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Fear No Darkness
Chapter 1
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While slowly drifting back to consciousness, the only thing Hotaru could sense was evil. It was everywhere, heavy in the air, saturated in the ground, permeating the walls. It was stronger than Mistress 9, stronger than Nehelenia, stronger than Galaxia. She had to get out.
Opening her eyes and slowly levering herself into a sitting position, she noticed three other people lying unconscious in the large room she was in. Ignoring them for a moment, she took in the room, trying to find an exit. Before she could get far, she saw her companions stirring, clearly about to wake themselves.
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/Did someone get the name of that truck?/ Yugi thought groggily.
∕∕Nay, aibou, I fear it was not a truck, but magic which has landed us in this situation. I sense the remnants of an extremely complicated transportation spell,∕∕ Yami replied. ∕∕You must awaken, for this place is truly evil, and we are not safe.∕∕
Since he had just received the mental equivalent of a cold glass of water thrown in his face, Yugi could sense it, too. His eyes snapped open, and he jumped to his feet. Or rather, he tried to jump to his feet--his energy had deserted him, and he barely managed to slowly sit up.
∕∕Easy, aibou. I fear we have been greatly drained by our journey, and we seem to be in no immediate danger. Rest and watch, and we will quickly recover.∕∕
/Okay, Yami,/ Yugi said, before noticing the three other people in the room. He felt momentarily cautious, but they didn't seem dangerous, so...
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Kenshin had regained awareness instantaneously some time ago, but had given no sign of his returned alertness. In a habit retained from his days as a hitokiri, he stretched out his ki, trying to sense how much trouble he was in--for he was in great peril. His danger sense had gone off as soon as he'd awoken.
"Hi, everyone! My name is Mutou Yugi. Nice to meet you!"
Kenshin actually opened his eyes and sat up to stare incredulously at the speaker, for what was such a young and innocent boy doing in this stronghold of darkness? The boy, Yugi, was extremely short, had wide, innocent violet eyes, and had the most unusual hair Kenshin had ever seen--a mix of black, red, and golden hair, formed into spikes. He also noted two other people in the room--a short and...developed...redheaded girl with blue eyes, and an ethereally lovely waif of a girl with black hair and violet eyes. All of them wore outlandish clothing, even compared to the Western clothing slowly becoming popular in Tokyo. They almost appear to be related to me, Kenshin mused, thinking of his own bright red hair, violet eyes, and short stature. Still, that is no guarantee of peaceful intentions. I need only think of the darkness concealed by Seta Soujirou to know that. However, his own politeness demanded a courteous reply, so he answered, "Hello. I am Himura Kenshin. I am pleased to make your acquaintance."
"My name is Tomoe Hotaru," said the waif-like girl.
"I'm Saotome Ranma," stated the redhead. "Sorry 'bout this." After a short pause she added, "Do any of you know where we are and how we got here? Cause I haven't got a clue."
Hotaru gave Ranma a searching look, the replied, "I do no know where we are, but I know that it is evil here."
"Well, yeah, but that was obvious," Ranma said.
"I can sense that our arrival was due to a strange teleportation spell," Yugi stated.
Through his own disbelief, Kenshin noted that Hotaru was nodding, as if she'd been expecting that statement, and Ranma was groaning, "Magic. It just had to be magic." Kenshin was forced to use logic to dispel his own skepticism: he could think of no way for him to be transported to such a strange place without being aware of it, and clearly all of his companions found nothing wrong with accepting the possibility of magic. Therefore, however hard it was to accept, magic was probably involved.
"We have to get out of here," Hotaru said. Kenshin could sense fear and a hint of panic in her voice.
"That is, indeed, one of our priorities," Yugi said, his voice sounding strangely deeper than it was earlier. "However, we also must discover our means of arrival, if we hope to return home."
Ranma nodded. "Agreed. But how? I don't know nothin' about magic."
"We should search the room," Kenshin suggested. "If we are here, surely it must be for a reason."
"Good idea," Yugi replied. "Let's split up. We'll each take a side of the room. Look especially for any papers or writing, they might have information on how to reverse the spell." He immediately headed to investigate the right side of the room. Kenshin followed suit, moving to the forward wall.
Searching the tables and other, strange apparatus, he found a great many things that were organic--organs and dismembered body parts to creatures he couldn't imagine. Swallowing his revulsion, he continued, looking always for written papers, until he was interrupted by a crash and a yell behind him.
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"This could only happen to me," Ranma muttered as she desperately tried to dodge the monster that had awakened as she passed. It was twelve feet tall and ugly, and it was much faster than it should have been, considering its great size.
Ducking under its arms, she shouted, "Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!" She sent hundreds of punches to its gut in a few seconds, then jumped back out of range again.
Before she could press her advantage, Kenshin was there. With a cry of "Ryu Sho Sen!" he sent his katana in a devastating uppercut, sending the monster flying.
Using the short respite to take in the position of the rest of her apparent allies, she saw Hotaru raise her hand in the air and call out, "Saturn Eternal Power, Make UP!" There was a short light show, then Hotaru reappeared, wearing what seemed to be Happosai's idea of a girl's school uniform, and holding a massive pole-arm.
Quickly getting over her surprise, she returned her attention to her opponent--after all, she was a resident of Nerima, Weirdness Capital of the World. It had just regained its feet when she saw Yugi raise a...card?...and shout, "Swords of Revealing Light!" True to its name, a number of swords apparently made of light hit the monster and paralyzed it. Then Hotaru stepped forward, raised her pole-arm, and shouted, "Silence Glaive Surprise!" Streams of energy erupted from the end of her weapon, impacted the monster, and destroyed it.
Taking in Kenshin's katana and sword stance, Yugi's deck of cards in his hand that clearly had some sort of power, and Hotaru's change of wardrobe and massive, powerful weapon, Ranma commented, "I guess I wasn't the only one who left a few things out while introducing myself."
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Hearing Ranma's matter-of-fact statement, Hotaru giggled. She couldn't help it.
"I would say that's a fair assessment," Yugi replied, a hint of irony in his voice.
"How about we try again?" Ranma replied, clearly deciding to trust them. "I'm Saotome Ranma, heir to the Saotome school of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu, and a world class martial artist. I'm really a boy with a curse to turn into a girl whenever I'm hit with cold water, and hot water turns me back. I have three fiancées and a similar number of people trying to kill me, mostly because of my stupid old man, and weird stuff always happens to me."
Yugi smiled. "I am Mutou Yugi, also known as the King of Games. I am the world champion of Duel Monsters, an incredibly popular strategy game that is actually based on a game from ancient Egypt that was played then with real magic, called the Shadow Games. I share my body and mind with the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle," he pointed to his puzzle to demonstrate, "who is also an Egyptian Pharaoh who sacrificed his soul to bind a great evil. I call him Yami. We hold power over the Shadow Realm, the source of power of the Shadow Games, enabling us to do many things with my deck."
Kenshin looked a little uneasy at all this talk of magic, but added, "I am Himura Kenshin, the 13th Master of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. In my youth I was the Hitokiri Battousai, bringing about a new era of peace and democracy by assassinating a great many people. After the new era was achieved, I became a wanderer and vowed to never again take a human life."
Hotaru decided that if they were trusting her, she could trust them. After all, she didn't sense any evil from them. "I am Tomoe Hotaru, also known as Sailor Saturn. I am the reincarnation of a warrior from the Silver Millennium, an empire existing thousands of years ago that spanned the entire solar system. I am the Soldier of Destruction and Rebirth, the most powerful of the Senshi, sworn to the service of the Princess of the Moon, and capable of destroying a planet, at the cost of my own life." Finishing her speech, she was relieved to see that although everyone was shocked by her announcement of her own power, especially Kenshin, no one seemed to be afraid of her now.
"We need to continue our search," Yugi said, "but we should be more cautious. Let's work in pairs--maybe Kenshin and Hotaru, and Ranma and I?"
"Whatever," Ranma replied. "Let's go--I wanna get out of here."
As they moved off to continue their interrupted search, Kenshin approached her. "Shall we, Hotaru-dono?" he asked, smiling gently at her.
Hotaru smiled back. "Yes, let's go," she answered.
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Kenshin walked alongside Hotaru as they threaded the maze of black stone tables in the part of the room assigned to them. A part of his mind was fully alert and focused on his surroundings, ready to spring into action the moment he perceived any danger. Another part of his mind was desperately trying to comprehend the many unbelievable revelations he had had since finding himself in this horrifying place. The rest of his mind was trying to search through all the entirely unfamiliar objects on the cold, black tables.
After several more minutes of mild frustration at such a collection of utter alien things, Kenshin finally found something he could recognize--a knife. It was long and thin, with a cold gleam to it, but however reassuring it was to see something familiar, he did not touch it--it radiated a sense of pure, concentrated evil, with overtones of terror and despair.
"Kenshin-san," Hotaru whispered excitedly, "I think we found it!"
Turning his attention to his companion, Kenshin saw that while he had been examining the vile knife, Hotaru had found piles upon piles of paper with writing on them. Taking a closer look at it, he saw that the script contained no hiragana or kanji that he knew--indeed, it was different even from the strange Western 'alphabet'. The script was beautiful and flowing, and seemed extremely out of place in this ominous room.
"I agree, Hotaru-dono. Can you read it?" Kenshin asked.
Hotaru shook her head. "It looks like nothing I've ever seen before," she replied sadly.
Kenshin smiled. "Do not worry, Hotaru-dono. Let us rejoin the others. Perhaps Ranma-dono or Yugi-dono would know how to read it."
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Five minutes later, they were all back in the center of the room, displaying their finds. "So, we have reams of notes in a language no one recognizes, and have discovered that this room has no doors or windows," Yugi concluded. It was very discouraging.
"I could probably knock a hole in the wall," Ranma offered dubiously.
Yugi shook his head. "No, you probably couldn't. The walls are strongly warded and protected, magically." /Yami, could we shadow walk out of here?/
∕∕With no known destination? Such a venture would have to be a measure of last resort, aibou. Also, we couldn't possibly bring them all with us without them being quickly drained.∕∕
Hotaru hesitantly suggested, "I might be able to teleport us all out of here."
"What?" Ranma cried. "Then why didn't you say so earlier? Jeez!"
Hotaru looked upset at Ranma's outburst. "Because it is risky, and I don't know if I have enough power," she replied in a small voice.
Ranma looked at Hotaru's woebegone face and said, "Sorry, Hotaru. Didn't mean to make you mad."
"It's okay, Ranma," Hotaru replied, cheering up.
"Would I be able to augment your power with my own, Hotaru?" Yugi asked excitedly.
"Let's try!" she replied with a growing excitement of her own. She reached out and took his hand in hers.
"I can feel it!" Yugi said. /Can we connect with her, Yami? Can we help?/
∕∕I think so, aibou. I shall feed the power of the Millennium Puzzle to you, and you can feed it to her. I think this will work!∕∕
/Let's try, first./ Linking himself to Hotaru, he sent a tendril of the Puzzle's power into her. She gasped, and began to faintly glow.
"How much more power than that do you have?" she asked.
"Many, many times more," Yugi replied cheerfully.
Hotaru smiled delightedly. "Then I think we can do this."
"Yatta!" crowed Ranma.
"I agree," Kenshin said, chuckling. "I am most eager to leave this terrible place." Everyone sobered quickly at this reminder. "How are we to secure the notes we found? Surely we cannot leave them here."
"Yes," Yugi replied. "There's always the chance that we can figure them out later, or maybe we could find someone who knows how to read them."
"Don't worry. I'll just put them in my subspace pocket," Hotaru said.
"Your what?" Ranma replied blankly.
"It's a small pocket dimension connected to my starseed. Every senshi has one," Hotaru explained, causing blank looks to spread. She sighed. "It works like this, okay?" she said, reaching in front of her and pulling an odd looking pen apparently from mid air. She grabbed the notes, made a strange twist of her wrist, and the notes vanished. "Ready to go?" she inquired, clearly quietly enjoying her companions' gob smacked expressions.
That galvanized everyone into motion. "How do we do this?" Ranma asked.
"We must all join hands, and hold each other strongly, in order to all arrive at the same destination," Hotaru explained gravely. "And one of the people I hold must be Yugi, that I may draw on his power."
∕∕Take Hotaru and Ranma's hands, aibou,∕∕ Yami suggested. ∕∕A balance of male and female might aid this endeavor.∕∕
/Okay, Yami,/ Yugi replied, following Yami's advice. /I really hope this works.../
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Hotaru closed her eyes and focused. She connected herself strongly to Yugi and began to draw power, building up to the level she needed. She also sent tendrils of her power into Ranma and Kenshin, marking them as part of the teleportation spell. Finally reaching the power level she needed, she came to the hard part--finding a destination with no reference points or knowledge of terrain. She cast out her magical senses and tried to find a place that was as good as this place was evil. Eventually, at the very edge of her range, she found a place containing a light that rivaled that of her Princess. Gathering all the power she'd built, pulling more to try to reach that distant destination, Hotaru sent herself and her three passengers hurtling towards that light.
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And so it came to pass that mere months after the destruction of Númenor and the triumph of Sauron, four young humans were found unconscious at the foot of Taniquetil, the Holy Mountain of Manwë, King of the Valar.
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