"So let me get this straight. You think someone that has something to do with the rest of your former enemies is behind this."

Mercury nodded as she took Akane's vitals, "Yes. The energy source of the sword is very similar. It's the third one we've found, and combined they've claimed twenty-three lives."

"How, exactly?"

Ranma had nearly forgotten the presence of his neighbors until Blossum spoke up. They seemed to be taking this surprisingly well.

It was Sailor Moon that answered, "The sword waits until someone picks it up, and starts taking over their minds. In a few hours, the poor sap is a raving lunatic that will fight just about anybody."

"It's usually someone the person already had a grievance with, though," muttered Jupitor from her spot by Kuno on the dojo floor.

Moon nodded and continued, "Yeah, so the person starts swinging the sword around in a blind rage 'till they hit something."

Mercury finally looked up from Akane with a serious expression, "That's the real problem. Mr. Kuno here will be perfectly fine when he wakes up. Akane, aside from the obvious wound, is in much more danger. The sword will slowly sap her of her soul, or spirit, or whatever you wish to call it. There's a tie between the blade and Akane. Suddenly severing that tie will kill her."

Ranma, blind as he usually was in such matters, suddenly realized that these girls must have lost someone close to them that way. "So, what do we do?"

Mercury sighed, "We're working on a time frame here. We have until the sword has completely drained Akane's spirit. If we can sever the tie before then, she'll be fine."

"So how do we do that?"

The girls looked at each other and Moon answered, "Find the one making the swords. He, or she, must have a reason for collecting the souls. The swords themselves don't store any energy, so it has to be sent somewhere."

Mercury nodded, "We haven't been able to get a firm trace, but we've slowly been making our way here, to Nerima. I think it must be somewhere near here, but it's hard to tell without enough data."

"Basically," Moon muttered, "We have to track down the sword-maker-guy and find out where it came from."

"So why not ask the people who've been hacking their enemies up where they got their weapons."

Moon frowned, "Because most of them don't survive."

Venus piped up, "It seems to have a very draining effect on the wielder as well as the victim. One small girl is in the hospital, there are a couple that simply found them on the street, and one young man bought it in a market."

Ranma frowned down at his fiancee, unsure of how to continue. He didn't know anyone that could make swords, or knew much about magic. Cologne and Happosai knew bits and pieces, but he doubted they'd be boatloads of help with this. It was probably over their heads.

"Alright, how can we help?" The redheaded blossom was staring stoicly at Sailor Moon as if she dealt with cursed swords every day.

Ranma held a hand up, "Hold it, you girls would be a lot safer if you stayed out of this. You're not even martial artists."

Buttercup snorted, "We're better than martial artists."

Bubbles waved her hands frantically and whispered, "Buttercup! Shhhh, you know we're not supposed to say anything! What if the Professor finds out?"

"Found what out," Sailor Mars asked suspiciously.

"Oh, my!"

Sailor Mercury received curious glances from her fellow scouts, and startled ones from the Nerima gang, since her cry was so like Kasumi's usual response.

Sailor Moon cocked her head, "What is it, Mercury?"

"I . . . I'm not sure, but these girls aren't, well, normal."

Blossum sighed, "That's what the Professor doesn't want us talking about. You see, we came to Japan because we saw on the news that there were a lot of mysterious bad guys, monsters, and such here, and the locals were having a hard time."

"No we aren't," Chirped Ranma and Sailor Moon.

Blossum chuckled weakly, "Uh, yeah. You see, my sisters and I are known back home as The Powerpuff Girls. We were the superheros of Townsville, and we'd pretty much cleaned it out, so we thought we'd be more useful here."

"Ah, that would explain a couple things."

All eyes turned to Ranma, and Blossum asked in surprise, "What do you mean. We've been pretty careful . . ."

He shrugged, "Well, yeah. But, you girls walk real . . . confident-like. Like you're real sure of where you're going. But you don't have the balance and gait of martial artists. And I've had this weird feeling about you ever since we met, Akane did too . . . er, we knew you weren't trouble, just, well, different."

"Wow, I'm impressed."

Buttercup snorted, "I'm not. I know some martial arts."

Ranma smirked, "Of course you do."

Sailor Mercury stepped between Buttercup and Ranma with her hands out, "Hold it! No fighting. There's a girl's life on the line, and there may be more swords making it out into the populace as we speak!"

Blossom frowned, "How do we find this Swordsmith, then."

Mercury nodded her thanks for the return to sensical conversation, "We have a few options, just not very good ones. First, we wait for The Smith to make himseslf known. When he's gathered enough energy, it is very likely he'll do so. We just don't know how much energy he'll need."

"Second, I've been analyzing the energy, and I can track it, just not too reliably. I can narrow down our search radius a bit at a time, and the more we look, the more I'll be able to fine tune the search. This will take time though."

Ranma nodded, "And that's something we don't have a lot of."

"Right, Ranma. Third, there's always research. Even with magic, swords have to come from somewhere. Somebody's buying up metals, expensive ones, and rubies for the hilt. I think the gemstone is like an antenna that transmits the energy back to The Smith. I can move my attention away from the search for the energy signal, and try finding out who's been buying large quantites of these supplies, and also has the capability for crafting swords."

The pigtailed boy shook his head, his trademark hairdo swishing across his back as he answered, "No, you work on the energy stuff, I got someone much better suited for your research, especially if it's a Nerima guy."

Mercury blinked, "Really? Oh. Well. In that case, I'll need to meet with this person to swap information--"

"Ranma! What did you do to my sister this time?!"

He smiled weakly at Mercury with a wince, "Uh, heh, guess you'll get your chance.

A/N: Alas, another short chapter, but this seems a good place to end for now, and I wanted to let people know I'm still alive. I would like to work on this story a lot over the summer, and I'd like suggestions! Let me know what you think!