the gravity of the situation hit the Inners. "They appeared briefly for two days about two months ago before disappearing. I thought that would be the end of that, but they reappeared two days ago."

"Um? Maybe they'll go away again soon and we don't have to worry about it?" offered Usagi.

Setsuna shook her head once forcefully. "No! The fact that the same group returned implies that they are powerful enough to control the travel between our world and theirs. We must find out by what means they are travelling between worlds, and destroy that means, so that this source of chaos is permanently banished to its homeworld. If we cannot do that, then we must destroy them."

"Maybe they're just tourists?" asked Minako.

"That may be, but their very presence in our world threatens Crystal Tokyo."

"She's right!" declared Luna. "They're enemies! They must be destroyed!"

"But they haven't done anything wrong yet, right?" asked Ami. "Maybe we can just ask them nicely to leave."

"Oh, he's done plenty wrong!" shouted Haruka as she slammed down the mug shot of Yuu. "This little asshole tried to rape Hotaru! He was found butt-naked locked in a room with Hotaru at the Fuji Love Motel. Setsuna confirmed that this guy was one of that group."

Rei gasped at the picture, recognizing Yuu instantly. "Him!?"

"Yeah. The police officers told me already. Apparently he tried to pull this shit this months ago on Rei."

The rest of the Inners sat in stunned silence. Well, Yuu running away from Rei at top speed whenever he saw her sure made a lot more sense now.

"But... he..." mumbled Rei incoherently as tears started to well into her eyes.

"That's not all. The police locked up him in jail, but early this afternoon, apparently he just disappeared from his cell. Security wasn't at maximum, but someone who snuck out should have left some signs at least, on the security cameras if nothing else. But he was just suddenly gone, with no traces at all. It's almost like he teleported out or something."

A couple tears dripped from Rei's eyes. She really wanted to believe that the first night she met him was just a set of unlucky coincidences. That Yuu really was a decent guy. And from his behavior the second night, she really was convinced that he meant well. But... why would he have been there again then? With Hotaru? Naked?

Rei cried. She hated herself for being so easily deceived by the boy, she hated the restaurant incident the second day that caused her to feel guilty, and most of all she hated Yuu.

Ami suddenly froze. 'Ranma also appeared for one schoolday in his girl form two months ago, and then reappeared at school yesterday. Could it be...?' "Do you know who the others in the group are? Maybe he's just the bad apple of the group."

Setsuna shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. If I have a candidate, I scan scan his energy pattern with the Time Gate to see if he is part of the group, but I can't determine the identities just by looking at the the convoluted signals the Time Gate gives me."

"Oh." Ami was inwardly very relieved, as she realized that she was the only one to know about Ranma's sex-changing secret, so that the other had no reason to suspect that Ranma had also appeared briefly two months ago. 'Ran-chan doesn't look like a bad guy. But if I tell any of them what I know, they'll just go out and attack Ranma immediately. I should go talk to him about it--alone.'

"How's Hotaru-chan?" asked Usagi with concern. "Is she feeling better now?"

"She's upstairs. The doctors said she was saying strange things so they gave her some medication, and she's asleep now. You can..."

"Mars Power Make-up!" roared Rei, triggering her transformation. "LET'S GO FIND THIS BASTARD AND KICK HIS ASS!"

"Um, Rei? He might be human. Try not to kill him?"

"Uranus Planet Power, Make-up!" Haruka transformed as well. "No way! I'm with Rei! We're gonna beat that little shit, and we're gonna make him remember it! Ami, Setsuna, do either of you have any idea where he is right now?"

***

Cherry frowned, as he signaled Yuu to stop casting the fireball.

"I still don't get why I'm learning Fire school now. Can't you just teach me the Teleport spell already?"

"Patience, Yuu. Magic should be studied in a certain order, or else it may become tainted and corrupt your mind. Stop for now though; I sense that something wicked this way comes."

Yuu narrowed his eyes. "Stop knocking off Bradbury."

"Dang, you read him."

--End Chapter 8--

// Well, like my friend Susan always says... Sucks to be Yuu!