*standard disclaimer* I own none of the characters here except Sotaki. This is a tribute to Ranma, Sailor Moon, Slayers, Jet Set Radio, and others, and a way for me to express myself and relieve stress. Please don't sue, I don't have much.

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A.N:

"Japanese"

'English'

[Signs]

Chinese

-Thoughts-

-SOUND EFFECTS-

(AUTHOR'S NOTES NUMBER)

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Chapter 7: Droplets

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At the Cherry Hill Temple, Ami Mizuno AKA Sailor Mercury was worried. The demons that had been attacking lately had been getting stronger, and although Sailor Pluto, the group's official "forecaster", said they would level off, Ami was starting to get suspicious. The readings she had gotten from their 'assistant' had been strange. She recalled the boy who had taken down the youma, and blushed a little. Even over the distance they had been she still felt the pure confidence behind the grin. The fact that he had taken down a youma with nothing but eight cans of spraypaint didn't hurt either.

Makoto Kino and Minako Aino AKA Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus, respectively, were both thinking along the same lines, minus the part about the youma.

Rei Hino AKA Sailor Mars was infuriated that someone was muscling in on their territory.

Usagi Tsukino AKA Meatball Head AKA Sailor Moon was thinking of ice cream.

They all snapped out of their private thoughts as Setsuna Meio AKA Sailor Pluto groaned. She was not a happy Sailor. In the past day she had been experiencing a pounding headache, the usual symptom whenever the timeline shifted drastically. Furthermore, whenever she tried to track the boy from the attack, the Time Gates started showing all sorts of crazy things. A girl with red hair blasting a huge dark god, a blonde swordsman, a group of martial artists fighting at obscene speeds, a pair of green goggles, a radio station, a can of spraypaint, a brain, and a crater were all that she could make out in the morass that was the Time Gates.

"Someone get me some aspirin..."

The rest of the girls stared at her, wondering what could have such an effect on the woman whose self-control you could wrap an iron bar around.

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Sotaki grinned as he skated along Juuban. School would be over soon, so he'd have to start heading home soon. He did one last flip, turned around, jumped on a fence, and rushed back to Nerima.

*****

Hikaru grinned as he ran along the hallway. School was over, so he'd get to learn more magic. He headed outside to the tree and sat down.

A few seconds later, Sotaki came into view, grinding the fence and looking like he didn't have a care in the world. Hopping off, he turned to Hikaru. "How's it goin'?"

Hikaru blinked. "So-so. Why are you wearing skates?"

"Because it's fun. Now get these on." Sotaki tossed a pair of green and yellow skates at Hikaru. Putting them on, Hikaru started wobbling along. Letting him lead, Sotaki started chatting.

"So, what's not great about today?"

"Well, there's a girl at my school called Nabiki, and she scams me for money. I've tried to get Saotome several times he doesn't know about, and she's charging me for her silence. It costs nearly all my allowance."

"Hm... there's a way around that, you know." Sotaki gave an infuriatingly smug smirk.

"You're kidding me. If there was a way I'd have seen it by now. And you DID forbid me from using what you're teaching me." Hikaru wasn't too confident, though.

Sotaki nodded. "No, No, and Yes. You don't have to use magic. First, lemme ask you this. Did you look at Akane today?"

"No, I forgot. I was too bus-" Hikaru tried to make an excuse,

"Busy looking at Akane?" Sotaki continued grinning.

"When you put it like that it sounds kinda silly." Hikaru blushed, actually displaying some color for once.

"Ah the heck with it. You're probably not gunna get around to it anyway. I'll tell you what you WOULD see.

"Red. Almost solid blood-red. She has FAR too much anger, and she is a spoiled brat. Despite the fact that the Tendos don't exactly have all the yen they want she almost always got what she wanted. Whenever she made a mistake, her father assured her it was OK, Nabiki blackmailed people into ignoring it, and Kasumi cleaned it up. She's always been the most popular girl in school, and she's never done anything to warrant it. Granted, it was traumatic when her mother passed away, but jeez, she's got two role-models of perfect control, and instead of taking a page from their book in terms of how to live your life well she just tries to look and act like them. Then when it doesn't work she lashes out at someone, usually Ranma. She's liable to kill someone one of these days.

"She doesn't trust anyone. She's seen Ranma's other fiances hang all over him, and seen him actively push them away, concluded that he was a pervert who was feeling them up, and malleted him into the next district over.

"The Super Soba incident, Ranma tried to warn her about the side effects but she ignored him. P-Chan, Ranma tries to warn her but she percieves it as Ranma picking on P-Chan. Ryoga tries to KILL Ranma. He announces his intentions, and uses lethal weapons to try to crush Ranma. He didn't know the Breaking Point wouldn't work on Ranma - and yet he still tried it on him. Akane mallets him for 'picking on Ryoga'. Ranma's saved her several times. He's done his best to improve her. He didn't have ANY role models growing up, and never had any friend but one: Ukyo. He's been thrown in pits of starving cats, as you are aware." Here, Hikaru looked abashed. "He's been raised all his life to believe that girls are weak, and then had his father make him turn into one essentially out of petty-minded revenge. He does his best. Akane mallets him. And you contribute to the Hell that is his life. And yet, despite the fact that he killed a kami, notice that he never actually permanently injures any of his rivals. He could easily cripple or kill Kuno, Mousse, Shampoo, or any of the moronic challengers. And yet, he forgives them."

Hikaru was once again stunned. To think that his idol was a violent, spoiled brat nearly shattered his world, and the fact that his rival had such a horrible childhood and still was a much better man than he had thought finished off his remaining illusions.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you have to accept it. The only way for you to get anywhere in life is to apologise to Ranma for everything you have done, and be his friend. God knows he needs a friend."

Hikaru skated along for a while. Sotaki, leaving him to ponder, jumped up onto the fence Ranma usually ran along and started doing tricks, flips and several things which should have been impossible.

A few minutes later, the sound of running feet reached them. Hikaru's head snapped up, and he sighed. "You're right. It's the least I owe him."

Sotaki nodded his approval. "Wonderful."

Slowing down, the duo turned around. Akane was dragging Ranma by his pigtail. Hikaru skated up to them, Sotaki trailing behind.

"Ranma!" Akane stopped, and dropped the pigtail, and, thus, Ranma. After getting back up off the ground, Ranma sighed and turned to face Hikaru. "What? Come to try to get me again? Or ran out of hair to make dolls with and need some more?"

Hikaru shook his head. "Actually, I've come to apologize. A friend of mine helped me see that everything I have done was wrong. The voodoo, letting Kuno know your weakness, the photos, the One Punch, the paper dolls. I apologize for it all, and would like to be your friend. If you ever need any help with magic, please let me know."

Ranma brightened up at this news. *Looks like someone in Nerima finally grew a brain. I wonder if anyone else will follow suit. Naah.* "Actually, there is something you could help me with. Of course, you probably know what it is..."

Hikaru shrugged. "I'm not that good, but I know someone who might be... Sotaki, could you help out here?"

Sotaki hopped off the fence after a particularly long handstand and skated up. Ranma blinked, not having noticed him before, or seen him around before today. "Who are you? More importantly, how did you get on that fence? I could have sworn you weren't there a minute ago."

"I'm Sotaki. I'm a friend of Hikaru's. So, you're Ranma. Let's see." Pulling out a book out of his backpack, Sotaki leafed through. "Let's see. Shape shifting, shape shifting. Here it is, Jusenkyo. Attracts water, changes with water, generates chaos, grants abilities of cursed form in both forms, incurable, controllable with proper training, erases throughts of logical workarounds like thermoses... Yup, looks like a standard case. If you're willing to work for it, you can gain control."

"Hey! I'm the best! There's no way I can't get this!"

"Ok, then. If you want it that bad... what time's good for you?"

"As soon as possible. I never wanna be a girl again!"

"Well, Hikaru and I were just about to go skating. I'll help you out while we skate, 'k?"

"Wonderful. Lead the way. Akane, you tell the rest of the gang that I'll be a while, OK? Don't worry about me, I'll be back soon."

"Hmph! Why would anyone be worried about a pervert like you! You've probably set this whole thing up as an excuse to go cavort with your floozies. Fine, see if I care." She stalked off in a righteous huff.

Sotaki sighed. "She's almost as delusional as Kuno, isn't she?"

Ranma nodded. "Yea-Hey! How do you know Kuno?"

"Well, a guy who gets beaten up daily and thinks that's a token of love isn't the brightest bulb in the house, you know?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Ranma noticed that Sotaki had cleverly deflected his question, but didn't press the matter.

Hopping up on the fence, Sotaki and Ranma continued to banter. Hikaru was lagging behind when Sotaki called to him.

"Hey, Hikaru! Hop up on the fence!"

"I can't! I'll fall down!"

"Don't worry, try it anyway. If it makes you feel better think of the fence as your shadow."

Hikaru hopped up and found to his amazement he could stay on quite easily. Wobbling a little, he sped up and cought up to the still-chatting teens. "So, where are we going?"

Sotaki shrugged. "I dunno. Ranma, know any good places with a few rails around?"

"Well, there's always the abandoned construction site..."

"Great! That's perfect! Let's roll!"

Skating (or dashing, in the case of Ranma) forward, the teens headed toward the promised lot.

"Say, Sotaki?"

"Yeah, Ranma?"

"What's up with your aura? It's moving way too fast to be normal. Hikaru's changed too... you aren't a demon, are you?"

"Not as such, no. What's with your aura? It's frosty, part-invisible, part-brutal, and extremely large?"

"Ah, that's just my school's effects... oh."

"Looks like we've arrived," interrupted Hikaru. The site looked like it was for a factory, however, it had never gotten past the first story so it was essentially a few blocks of concrete and many many railings and I-beams. Sotaki grinned and leaped onto one of the rails. Grinding along, he took a deep breath and thrust out a hand as he passed a concrete block. When he had passed, the block was tagged with a lurid-looking 'Ran' kanji. Hopping off the railing, he thrust an arm in to the air and did a spin.

"YES! YES! WOOO YEAH!"

Ranma and Hikaru stared. "What was that?" they asked simultaneously.

"That... was my new technique. No more spraypaint! No more spraypaint!"

Ranma blinked. "You're a martial artist?"

"I practice my own style but I don't really like fighting. I'm more of a universial trouble-shooter. Of course, that's not to say I don't make any problems!" He grinned. "Anyway, that was psychic energy passed through a filter of Demona Crystal. It is solidified psychic energy, so these graffitti should have special properties. This one should cause chaos until inactivated." Tossing a few pebbles lying around at the tag, Sotaki happily nodded. The pebbles themselves had strange things happen to them. The first melted but froze the grass it landed on, one pebble lit up like a neon light, one pebble was emitting sparks, and one just disappeared.

Ranma blinked. "Could I learn that?"

"Well, that depends. How clever are you?" Sotaki imagined what fun he could have if he was Ranma's sensei, or at least advisor.

"Not very..."

"Ah, an honest admission of ignorance. You're able to learn it then."

Ranma, after he had recovered from his facefault, shrugged. "Now, about my curse..."

"Right. Now, you can see auras?"

"Yup. Why?"

"I'm going to set up an aura-mirror. I'm not good enough to make it reflect auras in terms of strength, but it'll be close enough so you can figure out what's what."

Taking a few steps back, Sotaki held his hands to his chest, palms apart. A shimmering sphere formed between his hands. Moving his left hand up and dropping his right hand, he stretched the sphere into a translucent mirror. Suddenly, the shimmering energy disappeared.

"Didn't it work?" Hikaru was puzzled.

"Ranma, please stand in front of where you saw the mirror and sense in front of you."

Ranma obeyed, and nearly fell over. "That's MY aura!"

"Yup. Since auras aren't usually visible, their mirror shouldn't be visible. Now, this mirror is pretty weak so even if you pull up a battle aura you won't see much, but it's good for the purpose. Now sit in front of the mirror and contemplate yourself. Tell me what you see when you're done, or I ask you."

Ranma assumed a meditative posture, wondering what he was supposed to see.

"Now, Hikaru, today will be mostly Kinesis since we don't want Ranma to freak out. Don't tell Ranma, but there's a small field around the mirror, and most people wouldn't be able to look away, or notice they're being fooled with. In the mean time, you're going to practice skating. See what you can do, and expand that."

Hikaru took off toward one of the rails uncertainly, and tried hopping on. However, he thought about it too much and jumped too hard. Sailing clear over the rail, he landed on the edge of one of the cement blocks. Flailing his arms, he managed to catch his balance.

Up ahead of him, the cement block ended. Crouching, Hikaru jumped and flipped twice, landing on a rail. Relaxing, he realized that the tenser he was the more frightened he got. Allowing himself to simply move with the rail, he transferred over to another beam, and then got a grin on his face as he saw a telephone pole up ahead. Doing nothing to stop himself, he simply jumped and twisted. Looking like he would land on his back, Hikaru connected his skates with the telephone pole and started grinding straight up. At the top, he flew off and landed on a wire. Realizing where he was, he decided to get down. Hopping onto a tilted pole, he travelled downward, but misjudged the angle of the pole on the ground and tripped at the ending.

Peeling himself off the ground, he looked around. He had landed near where he started, and Sotaki was applauding. "All RIGHT! That was awesome. Just work work on the landing and you'll be a pro in no time."

"What does this have to do with Kinesis?"

"How did you grind up that telephone pole?"

"I realized that I was moving fast enough to do it, and I just ignored the angles. I gave my direction a little push and it just changed."

"That's the basis of Kinesis. The body is moving EXTREMELY fast, just in circles. Atoms vibrate, electrons dance, neurons pulse, your heart beats, your blood flows. Life is movement. So, Kinesis harnesess the movement, just as other styles harness the energy in another way."

"Oh."

"Right, now, keep practicing. Your jump height is a little low, but what you really need to work on is control. You get freaked out way too easily. Try drawing some shadow. Keep a tight hold of it; there isn't usually a whole lot of shadow in midair."

Hikaru went back to skating. Sotaki ambled over to where Ranma was busy staring at not much. "So, what did you see?"

Ranma shrugged. "Lots. Mosty blue, but beneath that blue was a lot of red. I saw half a pink thread heading away from me to somewhere, and saw a few half-threads heading toward me. Some were red, and others were pink. A few were blue."

"Half-threads? All threads are whole threads, right?"

"Not these... they just sort of faded out like into fog."

Sotaki tilted his head. "You want me to explain it?"

"Go ahead, I've got no ideas anyway."

In the background, Hikaru smacked into a block. After a while, he got back up and continued skating, surprised at the lack of damage to either himself or the block. The block sat still, impassive.

"The blue is your confidence, but you already know that. The hidden red is your anger at all that's been happening to you. It's mostly directed inward, at not being able to stop these things from happening. The pink threads are love. Your pink thread is heading toward who you love, even if you deny it. The other threads are those who love you. The red is those who are angry at you, and the blue is those who have confidence in you."

"I'm not angry at anyone!"

"No, you're angry at no one. But you ARE angry. Admit it and you'll be able to overcome it. Like Hikaru said, need some help just ask."

Ranma's stomach interrupted with its interpretation of the situation.

Ranma laughed nervously and scratched the base of his pigtail. "Ahehehe..."

Sotaki's stomach answered.

Sotaki blinked. "Lunch time it is, then." Whipping out a couple of logs, Sotaki lit them and put a greased pan on the fire. "How about some fried fish?"

Ranma shrugged. "Never had pan-fried fish before."

Sotaki grinned. "Yo, Hikaru, is fried fish for lunch ok?"

Hikaru nodded. "I was planning on buying lunch, but if it's not too much I'll have a piece."

Sotaki nodded. "All right." Pulling out a few pieces of thawed fish and some flour, he quickly seasoned and breaded them and tossed them on the pan. A few minutes later, he flipped them over. Hikaru spent his time skating, while Ranma talked with Sotaki. "So, what style do you practice?"

Sotaki gave it some thought. "Well, I never named it. Essentially, it focuses on unpredictability, much like yours. However, there's a method to my madness. Generally, I fight to music. Also, I never fight straight."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I use esoteric moves to defeat my opponent. Either I use something that's the enemy's weakness, or I use something that's their strength. And I always use it in unpredictable ways. For instance, if I wanted to banish a demon, I would use skates and spraypaint - because you don't usually think that a punk fighting a demon would win."

Ranma was intrigued. "How's that work?"

"Well, I just tag it with wards until it's banished. Of course, now that I can tag without spraypaint, it becomes much easier, 'cause I can punch without crushing my cans."

"That's what I do."

"No it isn't. You fight any way you can, but you almost always use the same moves on everyone. For instance, I've been hearing about a lot of tornados around recently. Not everyone's susceptible to being drained by a tornado, you know. Some people wouldn't even get cought."

"That's what insults are for."

"True, but if you were really that into chaos you would be able to defeat them with insults alone."

"Oh come on, that's just not possible."

"No? All righty then. On Monday, I'll arrive before you, and beat Kuno up without launching a single attack."

"You're on!"

"Fish is done."

"Wow, that was fast."

"I'll say. Hey, Hikaru. Come on down and have some fish!"

Hikaru landed from the flip he was in, and skated over to Sotaki.

Ranma looked at Sotaki, suspicious. "Since when could he do that?"

Sotaki grinned, closed his eyes, brought his hand to his face, extended his index finger, and said smugly "Now that..." Ranma leaned closer. "Is a secret." Ranma facefaulted, and recovered in time to see Sotaki pry himself off the ground with a fridge on his head. "Ow. Darn lousy spying..." The appliance vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving behind nothing but a large lump on Sotaki's head. "Where were we? Ah yes. I was serving up food," said Sotaki as he pulled out three plates and three sets of chopsticks, flipped some fish onto each, and pulled out a frighteningly large loaf of bread, "pouring drinks," along with three mugs and a steaming teapot. "and annoying the living daylights out of you. Dig in!"

All three poured themselves some tea and started demolishing fish, some faster than others.

After Ranma had finished off his fifty-second piece of fish, he stopped to wonder where all this food was coming from, since he only counted five pieces of fish on the pan. "Mphere'd thish fish come from?" he said around several mouthfuls of food.

"Magic pan. It replicates what's on it until the meal's last serving and one more time."

"Why one more time?"

"Leftovers."

Ranma nodded. This was good caloric practice in his opinion. "Well, thanks for the meal. I'll ponder what you said; you do seem like an OK guy. See ya!" He hopped on a fence and dashed away. Sotaki mimed throwing something after him. Hikaru stared at him.

"What was that?"

"A tracker. I figure it's helpful to know where he is."

"Oh."

A few pieces of fish and gulps of tea later, they were skating again, albiet slower than before. Suddenly, Hikaru was knocked off the rail he was grinding by a Bomb Spread.

"Hey! What's the big idea?"

"You're good at dodging on foot. Now we try it on wheels! Get moving!"

Hikaru weaved between the five blasts that followed, and laughed to himself. -A week ago if you told me I would do this I would have laughed in your face, or cowered. Now look at me!- The robe that Sotaki hurled at him took Hikaru by surprise, as Sotaki had cast his Flare Quiver again and was preparing to hurl Flare Arrows. Soon, Hikaru was panting and dodging increasingly-more-damaging spells. One actually almost hit him, and the resulting blast knocked him to the highest point of the abandoned iron frame the factory was being built on. The blasts that were incoming were probably not going to be dodged considering his current balance, so he did the only thing he could.

"BOMB SPREAD!"

The hastily-cast blast de-stabilized halfway through the spell and nearly knocked Hikaru off his perch. However, it served his purpose and detonated the Flare Arrows a few feet shy of him. Deciding to try something new, Hikaru held both hands out in front of him, and slowly drew back his right arm. A red longbow formed in his hand, and he was drawing back the string. Grinding down, he released the string and called out the attack's name. With a resounding "FLARE ARROW!" Hikaru tried to release the string. Unfortunately, he wasn't used to casting while moving (much less casting in general), and the spell destabilized. Hikaru leaped up just in time, and dodged the worst of the blast.

Sotaki applauded. "Well, I think I can safely say you've learned how to avoid your own spells. You want me to teach you how to actually cast a spell?"

Hikaru was excited, to say the least. "YEAH!"

"Well, that kinda bites, because I can't. You have to learn your own spells. The best I can do is show them to you, and if you're wise you'll learn what they do first hand, and learn how to counter them. Essentially, the only way to gain spells is to defeat them. Of course you could make your own, but you need SOME mastery of magic.

"Now, the sun is setting, so it's time for you to go home. I'll show you one more spell. Light which burns beyond crimson flame, let thy power gather in my hand! LIGHTING!" Upon these words Sotaki's fist lit up a brilliant white, illuminating the area. "Now you try!"

Hikaru concentrated, drawing the fading light to his hand. "Light which burns beyond crimson flame, let thy power gather in my hand! LIGHTING!" The spell drained him, and his light wasn't anywhere near as bright or clear as Sotaki's, but it was there. Hikaru kneeled, panting.

Sotaki nodded. "Wonderful. You should practice to bring up your mana reserves. I explicitly allow you to use Lighting in practice provided no one sees you."

Hikaru smiled. "I'll do that."

Sotaki's face split into a grin. "Great! Go home, put your feet up, take a rest."

Watching Hikaru skate home, he sat down and packed up everything into his backpack. Concentrated, he carefully channeled some air energy into his legs. His form seemed to blur, and he grinned. "Now to try out that other new technique..."

Sotaki dashed towards Juuban, blurring further as he exceeded 100 mph with ease. Bouncing off of rooftops and walls, he moved like lightning through the streets of Japan. Slowing down after a few minutes of travel time, he released the power in his legs. Pulling out his notebook, he looked at the first address on the page. Returning his notebook to its place, he took a deep breath and sensed for the dark signature he expected. He wasn't disappointed. Heading over to the signature, he got ready for the demon attack. Deciding a more dramatic entrance would be appropriate, he scattered psi-balls as speakers again, this time with a different melody. Unbinding his ponytail, he ducked into an abandoned warehouse and emerged wearing a black gi with a red flame pattern embroidered on it and loose white pants.

Running up a wall, he reached a rooftop. Waiting for the inevitable strike, he amused himself by seeing how many different balls of colored light he could make dance in different patterns. When he had reached a stable five, he sensed nine familiar auras. Standing up, he conjured up a wind. Glancing down, he saw a demon that looked like animated armor, wielding a sword of pure energy. Standing with his face to the moon and his back to the demon and spectators, he triggered the psi-balls. A soulful song started playing.

Aiyaiyai, aiyaiyai, aiyaiyai

Where's my samurai?

Sotaki turned, his face silhouetted by moonlight.

I've been searching for a man

All across Japan

Just to find

To find my samurai!

Someone who is strong

But still a little shy

Yes I need

I need my samurai!

Sotaki leaped down from the building headfirst. Flipping at the last second, he landed lightly, bobbing to the beat. Drawing a katana from nowhere, he leapt forward at the demon. Slashing in rhythm, Sotaki started breaking through the demon's defenses. When it was staggered, he leapt upward, becoming a shadow in the moonlit sky.

Aiyaiyai! I'm your little butterfly

Green, black, and blue

Make good colors in the sky

Aiyaiyai! I'm your little butterfly

Green, black, and blue

Make good colors in the sky

Spreading his arms, he called upon his power and drew colored flames along his arms, changing the red flames on his gi to black. Heading downward again, he readied his Katana. The demon hopped back just in time, and barely avoided losing an arm. Sotaki stopped the attack and hopped back, still moving in time to the beat.

I've been searching in the woods

And high up on the hills

Just to find

To find my samurai

Someone who won't regret

To keep me in this net

Yes I need

I need my samurai

Pressing the offensive again, Sotaki slashed at the demon's head and shoulders at every syllable. Once again at the end of the verse he leapt, this time not up but back.

Aiyaiyai! I'm your little butterfly

Green, black, and blue

Make good colors in the sky

Aiyaiyai! I'm your little butterfly

Green, black, and blue

Make good colors in the sky

Gathering the flames to his katana, he dashed forward, slashing at speeds rivalling the Amugeriken. Of course, the Senshi, not having been trained to see such things, merely saw him slash twice. The demon's sword was now little more than a long sliver of metal.

Aiyaiyai, aiyaiyai, aiyaiyai

Where's my samurai

Aiyaiyai, aiyaiyai, aiyaiyai

Where's my samurai

Sotaki seemed to blur from view, kicking and punching the demon to stun it. Dancing around its attacks, he delivered a royal beat-down. By this time the demon itself was starting to crack.

Aiyaiyai! I'm your little butterfly

Green, black, and blue

Make good colors in the sky

Aiyaiyai! I'm your little butterfly

Green, black, and blue

Make good colors in the sky

Aiyaiyai! I'm your little butterfly

Green, black, and blue

Make good colors in the sky

Aiyaiyai! I'm your little butterfly

Green, black, and blue

Make good colors in the sky

Sotaki delivered two more flaming strikes, this time severing the demon's sword and slashing off the top of its helmet and one of its shoulderguards.

Aiyaiyai, aiyaiyai, aiyaiyai

Where's my samurai

Aiyaiyai, aiyaiyai, aiyaiyai

Where's my samurai

Sotaki dodged one last feeble blow by the demon and started another powered assault. Jumping halfway through the verse, he literally rained blows upon the demon.

Aiyaiyai! I'm your little butterfly

Green, black, and blue

Make good colors in the sky.

Leaping higher than before, Sotaki sheathed his sword in flame for the last time tonight and aimed very carefully. Reversing direction without bothering about things like inertia and Newton's Laws, he flew down at a godly speed, slowly pulling up. He disappeared right before he hit the demon. He reappeared behind it in the strike position. Cuts in the shape of wards opened up all over the demon, and it disintegrated into nothingness.

Once again he turned and grinned at the Senshi, but this time he didn't vanish. Instead he ran up the side of the building they were standing on, leaped over their heads and landed in a crouch behind the warriors of love and justice. As they turned around they got their first good look at their twice-assistant.

Assuming a wise expression and a solemn tone of voice, Sotaki stared deeply into their eyes, penetrating their very soul, and spoke:

"How the heck do you fight in those costumes?"

After the group recovered from its facefaults and near-facefaults(Mercury and Pluto were too controlled to fault, although in Mercury's case it was close), Usagi answered for the group. "I'll have you know that these are regal and valuable outfits dating back thousands of years. They are extremely powerful magical armor, and-"

"Something out of a pervert's dreams. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look in those skirts?"

Mercury coughed. "Actually, I thought about that before..." She blushed beet red as the rest stared at her. Finally, Rei spoke up. "How the heck did you know we fight?"

"Well, let's see. You showed up when the Demon did, you watched me fight it, you didn't help it, and you all assumed silly poses and seemed to be about to deliver a speech. Even if I DIDN'T know about the Senshi, then I'd be fairly inclined to guess that you did in fact fight the demons."

Once again, simple logic did what a million authors couldn't.

Mercury was puzzled. "But why take down demons like you do?"

"There are three reasons. The first: Demons are my training dummies. I use some very powerful techniques, and I need to practice them against moving targets. The second: I fight to songs. My discipline allows me to fight much better to tunes. And the third, and most important: It's fun."

Again, only Ami and Setsuna resisted the urge to facefault.

"No, really. The world is a dull place. Day in and day out people go through their groove wearing it just a bit deeper each and every time. Their minds degenerate, as do their souls. Boredome and ennui set in, replacing the struggle that is life, and the conflicts that make people stronger. Why, the worst thing in the world I could imagine is everyone happy, or everyone sad. Variety is the spice of life."

Sailor Moon had the decency to look abashed. Jupiter coughed, and Venus blushed. "Um... actually we're trying to found a new government based on happiness..." Having heard what Sotaki had said, Sailor Moon was starting to feel embarassed. Doubt had set in to the previously rock-hard certainty of the state of Crystal Tokyo.

"Hm. And exactly how were you going to go about founding this state?"

"Um... I was going to use my crystal brooch..." The words sounded silly to Moon's ears.

"Could I get a few more details? What was the plan? A cataclysm of earth-shaking proportions, right? Maybe the earth freezing over?" Sailor Pluto glanced around, suddenly very nervous. "Humanity despairing and then whoop, here come our saviors! That sort of thing? Hm, let me think as to who tried this little scheme before... There was Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and, to some extent, most every major tyrant in history. The funny thing is most of them didn't manufacture the cataclysm that they promised to save from. Germany was royally SCREWED at the end of World War I. Hitler, granted, redirected all the rage of the people at the Jews, but he didn't put everyone in that position."

Most of the Sailors suddenly realized exactly what they had been doing, and where they had been heading. Pluto tried to teleport away, but the Time Gates would not respond to her call.

Unusually, it was Sailor Moon who asked the question that brought down the whole scheme. "Setsuna? Would you enlighten us as to exactly what would happen in Crystal Tokyo?"

Setsuna tried a tack that had worked before. "Millions would prosper! I swear!"

Sotaki frowned. "The population of the world is rapidly approaching 6 billion, Setsuna. In managerial terms, "Millions" tends to mean '2,000,001'. Now, care to explain what would happen to the rest?"

"They would die in the freeze! There's nothing I can do to stop it! I'm just trying to make the best of a bad situation! An experiment would go wrong but I can't tell which one! AND HOW DID YOU KNOW MY NAME?"

"Hm... YOU can't do squat. Of course, you've got 8 fairly-capable warriors pretty much wrapped around your ring finger. It didn't occur to you that it might be a good idea to stop this freeze WHY? Because then people would know that there are magical girls out there, is that it? Because you'd have media attention. You know, that's a flimsy selfish excuse at best. I MIGHT consider parts of your argument valid IF YOU WEREN'T ALREADY FRONT-PAGE NEWS IN LOCAL NEWSPAPERS! You save the world on a regular basis but you don't have the guts to convince a few scientists to take a few extra safety precautions? As a matter of fact, I suspect the batch of experiments that 'might go wrong' are all funded by a ' S. Meiou', am I right? After all, artifacts sell for millions these days, and all you have to do is take any old piece of crap to whatever time period you want, hide it in an unlikely spot, and come back to today and sell it off, right? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE, SAILOR PLUTO? THE TIME GATES WERE MEANT TO BE USED TO PROTECT THE TIMELINES! THEY WERE NOT MEANT TO PROMOTE THE RESURRECTION OF THE GHOSTS OF A LONG-DEAD KINGDOM AT THE COSTS OF 299 OUT OF EVERY 300 LIVES! CRYSTAL TOKYO SHOULD NEVER COME ABOUT BECAUSE IT IS DOOMED FROM THE BEGINNING! HOW DO YOU THINK DARK MOON DESTROYED THE FUTURE SENSHI SO EASILY?"

Pluto broke down. "I DIDN'T WANT TO! THE FREEZE IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THE DARKNESS! Chaos would take over the world otherwise! Are you saying Galaxia, Doomtree, Wiseman, the Witches 5, Pharaoh 90, and Beryl were all right?"

"No, of course not. Their goal was to conquer. Chaos is not good or evil, and neither is law. Think of it like this: The more uniform the alignment of the universe is, the more order there is. There would be order whether good conquered or evil. The problem is that there will be much more order because good conquered. Chaos is the inverse of law, so the more balanced good and evil are the more chaos there is. Now, without enough order, chaos simply means destruction. Order without chaos simply means stagnation. Together, they mean growth. In military terms, you can either recruit more soldiers or train them.

"Look at the future; Crystal Tokyo pretty much got wiped out because of the actions of a few kids with delusions of grandeur. The Senshi who were living in their paradise couldn't stop them, but the Senshi who were living in the real world could.

"However, most of the people you've defeated are small fry. You've been struggling against these demons, your leader can barely walk without tripping, you depend on one person to analyze the foe's weakness, you've got a few barely-contained powerhouses, one of which is bullied daily at school, from the looks of things, and you've got one enigmatic self-righteous smug Ms. Someone-shoved-a-baseball-bat-into-my-colon-at-birth who's the real brains behind the outfit but seems to send you on suicide missions more often than not.

"Now, you're all good people, that I don't doubt. But as a team and as individuals you all need work desperately. What exactly would you do against monsters that attacked simultaneously in different locations?"

Venus spoke up. "They don't attack in different locations at the same time. Rule is, one monster a day maximum, generally not on school hours."

Sotaki sighed and buried his face in his hand. "Do you have any idea just how stupid that sounded? One of these days someone will muster up two brain cells and then you'll all be screwed, you know that? You're fighting badly using out-dated wimpy powers against local and time-hopping idiots for a future that you just realized you don't want at the behest of someone who you barely know, supported by a pest from the future, claiming it's all for 'love and justice', looking like some pervert's fantasy, and making silly speeches?"

The girls sweatdropped, once again stunned by just quite how silly their activities sounded when rephrased.

Sailor Moon showed some defiance. "HEY! We've saved the world at least five times now! Give us a break!"

"You and about a million others. You saved the world on dumb luck. That won't hold up forever. You need to get better fast or else someone else will step in."

"What do you mean? We haven't had any opportunity to train, nor do we know how to."

"Well, why not ask Pluto? She was around, she knew your past lives, and she knew how you trained to get to your peaks."

Sailor Pluto once again tried to get away. This time, Sotaki pulled a dagger out of his backpack and tossed it at Pluto. "SHADOW SNAP!" The Senshi all gasped. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT FOR?" screamed Moon. "YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HER!"

Setsuna, meanwhile, was frozen in her tracks. Looking back, she saw the dagger imbedded in her shadow. She could move just fine as long as her shadow stayed on the blade. Trying to leave was impossble.

"I kept her from making a fast break. She's already tried to teleport at least twice. She's got a LOT of answering to do, although I suspect that she's open to reason, am I right?"

Setsuna nodded dumbly. Here was a man who had appeared out of nowhere, stopped her powers, immobilized her, and revealed all her plans to the rest of the Senshi. What was he going to do next?

"Seeing as I'm a nice guy and I don't think I want the Earth enslaved by a passing dark power, I'll make you an offer I'm not gonna make again. I'll train you to defend the Earth against passing threats, demonic and otherwise."

Mercury, the sharpest in the group, frowned. "What's the catch?"

"Stopping a major cataclysm that wipes out almost all of humanity, and no trying to brainwash the world into happy zombies."

Sailor Moon nodded readily. "Deal."

Sotaki nodded, and vanished, taking his dagger with him.

*****

Meanwhile our favorite martial artist was running for his life. The reason for this was the horde of martial artists chasing him. Various battle cries resounded through the ward.

"Airen! Come eat too too delicous ramen!"

"Ranchan, I made you your favorite okinomiyaki!"

"Ohohohohohohohohohohohoho! Ranma-sama, let us elope! I'm ready for the marriage!"

"RANMA! HOW DARE YOU FLIRT WITH ALL THESE GIRLS! AND WHILE I'M HERE, NO LESS! DIE!"

"FOUL SORCEROR! Come and die!"

"Son-in-law, are you ready to come back to China with us like a good male?"

"RANMA! How dare you cheat on Akane?"

"For stealing my beloved Shampoo, you must die!"

"Ungrateful boy, come and unite the schools!"

-Is what Sotaki said true? Do I hate these people? They try to kill me or get me killed daily, they never listen to what I say, they abuse me physically and mentally, they milk me for money, they take my food, they accuse me of things I would rather die than do, and they never trust me. They never treat me like a human being!-

Struck by this realization, Ranma stopped dead. Of course, the crowd behind him didn't, and the result was a flattened, glomped, nearly-sliced-in-two, nearly-drugged, pounded pulp of a martial artist.

*****

Venus was infuriated. "WHAT?" She shrieked. "You don't know this guy! He comes out of nowhere, defeats two demons without using any spells, insults us and our accomplishments, plays with our heads, changes our long-term goals in less than five minutes, and now you want to TRAIN UNDER HIM?"

Mars nodded. "Yes. He did all that and hasn't hurt us. He didn't attack us, he convinced us that what we were heading for was wrong. From his aura I can tell he has obscene amounts of power. He's offering to train us, to give us a chance against the demons. Are you proposing we turn him down? If so, what are the alternatives?" Her tone was controlled, but only barely.

Jupiter, trying to play diplomat, got between the two Senshi. "How about we take a vote? Whoever wants training can accept it. Whoever doesn't want it can choose to come along anyway to ensure our safety or can miss out altogether. How's that sound?"

The rest of the group agreed it was reasonable, and soon split up into two groups. Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn all decided to accept Sotaki's offer. Venus, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto all decided to try to stay as far away from Sotaki as possible.

"I'm glad you girls can see your own faults. Not many these days can. Unfortunately, I have a few appointments, so the best I can do is a day full of training in a couple of days. There might be someone else there, but don't panic. He won't tell anyone who you are."

Although this wasn't what they had bargained for, the Senshi who had accepted the deal nodded reluctantly. After all, some help is better than none, right?

*****

What's the next crossover gonna be? There's just enough elements now, so I'm gonna stop bringing in new characters... but I AM gonna have an obligatory cameo... let's see...

*tosses a ball onto a spinning modified roulette wheel*

Round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows.

*Roulette wheel stops*

Well, I stand corrected. I know where it stopped... Oh boy. How am I gonna tie that in? Maybe a nifty artifact? *grumble*.

BTW, sorry about the delay but I hate small chapters and I've decided to make bigger ones. From now on all chapters will be this big or more so.

Yeah. kind of bites as well in how easily it loses data... if I didn't write all my chapters in Notepad, you wouldn't be looking at this right now.