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 8
** What Would Ranma Saotome Do? **
"Hotaru," breathed Ranma, "Come on, you can do it!"
Mistress Saturn struggled, visibly, the goodness and light within breaking free from the shackles that had bound her core of being, returning once more to the surface. The darkened fuku lightened again, into the familiar royal purple of Sailor Saturn, the woman Ranma Saotome knew well. The rest of the costume stretched back into its normal cut and positionings, and Saturn shook her head. "What...?" she asked slowly. "What happened?"
"Yoshihiro had you enslaved," Ranma said, leaning forward to comfort the younger woman. "He took you over, made you do bad things." Over Ranma's shoulder, Saturn could see the bad things. She could also see Tatewaki Kuno, standing off to one side, eyes bowed in tandem with his bokken, standing in silent salute to his goddess. "But it's all over now, you're better now."
Saturn's eyes moved, taking in the damage and devastation. "I did this?"
"That's of no importance. You didn't hurt anyone. He made you do it. It's his fault."
Saturn's eyes grew large and round, as she remembered the things she had done, the atrocities committed by her hand, in her name.
No.
In *his* name. By *his* hand. Ranma was right. Ranma was always right. She pulled free of Ranma's embrace, turned to face Yoshihiro, fire burning in her eyes. "This time, you die," she growled, feet sinking into the concrete as she powered up her ki aura. Ranma stepped back, happy to see his most favoured pupil had learnt all he could teach. She was stronger, no, maybe just as strong, no... just a little less stronger than him.
He had to be the stronger one, else he couldn't help her from Yoshihiro.
Wait. *Was* the stronger one, because he'd saved her from Yoshihiro.
No. Dammit, that didn't work either. Ranma sighed, slapped the top of a concrete wall in frustration as he leapt past. Fantasy life was all well and good, but unless he could figure out that all important *how to SAVE Hotaru*, there wasn't much good in thinking past that point.
Another fence came up, and his toes barely touched it, ki blsting out through his feet to propel him once more into the skies once more. Furinken High School was in the distance now, far, far in the distance. The devastation away from him. He had known Hotaru was strong, heck, he'd felt the pulled punches in training, and SEEN the punches that could pulverise reinforced concrete when in combat. And he'd known that, even then, she was holding back.
For Sailor Saturn had the power to level planets, something that put Ranma right out of her weight class, as it were.
So, how was he to 'bring her back'? He couldn't beat Yoshihiro's influence out of her, if anything that'd strengthen it. But likewise, he couldn't expect to face her, try to turn her, without it getting physical. Damn. That made things difficult. Because, while Ranma was dodging punches, kicks and seemingly-magical attacks, he'd also have to be changing her mind. And while taunts were easy to produce, the level of conversation Ranma suspected would be needed to bring her around, to get her to throw off the dark cloud holding her in thrall herself, could very well be beyond him as he nursed various broken bones and missing limbs.
An evil Saturn was a Saturn unbound by moral strictures.
Not good, in other words.
Suddenly, he stopped his bouncing. The feeling he associated with Yoshihiro while in his male body, a shivering hatred that crawled up the back of his spine into his skull, had vanished. So had the currently-blackened star he associated with Hotaru. Both had gone... somewhere else.
He turned to face Furinken. Nothing. Not so much as a murmur of either feeling. He could rest. But what could he do now? He flexed a hand, clenched it into a fist. Pain rippled up it, a sensation similar to dipping his hand into a jar of needles. It didn't seem to be damaged, he surmised on inspection, and decided that he was coming down off his adrenyline high, and the pain of transformation while still a little weakened and after so long was now surfacing.
Where could he go to calm down, to relax, to meditate, until the pain was gone? He couldn't get far. And yet, this was Nerima. Unless he wanted some serious problems in the immediate future, Ranma had to move on. He tensed his legs to leap upwards again, but pain wracked them, and he doubled up, eventually falling off the fence he'd stopped on. Thankfully, he didn't fall into the stream on the other side of the fence, but instead onto the soft grass of a small garden on the side of a pathway. Ranma curled into a small foetal ball, tried to focus beyond the pain, and found he couldn't.
So he did the next best thing, and passed out.
******
Sailor Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Nemesis gazed at the ruined school building. Students, dazed, were already starting to wander around. They seemed to be used to destruction, but this time, something was so seriously wrong, that they weren't sure how to react. Shellshocked was the word Mercury had used. Sailor Moon believed it. Mercury had said something about punches and kicks breaking the sound barrier, and the compression waves in the atmosphere from them having the same effect on the students as the blast wave of compressed air from a bomb burst had on soliders. Sailor Moon believed that, too, even if she thought Mercury was being overly simplistic in having to describe the same phenomenon twice. Sailor Moon thought Mercury was a little shocked herself.
And she had to admit, she was, as well.
The school's front building was ruined. Not levelled to the ground, but the holes smashed through entire sections, flooring destroyed on most floors, support columns smashed beyond repair, and the foundations shifting under the concussive onslaught they'd been forced to endure. The building was a waste. It would have to be torn down anyway.
And still the students wandered.
One walked up to them, a wooden bokken held at his side. "Verily, it seems my day for the fortuitous arrival of goddesses," he said, in a noble-sounding voice. Slightly superior, yet offering his inferiority to those before him. He bowed his head, spoke with his eyes lowered to Sailor Moon. "Speak, order me that I might do your will."
Sailor Moon glanced at Mercury, who was still staring through her computer's visor at the ruined building, then back to the young man before her. She guessed he was attractive in a way, traditionally so more than anything else. And his shoulders... reminded her of Mamoru. Big. Square. Solid. Shoulders for holding on to in the depths of night.
Uh... back on the job, she chided herself. Out loud, she asked, "Do you know who did this?" knowing who had, but needing to find out for certain. Confirmation would hurt, knowing that once more, Saturn was corrupted. But Rei had already told them such, and this was a mere formality.
Yet, a formality that had to be observed.
"Yes, my lady, it was the goddess Saturn, she of the raven hair and the short skirts." Sailor Moon noticed him eyeing the hem of her skirt, as well, and shifted position slightly so as to hide as much of herself as she could. Which was difficult, but possible, if one was imaginative.
"That sounds like her," she said, turning to Mercury.
"Was it the name 'Saturn' that was the dead-giveaway for you, Sailor Moon?" Mars asked, sarcastically.
"Hey! We've got a problem here that includes one of the senshi and our dorm's manager!" Sailor Moon growled. "You think maybe we can keep the bitchy comments out of it for once? Just once? Hmm?" Mars shrank back a little, deciding that now wasn't the time to needle Sailor Moon. Truth be told, she felt a little unsure of the situation and of herself as well. She'd felt the enemy's influence inside Saturn, the dark tendrils of power twisted around the core of her being. The scared little girl, calling for help, at the centre of it all.
"Mercury!" Sailor Moon called, gaining the senshi's attention. Mercury retracted her visor as she turned to face her leader. "Is there anything you can tell us from this? What turned her? Is Ranma still here?"
"You know that scoundrel, Ranma Saotome?" the man asked, with a little disgust in his voice. "I, Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder of Furinken High, shall tell you of the vile deeds he has done before being co-opted by my goddess -" his voice cut off as Sailor Moon's hand slapped across his mouth. She gave him a dirty look before turning back to Mercury.
"Sailor Mercury?"
Mercury shook her head. "As far as I'm aware, neither is here. There aren't any bodies... Ranma must have done his best to contain her. I can't find any bodies."
Jupiter whistled in appreciation. "Well, he can fight, we know that now."
Mars nodded once in agreement. "And he survived against a pissed-off senshi. He's gonna get higher marks in my book. I'm definitely listening to him more in training."
Nemesis was staring at a point on the ground, in front of the building. She'd been staring at someone lying there for some time, hadn't offered anything to the conversation. Then she left the group, headed over towards the person.
"Who is it?" Mars asked.
"I think... it's Ranma's ex-fiance," Nemesis replied, bending and scooping up the unconscious young woman. She raised her voice as she stood up. "Can someone tell me where this girl lives?"
******
Cologne had felt the micro-airbursts from the concussive blasts inside her restaurant. A fight. She had paused, considering. A serious fight, she decided. Very serious, the way a whole shelf of plates had jumped to the ground after a particularly large one shook the Nekohanten. Mousse turned to face the direction of the school also.
"What was that?" he asked rhetorically, knowing full-well what it was. What he meant was more along the lines of 'who IS that?"
Shampoo poked her head through the interior door. "Aiya! Great-greanmother!"
"Yes, child," Cologne mused quietly, "I feel him, too."
"Feel who?" Mousse asked, lost. Then he adjusted his glasses as realisation hit him. "Oh. Ranma?"
"And someone else. Someone strong."
"Girl who save me," Shampoo muttered from the doorway.
"Interesting," Cologne said, almost to herself. "Son-in-law is doing well, too." Another powerful crump rattled cups. There was a pause, and then nothing. Silence. The energy flows Cologne had been sensing drained away, and Ranma's presence departed the school. "Very interesting. Shampoo, Mousse, I think it time we pay the Tendo's a visit..."
"Why we go to angry girl's house?"
"It's time, Shampoo. Son-in-law is weakened, and hurt. The enemies of the tribe will be out to avenge him. Our time has come, for revenge."
"Revenge?" Mousse asked, pushing his glasse back up his nose. "For what? I've never heard of anything like you've described these women to be before."
Cologne gave the nearly-blind man a withering glare. "You are not privvy to every morsel of history of the tribe, Mousse. I suggest you remember that, and do as I say."
******
The senshi weren't the only people to leave the Ai Sou to investigate the happenings in Nerima. Two cats, one white, one black, stood over Ranma's unconscious form. Luna turned to Artemis. "Should we wake him?" she asked, quietly.
Artemis considered. "Let him sleep. Whether Sailor Saturn hurt him or not is beside the point. He's had a massive shock to his system, both emotional and with this physical change again after so long... I suggest we let him rest a while longer."
Luna nodded slowly, in agreement. But there had to be something they could do to even up the score for Ranma, to let him actually stand a chance against a rabid senshi. As Artemis padded off, Luna came to a decision, and ran through a series of mental calculations before attempting a small backflip. At the apex of her flight, a small interdimensional vortex opened, and a henshin wand dropped from it into Ranma's hand. "Rest easy, Sailor Ceres," she whispered in Ranma's ear before following her partner.
******
Soun Tendo answered the knocking on the front gate with a scowl. A critical moment in the shogi game, and he just KNEW his playing opposition was going to somehow be winning when he returned. He'd often suspected Genma Saotome of cheating, yet Soun had never caught him at it, and just as often decided he'd forgotten what moves had been played recently, that he hadn't been paying enough attention. Yet this time, this time, he had Genma. He had him dead. It was Soun's turn to win.
So he opened the gate, and a young woman, tall, in a black short skirt, and a white sleeveless top with a black bow, strode past him and into the house. the clothing looked like an abbrivated school uniform, Soun thought idly to himself, but not a local one. While his mind was processing satorial information about the intruder, the rest of him caught up to the fact there were another five girls trailing after her. A blond one stopped next to him, gave a cheery smile, and said, "Relax. We're the Bishoujo Sailor Senshi, and we're just returning your daughter." Then she too disappeared into the house.
"Are you friends of Akane's?" he called out, but to no avail. The girls were gone. He shrugged, decided whatever it was didn't concern him, and shut the gate before walking back to the game board.
A quick study of the board followed. And silence.
Damn. What was he thinking with those moves? He'd just given the game away to Genma.
******
Nabiki threw open the door to Akane's bedroom, and with the force she used, it rebounded off the end of its track, bouncing back into her. Trying not to succumb to embarrassment and trying to project an image of anger, she snarled, "What are you doing with my little sister?"
One of the shorter girls, with a blue colour scheme, looked up from beside Akane. "I assure you, your sister is safe. We wee just getting her home safely."
"Safely? One of you bitches just tried to KILL us all!"
The women exchanged glances. Then one of the two blond women stepped forward. "Hey, it wasn't her fault. She's been possessed by a dark force from an alternate dimension!"
"Great going, Sailor Moon," the raven-haired women muttered, "Now she'll think we're CRAZY flirts."
But Nabiki paused. "I've heard worse stories," she admitted. She seemed to accept the version the blond with the dumplings stuck on her head had put forward with little more than a nod and she moved up beside Akane, and checked her out. "What's wrong with her? I didn't see her get hit."
"Do you know what happened at the school?" the woman in the blue skirt asked.
The one in black grunted. "There was a fight. She got knocked silly by the shockwaves of those punches."
Nabiki shook her head. "No, Akane's stronger than that. I bet it was that guy who had been playing with Hotaru's head this morning..." her voice drifted off as she calculated various methods of gaining revenge for injuring her little sister, none of them pleasant - none of them physical, and all of them financial.
"He... uh, what did he do to her?" Dumpling Head asked again.
Nabiki shook her head. "I don't know. They were talking while Ranma and that other girl were fighting, and then I lost track of the guy, and of Akane. When I saw her, you women were standing over her. But you grabbed her and took off before I could get to you."
"We moved faster than you could have followed," the one in the red skirt said. "So how did you know where we went? And how did you get back here so fast?"
"Kuno-baby told me where you were headed. I took a shortcut." Nabiki shrugged.
"Was it just talking?" the one in blue queried, a concerned look on her face.
Nabiki shrugged again, her attention focussed on her sister. She knealt down beside Akane, stroked her face. Akane's features stirred under the light sensations across her face. "I don't know," she repeated, eventually. "But Hotaru... she wasn't the kind of girl to exactly fly off like this. Cruel and calculating, perhaps, if she's been spying on us for this long, and her words were calculated to do the most damage they could to Ranma... heck, even I could see that... but..." Nabiki shook her head.
"Oh my," someone said from the doorway. As one, the senshi turned, beheld yet another of the Tendo sisters. This one was older; Kasumi. "What happened to Akane?"
Something about her made Mercury's spine shiver in apprehension, but she couldn't find anything visually about the older woman that screamed BAD PERSON at her. Almost unbidden, her visor dropped over her eyes, but again, while it gave off warning indications, it couldn't pinpoint anything in particular. It flipped back upwards into her tiara, and seeing as the other senshi appeared to have the same apprehensions as she had, she spoke for the group. "A... friend of ours, under the control of some master mental manipulator, attacked Ranma Saotome at the local high school. We're not sure what's wrong with Akane. I suspect she's just sleeping. She should wake any time."
Mercury's words were prophetic, for Akane stirred, moving her arms and legs, then opening her eyes. "What happened?" she asked.
"No one really knows, Akane," Nabiki said from her side. "I saw you talking to the guy who twisted Hotaru's head around, and then he was gone and you were unconscious. Did he... hit you or anything?" Akane shook her head.
"Maybe he hypnotised you?" the girl with the dumplings-styled hair said brightly. "You know, that happens an awful lot. Or these bad guys have bright, beautiful young girls fall in love with them..." Her voice trailed off as she realised everyone, including the happy-happy sister standing in the doorway, was staring at her in disbelief. "What? It happened to a friend of mine, okay?" She blushed and turned away.
Kasumi stepped back from the doorway, and the dark aura seeped back from Mercury; perhaps she'd been imagining things? Because, after all, no one could be that calm and happy and relaxed upon finding a bunch of strange women in her little sister's bed, with her little sister stretched out, cold, on her futon. She gave a smile, tilting her head. "It's good to see you're okay, Akane," she said, earnestly. "I'll go get some refreshments for our friends." She smiled again, and was gone, walking down the stairs towards the kitchen.
"Do you remember anything about the man you were talking to?" Mercury asked the tired young woman.
Akane stared up at Mercury, confusion in her eyes. "I was talking to a man?" Her face and mind were a total blank.
******
Ranma stirred, finally. The pain had receded eventually, and now, it only hurt occasionally when he moved. Which he wasn't doing a lot of. conscious thought took a little while to make sense, and thus he was thinking very, very slowly. What would he do? What was his next move?
There was a weight on his chest. It hurt his damaged rib, which was knitting as rapidly as his more serious injuries seemed to. Something cool, something hard. A hand reached up, clasped the small object. It warmed instantly at his touch, this object, about the size of a pen. Seemed to be some kind of metal, but it was responding to him. He raised it up to the point where he could see it clearly.
One of the little transformation wands the senshi had. He'd seen Hotaru's often enough to know what one of those things were. But he hadn't seen the design on it before...
Oh dear. He had a bad thought. This... wasn't his, was it? Oh Kami, it was... The thought embarrassed him.
Yet, it would give him a better chance at holding Hotaru... Mistress Saturn... at bay while he tried to break through whatever mental whammy Yoshihiro had placed on her. It would give him an advantage, too, as she wouldn't be expecting another... what? Magical girl? Like a female form given by a cursed spring wasn't magical enough? He snorted.
A closer squint at the wand showed the word 'Ceres' etched into the symbol affixed to the end. Weird. Did this mean he was going to have to wave the wand and yell out one of those embarrassing transformation activation phrases the magical girls did on television? And then suffer an even more embarrassing transformation sequence in which he'd likely be naked in front of a whole lot of people?
Possibly.
But at least he could make it a little less embarrassing. Now, about this time, Ranma knew, there was a certain woman who would be doing her washing...
******
"Now?"
Even to the lowest of the surviving Youma in Yoshihiro's pocket dimension, Mistress Saturn sounded to be whining. She'd been at him since they'd returned, Saturn seeming to walk with a little limp that had repaired itself within minutes, and a slightly torn uniform that had been the interest of many of the shorter creatures in the main thronechamber.
Yoshihiro sat, eyes closed, face perfectly composed. Mistress Saturn couldn't tell what was going on inside of him... but she knew what she wanted. She knew this man. Or rather, he knew her. Knew her in ways Ranma could never hope to know her. All the items she'd glossed over or just not told Ranma about when she'd been Hotaru... every hope, every dream... every fear.
The little girl who'd cowered from lightning had been pulled screaming into the darkness under the bed by the scaly hands of a monster the likes she'd never hoped to see. And Mistress Saturn knew, that little girl was still inside, not fighting, but only because she thought she was powerless. Yoshihiro's hold over her was... well, dependant on this young one's fear, her shame, of another knowing her perfectly. Of having peered into her soul.
That had made it easier for the subtle magics to work on her, that had locked her personality up, let her urges take control, the darker impulses that hid witin even the most purest of hearts. All he had needed was an opening. All he had needed... was her attention.
Yoshihiro was a master manipulator, and growing to be a master stratigian as well. Umiko stood to his right, slightly behind the throne, with a slight smirk on her face. If anyone questioned it, it was gone. But to those who kept a wary eye on her, she who was already becoming known as She Who Had Removed The Popular One, she looked assured of her position, of her place.
The mother of the Master had its perks.
But Saturn cared for none of this. "Please! You said another time! You said soon! I could play with him again soon!"
Yoshihiro didn't show it, but he was considering. It didn't suit his plans to have the young martial artist removed quite so permanently from the picture yet... and the longer Mistress Saturn waited, the longer she was forced to bide her time, the more likely she'd do serious injury to Ranma. And yet, allowing her to go now, while he likely hadn't recovered, she could very easily forget when to stop playing with him and kill him by accident.
But then, he considered, Ranma's ki levels were rising once more. His life force was beginning to pump ever stronger, and even in the few days he had been observing Ranma in his female form, Yoshihiro had been surprised at the rpgress the martial artist had made in recovering his strength. Even at the end of the fight with Mistress Saturn, Ranma had been recovering, scratches and grazes pulling tight and closed, bruises fading, even what Yoshihiro suspected was a broken rib appearing to give him less and less trouble as he talked before leaping away over the school fence and disappearing.
However, there was also the chance that this powerful new toy he'd acquired would revert to her previous personality. He'd found she'd been possessed before, not by someone quite as skilled as him, but by someone slightly more powerful. For the moment, at least, he allowed. She'd set up defences, knew how to fight it, could make his creation pause at a critical moment - if only she'd stop crying and wailing for help; Yoshihiro could hear her in his mind, through the link he shared with all his children.
Ultimately, though, she had an itch. And it needed scratching. He nodded at Mistress Saturn. "Go. Don't kill him. Return when you are done."
Saturn flashed him a savage grin, twisted and vanished from the dimension.
******
"It is always nice to see you, Cologne, but why are you here?"
"Soun Tendo, you know as well as I do you are hiding guests from me. I merely wish to give them my welcome." Cologne shifted on her walking stick, giving an air of openness, and indifference. Shampoo and Mousse stood behind her in flanking positions, neither looking like they were ready to fight, but Soun knew that both were extremely competant fighters, and were quite capable of dealing with him, even from a standing start. Not that he consciously thought of that.
Yet he wasn't going to give anything away.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Soun said, stalling, wondering who the girls who had brought Akane home were. Wondering if they knew they'd somehow made a powerful enemy. Cologne didn't just come over for nothing, especially when Ranma wasn't around. Did this have something to do with him? Soun didn't know. He was aware of Nabiki peeking from Akane's window upstairs, then her face vanished. "My daughter Akane is inside, though, and she has some friends over. Perhaps you mean them? Would you like to meet them?"
Cologne nodded.
******
"Do you guys know her?" Nabiki asked quietly, careful so her voice didn't carry beyond the room. The three Amazons downstairs were reknowned for above average hearing.
The woman who'd introduced herself as Sailor Nemesis looked contrite. "I nearly killed her daughter," she mumbled.
Nabiki stared. Then remembered Cologne's story of the evil women Ranma lived with. "You're... the girls from the dormitory?" she asked, confused, as the knowledge linked itself together in her brain unwillingly and she compared the senshi to the girls she'd so briefly seen. "All of you? Well, I guess Hotaru is..." she muttered to herself.
The senshi looked at one another uncomfortably. They hadn't known Nabiki for long, but they already knew something of her wont for exploiting people via blackmail to make money... would this be used against them at any time? Akane broke the silence. "Well, if you're like that Hotaru girl Nabiki knows, I guess you're all magical girls, too." She mentally chidded herself for being so obvious. "What I mean is, you've all got... non-magical forms? You might be able to hide that way."
"Why?" asked Sailor Moon, herself a little confused.
"Because the woman coming up the stairs now doesn't exactly like you," Nabiki explained.
That was an argument the senshi didn't exactly like. However, there was still the problem of transforming in public. Most didn't like transforming within Ranma's sight, and he had known for a lot longer just who most of the senshi were. But Nemesis shrugged, not wanting to hurt the young woman Ranma called Shampoo again, and let her alter ego slip from her like a cloak. The others followed suit.
There was a light tap at the door. "Akane?" Soun asked, quietly.
The door slid open at a tap from Cologne's cane. She peered into the room suspiciously, saw Akane propped up on an elbow on her futon, Nabiki sitting next to her with a hand on her shoulder. And on the floor around the futon were a number of girls, about Shampoo's age. Cologne glared, but recovered from her surprise; she'd been expecting much more powerful people, not mere children. "Greetings," she croaked.
Further conversation was halted by the sound of air rushing inwards, smashing together at supra-aural velocities. Half the roof above Akane's room was smashed, ripped upwards by the sudden creation of vacuum, revealing a hovering patch of darkness. It was two dimensional, more like a painting than a doorway, yet Mistress Saturn stepped through it, landed lightly on the rim of the wall surrounding Akane's room, and smiled cruelly in towards the assembled people.
"I see my beloved isn't here yet," she sighed theatrically, "so I guess I'll have to take my frustrations out on you."
The senshi leaped to their feet, yet didn't transform; they waited for Sailor Moon to give the signal. Kasumi tensed, too, but then relaxed. "Oh, hello Ranma," she said, cheerfully.
Everyone turned to look past Saturn, out through Akane's window into the yard.
On the fence opposite stood Ranma, in his female form once more. He looked angry, hands bunched in fists. One held something that none could make out.
"That's one step too far, Hotaru," he said in a quiet tone, yet it carried across the yard perfectly. Everyone else stayed silent.
"Oh? Is it, ex?" she sneered. "I mean, you couldn't stop me before, not properly, what makes you think you can stop me now?"
"This." Ranma held up the henshin wand clasped in his fist.
"Hmph," Saturn sniffed. "They were just to get your attention anyway. I didn't really want to hurt them. Nothing's as good as hurting you, beloved."
Ranma twirled the wand in his fingers, then grabbed it tight, held it high. "Ceres dirty great big rock - make up!" he yelled, saying the first thing that came into his mind. Thankfully, someone above had taken note of the fact Ranma had no idea what he was doing with the wand, and it activated, the transformation sweeping through him, reassembling his clothing into the standard senshi fuku design, coloured in greys. Mistress Saturn gave him an unappreciative glance and made an unimpressed noise deep in the back of her throat.
"I guess we fight on even terms?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, the colours aren't really my thing - you should have gotten a yellow or something, I think - but hey, whatever works for you."
Sailor Ceres smiled. Nabiki shivered; it didn't look that pleasant. It promised much destruction, much property damage. Idly, she wondered where her calculator was.
"You think I need this to fight you?" Ceres said, raising the henshin wand. "I mean, do you think so little of my fighting skill, my unenhanced strength? My will? My character?" Ceres smirked. "I don't need no change wand or short skirt to kick your butt."
And with that, Ceres raised the wand above his head, lifted his other hand to grasp the other end firmly. He paused.
"NO!" shouted Sailor Moon.
"No!" cried Luna from a nearby rooftop.
And Ceres pulled down with both hands, pushing upwards with both thumbs simultaneously. The wand bent for a moment, then snapped under the unrelenting pressure. Ceres' fuku billowed outwards into dozens of grey streamers, then reassembled in Ranma's normal outfit of loose black pants and a red Chinese shirt.
Nabiki was puzzled. "Ranma doesn't need to play dress-ups to beat her," she muttered.
Ranma's hand pointed up at Mistress Saturn, who was now puzzled. "I don't need anyone else's help to beat you, Mistress Saturn! I am Ranma Saotome, your sensei, your boyfriend! I know you in ways that Yoshihiro could never know you, because you let me, and he forced his way into you. I will free you, and I don't need any help in doin' it!"
Saturn made to say something, but Ranma's pointed finger and shout stopped her dead.
"I am Ranma Saotome. And I am going to kick your ass."
SAILOR MOON SAYS:
Whew... another chapter finished... yay! I won't say for sure, but I might have the next chapter finished in a week or two... don't wanna lose the momentum I got with setting up the cliffhanger for this chapter :)
so, next time: Hotaru's back. How's this going to affect her?
LOVE
By
Raymond Cooper
Chapter 8
** What Would Ranma Saotome Do? **
"Hotaru," breathed Ranma, "Come on, you can do it!"
Mistress Saturn struggled, visibly, the goodness and light within breaking free from the shackles that had bound her core of being, returning once more to the surface. The darkened fuku lightened again, into the familiar royal purple of Sailor Saturn, the woman Ranma Saotome knew well. The rest of the costume stretched back into its normal cut and positionings, and Saturn shook her head. "What...?" she asked slowly. "What happened?"
"Yoshihiro had you enslaved," Ranma said, leaning forward to comfort the younger woman. "He took you over, made you do bad things." Over Ranma's shoulder, Saturn could see the bad things. She could also see Tatewaki Kuno, standing off to one side, eyes bowed in tandem with his bokken, standing in silent salute to his goddess. "But it's all over now, you're better now."
Saturn's eyes moved, taking in the damage and devastation. "I did this?"
"That's of no importance. You didn't hurt anyone. He made you do it. It's his fault."
Saturn's eyes grew large and round, as she remembered the things she had done, the atrocities committed by her hand, in her name.
No.
In *his* name. By *his* hand. Ranma was right. Ranma was always right. She pulled free of Ranma's embrace, turned to face Yoshihiro, fire burning in her eyes. "This time, you die," she growled, feet sinking into the concrete as she powered up her ki aura. Ranma stepped back, happy to see his most favoured pupil had learnt all he could teach. She was stronger, no, maybe just as strong, no... just a little less stronger than him.
He had to be the stronger one, else he couldn't help her from Yoshihiro.
Wait. *Was* the stronger one, because he'd saved her from Yoshihiro.
No. Dammit, that didn't work either. Ranma sighed, slapped the top of a concrete wall in frustration as he leapt past. Fantasy life was all well and good, but unless he could figure out that all important *how to SAVE Hotaru*, there wasn't much good in thinking past that point.
Another fence came up, and his toes barely touched it, ki blsting out through his feet to propel him once more into the skies once more. Furinken High School was in the distance now, far, far in the distance. The devastation away from him. He had known Hotaru was strong, heck, he'd felt the pulled punches in training, and SEEN the punches that could pulverise reinforced concrete when in combat. And he'd known that, even then, she was holding back.
For Sailor Saturn had the power to level planets, something that put Ranma right out of her weight class, as it were.
So, how was he to 'bring her back'? He couldn't beat Yoshihiro's influence out of her, if anything that'd strengthen it. But likewise, he couldn't expect to face her, try to turn her, without it getting physical. Damn. That made things difficult. Because, while Ranma was dodging punches, kicks and seemingly-magical attacks, he'd also have to be changing her mind. And while taunts were easy to produce, the level of conversation Ranma suspected would be needed to bring her around, to get her to throw off the dark cloud holding her in thrall herself, could very well be beyond him as he nursed various broken bones and missing limbs.
An evil Saturn was a Saturn unbound by moral strictures.
Not good, in other words.
Suddenly, he stopped his bouncing. The feeling he associated with Yoshihiro while in his male body, a shivering hatred that crawled up the back of his spine into his skull, had vanished. So had the currently-blackened star he associated with Hotaru. Both had gone... somewhere else.
He turned to face Furinken. Nothing. Not so much as a murmur of either feeling. He could rest. But what could he do now? He flexed a hand, clenched it into a fist. Pain rippled up it, a sensation similar to dipping his hand into a jar of needles. It didn't seem to be damaged, he surmised on inspection, and decided that he was coming down off his adrenyline high, and the pain of transformation while still a little weakened and after so long was now surfacing.
Where could he go to calm down, to relax, to meditate, until the pain was gone? He couldn't get far. And yet, this was Nerima. Unless he wanted some serious problems in the immediate future, Ranma had to move on. He tensed his legs to leap upwards again, but pain wracked them, and he doubled up, eventually falling off the fence he'd stopped on. Thankfully, he didn't fall into the stream on the other side of the fence, but instead onto the soft grass of a small garden on the side of a pathway. Ranma curled into a small foetal ball, tried to focus beyond the pain, and found he couldn't.
So he did the next best thing, and passed out.
******
Sailor Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Nemesis gazed at the ruined school building. Students, dazed, were already starting to wander around. They seemed to be used to destruction, but this time, something was so seriously wrong, that they weren't sure how to react. Shellshocked was the word Mercury had used. Sailor Moon believed it. Mercury had said something about punches and kicks breaking the sound barrier, and the compression waves in the atmosphere from them having the same effect on the students as the blast wave of compressed air from a bomb burst had on soliders. Sailor Moon believed that, too, even if she thought Mercury was being overly simplistic in having to describe the same phenomenon twice. Sailor Moon thought Mercury was a little shocked herself.
And she had to admit, she was, as well.
The school's front building was ruined. Not levelled to the ground, but the holes smashed through entire sections, flooring destroyed on most floors, support columns smashed beyond repair, and the foundations shifting under the concussive onslaught they'd been forced to endure. The building was a waste. It would have to be torn down anyway.
And still the students wandered.
One walked up to them, a wooden bokken held at his side. "Verily, it seems my day for the fortuitous arrival of goddesses," he said, in a noble-sounding voice. Slightly superior, yet offering his inferiority to those before him. He bowed his head, spoke with his eyes lowered to Sailor Moon. "Speak, order me that I might do your will."
Sailor Moon glanced at Mercury, who was still staring through her computer's visor at the ruined building, then back to the young man before her. She guessed he was attractive in a way, traditionally so more than anything else. And his shoulders... reminded her of Mamoru. Big. Square. Solid. Shoulders for holding on to in the depths of night.
Uh... back on the job, she chided herself. Out loud, she asked, "Do you know who did this?" knowing who had, but needing to find out for certain. Confirmation would hurt, knowing that once more, Saturn was corrupted. But Rei had already told them such, and this was a mere formality.
Yet, a formality that had to be observed.
"Yes, my lady, it was the goddess Saturn, she of the raven hair and the short skirts." Sailor Moon noticed him eyeing the hem of her skirt, as well, and shifted position slightly so as to hide as much of herself as she could. Which was difficult, but possible, if one was imaginative.
"That sounds like her," she said, turning to Mercury.
"Was it the name 'Saturn' that was the dead-giveaway for you, Sailor Moon?" Mars asked, sarcastically.
"Hey! We've got a problem here that includes one of the senshi and our dorm's manager!" Sailor Moon growled. "You think maybe we can keep the bitchy comments out of it for once? Just once? Hmm?" Mars shrank back a little, deciding that now wasn't the time to needle Sailor Moon. Truth be told, she felt a little unsure of the situation and of herself as well. She'd felt the enemy's influence inside Saturn, the dark tendrils of power twisted around the core of her being. The scared little girl, calling for help, at the centre of it all.
"Mercury!" Sailor Moon called, gaining the senshi's attention. Mercury retracted her visor as she turned to face her leader. "Is there anything you can tell us from this? What turned her? Is Ranma still here?"
"You know that scoundrel, Ranma Saotome?" the man asked, with a little disgust in his voice. "I, Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder of Furinken High, shall tell you of the vile deeds he has done before being co-opted by my goddess -" his voice cut off as Sailor Moon's hand slapped across his mouth. She gave him a dirty look before turning back to Mercury.
"Sailor Mercury?"
Mercury shook her head. "As far as I'm aware, neither is here. There aren't any bodies... Ranma must have done his best to contain her. I can't find any bodies."
Jupiter whistled in appreciation. "Well, he can fight, we know that now."
Mars nodded once in agreement. "And he survived against a pissed-off senshi. He's gonna get higher marks in my book. I'm definitely listening to him more in training."
Nemesis was staring at a point on the ground, in front of the building. She'd been staring at someone lying there for some time, hadn't offered anything to the conversation. Then she left the group, headed over towards the person.
"Who is it?" Mars asked.
"I think... it's Ranma's ex-fiance," Nemesis replied, bending and scooping up the unconscious young woman. She raised her voice as she stood up. "Can someone tell me where this girl lives?"
******
Cologne had felt the micro-airbursts from the concussive blasts inside her restaurant. A fight. She had paused, considering. A serious fight, she decided. Very serious, the way a whole shelf of plates had jumped to the ground after a particularly large one shook the Nekohanten. Mousse turned to face the direction of the school also.
"What was that?" he asked rhetorically, knowing full-well what it was. What he meant was more along the lines of 'who IS that?"
Shampoo poked her head through the interior door. "Aiya! Great-greanmother!"
"Yes, child," Cologne mused quietly, "I feel him, too."
"Feel who?" Mousse asked, lost. Then he adjusted his glasses as realisation hit him. "Oh. Ranma?"
"And someone else. Someone strong."
"Girl who save me," Shampoo muttered from the doorway.
"Interesting," Cologne said, almost to herself. "Son-in-law is doing well, too." Another powerful crump rattled cups. There was a pause, and then nothing. Silence. The energy flows Cologne had been sensing drained away, and Ranma's presence departed the school. "Very interesting. Shampoo, Mousse, I think it time we pay the Tendo's a visit..."
"Why we go to angry girl's house?"
"It's time, Shampoo. Son-in-law is weakened, and hurt. The enemies of the tribe will be out to avenge him. Our time has come, for revenge."
"Revenge?" Mousse asked, pushing his glasse back up his nose. "For what? I've never heard of anything like you've described these women to be before."
Cologne gave the nearly-blind man a withering glare. "You are not privvy to every morsel of history of the tribe, Mousse. I suggest you remember that, and do as I say."
******
The senshi weren't the only people to leave the Ai Sou to investigate the happenings in Nerima. Two cats, one white, one black, stood over Ranma's unconscious form. Luna turned to Artemis. "Should we wake him?" she asked, quietly.
Artemis considered. "Let him sleep. Whether Sailor Saturn hurt him or not is beside the point. He's had a massive shock to his system, both emotional and with this physical change again after so long... I suggest we let him rest a while longer."
Luna nodded slowly, in agreement. But there had to be something they could do to even up the score for Ranma, to let him actually stand a chance against a rabid senshi. As Artemis padded off, Luna came to a decision, and ran through a series of mental calculations before attempting a small backflip. At the apex of her flight, a small interdimensional vortex opened, and a henshin wand dropped from it into Ranma's hand. "Rest easy, Sailor Ceres," she whispered in Ranma's ear before following her partner.
******
Soun Tendo answered the knocking on the front gate with a scowl. A critical moment in the shogi game, and he just KNEW his playing opposition was going to somehow be winning when he returned. He'd often suspected Genma Saotome of cheating, yet Soun had never caught him at it, and just as often decided he'd forgotten what moves had been played recently, that he hadn't been paying enough attention. Yet this time, this time, he had Genma. He had him dead. It was Soun's turn to win.
So he opened the gate, and a young woman, tall, in a black short skirt, and a white sleeveless top with a black bow, strode past him and into the house. the clothing looked like an abbrivated school uniform, Soun thought idly to himself, but not a local one. While his mind was processing satorial information about the intruder, the rest of him caught up to the fact there were another five girls trailing after her. A blond one stopped next to him, gave a cheery smile, and said, "Relax. We're the Bishoujo Sailor Senshi, and we're just returning your daughter." Then she too disappeared into the house.
"Are you friends of Akane's?" he called out, but to no avail. The girls were gone. He shrugged, decided whatever it was didn't concern him, and shut the gate before walking back to the game board.
A quick study of the board followed. And silence.
Damn. What was he thinking with those moves? He'd just given the game away to Genma.
******
Nabiki threw open the door to Akane's bedroom, and with the force she used, it rebounded off the end of its track, bouncing back into her. Trying not to succumb to embarrassment and trying to project an image of anger, she snarled, "What are you doing with my little sister?"
One of the shorter girls, with a blue colour scheme, looked up from beside Akane. "I assure you, your sister is safe. We wee just getting her home safely."
"Safely? One of you bitches just tried to KILL us all!"
The women exchanged glances. Then one of the two blond women stepped forward. "Hey, it wasn't her fault. She's been possessed by a dark force from an alternate dimension!"
"Great going, Sailor Moon," the raven-haired women muttered, "Now she'll think we're CRAZY flirts."
But Nabiki paused. "I've heard worse stories," she admitted. She seemed to accept the version the blond with the dumplings stuck on her head had put forward with little more than a nod and she moved up beside Akane, and checked her out. "What's wrong with her? I didn't see her get hit."
"Do you know what happened at the school?" the woman in the blue skirt asked.
The one in black grunted. "There was a fight. She got knocked silly by the shockwaves of those punches."
Nabiki shook her head. "No, Akane's stronger than that. I bet it was that guy who had been playing with Hotaru's head this morning..." her voice drifted off as she calculated various methods of gaining revenge for injuring her little sister, none of them pleasant - none of them physical, and all of them financial.
"He... uh, what did he do to her?" Dumpling Head asked again.
Nabiki shook her head. "I don't know. They were talking while Ranma and that other girl were fighting, and then I lost track of the guy, and of Akane. When I saw her, you women were standing over her. But you grabbed her and took off before I could get to you."
"We moved faster than you could have followed," the one in the red skirt said. "So how did you know where we went? And how did you get back here so fast?"
"Kuno-baby told me where you were headed. I took a shortcut." Nabiki shrugged.
"Was it just talking?" the one in blue queried, a concerned look on her face.
Nabiki shrugged again, her attention focussed on her sister. She knealt down beside Akane, stroked her face. Akane's features stirred under the light sensations across her face. "I don't know," she repeated, eventually. "But Hotaru... she wasn't the kind of girl to exactly fly off like this. Cruel and calculating, perhaps, if she's been spying on us for this long, and her words were calculated to do the most damage they could to Ranma... heck, even I could see that... but..." Nabiki shook her head.
"Oh my," someone said from the doorway. As one, the senshi turned, beheld yet another of the Tendo sisters. This one was older; Kasumi. "What happened to Akane?"
Something about her made Mercury's spine shiver in apprehension, but she couldn't find anything visually about the older woman that screamed BAD PERSON at her. Almost unbidden, her visor dropped over her eyes, but again, while it gave off warning indications, it couldn't pinpoint anything in particular. It flipped back upwards into her tiara, and seeing as the other senshi appeared to have the same apprehensions as she had, she spoke for the group. "A... friend of ours, under the control of some master mental manipulator, attacked Ranma Saotome at the local high school. We're not sure what's wrong with Akane. I suspect she's just sleeping. She should wake any time."
Mercury's words were prophetic, for Akane stirred, moving her arms and legs, then opening her eyes. "What happened?" she asked.
"No one really knows, Akane," Nabiki said from her side. "I saw you talking to the guy who twisted Hotaru's head around, and then he was gone and you were unconscious. Did he... hit you or anything?" Akane shook her head.
"Maybe he hypnotised you?" the girl with the dumplings-styled hair said brightly. "You know, that happens an awful lot. Or these bad guys have bright, beautiful young girls fall in love with them..." Her voice trailed off as she realised everyone, including the happy-happy sister standing in the doorway, was staring at her in disbelief. "What? It happened to a friend of mine, okay?" She blushed and turned away.
Kasumi stepped back from the doorway, and the dark aura seeped back from Mercury; perhaps she'd been imagining things? Because, after all, no one could be that calm and happy and relaxed upon finding a bunch of strange women in her little sister's bed, with her little sister stretched out, cold, on her futon. She gave a smile, tilting her head. "It's good to see you're okay, Akane," she said, earnestly. "I'll go get some refreshments for our friends." She smiled again, and was gone, walking down the stairs towards the kitchen.
"Do you remember anything about the man you were talking to?" Mercury asked the tired young woman.
Akane stared up at Mercury, confusion in her eyes. "I was talking to a man?" Her face and mind were a total blank.
******
Ranma stirred, finally. The pain had receded eventually, and now, it only hurt occasionally when he moved. Which he wasn't doing a lot of. conscious thought took a little while to make sense, and thus he was thinking very, very slowly. What would he do? What was his next move?
There was a weight on his chest. It hurt his damaged rib, which was knitting as rapidly as his more serious injuries seemed to. Something cool, something hard. A hand reached up, clasped the small object. It warmed instantly at his touch, this object, about the size of a pen. Seemed to be some kind of metal, but it was responding to him. He raised it up to the point where he could see it clearly.
One of the little transformation wands the senshi had. He'd seen Hotaru's often enough to know what one of those things were. But he hadn't seen the design on it before...
Oh dear. He had a bad thought. This... wasn't his, was it? Oh Kami, it was... The thought embarrassed him.
Yet, it would give him a better chance at holding Hotaru... Mistress Saturn... at bay while he tried to break through whatever mental whammy Yoshihiro had placed on her. It would give him an advantage, too, as she wouldn't be expecting another... what? Magical girl? Like a female form given by a cursed spring wasn't magical enough? He snorted.
A closer squint at the wand showed the word 'Ceres' etched into the symbol affixed to the end. Weird. Did this mean he was going to have to wave the wand and yell out one of those embarrassing transformation activation phrases the magical girls did on television? And then suffer an even more embarrassing transformation sequence in which he'd likely be naked in front of a whole lot of people?
Possibly.
But at least he could make it a little less embarrassing. Now, about this time, Ranma knew, there was a certain woman who would be doing her washing...
******
"Now?"
Even to the lowest of the surviving Youma in Yoshihiro's pocket dimension, Mistress Saturn sounded to be whining. She'd been at him since they'd returned, Saturn seeming to walk with a little limp that had repaired itself within minutes, and a slightly torn uniform that had been the interest of many of the shorter creatures in the main thronechamber.
Yoshihiro sat, eyes closed, face perfectly composed. Mistress Saturn couldn't tell what was going on inside of him... but she knew what she wanted. She knew this man. Or rather, he knew her. Knew her in ways Ranma could never hope to know her. All the items she'd glossed over or just not told Ranma about when she'd been Hotaru... every hope, every dream... every fear.
The little girl who'd cowered from lightning had been pulled screaming into the darkness under the bed by the scaly hands of a monster the likes she'd never hoped to see. And Mistress Saturn knew, that little girl was still inside, not fighting, but only because she thought she was powerless. Yoshihiro's hold over her was... well, dependant on this young one's fear, her shame, of another knowing her perfectly. Of having peered into her soul.
That had made it easier for the subtle magics to work on her, that had locked her personality up, let her urges take control, the darker impulses that hid witin even the most purest of hearts. All he had needed was an opening. All he had needed... was her attention.
Yoshihiro was a master manipulator, and growing to be a master stratigian as well. Umiko stood to his right, slightly behind the throne, with a slight smirk on her face. If anyone questioned it, it was gone. But to those who kept a wary eye on her, she who was already becoming known as She Who Had Removed The Popular One, she looked assured of her position, of her place.
The mother of the Master had its perks.
But Saturn cared for none of this. "Please! You said another time! You said soon! I could play with him again soon!"
Yoshihiro didn't show it, but he was considering. It didn't suit his plans to have the young martial artist removed quite so permanently from the picture yet... and the longer Mistress Saturn waited, the longer she was forced to bide her time, the more likely she'd do serious injury to Ranma. And yet, allowing her to go now, while he likely hadn't recovered, she could very easily forget when to stop playing with him and kill him by accident.
But then, he considered, Ranma's ki levels were rising once more. His life force was beginning to pump ever stronger, and even in the few days he had been observing Ranma in his female form, Yoshihiro had been surprised at the rpgress the martial artist had made in recovering his strength. Even at the end of the fight with Mistress Saturn, Ranma had been recovering, scratches and grazes pulling tight and closed, bruises fading, even what Yoshihiro suspected was a broken rib appearing to give him less and less trouble as he talked before leaping away over the school fence and disappearing.
However, there was also the chance that this powerful new toy he'd acquired would revert to her previous personality. He'd found she'd been possessed before, not by someone quite as skilled as him, but by someone slightly more powerful. For the moment, at least, he allowed. She'd set up defences, knew how to fight it, could make his creation pause at a critical moment - if only she'd stop crying and wailing for help; Yoshihiro could hear her in his mind, through the link he shared with all his children.
Ultimately, though, she had an itch. And it needed scratching. He nodded at Mistress Saturn. "Go. Don't kill him. Return when you are done."
Saturn flashed him a savage grin, twisted and vanished from the dimension.
******
"It is always nice to see you, Cologne, but why are you here?"
"Soun Tendo, you know as well as I do you are hiding guests from me. I merely wish to give them my welcome." Cologne shifted on her walking stick, giving an air of openness, and indifference. Shampoo and Mousse stood behind her in flanking positions, neither looking like they were ready to fight, but Soun knew that both were extremely competant fighters, and were quite capable of dealing with him, even from a standing start. Not that he consciously thought of that.
Yet he wasn't going to give anything away.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Soun said, stalling, wondering who the girls who had brought Akane home were. Wondering if they knew they'd somehow made a powerful enemy. Cologne didn't just come over for nothing, especially when Ranma wasn't around. Did this have something to do with him? Soun didn't know. He was aware of Nabiki peeking from Akane's window upstairs, then her face vanished. "My daughter Akane is inside, though, and she has some friends over. Perhaps you mean them? Would you like to meet them?"
Cologne nodded.
******
"Do you guys know her?" Nabiki asked quietly, careful so her voice didn't carry beyond the room. The three Amazons downstairs were reknowned for above average hearing.
The woman who'd introduced herself as Sailor Nemesis looked contrite. "I nearly killed her daughter," she mumbled.
Nabiki stared. Then remembered Cologne's story of the evil women Ranma lived with. "You're... the girls from the dormitory?" she asked, confused, as the knowledge linked itself together in her brain unwillingly and she compared the senshi to the girls she'd so briefly seen. "All of you? Well, I guess Hotaru is..." she muttered to herself.
The senshi looked at one another uncomfortably. They hadn't known Nabiki for long, but they already knew something of her wont for exploiting people via blackmail to make money... would this be used against them at any time? Akane broke the silence. "Well, if you're like that Hotaru girl Nabiki knows, I guess you're all magical girls, too." She mentally chidded herself for being so obvious. "What I mean is, you've all got... non-magical forms? You might be able to hide that way."
"Why?" asked Sailor Moon, herself a little confused.
"Because the woman coming up the stairs now doesn't exactly like you," Nabiki explained.
That was an argument the senshi didn't exactly like. However, there was still the problem of transforming in public. Most didn't like transforming within Ranma's sight, and he had known for a lot longer just who most of the senshi were. But Nemesis shrugged, not wanting to hurt the young woman Ranma called Shampoo again, and let her alter ego slip from her like a cloak. The others followed suit.
There was a light tap at the door. "Akane?" Soun asked, quietly.
The door slid open at a tap from Cologne's cane. She peered into the room suspiciously, saw Akane propped up on an elbow on her futon, Nabiki sitting next to her with a hand on her shoulder. And on the floor around the futon were a number of girls, about Shampoo's age. Cologne glared, but recovered from her surprise; she'd been expecting much more powerful people, not mere children. "Greetings," she croaked.
Further conversation was halted by the sound of air rushing inwards, smashing together at supra-aural velocities. Half the roof above Akane's room was smashed, ripped upwards by the sudden creation of vacuum, revealing a hovering patch of darkness. It was two dimensional, more like a painting than a doorway, yet Mistress Saturn stepped through it, landed lightly on the rim of the wall surrounding Akane's room, and smiled cruelly in towards the assembled people.
"I see my beloved isn't here yet," she sighed theatrically, "so I guess I'll have to take my frustrations out on you."
The senshi leaped to their feet, yet didn't transform; they waited for Sailor Moon to give the signal. Kasumi tensed, too, but then relaxed. "Oh, hello Ranma," she said, cheerfully.
Everyone turned to look past Saturn, out through Akane's window into the yard.
On the fence opposite stood Ranma, in his female form once more. He looked angry, hands bunched in fists. One held something that none could make out.
"That's one step too far, Hotaru," he said in a quiet tone, yet it carried across the yard perfectly. Everyone else stayed silent.
"Oh? Is it, ex?" she sneered. "I mean, you couldn't stop me before, not properly, what makes you think you can stop me now?"
"This." Ranma held up the henshin wand clasped in his fist.
"Hmph," Saturn sniffed. "They were just to get your attention anyway. I didn't really want to hurt them. Nothing's as good as hurting you, beloved."
Ranma twirled the wand in his fingers, then grabbed it tight, held it high. "Ceres dirty great big rock - make up!" he yelled, saying the first thing that came into his mind. Thankfully, someone above had taken note of the fact Ranma had no idea what he was doing with the wand, and it activated, the transformation sweeping through him, reassembling his clothing into the standard senshi fuku design, coloured in greys. Mistress Saturn gave him an unappreciative glance and made an unimpressed noise deep in the back of her throat.
"I guess we fight on even terms?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, the colours aren't really my thing - you should have gotten a yellow or something, I think - but hey, whatever works for you."
Sailor Ceres smiled. Nabiki shivered; it didn't look that pleasant. It promised much destruction, much property damage. Idly, she wondered where her calculator was.
"You think I need this to fight you?" Ceres said, raising the henshin wand. "I mean, do you think so little of my fighting skill, my unenhanced strength? My will? My character?" Ceres smirked. "I don't need no change wand or short skirt to kick your butt."
And with that, Ceres raised the wand above his head, lifted his other hand to grasp the other end firmly. He paused.
"NO!" shouted Sailor Moon.
"No!" cried Luna from a nearby rooftop.
And Ceres pulled down with both hands, pushing upwards with both thumbs simultaneously. The wand bent for a moment, then snapped under the unrelenting pressure. Ceres' fuku billowed outwards into dozens of grey streamers, then reassembled in Ranma's normal outfit of loose black pants and a red Chinese shirt.
Nabiki was puzzled. "Ranma doesn't need to play dress-ups to beat her," she muttered.
Ranma's hand pointed up at Mistress Saturn, who was now puzzled. "I don't need anyone else's help to beat you, Mistress Saturn! I am Ranma Saotome, your sensei, your boyfriend! I know you in ways that Yoshihiro could never know you, because you let me, and he forced his way into you. I will free you, and I don't need any help in doin' it!"
Saturn made to say something, but Ranma's pointed finger and shout stopped her dead.
"I am Ranma Saotome. And I am going to kick your ass."
SAILOR MOON SAYS:
Whew... another chapter finished... yay! I won't say for sure, but I might have the next chapter finished in a week or two... don't wanna lose the momentum I got with setting up the cliffhanger for this chapter :)
so, next time: Hotaru's back. How's this going to affect her?