DISCLAIMER: Relatively standard stuff. Existing characters are properties of the people who made them up. Mitsuki, and several other characters are mine, and so's the story, hence ownership and copyright of them belongs to me. Contact me at misato_98@yahoo.com if you want permission to use anything I've written for whatnot purposes.
LOVE
By
Raymond Cooper
Chapter 2
** L'amour Impossible **
"Ooooh! Look!" Hotaru stepped away from Ranma easily enough. The poor red-headed girl was exhausted. Once upon a time, Ranma had carried Hotaru up and down the stairs in front of the Ai Sou, where they lived, but at the current time, Ranma was feeling a little... drained.
The younger girl turned back to face her friend, gesturing at a CD stand. "Megumi Hayashibara's got a new single out!"
Ranma snorted; in his girl-form it came out higher pitched than even he had thought it would. "Megumi Hayashibara. Her voice is too squeaky and you can't take her seriously as a voice actress. She'd better not try anything other than comedy."
Hotaru pouted. "Sempai, just because you're a bit sensitive about being stuck in your... uh, girl form for a while doesn't mean you can just act nasty and snide all the time."
No, it didn't, and Ranma had to admit that. Hotaru was being as cheerful as she could - and while it was very obviously false to anyone who knew her well enough, Ranma did appreciate the effort. He said as much to the girl, whose alabaster cheeks seemed to glow a subtle pink with the kind words. Definitely something Ranma had been missing on giving the poor girl for a while.
It had been three days now since he had woken up, three days since he found the girls he lived with now knew the truth about his curse. While he wanted to change back to his normal form, Hotaru had nixed the idea, saying that the damage he'd sustained in battle was very great and she almost hadn't been able to help him at all. When Ranma fell silent and checked his ki, he'd found he had almost emptied himself dry helping the senshi. Indeed, even then, a week after the event, healed by Hotaru, he'd only just recovered enough of his life energies to regain consciousness.
The day before, he'd done his best to get out of bed, prove Hotaru wrong about her diagnosis. He had managed to hobble around the dormitory, but hadn't been able to climb stairs at all, and had been as weak as a kitten. Indeed, Usagi knocked him down in the kitchen by throwing open the fridge door a little too fast on the way for a snack. Hotaru had promised to take him into town the next day if he was feeling better. He was - still too weak to risk a transformation, but feeling well enough to try and tackle the stairs to the road.
That was an ordeal in itself. Ranma now had a better appreciation of how Hotaru had found things before his training had begun to strengthen her ever so slightly. In her transformed state, she could easily overpower him in a straight-out slugfest, but Ranma held the upper hand in skill and experience. Or so he liked to believe. It was the only one of two conclusions he had made during their sparring matches that he accepted - the other was that she was holding back for fear of hurting him. Much more of a blow to Ranma's ego, that one.
The walk into town had been tough, but by now, Ranma was mostly fine. The exercise and eating returned his strength and vitality to him, and he could walk fine enough now, without having to be helped. He had been spared that embarrassment in public, at least. He thought he might be okay to try a transformation back to his normal body in a day or two, but was't going to push it. If he continued recovering at the rate he was thus far, then he might give it a go. But if he plateaued, if he levelled out, he'd give it some more time.
At least he no longer thought of his female form as the curse he once had - it was very useful at times. And comfortable at others. He touched Hotaru's arm as he reached her. "I'm hungry again. Let's find something to eat."
******
"Hungry again?" Hotaru asked, disbelieving. He nodded, and they found a small street cart to buy and eat instant ramen from.
She'd already watched Ranma put away four big-sized meals today... and it wasn't even lunch time yet. In addition to that, he'd had numerous in-between snacks. She guessed it was something to do with replenishing his energy, similar to the recommendations when she'd had a series of blood tests years ago, when she'd had her 'problems', around the time she first met Usagi, that one should eat and drink a large meal afterwards, to help replenish the blood in her body.
Yet Ranma had put away enough to feed a small African country, and still looked hungry.
No wonder he could harness such energies when he needed to; the man was a checmical powerhouse.
She could feel Ranma's life force building within him again, like a rare flower unfolding in a myriad of intricate patterns, ever faster, always rushing to catch those all-too-brief summer rays of light. She was attuned to injured people in some way, she'd found a long time ago, but now... she seemed to be finding ways of feeling people without seeing them, without touching them. She suspected that was part of Ranma's teachings, but it wasn't something he'd covered, apart from a few blindfolded lessons with her, Rei and Mitsuki to teach them about listening for an opponent's moves and actions.
It was something she'd have to bring up.
She could feel Ranma's presence, burning stronger and stronger with every passing minute, especially when he ate, and could detect small puffs of energy and life passing around behind and beside her - ordinary people, going about ordinary lives.
Then something made her hair stand on end. A light, burning bright, at least as strong as Ranma used to be. At least. She suspected the sensation she was receiving diminished with distance. She turned, regardless, to see if she could see who was filled with such energy. But all she could see were normal people, heads down, leading their normal lives.
And one tall blond man, slightly foreign looking, standing on the other side of the street, looking up at the sky. As she continued to stare, she felt that this man was the source of the energy, and as she watched, he slowly turned his head to look at her directly.
She felt a rush of something within her, moments later decided it had to be hormones or something similar as she felt intensely attracted to the handsome stranger. His clothes were dark, but casual rather than the formal of most twenty-something males currently on the street. His face was pleasant, his eyes easy and reassuring, his nose straight and chin strong. He nodded, almost imperceptibly at her, then turned back to the skies above, staring as if he'd never seen them before.
Hotaru's knees felt weak.
Ranma stopped slurping up his ramen, and turned to Hotaru. "What's up? You're quiet."
"Oh... uh, nothing," she blushed. "Nothing at all, sempai. It's just..." She turned back to the street to spot the mysterious handsome man, but he had vanished. She turned back to Ranma. "Nothing."
"Okay." He continued to eye her in that way of his when he knew she wasn't telling the truth, but wouldn't call her on it, leaving her her privacy. It was something he was very good at, letting others keep their secrets. Something to do with his personal code of honour or something, she hypothesised.
Meanwhile, she continued to sip at her drink, waiting for Ranma to finish so she could be cheerful and chirpy again. Quite how Usagi did this all day long, every day, Hotaru didn't know. Or would Minako be the one to ask? Who knew? Not Hotaru. It was very draining, being nice and happy all the time. Well, being nice was what she was like all the time, she felt, but occasionally she snapped at people, acted in a sneaky manner, among other things.
And it had been just over a week since she'd attended Furinken High. That made her wonder what schemes Nabiki Tendo had gotten up to while she had been gone. Without Hotaru around, the young senshi would find it hard to counter anything she had done before it involved Ranma. That powder that Nabiki used on Ranma a month or so ago was a surprise that Hotaru didn't think she could afford again. Yet she didn't know what it did. Ami hadn't been able to determine anything about it, and pondered whether it would do anything at all. Hotaru hadn't found anything physically wrong with Ranma, so maybe that powder was suppose dto do soemthing natural, if anything at all. A laxitive or something.
She shrugged; this afternoon, she'd have to attend the school, to get her notes for the previous week and to catch up on Nabiki's plans. That was a definite. IF she could Ranma home first.
Noticing that Ranma was finished, she stood up. Ranma followed suit.
"Ranma, why -"
Ranma held a hand up. "Hotaru, stop." She obliged. "It's so nice of you to want to cheer me up. Really. But, uh, you know, you've got things to do. Like school for instance! And I've got things to do. I've gotta get back in shape. I've gotta get my body back the way it was. I've missed a week, over a week, of training - that's not good. I've got to start getting back into my routine, and you've got to get back into yours."
"Ranma, I *like* looking after you!"
"I know, Hotaru-chan, and I like you looking after me, believe me," Ranma sighed. "But... c'mon, you gotta get back into your life, too. You gotta go to school, you gotta train - and how can you train properly if your teacher isn't able to move?" He snorted.
Hotaru had to admit, he had a point. The more she looked after him, the more both would be tempted to forget about their outside lives. Or so it seemed to her. Maybe it was a residual hormone surge from seeing that man, but she leaned forward and kissed Ranma on the lips. Ranma acted a little shocked, but wasn't going to pull away.
******
Two kids stopped and stared at the two girls kissing in front of the ramen stand. One turned to the other and said, "See, Hiroshi, what did I tell you? It's a good luck charm."
Hiroshi growled under his breath.
******
Hotaru waved goodbye to Ranma and walked away. Ranma turned back to the ramen stand to get his breath back. That had been some kiss... and he hadn't wanted it to end, either. But he had some examining to do that he didn't want Hotaru around for. He'd felt the energy spike behind him a whole lot clearer than Hotaru had, and he had much more control over his body and emotions than she had... yet even he himself had been slightly attracted to the source of power. Like the relentless pull of gravity surrounding a major planet, he likened it to. He felt it with the senshi, even when they were in their unpowered forms, an attraction that pulled at him. With Hotaru, he had let the attraction pull him to her, and let his own personality and humour pull her to him. If something was going to happen between them, it would, and it would damned well happen naturally.
He'd felt the way Hotaru had reacted, and felt a pang of jealousy. Yet he couldn't blame her for her reaction; the person who was throwing out that kind of energy was extremely powerful, more so than Hotaru had noticed. He was also tending towards the darker side of nature, like these Dark Kingdom creatures Ranma had faced off against with the senshi at his side. Yet, in his condition, he doubted he could have blocked a punch, let alone a projected ki blast, and he hadn't made a move to boost his own power levels faster or prepare for combat. He'd remained as if completely oblivious to it all. Hotaru hadn't picked up on the likely affiliation of the man; but that was okay. He trusted her not to do anything stupid, like try and follow him.
He hoped, anyway.
******
Hotaru walked along a concreted drainage stream, thinking quietly to herself about how she would present her absence to Nabiki Tendo. Perhaps the 'flu might be a good excuse, or some other illness - God knew, Hotaru Tomoe had been inflicted with enough illnesses over her lifetime. Possibly even a pulled muscle, a strain, or a dead relative.
Or perhaps... no, she blushed at that thought. As far as Nabiki apparently thought, Hotaru lvied with her strict parents. Managing to sneak her boyfriend over for one day might be believable, but for over a week? Not likely.
She had a hand on the chain-link fence as she walked when she heard something. It sounded like a cat's nervous cries for help. She peered through the fence, and there, just up a little, beside a hole in the mesh, was a cat, a slightly off-white colour with purple tufts of fur on its head. Beside the hole was a bike, and in the distance, fast moving away, was a cloud of dust and smoke being whipped up by what Hotaru assumed to be some of the Nerima people she had been meeting.
The cat was hanging into a branch just below the hole in the fence, and was wet and bedraggled, struggling to hold on as the branch slipped further and further from the fence and closer towards the gushing stream below. There was panic in its eyes and tension in its body.
"Hello, kitty," Hotaru called, lying her bag next to the concrete abutment the fence sat on and poking her head and shoulders slowly through the fence. "Come here, come on" she continued, holding out her hands.
The cat tried to swipe at a hand, but was too far away. The branch slipped further down towards the water.
Hotaru leaned further through the fence, finally resting her knees on the concrete to reach in as far as she could. "Here kitty, kitty," she called again. The cat took one look at Hotaru's now-within reach arms, and fled up them, scratching and clawing as she went.
The girl was surprised - a knee slipped, and she went through the fence herself now, as the cat made it through onto the road next to the bike. It made a sound almost like a raspberry, Hotaru thought, as she now clutched to the unsteady branch.
The branch shifted again, groaning under the new, much heavier weight. It bent. Hotaru righted herself, turning so she now faced the hole in the fence, and tried to reach upwards, to grab the fence. But the branch slipped, and her feet splashed into the water. It gave a little more, and as Hotaru tried one last time to reach safety, the branch snapped just above her hands, and both halves fell into the water, taking the girl with them.
While the stream wasn't terribly wide - only a few metres at most - it wasn't shallow, and the water was moving rather fast. The current swept at Hotaru, and the girl's body didn't offer much resistance. She tried putting some effort into swimming, but wasn't strong enough to make it. She opened her mouth to activate her transformation, and swallowed a mouthful of water.
It was only the first. More quickly followed, and then her vision was obscured as the water closed over her. She thought she saw something -
- something big, something dark, hovering over the water -
******
So, where was this guy? Ranma was searching through the streets in the direction he'd felt the man head towards, but could find no trace of his energies. He had to be around somewhere. And it's not like a tall foreigner could hide so easily in a mostly Japanese community, on a purely visual level. He had to be here somewhere.
Instead of finding his target, though, he felt a surge of the dark energy he associated with Dark Kingdom monsters erupt from a side alley he was passing, and when he looked down -
******
Lips.
Soft, tender, yet insistant and powerful.
Giving her new life.
Hotaru coughed, and the lips disappeared. She opened her eyes, and saw light, streaming down from above. A man's shadow leaning over her.
Complete and utter silence.
And a smell.
A brief flutter, like those of a bird's wings, and the man was gone in a swirl of light from above, heading off in the direction of the sun so she couldn't make out any features.
But she saw one thing.
He had blond hair.
She sat up, unable to move after him. There were footsteps behind her, angry footsteps, and she turned to face them. Shampoo, holding a dress in place as she fastened it around her shoulders. She fumed, the anger coming off the Chinese girl in near visible waves.
"You take Shampoo's airen," Shampoo growled. "What you doing here?"
Hotaru stared up, dazed and confused a little. "Wha?"
As if by magic, bonbori appeared in Shampoo's hands. "You not nice girl! You viper! You steal Shampoo's airen!"
Hotaru shook her head, trying to clear it and also to refute the charge laid against her. "No, I... we... he likes me. And I like him."
Shampoo snarled, and leapt.
Only to be caught in midair. "Hands such as these peasant's hands should never so much as caress the outermost layers of clothing of a goddess such as this," Tatewaki Kuno announced, holding the Amazon up with one hand and deftly warding off what would normally be crippling blows from the enraged girl. "Flee, ruffian, and leave my goddess alone." He gave a toss, and Shampoo bounced down close to her bike. She scowled at Kuno and Hotaru.
"This not over yet." Then there was a ring of her bike's bell, and Shampoo was gone.
Kuno turned back to Hotaru, and bent down on one knee, lowering his head. "I apologise for not ceasing this dreadful attack on your person sooner." He thought it best not to offer the reason, in case it should be taken as an excuse. Hotaru got Kuno to help her to her feet. "Shall I assist you to school?"
"Yes, please, sempai," Hotaru muttered, running her fingers through her hair and grimacing. Not only were her clothes wet, but her hair was a mess. At least her bag was dry. She retreived it, and took one last look at the hole in the fence. And sniffed.
The smell of roses was still strong in the air.
******
- he saw a young girl he recognised. "You again."
Natsumi Otohime looked up from where she was trying to rip off flesh and congealed blood from a wound in her side. "Who are you?"
Ah. That's right. Ranma had met this girl in combat, and in meditation, yet he'd thought the meditative event was simply a hallucination. And whlie he recognised her, she might not recognise him. Well, he'd have thought she might in his girl body - what he was in then - but not his male form. So that was a little confusing, too. But... it was dark in the alley, darker than it had any right to be, and it was bright outside. Perhaps she couldn't see his face?
Ranma stepped closer. "You're hurt."
Natsumi laughed. "You went to university to make that informed decision?" She gave a cough, and black ichor geysered from her nose. "Scram, normal. I've got other things to worry about right now. But if you don't leave, I'll make sure you stay for good."
That sounded like good advice to Ranma, who was never known to stay around in a fight when he was losing. And he would lose this one, if it came to that, with the levels of power Natsumi was throwing out compared to his own. Yet, something held him back. "What happened to you?"
"I screwed up. Tried to get rid of the Master's favourite. Okay?" She coughed again.
Something in Ranma twisted. Something coiled. He asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"
SAILOR MOON SAYS
A short chapter this time. I've discovered new games on my new computer :) Yay! I can play things more recent than 1998 now, and I'm loving it :)
Unfortunately, that's having a corresponding knock-on effect with my writing :P I started this chapter the other day, should have started it much earlier. But it's finished now. No, you didn't miss anything with this chapter, this has gone back to the beginning of this arc. The first chapter of this arc was the last. But was it everything of the last chapter, or were bits missing? Hmm. How did things get that bad? Where the heck are things in this chapter going?
Next time: Umm... does anyone actually read this far? We catch up with Natsumi over the last week. Next time, on Something Moderately Interesting Some Of The Time! Uh, Love. ^^;;
LOVE
By
Raymond Cooper
Chapter 2
** L'amour Impossible **
"Ooooh! Look!" Hotaru stepped away from Ranma easily enough. The poor red-headed girl was exhausted. Once upon a time, Ranma had carried Hotaru up and down the stairs in front of the Ai Sou, where they lived, but at the current time, Ranma was feeling a little... drained.
The younger girl turned back to face her friend, gesturing at a CD stand. "Megumi Hayashibara's got a new single out!"
Ranma snorted; in his girl-form it came out higher pitched than even he had thought it would. "Megumi Hayashibara. Her voice is too squeaky and you can't take her seriously as a voice actress. She'd better not try anything other than comedy."
Hotaru pouted. "Sempai, just because you're a bit sensitive about being stuck in your... uh, girl form for a while doesn't mean you can just act nasty and snide all the time."
No, it didn't, and Ranma had to admit that. Hotaru was being as cheerful as she could - and while it was very obviously false to anyone who knew her well enough, Ranma did appreciate the effort. He said as much to the girl, whose alabaster cheeks seemed to glow a subtle pink with the kind words. Definitely something Ranma had been missing on giving the poor girl for a while.
It had been three days now since he had woken up, three days since he found the girls he lived with now knew the truth about his curse. While he wanted to change back to his normal form, Hotaru had nixed the idea, saying that the damage he'd sustained in battle was very great and she almost hadn't been able to help him at all. When Ranma fell silent and checked his ki, he'd found he had almost emptied himself dry helping the senshi. Indeed, even then, a week after the event, healed by Hotaru, he'd only just recovered enough of his life energies to regain consciousness.
The day before, he'd done his best to get out of bed, prove Hotaru wrong about her diagnosis. He had managed to hobble around the dormitory, but hadn't been able to climb stairs at all, and had been as weak as a kitten. Indeed, Usagi knocked him down in the kitchen by throwing open the fridge door a little too fast on the way for a snack. Hotaru had promised to take him into town the next day if he was feeling better. He was - still too weak to risk a transformation, but feeling well enough to try and tackle the stairs to the road.
That was an ordeal in itself. Ranma now had a better appreciation of how Hotaru had found things before his training had begun to strengthen her ever so slightly. In her transformed state, she could easily overpower him in a straight-out slugfest, but Ranma held the upper hand in skill and experience. Or so he liked to believe. It was the only one of two conclusions he had made during their sparring matches that he accepted - the other was that she was holding back for fear of hurting him. Much more of a blow to Ranma's ego, that one.
The walk into town had been tough, but by now, Ranma was mostly fine. The exercise and eating returned his strength and vitality to him, and he could walk fine enough now, without having to be helped. He had been spared that embarrassment in public, at least. He thought he might be okay to try a transformation back to his normal body in a day or two, but was't going to push it. If he continued recovering at the rate he was thus far, then he might give it a go. But if he plateaued, if he levelled out, he'd give it some more time.
At least he no longer thought of his female form as the curse he once had - it was very useful at times. And comfortable at others. He touched Hotaru's arm as he reached her. "I'm hungry again. Let's find something to eat."
******
"Hungry again?" Hotaru asked, disbelieving. He nodded, and they found a small street cart to buy and eat instant ramen from.
She'd already watched Ranma put away four big-sized meals today... and it wasn't even lunch time yet. In addition to that, he'd had numerous in-between snacks. She guessed it was something to do with replenishing his energy, similar to the recommendations when she'd had a series of blood tests years ago, when she'd had her 'problems', around the time she first met Usagi, that one should eat and drink a large meal afterwards, to help replenish the blood in her body.
Yet Ranma had put away enough to feed a small African country, and still looked hungry.
No wonder he could harness such energies when he needed to; the man was a checmical powerhouse.
She could feel Ranma's life force building within him again, like a rare flower unfolding in a myriad of intricate patterns, ever faster, always rushing to catch those all-too-brief summer rays of light. She was attuned to injured people in some way, she'd found a long time ago, but now... she seemed to be finding ways of feeling people without seeing them, without touching them. She suspected that was part of Ranma's teachings, but it wasn't something he'd covered, apart from a few blindfolded lessons with her, Rei and Mitsuki to teach them about listening for an opponent's moves and actions.
It was something she'd have to bring up.
She could feel Ranma's presence, burning stronger and stronger with every passing minute, especially when he ate, and could detect small puffs of energy and life passing around behind and beside her - ordinary people, going about ordinary lives.
Then something made her hair stand on end. A light, burning bright, at least as strong as Ranma used to be. At least. She suspected the sensation she was receiving diminished with distance. She turned, regardless, to see if she could see who was filled with such energy. But all she could see were normal people, heads down, leading their normal lives.
And one tall blond man, slightly foreign looking, standing on the other side of the street, looking up at the sky. As she continued to stare, she felt that this man was the source of the energy, and as she watched, he slowly turned his head to look at her directly.
She felt a rush of something within her, moments later decided it had to be hormones or something similar as she felt intensely attracted to the handsome stranger. His clothes were dark, but casual rather than the formal of most twenty-something males currently on the street. His face was pleasant, his eyes easy and reassuring, his nose straight and chin strong. He nodded, almost imperceptibly at her, then turned back to the skies above, staring as if he'd never seen them before.
Hotaru's knees felt weak.
Ranma stopped slurping up his ramen, and turned to Hotaru. "What's up? You're quiet."
"Oh... uh, nothing," she blushed. "Nothing at all, sempai. It's just..." She turned back to the street to spot the mysterious handsome man, but he had vanished. She turned back to Ranma. "Nothing."
"Okay." He continued to eye her in that way of his when he knew she wasn't telling the truth, but wouldn't call her on it, leaving her her privacy. It was something he was very good at, letting others keep their secrets. Something to do with his personal code of honour or something, she hypothesised.
Meanwhile, she continued to sip at her drink, waiting for Ranma to finish so she could be cheerful and chirpy again. Quite how Usagi did this all day long, every day, Hotaru didn't know. Or would Minako be the one to ask? Who knew? Not Hotaru. It was very draining, being nice and happy all the time. Well, being nice was what she was like all the time, she felt, but occasionally she snapped at people, acted in a sneaky manner, among other things.
And it had been just over a week since she'd attended Furinken High. That made her wonder what schemes Nabiki Tendo had gotten up to while she had been gone. Without Hotaru around, the young senshi would find it hard to counter anything she had done before it involved Ranma. That powder that Nabiki used on Ranma a month or so ago was a surprise that Hotaru didn't think she could afford again. Yet she didn't know what it did. Ami hadn't been able to determine anything about it, and pondered whether it would do anything at all. Hotaru hadn't found anything physically wrong with Ranma, so maybe that powder was suppose dto do soemthing natural, if anything at all. A laxitive or something.
She shrugged; this afternoon, she'd have to attend the school, to get her notes for the previous week and to catch up on Nabiki's plans. That was a definite. IF she could Ranma home first.
Noticing that Ranma was finished, she stood up. Ranma followed suit.
"Ranma, why -"
Ranma held a hand up. "Hotaru, stop." She obliged. "It's so nice of you to want to cheer me up. Really. But, uh, you know, you've got things to do. Like school for instance! And I've got things to do. I've gotta get back in shape. I've gotta get my body back the way it was. I've missed a week, over a week, of training - that's not good. I've got to start getting back into my routine, and you've got to get back into yours."
"Ranma, I *like* looking after you!"
"I know, Hotaru-chan, and I like you looking after me, believe me," Ranma sighed. "But... c'mon, you gotta get back into your life, too. You gotta go to school, you gotta train - and how can you train properly if your teacher isn't able to move?" He snorted.
Hotaru had to admit, he had a point. The more she looked after him, the more both would be tempted to forget about their outside lives. Or so it seemed to her. Maybe it was a residual hormone surge from seeing that man, but she leaned forward and kissed Ranma on the lips. Ranma acted a little shocked, but wasn't going to pull away.
******
Two kids stopped and stared at the two girls kissing in front of the ramen stand. One turned to the other and said, "See, Hiroshi, what did I tell you? It's a good luck charm."
Hiroshi growled under his breath.
******
Hotaru waved goodbye to Ranma and walked away. Ranma turned back to the ramen stand to get his breath back. That had been some kiss... and he hadn't wanted it to end, either. But he had some examining to do that he didn't want Hotaru around for. He'd felt the energy spike behind him a whole lot clearer than Hotaru had, and he had much more control over his body and emotions than she had... yet even he himself had been slightly attracted to the source of power. Like the relentless pull of gravity surrounding a major planet, he likened it to. He felt it with the senshi, even when they were in their unpowered forms, an attraction that pulled at him. With Hotaru, he had let the attraction pull him to her, and let his own personality and humour pull her to him. If something was going to happen between them, it would, and it would damned well happen naturally.
He'd felt the way Hotaru had reacted, and felt a pang of jealousy. Yet he couldn't blame her for her reaction; the person who was throwing out that kind of energy was extremely powerful, more so than Hotaru had noticed. He was also tending towards the darker side of nature, like these Dark Kingdom creatures Ranma had faced off against with the senshi at his side. Yet, in his condition, he doubted he could have blocked a punch, let alone a projected ki blast, and he hadn't made a move to boost his own power levels faster or prepare for combat. He'd remained as if completely oblivious to it all. Hotaru hadn't picked up on the likely affiliation of the man; but that was okay. He trusted her not to do anything stupid, like try and follow him.
He hoped, anyway.
******
Hotaru walked along a concreted drainage stream, thinking quietly to herself about how she would present her absence to Nabiki Tendo. Perhaps the 'flu might be a good excuse, or some other illness - God knew, Hotaru Tomoe had been inflicted with enough illnesses over her lifetime. Possibly even a pulled muscle, a strain, or a dead relative.
Or perhaps... no, she blushed at that thought. As far as Nabiki apparently thought, Hotaru lvied with her strict parents. Managing to sneak her boyfriend over for one day might be believable, but for over a week? Not likely.
She had a hand on the chain-link fence as she walked when she heard something. It sounded like a cat's nervous cries for help. She peered through the fence, and there, just up a little, beside a hole in the mesh, was a cat, a slightly off-white colour with purple tufts of fur on its head. Beside the hole was a bike, and in the distance, fast moving away, was a cloud of dust and smoke being whipped up by what Hotaru assumed to be some of the Nerima people she had been meeting.
The cat was hanging into a branch just below the hole in the fence, and was wet and bedraggled, struggling to hold on as the branch slipped further and further from the fence and closer towards the gushing stream below. There was panic in its eyes and tension in its body.
"Hello, kitty," Hotaru called, lying her bag next to the concrete abutment the fence sat on and poking her head and shoulders slowly through the fence. "Come here, come on" she continued, holding out her hands.
The cat tried to swipe at a hand, but was too far away. The branch slipped further down towards the water.
Hotaru leaned further through the fence, finally resting her knees on the concrete to reach in as far as she could. "Here kitty, kitty," she called again. The cat took one look at Hotaru's now-within reach arms, and fled up them, scratching and clawing as she went.
The girl was surprised - a knee slipped, and she went through the fence herself now, as the cat made it through onto the road next to the bike. It made a sound almost like a raspberry, Hotaru thought, as she now clutched to the unsteady branch.
The branch shifted again, groaning under the new, much heavier weight. It bent. Hotaru righted herself, turning so she now faced the hole in the fence, and tried to reach upwards, to grab the fence. But the branch slipped, and her feet splashed into the water. It gave a little more, and as Hotaru tried one last time to reach safety, the branch snapped just above her hands, and both halves fell into the water, taking the girl with them.
While the stream wasn't terribly wide - only a few metres at most - it wasn't shallow, and the water was moving rather fast. The current swept at Hotaru, and the girl's body didn't offer much resistance. She tried putting some effort into swimming, but wasn't strong enough to make it. She opened her mouth to activate her transformation, and swallowed a mouthful of water.
It was only the first. More quickly followed, and then her vision was obscured as the water closed over her. She thought she saw something -
- something big, something dark, hovering over the water -
******
So, where was this guy? Ranma was searching through the streets in the direction he'd felt the man head towards, but could find no trace of his energies. He had to be around somewhere. And it's not like a tall foreigner could hide so easily in a mostly Japanese community, on a purely visual level. He had to be here somewhere.
Instead of finding his target, though, he felt a surge of the dark energy he associated with Dark Kingdom monsters erupt from a side alley he was passing, and when he looked down -
******
Lips.
Soft, tender, yet insistant and powerful.
Giving her new life.
Hotaru coughed, and the lips disappeared. She opened her eyes, and saw light, streaming down from above. A man's shadow leaning over her.
Complete and utter silence.
And a smell.
A brief flutter, like those of a bird's wings, and the man was gone in a swirl of light from above, heading off in the direction of the sun so she couldn't make out any features.
But she saw one thing.
He had blond hair.
She sat up, unable to move after him. There were footsteps behind her, angry footsteps, and she turned to face them. Shampoo, holding a dress in place as she fastened it around her shoulders. She fumed, the anger coming off the Chinese girl in near visible waves.
"You take Shampoo's airen," Shampoo growled. "What you doing here?"
Hotaru stared up, dazed and confused a little. "Wha?"
As if by magic, bonbori appeared in Shampoo's hands. "You not nice girl! You viper! You steal Shampoo's airen!"
Hotaru shook her head, trying to clear it and also to refute the charge laid against her. "No, I... we... he likes me. And I like him."
Shampoo snarled, and leapt.
Only to be caught in midair. "Hands such as these peasant's hands should never so much as caress the outermost layers of clothing of a goddess such as this," Tatewaki Kuno announced, holding the Amazon up with one hand and deftly warding off what would normally be crippling blows from the enraged girl. "Flee, ruffian, and leave my goddess alone." He gave a toss, and Shampoo bounced down close to her bike. She scowled at Kuno and Hotaru.
"This not over yet." Then there was a ring of her bike's bell, and Shampoo was gone.
Kuno turned back to Hotaru, and bent down on one knee, lowering his head. "I apologise for not ceasing this dreadful attack on your person sooner." He thought it best not to offer the reason, in case it should be taken as an excuse. Hotaru got Kuno to help her to her feet. "Shall I assist you to school?"
"Yes, please, sempai," Hotaru muttered, running her fingers through her hair and grimacing. Not only were her clothes wet, but her hair was a mess. At least her bag was dry. She retreived it, and took one last look at the hole in the fence. And sniffed.
The smell of roses was still strong in the air.
******
- he saw a young girl he recognised. "You again."
Natsumi Otohime looked up from where she was trying to rip off flesh and congealed blood from a wound in her side. "Who are you?"
Ah. That's right. Ranma had met this girl in combat, and in meditation, yet he'd thought the meditative event was simply a hallucination. And whlie he recognised her, she might not recognise him. Well, he'd have thought she might in his girl body - what he was in then - but not his male form. So that was a little confusing, too. But... it was dark in the alley, darker than it had any right to be, and it was bright outside. Perhaps she couldn't see his face?
Ranma stepped closer. "You're hurt."
Natsumi laughed. "You went to university to make that informed decision?" She gave a cough, and black ichor geysered from her nose. "Scram, normal. I've got other things to worry about right now. But if you don't leave, I'll make sure you stay for good."
That sounded like good advice to Ranma, who was never known to stay around in a fight when he was losing. And he would lose this one, if it came to that, with the levels of power Natsumi was throwing out compared to his own. Yet, something held him back. "What happened to you?"
"I screwed up. Tried to get rid of the Master's favourite. Okay?" She coughed again.
Something in Ranma twisted. Something coiled. He asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"
SAILOR MOON SAYS
A short chapter this time. I've discovered new games on my new computer :) Yay! I can play things more recent than 1998 now, and I'm loving it :)
Unfortunately, that's having a corresponding knock-on effect with my writing :P I started this chapter the other day, should have started it much earlier. But it's finished now. No, you didn't miss anything with this chapter, this has gone back to the beginning of this arc. The first chapter of this arc was the last. But was it everything of the last chapter, or were bits missing? Hmm. How did things get that bad? Where the heck are things in this chapter going?
Next time: Umm... does anyone actually read this far? We catch up with Natsumi over the last week. Next time, on Something Moderately Interesting Some Of The Time! Uh, Love. ^^;;