Love

by MisatoKitty

Oh dear, Ranma's dead. But wait, that's the end of the story. How does he get there? What the heck has been going on? Read on! Rating lowered because, really, this wouldn't get an R in cinemas even with the occasional violence :P

17. Love 17

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 if you want permission to use anything I've written for whatnot purposes.

WARNING: This chapter has bad language, adult themes, minor horror, and shameless rip-offs. If this was an Australian site, it would carry an MA/MA15+ rating, which is less than an R, but more than a PG. You have been warned.

LOVE

By

Raymond Cooper

Chapter 17

- Paradise Reloaded -

The next morning, there was no training. The senshi were tired enough, and Kaname herself was still exhausted. Hotaru, sitting in a chair across from Ranma's futon, smiled softly as she watched the sleeping woman twist and roll, tangling herself up in sheets and blankets until there was nothing visible except for a tuft of copper-coloured hair. But was it just Hotaru's eyes, or was the colouring just a little darker, that bit redder than before?

She was ever hopeful, but also, she found, sad. As Sailor Saturn, Senshi of Death and Rebirth, she had seen much death in her many existances. And Kaname Mizuno, the personality that had sprung up in the absence of anything Ranma in his body, would effectively be dead when Ranma came to. Perhaps. There was always a chance that she would be integrated into Ranma's personality, as she did seem to embody much of Ranma's more positive traits, along with a few of the niggling complaints she had about her boyfriend.

His knee-jerk reactions at times of stress, for example. His actions, too, while might have been directed for maximum impact at the time, could often backfire later on as he didn't think of consequences too often.

In fact, about the only consequences Hotaru had seen Ranma plan for, mull over, deal with, were those dealing with her and, to a lesser extent, Mitsuki Matsuda, Sailor Nemesis. And that seemed to be more because he'd had bad experiences in the past when he didn't think of the consequences with women.

Of course, having met (and become friends with) his last fiance, Akane Tendo, Hotaru could understand why. As much as she liked Akane, she realised that Akane ran much too hot with Ranma, and simply expected too much of he who hadn't yet had a proper relationship, who hadn't had much experience with women, and Ranma was completely oblivious to much of what went on in relationships. Or he had. He was getting better, Hotaru admitted. Much better. They went out together, ate together, he helped her places, and she in turn helped him when away from the other senshi, helped him understand women. For although Hotaru looked sixteen, her mind was much, much older.

Kaname stirred, and two bright blue eyes opened, peeking out from under the cocoon seeking out -

- Hotaru. The blankets lowered a little more as Kaname shuffled, rolling over a couple of times until they were loose enough for her to wiggle out to her waist, whereupon she sat upright, still staring at Hotaru. Then - "God, Hotaru-chan, I never thought I'd see ya again."

"That's... that's still you, Ranma?"

The woman before her considered, then nodded. "Yeah. For the moment, at least. Maybe for a while after that, too."

"Oh? Then... I guess I had make the best of this." Hotaru unfolded her legs under her blanket, and stood up from her chair, crossed the room and sank gratefully onto the partially covered form on the futon. She wrapped her arms around Ranma, and snuggled in tight. "It's been too long, sempai."

A hand wrapped its way around Hotaru's head, craddling her as gently as a mother with a child. It felt warm, contrary to the coolness of the dorm's rooms. The other hand gathered Hotaru's blankets around her tighter, trying to keep her warm before Ranma obviously got bored with that, tossed her blankets aside, and pulled her under his. There they lay for an hour or so, just resting quietly as the dorm timbers made loud cracking sounds under the lack of heat as they contracted tightly, and the creaks from the ceiling, above the second floor, as snow built up.

By nine o'clock, there were sounds of stirring in the dorm. Usagi, surprisingly, was the first down. She muttered darkly all the way into the kitchen, and from the warm, fuzzy smell that emanated from the hall, Hotaru guessed she had just showered, and showered a lot. She still seemed very unsettled by the realisations of the day before, that their enemy, the new Dark Kingdom lord Yoshihiro, was altering humans into monsters, just to use them as a work force, then change them back when they went home. And then Ami's equations and research showing that Yoshihiro wasn't just planning to use the human race as a labour force, but planning instead to completely wipe out all people on Earth, replacing them with the monstrous denizens of the Dark Kingdom as he brought that dimension into coexistance with Earth's dimension, had just blown Usagi's mind almost completely. After locking herself in the bathroom all night and crying, now she was apparently starting to get angry. It was a pattern Hotaru had seen before in Usagi; the longer she spent crying over the plans of the evil-doers, the more Usagi was charged to fight the enemy with everything she had.

Ultimately, Yoshihiro didn't have much of a chance. It was more just a question of whether or not they managed to stop him before he killed the population of Tokyo, and consequently the rest of the population of Earth, or if they stopped him after his current goal was completed and he was reinforced by billions of monsters... ultimately, in the cool part of Hotaru's mind that was the cold, calculating Saturn, it was just numbers of human lives lost rather than the end result. To the rest of Hotaru's mind, she was determined to make sure those numbers remained as few as possible.

To be perfectly honest, Saturn, too, wished for few human casualties. While she was used to death, it wasn't something she was often pleased about.

Following Usagi was Rei, who had probably been awake much earlier, but... for one reason or another... hadn't come downstairs until after Usagi began heading for the stairs. Makoto was the third down, grumbling about making breakfast so late and being glad of leftovers in the fridge. However, when Minako passed Ranma's door, an acrid smell wafted in. Someone had apparently vomited recently, and judging by Minako's heavy footsteps, it had been her. The muted squeals of disgust from the kitchen said a little more, then Minako heading back to the upstairs bathroom said the rest.

Mitsuki's descent was different. She came downstairs, walking normally, then slowed as she approached Ranma's door. Hotaru could picture her wondering if she should knock, wondering if she should come in. She pictured Mitsuki in her mind riven with indecision as personalities waged war as to whether they'd enquire whether or not Ranma was still among the senshi.

But she surprised Hotaru, taking two light steps across the hall and pausing before continuing out to the kitchen.

"What was that about?" she wondered aloud.

Ranma chuckled. "She checked in your room," he replied, his light voice reminding Hotaru he was still in his female form.

"How can you tell?"

"What else is on that side of the hall?" he asked, rhetorically. "That, and I could see the packets that make her up."

"What?" Hotaru perked up instantly.

Ranma blinked, surprised himself. He waved a hand in front of his face, experimentaly, and wowwed to himself silently. "I, uh, can see the metaphorical," he explained, surprising himself with more words. "I guess," he continued, after a while, "that I kinda absorbed too much from lookin' at the ocean." He didn't explain any further, just cast his gaze around the small dorm room, something approaching a look of wonder in his expression. Hotaru, worried, gripped his hand tightly.

With her weaker grasp, Ranma shouldn't have noticed much difference in her grip, but he registered it and looked down at her uncertain eyes. "Hotaru?"

"You're scaring me, sempai," she replied.

"How am I scaring you?"

"You can see things," she said, simply. "And you... feel... different."

"Different?" Ranma remarked, a hand automatically raised to scratch the back of his head nervously. "It's nothing to -"

"You taught us to see people's auras, Ranma," Hotaru reminded him sternly. "I can see - you. You're different."

Ranma shrugged, self-consciously (and more than a little difficultly with Hotaru wrapped around him still). "Hotaru-chan, this is... it's... this system. It's not a perfect representation of the physical plane Earth resides in. There are imperfections in the submatrix that crop up in everything. Have you noticed how some of the more refined meats now taste like soggy noodles? Have you noticed that people seem to be a bit more forgiving? Have you even noticed the fact that winter still shows no signs of letting up?"

Hotaru buried her head up against Ranma's chest, breathed in deeply, before she unlinked her arms from around his back and melted in reverse towards the edge of the futon. She flowed to her feet, still not looking Ranma in the eye. "You don't even sound like him," she griped. "You... I was willing to overlook it, but you just feel wrong."

"As wrong as the evil Mistress Saturn that tried to hurt me?" Ranma asked casually, his left eyebrow raising just enough as he turned his gaze on Hotaru with a penetrating stare. Hotaru had thought she was the only one with her patented Stare of Ages, but apparently Ranma had either been taking notes, or indeed he'd learned much in his time in limbo.

"Whatever do you mean?" Hotaru flustered, her eyes dropping again.

Ranma's eyes dropped away, found something else to look at. "Nothin'. I guess this isn't the time ta argue. Not when there's so much ta do."

"Yes." Hotaru was subdued again. Ranma's hand reached out as he stood up, unwinding sheets and blankets from his body even as he touched Hotaru's chin lightly.

"Hey. We all have our secrets." He gathered together some clothes, and left the room, headed out towards the hot springs. Hotaru stayed behind for a couple of minutes, silent, motionless, eyes unfocussed and unblinking.

Finally: "But they're not secrets if others know them."

XXXXXX

Ranma held a hand up to the murky morning light, covered the sun and watched the dim light stream through his fingers. He dropped the hand, and it splashed into the hot waters of the spring, sending up a spray of particles. With a glance, Ranma had them stay in place, shimmering in the bad light. "I know you're there," he said, conversationally.

"I know you know," Kaname replied, her form shimmering into view in the cloud of droplets. She seemed to be disjointed, wobbling, tearing apart and drifting together. Ranma knew it was just a reflection of his psyche on the cloud, and the movement of light on the droplets was causing the appearance of Kaname's vague form. "I know everything you know now."

"Only for now," Ranma reminded her. "Because, I don't know what'll happen when you get back in charge."

Kaname waved a hand. "'Back in charge'? I don't think that will happen."

"Maybe not, but I think it will," Ranma asserted. "Else I think I'd'a reabsorbed ya when I was brought back."

"Yeah... there is that," Kaname agreed. "But - how did you get brought back?"

"I don't know," Ranma admitted. "One moment I'm meditating, the next Natsumi turns up, grabs me by the scruff of my neck, and tosses me into the ocean. I came up spluttering, to find myself being throttled by that Sato guy." He shrugged. "It wasn't a nice feeling. It felt like I had ta swim through treacle for a few kilometres to get anywhere, and then I was back, and I did my thing and beat him. Kinda."

"And almost got Mitsuki killed," Kaname grumbled, folding her arms with a frown. "You should have listened, you know."

"I could hear you in my head. And this is still all in my head." The droplets of water began to slowly drop back into the springs, taking Kaname with them. "And you're still in there... even if ya not out here, you're still in there." He tapped the side of his skull.

"Ranma?" Kaname asked, just before she submerged, "why aren't you a man again?" Then she was gone, leaving Ranma to puzzle over that one while he let bruised and aching muscles be soothed by the water.

XXXXXX

For Nabiki, she was slowly tossing a small rubber bouncy ball between her hands as she leaned back contemplatively in a chair. Her panic of the day before was wearing off... the world was still there, just different. Not her world. Not completely her. But she was still there. Which had to mean there was something she could get out of this, some way she could twist this world to her advantage. Which was the problem she was wrestling with now.

How could she turn someone else's world to work for her?

The ball drifted lazily between her fingers, before she grabbed it, and hurled it back at her other hand. Yet, with some applied thinking, she could slow the pattern of the ball down, make it travel in slow motion.

Or was it? Was it perhaps actually travelling in real-time, and she was merely having her own relative perception of time slow down? She couldn't be sure, unless someone came into her room.

Conveniently, there was a knock at the door, but the knock was slow, the sound dragging out like a dull thud on a thick dungeon door. With a start, she lost her concentration, and perceptions snapped back to real-time, the ball missing her outstretched fingers and smashing through the outer wall as the door slid open. Nabiki's growing hearing heard a couple of small sharp cracks as the ball continued to accelerate before it flew into a pigeon and both exploded in a squawk of feathers that drilled themselves into nearby rooves.

"Nabiki?" Akane. She, too, was calmer, after hearing Kaname had been kidnapped. There had been something on the news the night before, about a hit on the GOTT offices by Ranma Saotome's terrorist co-conspirators making a rescue on the captured lieutenant. The news programme had shown a devastated street, torn down several metres and ripped up, buildings nearby burning. A few of the hurried shots from news vans showed senshi in the flames, pulling survivors from under rubble, out of vehicles, trying to shore up walls while those who apparently didn't consider the senshi to be paragons of evil these days pulled other survivors out or doused flames, turned off gas and water mains, and the like. But the senshi went unidentified in these snatches of footage; instead, the only mention of them had been as super-powered terrorists threatening the economic safety and stability of Japan. Akane had cheered up considerably after seeing this report, not for the bad publicity for Ranma's new harem, but for the fact that it sounded like Ranma... what had been Ranma... was now safely back in the hands of people Akane could consider to be friends.

Nabiki knew, even with the remaining bad blood between them, Akane would have been dying inside, knowing that Ranma was in trouble, knowing that she was unable to help. It wasn't so much that she was unwilling; Nabiki knew that the women Ranma was living with were so much stronger than even he could be when he set his mind to it. Not that Ranma was invulnerable or unbeatable, but that he had that single-minded determination to be the best, to be the winner when all was said and counted, that he counted defeat as more reason to train and prepare himself for round two. She had to ponder, was that what he was doing now? Training off somewhere secret in his head? Learning what Nabiki was teaching herself? Would he reappear in a flash of light, tell everyone to stand back, and fire off a new move, one more powerful than a string of moko takabisha that would somehow return everyone to reality.

Or, more likely, destroy the system they were existing in and wipe everyone out. But Ranma had a way of winning against incredible odds, mostly because he wouldn't give up. Mostly because he wouldn't let himself die without knowing he was The Best. At least...

... The old Ranma wouldn't have. Nabiki didn't know about the maturing young man who had grown up in Kanagawa. She didn't know enough about him. But he seemed less susceptible to her, to Akane, to Shampoo, to the others. When she had seen him in combat, Ranma had seemed more confident, more dynamic, knowing when to step back, when to direct others into a point, when he was outmatched, when he didn't need to go all out on an opponant. Or when he did.

"Akane," Nabiki replied, turning away from the hole in the wall. Akane was still staring at it.

"Did... did I just..."

"No."

"Oh. Because that looked like you threw -"

"Faulty wall. Having it replaced. Had it covered over with textured wallpaper."

Nabiki could see the words, 'In winter?' cross Akane's face, but the youngest Tendo shook them off and remembered what she came to ask. "Kasumi said breakfast is ready. And asked me to get you. Do you...?" Akane wasn't good at the tip-toeing around method of questioning, so Nabiki saved her further embarrassment by standing up, pushing her chair back from her desk.

"I'm fine, Akane. Honestly. Do you think a little depression could keep me down when there's money to be made?" She rested a hand casually but reassuringly on Akane's shoulder as she headed out the door. "Trust me. Have I ever lied to you before about anything that important?"

"Constantly," came the reply. Nabiki smirked mischieviously, while Akane broke into a hesitant smile.

"So you know I'm back to my old self, then. Well, Kasumi and father will be waiting." Nabiki gestured out of the room with her free hand, and Akane preceeded her from the room while she slid the door shut behind her.

XXXXXX

"- on the new Outer-Minato Gardens, replacing the, ah, old Shibakoen Park, proceeds on schedule. DMK Heavy Industries has promised that soon, residents in nearby wards will be able to see the new buildings rising up, utilising the latest in construction techniques." The camera panned to the side of the chairman of the Tokyo City Planning Committee, centring for a moment on a handsome man with blond hair in a black suit.

"It is him," he said, in the darkened room.

"Yes," she agreed, sitting next to him, head on his shoulder.

"We should kill him where he stands," said another.

The first waved her off. "No. He's too strong for that."

"Maybe he needs the gentle touch of a woman," pondered a fourth. "I mean, he has to have money and, ummm..."

"No, he needs worse than that."

"Worse?"

"You know what I mean. We have to -" He broke off, turned to look in the eyes of the woman beside him.

"I know. I don't like it, but I know."

"I don't want to -"

"I know that, too." She kissed his cheek, tenderly while absently rubbing a hand. "But we all have to do what we must. All our parts have to be played."

"I just wish -" he started, then sighed. "I wish I knew what happened to her. We saw them all on TV. All of them gone. And that... thing. That was something of his. He... took them."

"They're still alive," the third said. "I would know otherwise."

"Yeah," he murmured absently, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I would, too."

XXXXXX

"From this point onward, Tokyo strides forward into a new era, a bright and shining age of functional design married with brilliant asthetics," Yoshihiro said, winding down his portion of the media spiel. "Tokyo will be reborn, with a mind towards showing the way forward for the world - making Japan once again the leader of the minds of the world." With that, he fell silent for a few moments, eyes gazing calmly, yet strangely intensely, across the audience of cameras and journalists before him. Most were Japanese, but a few American agencies had reporters at the event to record a snippet for the end of their nightly news broadcasts. Yoshihiro could also feel the faint touch of Chinese minds in the packed auditorium room, and nodded to himself.

Not that it showed to anyone else, but Umiko, standing in the wings, could see it in him. She had raised this man, from bairn to the Next Big Thing. He would give the people what they wanted - a strong and powerful Japan, a nation more powerful than any other - but in doing so, he'd exterminate the human race. She smiled to herself. You had to admire that in a man. Forward thinking of that magnitude was sorely lacking in people these days.

"I give you -" Yoshihiro's hand reached back to the cloth covering the model of the city behind him. It was a large architectural prop, Umiko knew, that Yoshihiro had commissioned for this very event, but she hadn't seen it. She just knew that he as satisfied with himself. The hand clenched, grasping the sheet, and with a tug, it slid off the model. "Crystal Tokyo!"

A gasp went up from the crowd, an unconscious intake of breath as people blinked in the sudden profusion of light, sparkling forth from miniature towers of crystal. And each building, Umiko noted, was really excased in crystal - hard diamond, brilliant emerald, sultry ruby... solid, single blocks that rose up around internal workspaces and dwellings. Almost as if Yoshihiro had called forth a vision of the future into being and intended to actually build the hopes and dreams of humanity into a reality a thousand years before Neo Serenity was supposed to. But no, he couldn't really be wanting to do just that; this had to be illusion, misdirection. Even she hadn't been aware this was part of Yoshihiro's plan, so close to his chest had he played it. This was new, this was... surprising. Her eyes narrowed, and she turned her gaze from the model to Yoshihiro.

The expression on his face... he was drinking in the surprise, the appreciation, the spontaneous applause that rose from the floor. He revelled in the adulation, and she knew that his ego was satisfied. The model had to have been worth it, then, for him to feel that accepted and loved. But the expression also held something else: gloating. He was enjoying this intensely, and loved the irony of using the Moon Kingdom's future metropolis as the official stamp of the human race's oblivion.

She caught Kenichi's eye from across the room, and felt an urge of lust rise up in the pit of her stomach. The infant monster gazed back, pain in his eyes. He wasn't matured, nor was he advancing in power; he was a human, held helplessly in thrall by a demonseed that kept him quiet about what had happened to him. He couldn't do anything that would bring harm to himself, and he had also found he couldn't do anything that might bring harm - had his boss been targeted for assassination, and Kenichi had all the time in the world to take the assassin's bullet, he wouldn't have been able to. But the seed within him responded to Umiko's feelings; she could feel it reach out and touch her from the other side of the stage.

When the gasps had died down, and the questions started, Yoshihiro began with answers.

"Yes. A shining example of the hopes and dreams of humanity. A reflection of the soul, if you will."

"Protective shaped polycarbide support structures, rendered invisible to the naked eye, will brace the interiors of the shells. With the molecularly-rebonded crystaline skins, the buildings will be impervious to anything bar a nuclear strike. Or a direct hit from a comet."

"Of course there will be plenty of living space. We plan on excavating several of the recently-discovered buried magma bubbles. We've already contracted the prototype work for one such facility out to the research organisation GEHIRN."

"No, to my knowledge none of my associates have been investigated for the destruction of Tokyo by that rampaging monster. And I, myself, was in America at the time."

As the questions came and answers followed, the subtly play between Kenichi and Umiko continued. The bodyguard standing beside Kenichi realised that his companion wasn't keeping an eye on events, and nudged him, but Kenichi's eyes continued to be drawn to Umiko against his will. Eventually, the guard rolled his eyes in mock disgust and pushed Kenichi in her direction. Slowly, without attracting attention of the assembled press corps or officials in the room, Kenichi drifted across towards Umiko, and without a word, she drew him offstage, behind the curtains, down a corridor and into a small utility room that offered a small amount of privacy as well as a small amount of discomfort.

Moments passed before there was a thump on the closed door as Kenichi sagged against it, Umiko righting clothing and tucking claws and ears away while he gasped for breath. She felt nothing now; no lust, no urges. No satisfaction. It was almost as if something had opened within her soul and was sucking the enjoyment from actions that traditionally had brought a lot of enjoyment, and while physical urges were satiated, she found that only her charge was bringing her pleasure of any kind now. Only by serving the Master could she find contentment, that which could make her curl up and purr like some kind of idiotic giggling teenager. Yet, while the mental urges were gone, the physical ones remained, and now she had partaken, these were starting to drive her crazy.

"Did that make you feel better?" Kenichi grunted from the door. "I mean, did that really make you feel any better? What you did to me... what you're still doing to me... what you want me to do? Does that make up for whatever you're missing?"

Umiko didn't bother to even pause to consider as she smoothed out the lines on her jacket. "Yes. A lot. Do you know what stress I have in my job? Do you know how many whining idiots I have to put up with to run a military operation? Do you know what kind of forward planning is required to bring a city, no, a country, a world, to it's knees? Do you have any idea how hard it is to support someone destined for greatness, to be the hands that carry out his wishes, the grease that eases his way, the parent to console and protect? I do all this, and yet am still his loving subject..."

"So what's this? Something that doesn't relate to his mad dreams of world domination? Something that you can relax in?"

"Stress relief," Umiko agreed, running fingers through her mussed hair. "Without this, I would be... well, much less effective in my job. And, of course, you relate to the Master's plans. Just... that this, our activities, don't."

"Can I never see you again?" Kenichi groaned, pulling his shirt roughly closed and fumbling with buttons as the woman shifted against him. His attitude was one of revulsion, but he wasn't sure if he was reviled at himself or at the creature who was using him as a human scratching post.

"Hmmm. May be. I don't know." Umiko sucked on a thumb while she thought. On anyone else, Kenichi thought he'd have found the action unbearably cute and undeniably attractive. And, indeed, if he hadn't felt the multiple penetrations of his manhood and the insidious motions inside his head, he would have found the action attractive. On some level, he knew that. But for the moment, he was stuck thinking of Umiko as a monster.

As, in fact, he himself now was.

She tiptoed to give him a light peck on the check as she opened the door and he pulled back; but being jammed against the door, he found he actually had little room to manoeuvre in, and her lips brushed his skin. The feeling was electric, as she had intended it to be, and he felt stirrings in his loins that were supposed to angatonise him now they were finished for the moment, but instead, they caused waves of revulsion to ripple up and down his spine.

As Umiko tapped her way up the empty hall, Kenichi stealthily drew his pistol. It was large, heavy, a reassuring weight in his hand. He figured he might not be able to pull the trigger, and he was correct, but pointing it at her retreating back and imagining pulling the trigger was almost as satisfying.

XXXXXX

Punch. Kick. Dodge. Jab. Punch. Kick. Dodge. Jab. Punch. Kick. Dodge. Jab.

Same old, same old. Faster than Ranma was used to the senshi fighting, yet he knew it wasn't fast enough. They had gained in skill while he had been in stasis, yet their progress wasn't nearly enough to carry them through a fight with one of the GOTT agents. And if there were any more of those Cybrid things that Mercury and Nemesis had mentioned fighting when trying to rescue Kaname, then Ranma wasn't sure the senshi could afford to fight them for an hour or two, either.

Mercury was lucky enough that she had her hacking abilities, and could probably help out more that way, but the others would have to pick up their fighting skills and speed.

And strength. Ranma could teach them speed, but strength? He wasn't sure. His own superhuman abilities he possessed at the moment were a mystery to him. Had they been gifted to him by Natsumi? Had they been some side effect from acquiring all the knowledge he had while kept apart from the others, from his own body? He wasn't sure. All he knew was that now he could move so fast, he literally wasn't being seen, even with the enhanced vision of the agents he had faced several times. Possibly he could get them up to throwing super-powered amargurrikans, but even that speed was as a snail to the agents. So it was a problem, how to turn the senshi into any kind of credible threat?

Saturn paused, her eyes sweeping over him curiously as she found a lull in her kata. She held her last action, a punch, the other fist pulled in tight against her stomach. "Ranma?"

Her voice was unusually distant, and Ranma felt as if he was at the end of a long tunnel. What was going on? Then he realised, sighed with weight, and tried to smile. He wasn't sure if he did or not, but Saturn stepped forward, a hand outstretched. Then there was someone next to him. Someone who looked like him, but, he knew, wasn't. Kaname Mizuno. She sighed, and shook her head at him. He understood. It wasn't his time now. Not yet, not again.

Instead, it was hers.

"Take care of her for me, will ya?" he asked, with a forced lightness in his tone and a frustrated gesture at Saturn. "Tell her I'll see her again." Maybe, he thought. He wasn't sure yet.

Kaname nodded, unsure of herself, before Ranma found himself thrown into darkness.

"Ranma?" Saturn repeated, growing nervous. Ranma's face had become distant, his eyes seemingly losing all vitality while his body had grown still, locked into the position it had been in.

"Hotaru," Kaname replied. The way she said it, the subtle inflections of her voice, told Saturn all she needed to know. While her skin grew cold, her stomach dropped and bowels tightened. Kaname stepped forward, a hand reaching out towards the younger girl. "Ranma said -"

"No!" Saturn cried, before turning and fleeing into the dorm building behind them. Nemesis shook her head, and followed the young senshi inside, purple hair flowing behind her like a living thing. Kaname's hand faltered, then dropped to her side as she turned her gaze towards the ground.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. It was comforting, somehow, like the person who's hand it was knew exactly how to touch someone who felt like their heart was broken. Sailor Moon. Kaname turned towards her, and Sailor Moon's arms wrapped around her shoulders, one raising up behind Kaname's head as she hugged the woman tightly, tenderly.

"It's not fair on any of us," she sobbed.

"I know. And we'll find some way of stopping this," Sailor Moon replied. "On this, you have our word." She pulled back a step, leaving her hands on Kaname's shoulders, and Kaname saw the other assembled senshi nodding with determined faces.

"Because, without this sorted, we can't win?" Kaname asked.

"In part," came the reply, "but also because it affects us. And, because it was decided yesterday, we have to start caring. Have to start laying the groundwork for the future again. We can't allow ourselves to be sidetracked into believing that this battle for our lives, and the battles to shape the future, are unconnected any more."

Kaname nodded dumbly, not taking any of it in. She pulled away after a moment, heading for the dorm. "I've got to go," she apologised.

XXXXXX

"Hotaru?"

"Go away."

"I can just sit here and talk through the door, you know."

"Go away!"

"Going away's not going to change anything. He'll still be gone."

"I know that. I just want to be alone."

"Being alone isn't always a good thing. I know I... advised someone close to me once, before he was close to me, that is, that he could only rely on himself. That he couldn't afford to rely on others, because they let you down. But other people have some perks that being by yourself can't match."

"Like what? Since you're talking..."

"Well, sex for a start. Although my experiences with it aren't exactly normal, what I had of it was good. By yourself, that's nothing terribly close in the range of emotions, of sensations. There's something about being... that way... with someone that makes you wonder just how you ever managed without someone on top, or beneath. That somehow, you feel empty when someone isn't filling that gap that isn't actually there."

"Really."

"It's like being tickled. You can tickle yourself, but that has no effect. Have someone else tickle you, though, and... well... we go back to finding out about sex. Not so much in the full-on sexual manner, of course, but... in a lighter way. Same feelings: that fluttering in your stomach, the tightness in your limbs, the sensation of not wanting to stop that delicious contact..."

"Did Ranma ever tickle you?"

"Only in my dreams. But other people can also lend you shoulders to lean on. That makes problems more bearable. With other people -"

"Mitsuki, the planet that you defended in the Moon Kingdom was schitzophrenic. The others might not remember, but I do. Ice cold one day, boiling hot the next. Incredibly effective at interfering with orbital mechanics, prone to sudden changes in weather and geography, Nemesis was a hell-hole of a planet and too unstable -"

"Are you going somewhere with this?"

"You change your mind too much. That's your planet's influence. But you made it literal. You literally change your mind too much. And that plays with your sense of responsibilities. Right now, you offer comfort. In five minutes, you might be arguing with me again about how you think you still stand a chance with Ranma."

"So, what's your planet's influence on you, then?"

"I'm a cold, frigid bitch who can boss any of you around if I want to."

That effectively ended the conversation. Mitsuki shrugged, rolled her eyes, and wandered upstairs to her room to shower after training. Behind her, from the mouth of the hall, Kaname's eyes watched and followed until Mitsuki was out of sight. Then, she stole out, snuck along the corridor, and pressed an ear to the door to Hotaru's room. She could hear the muffled sounds of sobbing.

With great care and precision, Kaname silently slid the door open, slipped inside and shut the door, too quiet for Hotaru to hear over her muffled sobbing into the pillow. Then, she crossed the floor quietly, and the first Hotaru knew of another's presence, a pair of arms pulled her into an uncomfortable embrace, unpracticed but filled with certainty. Hotaru's face grew warm in Kaname's cleavage, and she tried to pull away, but Kaname wouldn't let her move. "Shhh. I heard. And I can guess, anyway. I don't know what happened, but I know... Ranma was back. And that must hurt so much."

"It does," Hotaru sobbed. "And you have no idea."

Kaname found herself wondering about Shibaru, and even about Hotaru, and she sighed. "Maybe. Maybe not. That's not for me to say. All I know is what I promised to you. What I said I'd do. What I feel for you now. I'm not Ranma, not mentally, but perhaps I can help with the physical-ness you need. If you need a hug, if you need someone to tell you everything's going to be okay... if you need someone to fight for you, Hotaru, I am that person."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because I think I have a duty of care in this body to preserve it's life and relationships until the owner comes home," Kaname said with a sad smile.

"There has to be a way you can both survive," Hotaru said in a small voice.

"You don't really believe that," Kaname said, kindly. "You want you boyfriend back. And I understand that feeling. I'm like his twin. A twin with really big boobs." Hotaru smiled, sadly, and poked almost playfully. "And I can understand that... I don't know. Attraction? Affection. You look at me and you're not seeing me. You're seeing Ranma. It's taken a while, but I think I understand." And although she didn't add it onto the sentence, Kaname also thought she accepted it, for the first time.

"Kaname?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. For being... a big sister. I never really had one before."

"That's fine, Hotaru."

XXXXXX

With agonising slowness, time passed. The days warmed, and snow stopped falling. What was still in evidence about the cities was growing dirty and brown, lining gutters and the edges of gardens and creating pedestrian hazards. It was a time of year the girls normally disliked, being that time in transition between the frigid beauty of winter and the fun attractiveness of summer, but the senshi didn't notice. Training had consumed them. Faster, stronger, deadlier. They knew they had to gain in all three qualities. Kaname sparred with them as she could, and surprised herself when she wasn't thinking about her actions. For some reason, not concentrating on what she was doing brought Ranma's abilities to the fore, but the concentrating on ironing, boys, work and The World was very hard and involved work, and Kaname couldn't keep it up for long.

Like on one of the games of tag she played with the senshi. Bouncing about Kanagawa like kangaroos on amphetimines, Kaname leapt from building to building. Some part of her brain was looking out for her, as her feet dodged slick ice and puddles of water automatically, and she danced low under power and phone cabling while twirling to avoid birdlife and vehicles. Her actions made the exertion look easy, epic poetry in motion with a fluid easy lope that converted into a gathered leap at the edges of walls and rooves. Almost like music, two of the senshi reflected as they struggled to keep up.

Ranma they had been able to keep up with, if not exactly touch him. But Kaname... whatever had happened when she came back from wherever she had been had made her sometimes stronger and faster than Ranma. Or perhaps it was Ranma himself inside her, able to influence while she was distracted? The senshi didn't know, and Kaname really had no idea either.

But this particular day, three weeks later, Kaname loped ahead of the pack once again, and Jupiter grumbled, her hand sweeping through where she had been a fraction of a second earlier and the senshi stumbled forward onto the roof. At speed, she rolled, arms windmilling and smashing tiles. Jupiter wasn't bruised, just dirty and cold and angry at yet again falling prey to the same manoeuvre Kaname caught her with all the time. She slammed her fists into the rooftop, pushing herself up before dusting herself off and continuing after the pack.

Venus dodged to one side of a small metal chimney pipe, dodged to the other side around a small antenna farm, then leapt the space between two houses. Right behind Kaname, she saw the smaller woman hit the edge of the next roof, and bounce down into the alleyway between both like a riccocheted bullet, and continued outwards. Venus, head tracking her target, forgot to continue to adjust her leap, and she smashed into the edge of the next roof before dropping to the ground winded. Sailor Mars, close behind, made the same mistake, and ended up lying across Venus in the alleyway. Sailor Moon and Mercury danced lightly off the rooftop's edge and passed over the two entangled senshi, Nemesis and Saturn not far behind.

Mercury put on a burst of speed through a second alleyway, and reached within tagging range of Kaname. Without pausing to savour the moment, Mercury's fingers reached out -

- just as Kaname dropped down through an open manhole. A burst of ki later, and within a scant handful of seconds, she burst from another on the opposite footpath. Mercury cursed mentally for not being more observant moments before the truck hit her and carried her one hundred metres down the road. She picked herself out of the grill cursing herself again even as the driver shakily got out of his cab to see what he thought would be a bloody corpse, and started with surprise when he found no body in evidence, although the front grill was pushed in surprisingly far. Almost like he'd hit a concrete block. He didn't notice the blue blur above him as he vomited in relief at not finding a body.

Saturn and Nemesis overtook Sailor Moon, and danced on ahead. Sailor Moon was slowing, looking around, but neither of the other two senshi paid her any attention. Saturn put on a burst of speed, that Nemesis reached similarly, then bounced around an industrial smokestack, leapt across a fifty metre gulf between buildings separated by a canal, before she realised that Nemesis was starting to pull ahead.

Neither woman was watching where they were going, though, and Nemesis slid on a patch of ice. Saturn knew she shouldn't, but turned her head to give a cheeky grin, and promptly slammed into another smokestack that rang like a bell.

Sailor Moon continued past, pacing herself. As Kaname let her catch up, Sailor Moon conserved her energy, and as she passed within reach, instead of reaching for Kaname like the others had, Sailor Moon ducked low, transferring her downwards momentum into a right turn, and she kicked off the factory rooftop they were on into the air. Kaname, unsure what Sailor Moon was doing, but not wanting to be tricked into following her, kicked off in the opposite direction. Both ran, jumped, pirouetted, ducked under machinery until Kaname, losing her concentration, found a shadowy hiding spot where she could regain her breath and concentration once more.

But before she could start to relax, let her concentration on household issues drop, Kaname felt the gloved hand on her shoulder. Kaname tensed, then relaxed. "You did well. How did you know I was coming here?"

"You looked tired. I knew you'd have to rest soon, and I wanted to catch you before you began to rest," Sailor Moon explained.

"Quick thinking," Kaname complimented her with. Sailor Moon looked embarrassed. "And you won. Congratulations. That's your first ever win. Of any of you, these last three weeks." She hesitated, about to shake Sailor Moon's hand, but reconsidered and hugged her instead. Sailor Moon looked surprised.

"That's a little more than I was expecting," she said when Kaname disengaged her arms and pulled back. Kaname blushed, and sat down. "We've never had much of a chance to talk, have we?"

"It's been busy," Kaname said, turning her head.

"Even Ranma and I never really talked," Sailor Moon mused. "We don't have a lot in common, apart from some mutual goals and, well, mutual friends."

"That's one way of putting Hotaru," Kaname said wryly.

"But it's something I should change. Starting now," Sailor Moon said, as she squatted down next to Kaname. "Do you like kareoke?"

"What? No, I... I don't -"

"What? You don't like kareoke? Why not? It's so cool... everyone getting up and trying their hardest..."

"I meant to say -"

"And some of the songs are pretty good. Someone once said Minako should become an idol singer, but she doesn't have the voice. Nor," Sailor Moon smiled sweetly, "does she have even half of Makoto's talent."

"That's all very, erm, disturbing, but I was trying to say -"

"And Ami becomes such a demon when she gets up to sing. Especially if there's been any ceremonial thing that gives her an excuse to drink. Rei... well, Rei just likes to sing songs about how pure people are, and then chases Minako around when she makes snide comments about -"

"Sailor Moon!" Kaname interrupted. "I was saying that I don't know." She looked away. "I don't know a lot, I guess. Most of it I was just never exposed to. Prior to meeting Hotaru, I worked, I played on The World at night, and started going to the gym. And since I met Hotaru, I've done nothing but run and be replaced by a more capable and more experienced me. My only experience with love or lust or anything was for a guy who turned into a monster in front of me and tried to kill me - and all of you! I can't fight decently, and I can't do much except - well, look scarier than I am, I think. Everything else isn't me. It's not Kaname Mizuno, it's who was here before."

"You sound more than a little bitter," Sailor Moon observed softly.

"Maybe that's because I am." Kaname's eyes tracked back and forth, looking outside of the impromptu cave in the industrial facility. "I'm coming to accept it, though. I can't change it. And, really, I am him. And who knows?" she added, eventually, her eyes growing distant, "Maybe it won't be so much a replacement of personalities... of lives... maybe it'll be an amalgamation."

"Perhaps you're that part of Ranma which doesn't get out very often?" Sailor Moon suggested.

"How do you mean?"

"You know, maybe his subconscious, or... or his personality when it's unencumbered by responsibilities and problems brought about by himself and others." Sailor Moon smiled. "But this is just my opinion, and as everyone reminds me often enough, that's not worth very much."

"I don't know about that," Kaname said, drawing herself up slightly. "I mean, sure, we've never talked, and you distrust me a little, but that's to be expected. You look out for everyone."

"You notice?"

"It was kind of hard not to," Kaname admitted with a smile, "the night you answered the phone and abused me."

"Oh," replied the other. Then: "I apologise for that, you know. I thought... you know... Ranma had run off and left Hotaru to..."

"I understand. No, really," Kaname raised her hand to forestall Sailor Moon's coming interuption, "I do. I'd be angry, too. You guys are all tightly-knit, and thinking some guy who you didn't know too well had run off and not left any kind of message for someone who had fallen for him..."

"I think we could have treated him better, too," Sailor Moon thought aloud, standing up to flex her knees. "It's not like us - not like me - to be so continually judgemental... I don't understand it at all, sometimes. Sure, I might not trust much someone until I know they're not an evil monster out to eat my transformation brooch or my friends, but until someone proves themselves untrustworthy... I treat them like I would a friend. And Ranma... I didn't. And it's confusing. Perhaps it's being so far from Mamo-chan all the time. You know, um..." Sailor Moon waggled her fingers rather than spoke. Kaname got the idea regardless. "And I'm not... it's not... well, I think I might be just a little bit jealous."

"I understand," Kaname repeated. "Cute guy, cuter girl, sweeps a friend off her feet... I understand completely. You get - well, jealous. That no one's paying the attention to you and your relationship that they once did. That they're finding friends outside of your small group, that... well. It's like they're all leaving you, even if only in your mind."

"That sounds a bit like it exactly," Sailor Moon replied. Then she started listening. "The others are almost here."

"I've been listening," Kaname said from the ground, standing up. "They're as stealthy as a herd of elephants. And they wonder why they can't catch me?" She grunted, just as Saturn and Nemesis appeared in the entrance to the hidey-hole. The others showed up over the space of the next minute. "You all lost. Sailor Moon won." There were groans all around, and Mars shot Sailor Moon a jealous look. "But we should all go back for breakfast. Then into some more training. Something a bit slower today." Kaname considered, then smiled. "Today, I'm going to teach you not to get burnt."

XXXXXX

The fire was decent, and chestnuts lay roasting in the middle of the flames. Kaname gestured at them. "The idea is to not get burnt."

"Then we don't stick our hands in it," Venus replied.

"No no no, you misunderstand," Kaname continued. "You have to get the chestnuts out without burning yourself. AND without putting the fire out, or wearing protective clothing. Oh, and I'd like you do do it as normal people."

Hotaru, Mitsuki and Usagi all dropped their transformations; after a moment, so did Makoto and Ami. Venus and Mars held out until Usagi glared at them, and then they too dropped their transformations. Soon, all the women stood around the fire. "I'll demonstrate, so watch closely now," Kaname said, looking around before stepping in closer. She could feel the heat on her clothes, and with her hands, she made quick prepatory gestures, imagining the movements she would need to pull this off. She had woken with this idea in her head that morning, and had played the game of tag to ready herself for the manoeuvre. Once she had the idea in her mind of what she had to do, she closed her eyes, readied her hands, and began quietly to recite the shopping list Makoto had left on a bench that morning.

When she opened her eyes again, feeling the move was complete, she had only listed the first two items on the list, but her hands were full of nuts. Hot nuts. She ouched, and dropped them, running around in circles until Hotaru grabbed her, and with a very definite deep controlling look in her eyes, she grabbed Kaname's hands. With a brief glow and tingle through the joined flesh, Kaname found her hands cool and a healthy pink again, rather than the stinging prickly heat and bright red they had been moments earlier. Hotaru held the glance and her hands slightly longer than either would have felt comfortable with in these circumstances before dropping both. "The problem," Hotaru announced quietly, "isn't the fire. It was her nuts. They burnt her hands. I recommend dropping them after we grab them. I'll heal any injuries," she added, to forestall the doubts Rei, Minako and Mitsuki were about to voice. Usagi's eyes were wide open.

"I didn't even see your hands move," she said wonderingly. "They were there like this," she gestured, her hands held loose and ready to make the grab, "and then they were like this," she continued, her hands cupped with an imaginery load of chestnuts in them.

"And then they were like this," Kaname joked, waving her hands about and dancing as if she were still burnt. "Thank you, Hotaru-chan."

"You're welcome, ... Kaname-chan."

"But maybe," Kaname remarked suddenly, as Rei took her place where Kaname had been and was sprinkling chestnuts back into the flames, "this might not be a good idea."

"What do you mean?" Usagi asked.

"I can show you how to do this, Hotaru can heal you, but somehow... I don't think you can do it." Kaname shrugged. "At least, I... my body... had trained for years to do this stuff. I might not be able to do it, but my body can. It's like it's encoded inta me, genetically."

Hotaru blinked.

Kaname continued. "And until I can think of a way for you all to find a way around that limitation..."

"Kaname," Rei said, stepping close, head lowered, placing a hand on Kaname's shoulder, "I know you might think we're useless, and in the ways you mean, yes, we may very well be, but some of us might want to try this regardless. Normally, we're not as strong or as fast as you. Or as skilled. We make up for a lot of that with magical protection and magical strength when we become senshi, but normally, we're just average women."

"There's no such thing as an average woman," Kaname interjected, pointing at Rei. "And there's no such thing as an average man. We're all different, and we all have our weaknesses... as well as our strengths. I don't claim to be superintelligent, and anyone who thinks could probably outthink me in a fight. Maybe even Ranma, but Hotaru thinks he's a god." Hotaru blushed and looked away. "I mean, I get the idea he's smart, but not that intelligent. You know, smarts and intelligence being two different things. Um, okay, I'm going to stop on this line of conversation..."

"No, no," Minako offered, "continue bitching about Ranma all you want. Rei does it late at night."

"Hey!" exclaimed Rei, indignantly. "I do not!"

"You forget how close our rooms are, and you keep growling out his name," Minako offered innocently. "And you sound like you're slapping -"

"Minako," Makoto warned, suddenly behind the other woman, "you might want to go get some housework done. Like right now." Minako eeped quietly, ducked around the taller woman and vanished inside the dormitory. "Sorry, Rei. Go ahead and burn yourself."

Rei fixed Makoto with a stare that the others found uncomfortable. Makoto looked particularly unimpressed. "Thank you for the vote of confidence."

Makoto shrugged. "You're so positive about my cooking, I should be positive about your training."

Rei shot her another glare before readying herself in front of the fire. She stared, concentrating, then closed her eyes and ran through some of the mental preparations her shrine training had shown her. After a few minutes, in which Usagi sighed theatrically several times until Kaname shushed her, Rei's hands shot out into the flames. Her hands moved fast, blindingly so, and she grabbed at a few chestnuts before the pain registered and she yanked her hands from the fire, dropping the nuts back into the fire as she did so. She stared at them momentarily, flesh blackened, before Hotaru grabbed them and focussed on the injury. Rei's surprised shout barely had time to gestate before the pain was gone, and Kaname then stopped the others from practising in case of major injury or stupidity (on her part more than the senshi's).

This, Kaname decided, would take some more thinking.

XXXXXX

And she was still thinking a fortnight later, sitting up on the roof late at night. The nights were still chilled, probably below zero if Kaname had bothered to check, yet she had no blanket to shield her from the wind and temperature; sitting alone, in her pyjamas, staring up at the stars did more to focus her mind than sleeping did, or training, or anything. For a change, there were no clouds. Just a brilliantly clear sky, made all the clearer by the coolness of the atmosphere. Even the lights of Kanagawa, and the glow of Yokohama and Tokyo on the horizon did little to obstruct the beauty of the skies.

There she sat, still, almost meditative. She wasn't aware of passing time, just a brilliant moon rising above her, reaching it's zenith, then descending again. It seemed much larger than normal, and Kaname thought that must be due to some kind of atmospheric event. After an hour or so, her dreamy state revised that to some kind of rendering fault in the graphical environment. Beside her, tonight, sat a VR headset. It was hers, all she had come into this world with, and her fingers occasionally strayed over it.

About 2AM, she made a decision, and placed the helmet on her head. With firm fingers, she snapped the goggles down, locking their arm into place with a well-practised twist. Then, reaching out inside herself, she logged into The World.

XXXXXX

"You're not real," Kaname said.

The purple and cream-coloured cat sighed and shook her head under her big floppy hat, and made gestures.

"But in these palces, am I any more real?"

The cat sighed, and looked at her steadily.

"You're right, I guess. We're as real as we make ourselves." Kaname sighed, stood up, and pushed away from the tree. "This place is a metaphor, isn't it?"

The cat nodded, and gestured for a minute, taking in the vista around them: green grass, a pink and purple twilight sky, lazy clouds and an orange sun, light spreading out further and further from the shimmering disc as it descended beneath the horizon. Then she looked at Kaname again, an eyebrow raised.

"Eloquent. Very eloquent. But really, The World is just... our subconsciouses working in unison to create an understanding of what happened. On some level, people have to understand what happened to us. That we're all dead, and this is just... memory. A computer game, with formerly real people as the NPCs." Kaname turned back to the cat, waving around her as she did so. "This is all just as fake as people know somewhere in their hearts that the so-called 'real' world is fake. Trees don't feel like trees. Food tastes just that little bit like soggy cardboard. People outside of the immediate disaster area... well, people can't figure out why their friends are more caring, more placatery, more willing to bend to your will - it's because they're a support system dedicated to fooling you into thinking you're in the real world."

The cat nodded honestly.

"Thanks," Kaname replied, "but I know I'm just as real as those fake people constructed from memory. I'm not Kaname Mizuno; I'm Ranma Saotome. I'm not a meek computer operator, I'm a martial arts master with no equal. I'm not shy and abrasive, I'm arrogant and innocent. And in living this life, in holding back much of what I can do, I'm making myself even more of a fake. In not doing what flows into my head while I'm thinking about other things, I'm resisting the nature of what I am."

The cat laid a hand on her shoulder, and Kaname turned to face the cat, looking into her ruby-coloured eyes. They looked kind, compassionate, sensible. Something passed between them.

"Yeah. You're like me too, aren't you?" Kaname eventually said, realisation dawning. "You're a mix of something that doesn't exist and something that does... and like me, you have purpose, you have a goal, but the difference is, you know what yours is in your world. I've yet to work out what mine is, in my world. All I know... all I can figure... is that somewhere, somehow, something is going to happen in ten weeks. Oh, I know this bad guy is going to destroy the world then, but I don't know if that's what it is that I stop. I don't know if my actions will cause things to get worse, or get better. I've heard the others; they all think Ranma is showing signs of being one of these bad guys, a "Dark General" as they call them, and that makes me think... maybe I help this Yoshihiro. Maybe I destroy the Earth. Or perhaps I... I save the Earth. Or maybe I help someone from either side, or don't, or have to do something completely different. But I just don't know and that's what's getting to me. The feeling is growing ever more urgent, and that urgency is starting to drive me crazy."

The cat cocked an eyebrow again.

"Yeah, that kind of crazy. I'm looking at Hotaru, at Mitsuki, at Usagi even, in ways I hadn't thoguht of before, nor wanted to. It's, I don't know, creepy. Like something in me has been started up, a long fall towards a giant body of mass. Gravity. That's it exactly. Something's pulling me. I just don't know which way it's pulling me."

The cat floated off a few steps, then looked back over her shoulder.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think sleep would be good. Maybe I might get some understanding of all this... thanks." Kaname turned again, waved, and logged out

XXXXXX

coming to consciousness on the cold rooftop. She felt the cold bite through her clothes immediately, and she realised the moon had not only moved, clouds had shifted across the skies and were partially covering it now. Also, she was aware of someone standing behind her. "Hotaru."

"Mitsuki, actually," said the older woman, as she sat down behind Kaname, wrapping a warm blanket around her and leaving her arms there to keep Kaname wrapped up. "It's just... I noticed you weren't in your room when I went to get a drink, and well, I wanted sex."

"You wanted WHAT?"

"What?" Mitsuki asked, taken aback at Kaname's reaction. "I said I wanted to talk to you. Didn't I?"

"No!"

"What did I - oh wait, KARI!" Mitsuki knocked her head hard with a fist, rolling her eyes up towards the skies in supplication. "I give up. My medication's not working in here too well, and half my personalities... well, they're not quite so happy to play it down the middle. You know, taking half of my personality from them, half from the more positive side of things... it's just... guh... well, it starts a lot of fights. Like Hotaru and I a few weeks ago. It's... bah." She fell silent.

"Actually," Kaname said thoughtfully, after a minute's thought, "I understand."

"You do?"

"Uh huh. Remember? Ranma Saotome plus Kaname Mizuno equals something really screwed up." She shrugged. "I hear voices in my head. Not quite voices, though... it's like they're in another room. There's someone saying I should be sweetness and light, and another that says I should conquer the world. Yet another wants to go on a training trip to learn how to use what new abilities I have that I'm not consciously aware of, and my voice just wants to find a nice guy and marry him before I get too old. I just don't know. It's all since... well, since you and Mercury rescued me from Agent Sato. You know? Something that happened that day I was captured... I was... changed. I can see... more. I don't want to see more. I can hear more. I don't want to hear more. There's something there, just out of sight, out of mind, hovering about that's -"

"Yes?" Mitsuki asked, when she realised after a couple of minutes that Kaname wasn't going to continue.

"I don't know. I'm meant for something. I don't know what." Kaname shrugged, and struggled from the blanket to stand up. "I had better go to bed. Get some sleep before I have to outrun you guys in the morning again." And with that, she left, VR helmet held in hand, leaving Mitsuki behind.

XXXXXX

Ten weeks, Yoshihiro thought from his throne. Ten weeks. It would all be over in ten short weeks. It was like waiting for Christmas, he guessed, being able to do whatever he wanted in the meantime, but having to be good in case something went wrong before the big day. After all, if he was revealed as an evil monster, then he guessed his ease at access to the necessary construction site would dry up. The project's construction would fail because then he'd have to force his will upon the city. With the number of monsters as his command, Yoshihiro could dominate what was left of Tokyo, maybe even Japan. But then, that would create problems with other countries, the United States, China, maybe even Russia, and any of those nations had weapons that he couldn't stop.

Or rather, he could, but only a few at a time. When you're trying to concentrate on stopping runaway fusion reactions, you really don't need to be doing it on multiple weapons at once. And once you got above ten or so nuclear weapons dropping down on you, things got really dicey. And for what he was going to do, Yoshihiro fully expected that nations would inundate Japan with nuclear weapons in an effort to secure the continued existance of the planet. Sure, it might irradiate half the globe for the next 4.5 thousand million years, but to save the world? To continue human existance? They'd do that and more to stop him.

So he had to be good. Act nicely. His more twitchy monsters he sent out in small groups, ordered to hide in shadows and prey on those weak and lost, alone and abused. There were plenty of these people. No one would miss those who had fallen beneath the cracks, especially in a nation wounded by nuclear terrorism.

Strange, he thought; that the world, horrified by what the media claimed was a nuclear device in Tokyo (and what the United States, Russian and Chinese governments claimed showed no radiation signature of such a weapon and had to be some other exotic weapon) would condone the use of such weapons again, in the same place, if circumstances dictated it. Or called for it, using less-strong language. Euphemisms, euphemisms all.

But acting nicely... it chafed. Chafed like that bad underwear sweaty Taro wore down in the gym level of their otherwordly base, so irritating his skin he occasionally felt he had to tear himself open, lay himself bare for all to see the darkness that beat within. He was no hero. He was no salaryman. He was evil, pure, carnal knowledges burned into the neural pathways of a laticework structure of matt black crystal. No light shone from within. Any mercy he had shown his enemies, even his allies, came more from fear.

Yoshihiro had no problem admitting he feared. Fear was very much a protector. His human ancestors had rightly feared large animals, the carnivores that had stalked the plains in Africa, and had risen to power. His Dark Kingdom ancestors... well, had been stupid. They had not feared enough, and had been driven almost to extinction by a predator. The battle had already been lost when Serenity had absorbed Nemesis into the light of the Moon Kingdom, and everything since had been a readguard action. The taking of Mercury. The destruction of Mars. The disruption of the other worlds. Metallia had known the Dark Kingdom would be sealed, that it would lose its strength. Beryl had rallied against that, and all she had managed to do was delay the final confrontation of the two kingdoms. Thankfully, she had made things as close to even as she could have, which made Yoshihiro's job a little easier.

Fighting against an entire solar system would have taken resources he just didn't have. So thankfully, he didn't have to. He just had to fight ten women, and one altersexual, to contend with.

Which led, again, to the fear.

Was he really good enough to do this? To Umiko and the others, he projected strength, unity, determination. To them, it was unthinkable he could lose. And yet, strong as he was, powerful as he was, endowed as he was, he was mortal. He had learned from the lessons of Beryl, Wiseman, Galaxia and the others, and simply did not want to fall to the same mistakes, problems and misconceptions they had. He did not underestimate the senshi. In fact, if anything, he tried to overestimate them, estimated their impact in his plans to possibly be much more than it ended up being. Whereas Beryl's Generals had created one, maybe two monsters at a time, Yoshihiro created ten. And then ten more. And when he made his next ten, his first were also making more monsters. Within a short space of time, he had himself an army that he could use to accomplish his means. A thousand monsters, in an otherdimensional section of sewers. Hiding out, fearing the senshi finding him before he was ready. Staging minor attacks, just enough to keep their attention while he worked his magic. His goal, grandiose as it was, was to get the Dark Kingdom's final revenge on the Moon Kingdom by exterminating every piece of life on Earth through the unsealing of the Dark Kingdom proper. To do that, he had employed misdirection. Random attacks, monsters unable to conform to the strict missions he had ordered, the assassinations, the jockeying for power in governmental circles he had had to pull together. He had been broke, as the eBay Japan encounter had shown him, and he had worked hard to find more money. Bank raids, theft of electronic funds, ransoms...

Thankfully, it had all come together. Ultimately, he was powerful because he planned ahead. He knew what was to come. He knew the way things would go, because he would make them go that way. People would try to flee their fate, but it had all been accounted for.

Apart, of course, for the nuclear weapons.

Beside his hand were a collection of carefully-labelled manila folders. Inside were photographs, sketches, maps, plans, contingency plans, time tables, pie graphs and overhead transparancies; the reports collected from his agents were his main protection. If something happened, he could react to it with any of a possible half dozen backup plans. Even if, somehow, the senshi escaped from the system contained within his new battleship, he knew what he could do. There was no conceivable series of events that Yoshihiro hadn't developed contingencies for.

He was invincible to the senshi. Now, if those nations with high-explosive weapons would just hold off a little more, until he had the dimensional barrier field up around Tokyo, he'd be fine.

Which reminded him, he had a dimensional barrier to set up... thankfully, that was just a by-product of the ship's engines coming online, and that was scheduled to happen in maybe six weeks, which was long before anyone might consider him a threat.

Whistling to himself, he stood, and headed out of his throne room, momentarily happy.

XXXXXX

Kenichi swore. The urges within him were rising once again. He knew that meant that animal Umiko was around. But if she was an animal, a monster, what did that make him?

It was his day off, and he was trying to relax, deny the powerful motivations that now ran through his body like electrical impulses on a computer network. While his body may no longer have been quite his own, his mind definitely was. This was murder, but the bare skeletal fingers of denuded trees reaching for the skies through the slowly arriving spring melt made him feel somehow at home. Somehow. Maybe the thought of death. Although he couldn't pull the trigger on his gun when he held the cool metal ring of the barrel against his temple, death still dominated his days and nights. When his altered hormones weren't calling for sex with Umiko, of course, in which case his lust for death and destruction grew exponentially. He had already found that sex with human women did little to satiate his lusts, and one such attempt had almost resulted in a dead late-twentysomething on the prowl for a man before she hit thirty.

She had thought herself, although desperate, at the top of the food chain. She hadn't counted on meeting something much, much higher that fateful night. She'd wear the scars of their encounter for a long time yet.

Kenichi hoped that she wouldn't become like him, that this disease within him wasn't like lycanthropy or vampirism or any of the other various western monsters that seem to transfer the curses that make them by touch, bite or scratch. He really hoped that was the case, because he hated this life, and would have just given up all hope of finding a way out of this if he found he was making other monsters. Other beasts.

He laughed aloud, and the noise sounded hollow, like he wasn't quite there. The wind blew above him, shaking several nearby branches. He noticed blossoms on the trees, green buds of leaves coming through for spring. Where was he? Outside a shrine, indeed, but he didn't recognise the area. Definitely one of the lesser-affected regions of Tokyo, although saying that was like comparing ground zero at Hiroshima with a street two blocks away some sixty years earlier: all of Tokyo was affected, and if it wasn't a physical scar a region bore, it was a psychological one.

That had to be one reason that bastard's message was being received so well... he was building the Japanese spirit back up, doing what politicians should have been doing... what Kenichi's own boss should have been doing, not leaving the rebuilding of a people's heart and soul to the developers that came to pick the bones of the corpse.

A clear bell sounded, and Kenichi stopped suddenly, looking up. Above the shrine's entrance torii was a tall tree, and on one of the branches stood a woman. She held her left arm out stiff, perpendicular to her vertical body, fingers poised as if clutching something. He saw no bell in evidence, but the clear monotone of its single toll lingered for a few more moments yet.

"Events move to a head," she said from the tree. It was strange how her long brown hair wasn't tangled in any of the branches around her position. Somehow, her strange appearance gave Kenichi the idea that she may have been a hallucination of his brain, something akin to a conscience. In that case, the question was, should he reply? Could this be that monstrous bitch playing with his head again, some method of drawing him ever closer to whatever she ultimately wanted him to do?

No. Something felt wrong about this. If this wasn't real, it was something in his head, from his head, for reasons other than bloodlust. "Yes," he replied cautiously.

"Faster," she added, after a moment. Her arm dropped back to her side.

"What was that bell? Was it yours?"

"Once," she replied, a faint smile on her lips. "Now, it, like your humanity, is a memory."

"You know." An accusatory tone. Unbidden, but underlying his words like a snake in the grass: threat backed by power.

"I know many things," she admitted to Kenichi, "and continue to know things. Not everything one sees is what comes to be. Sometimes, people see dreams, hopes, fears, and picture them as reality. As long as people think something is impossible... as long as people think their darker dreams are reality, the world will be a dark place where angels fear to tread."

"Do you really believe in angels?"

"Don't you?"

Kenichi held her gaze a moment, then broke eye contact, his gaze sweeping the ground before him as he shook his head. "No. Once, maybe. But not now. I have seen too much. I have experienced too much. and now, I have... become too much. I know angels do not exist, only varying levels of monsters. Angels are things of myth, of legend, designed to make people feel safe against monsters they can't stop."

The woman smiled a private smile. "Perhaps. Or perhaps there are angels, and they do stop monsters. Maybe rather than becoming a monster, you are being forced to kill angels?"

"No such thing as angels."

"Yet no doubt, even with Gojira and the others, and with the occasional catastrophe to hit Tokyo, you believe in their opposite."

"Monsters. Yes. I can see them."

"And you can't see angels?"

"Can you?"

Again, she smiled a private smile, as if she knew something. The urge to kill rose in Kenichi, and it was harder to hold back. But her words were free of amusement or humour. "I have had dealings with angels before. They're just more secretive than monsters. Monsters are agents of chaos, angels of order; one is more powerful when in the open, the other more at home with remaining unseen."

"What do you -" Kenichi started asking, but only a breeze fluttered through where she had stood when he looked up. Nothing. She wasn't there anymore. He looked wildly around, but couldn't see anyone else.

On the wind, he heard a single toll of a quiet bell.

XXXXXX

Kaname let her mind empty, and she found her happy place. Lying in the bath of her old apartment, tights hanging over a rickety chair, steam rising up from the heated water in the otherwise freezing room, Kaname sunk with just her nose clearing the wate's surface to breathe. The gentle lapping waves rippling across her breasts, the pressure against movement of her limbs, the incredible warmth of the water caressing her skin. Her happy place, where she felt safe, warm, and for some unknown, possibly pre-natal reason, loved. The loneliness of those baths never seemed to register on her mind when she did this.

She had gotten much better in relaxing. She wasn't as good as Ranma, apparently, but was getting better all the time. She could do what he wanted, when she wanted, if she could just focus. And she had spent the last week and a half focussing and teaching the others to focus. She led by example, and now, she stood in front of the others, Nemesis opposite her, standing loosely.

"Remember," Kaname heard herself say distantly, "the snow and ice is melting and it will be slippery. In addition," and now Kaname gestured at a series of half-metre high wooden stakes pounded into the ground, "I'll only be up on these, while you can either try this out or go on the ground or a mixture of both. I fail automatically if any part of me touches the ground. You win if you can knock me out, knock me out of the ring so I touch any object outside of the ring, knock me to the ground or break a bone."

"Can we use our magical attacks?" Nemesis asked, looking up at Kaname through her fringe.

"Of course. A soldier uses everything at their disposal. A soldier fighting a war doesn't tie their hands behind their backs and hopes the enemy won't shoot in their direction." Kaname seemed surprised by the question, but flexed her toes around the stakes beneath her bare feet regardless, readying herself for the first strike. The impromptu arena was 30 metres in all directions except upwards and downwards - Kaname couldn't go down, and there was no upper limit to their battle except what either could stand.

"You didn't mention what circumstances you win under," Mercury pointed out from the sidelines.

"That's because this keeps going until I lose," Kaname replied. "I'm not as good as Ranma is, but I can put up a bit of a fight... and at times, I have done... scary things. The idea here is that I've got to teach you how to do what I do. And I'm not a very good teacher..."

"Ranma wasn't either," Sailor Moon chuckled from beside Mercury, who shushed her. "But he wasn't!"

"I think you're all intelligent," Kaname reminded. "You're all soldiers, and you learn by watching your enemies... I want you to try and learn by watching me. I don't know if it'll work, but for now, that's all I can think that might work. Simply because you're all intelligent women, and I fail to believe there's something I can do that all of you can't. There's nothing special about me, or as I can tell, Ranma, so why can we do this while you can't? Sure, we're more skilled martial arts-wise, but that can't be it all. There are other martial artists here, now, who haven't yet shown any ability to do what I have, so I'm certain it can't be martial arts. It has to be something else, and I don't know. So watch. Watch, and do whatever I do that isn't what I usually do, because that's probably it."

With her eyes closed, controlling her breathing, Kaname didn't see Saturn fold her arms and roll her eyes, but she did sense her attention drift. Carelessly, she fingered her Silence Glaive, feeling the dense stellar material's energy patterns twist and writh under the caress of her fingertips. Kaname felt that, as she felt Sailor Moon's attention focus in tighter on her, Sailor Mars eyeing the placement of her feet on the stakes, Sailor Jupiter noting the position of her arms in a loose position beside her body, able to be brought up into a variety of attack and defense postures almost instantly. Others took note of Nemesis, and the way that, even standing still, she looked like a bull pawing at the earth with a hoof.

"Let's begin."

The words were simple, but Nemesis let out a low growl and bounced forward. Her feet kicked up divots from the surface and she leaned forward into the motion, swinging a graviton-charged fist up as she came. "Gravity punch!" Kaname danced sideways, her feet barely moving yet her body seemed to simply flow around the punch that sucked at her clothing. Winds whipped around Kaname's shirt, and after a moment's exposure the material gave way and sucked itself into Nemesis' fist, leaving half of Kaname's torso exposed. Kaname similarly flowed around the extended arm and brought her elbow down on the forearm with force, knocking Nemesis off-balance.

The senshi stagged forward a few steps before she could arrest her forward momentum and spun around, hands already coming up. "Richter wave!" A spiral blast of heavy gravitons blasted out at Kaname, but she simply bent backwards at the knees and the wave passed over her. More of her clothing tore, this time as the wave thrust her in the direction of attack's propagation. Again, she seemed not to notice, and instead spun around impossibly on one leg while still bent low. At the end of her swing, her hands reached out and grabbed a stake at the extent of her reach, and she bent up and over, swinging her legs down over Nemesis' shoulders and ramming her knees hard into the woman.

Nemesis staggered under the force of the blow, amazed at Kaname's flexibility as well as the power behind the attack. The senshi who weren't still scrambling to avoid the incoming richter wave in the half-second since the attack had been fired were staring, amazed, at Kaname's speed and power. She had never demonstrated anything like this...

... except perhaps when Ranma was in the mental driving seat, when he had been fighting Agent Sato of the Government Office for Trade and Tariffs in recent months. Then, Kaname moved like nothing they'd ever seen.

Punches and kicks followed, Nemesis trying to best Kaname through speed and strength. That didn't work, as Kaname bent in almost impossible contortions as soon as Nemesis signposted moves. And she was like water, forever flowing from one position to the next. When that failed, Nemesis began smashing the stakes, leaving Kaname a scant handful to stand on.

Saturn thought that was a bit stupid, seeing as even Nemesis knew Ranma, and by extension Kaname, knew how to fly, but she held her tongue while watching intently.

Eventually, Nemesis left Kaname a single stake to fight on, and the senshi's fists and feet blurred faster and faster. Kaname guessed she had continued trying pick chestnuts out of fires, and as a senshi, her flesh wasn't as easily touched by flame as non-magically-enhanced skin was. Consequently, Nemesis had been developing her speed, and that was being reflected in her movements in general. The older senshi thought she had the upper hand, with magical attacks as well as physical, but Kaname still managed to dodge every punch, every kick, every localised collapsar sent her way, and the redirection of Nemesis' attacks simply made the senshi angrier.

Of course, since losing her temper was the easiest way Kaname would win, Nemesis tried to hold it back. But the figurative cup in her mind was overflowing from the many varied thoughts of those inside her, and holding control was growing ever more taxing on the young woman.

For half an hour, the action went on. And despite the speeds the two combatants were moving at, neither showed signs of tiring. In fact, in the few moments she was still, Kaname could occasionally be seen flicking her eyes to her digital watch worriedly. Whether she was worried about timing, or the fact the day was starting to drag on, or she was tiring in ways no one could see, no one could tell. But eventually, Nemesis tired of the fight.

She leaped back a few metres, brought her open hands together, palms forward, with a diamond-shaped space in between them. "Reverse Lagrange!"

Something burst from Nemesis' hands, but Kaname didn't know what. It wasn't something she could see, but rather, something she felt. Like being caught in a rip at the beach, her brain felt pulled in many different directions, personalities existant in her head splitting apart. Weirdly enough, she could see them. Ranma, herself with bright scarlet hair dressed as one of the senshi, Ranma dressed in a black suit, like a school uniform but more reminiscent of a darker aspect of himself, and she guessed her own self. They all seemed to lean different ways at the knees as Nemesis threw a punch, and then came back to much the same standing position, ready to prove himself, ready to defend, ready to fight, ready to teach. Taking all four urges at once, Kaname leaped up, and for one instant, she could feel the background code of the system. She grabbed it with one hand, twisted it in her favour, and with a sensation similar to being spun in a washing machine, she struck out with a calculated kick.

It caught Nemesis in the chest, snapping her backwards off the hilltop. Kaname dropped back to the single stake, arms spread wide to centre herself while her bodies seemed to flow back into one contiguous whole. Nemesis crashed to earth half a kilometre away, two hundred metres downwards. There was silence from the senshi. Then Mars clapped. Makoto, impressed, did likewise. Kaname blushed, but Sailor Moon gave her a weird look before nodding. "I think we can say that was a win," Sailor Moon said after a moment of searching.

Kaname's flush deepened. "Uh... I'm... sorry and..." and then something changed. Kaname's posture changed from the surprised and shocked woman there a moment ago to a more upright, confident woman unconcerned about her shape. "She'll be fine, though. I think." There was an inarticulate roar from the distance. "Oh look," said Ranma, "she's already up and about."

His eye scanned the skies, but that wasn't his primary sense. Instead, he reached out and felt for Nemesis' energy, or what modelled it in the system. Once he found it, he knew what was going on with her. Barrelling down from the skies, Nemesis smashed into the remaining stake with a impact of a large car dropped from height. The front yard of the dorm cratered, dirt blasting out and covering the senshi as well as the building. Supersharp splinters of the last stake exploded into superhard exposed flesh, creating the sensation for the assembled people of being bitten by hundreds of invisible ants. At the base of the bowl-shaped depression, Nemesis crouched, angry as anything.

"C'mon, Kari," Ranma said, from the rooftop. "You can do better than that." With a cheeky, grin, he was off, loping an easy gait off the mountaintop, dropping in freefall to the road below. The crunch of the simulated ancient stone roadway confirmed to Ranma what he had felt through other means, and he smiled. They bounded, off rooftops and walkways, through railway tunnels and underpasses, into and out of industrial and construction areas, Nemesis always just a bit too slow to catch Ranma, the senshi growing angrier and angrier the longer the chase continued. Ranma led her on a merry chase from the city, leaving people far behind, until they reached the vacant flanks of Fuji, where Ranma stopped, turned.

"Here, Kari. If ya wanna do somethin' ta me, ya do it here." Ranma pointed with a finger, cut a line into the ground with ki. "But first, you gotta step over that line." He stepped back a few steps, and then folded his arms.

Nemesis growled again, stalked forward, but slowed and hesitated just before the line. She looked down at it, then hissed up at Ranma. "You think you know everything," she threw at him.

"Right now, I kinda do," Ranma replied, airily. "I know I can take you. And I knew you needed this release. It's not violent enough for you at the moment, and your medications aren't working right, are they?"

Nemesis shook her head curtly.

"And you're all trying to be good girls and boys," Ranma continued, looking thoughtfully into the sky, turning his back on Nemesis. "I understand. And I understand your need to fight. To prove yourself. To defend others, even if the others don't wanna be defended," he tagged on to the end.

"That's... true..."

"And you're that part of Mitsuki that thinks the best defence is a good offence, right?"

There was a big pause. Nemesis said nothing. She refused to say anything. Her cheeks burned and her vision blurred, and rather than stare at Ranma's back, she turned away.

Ranma glanced casually over his shoulder. "That is right, isn't it?"

Nemesis shook her head. "It is." She sounded hollow.

"So, c'mon, let's get this going. We're all alone, no one can disturb us, you can work off your frustrations on me." Ranma turned back to face her then, taking up a confident pose, ready for Nemesis to launch herself at him. Instead, Mitsuki was walking down the side of the volcano, heading for Tokyo. "Kari? Mitsuki?"

"Just go home, Ranma." The voice was tired, flat, devoid of the life and anger that had been held by it only a few moments ago.

Ranma, confused, reached out, then thought the better of it, and left for home.

Mitsuki looked up and sighed. "It is only if you think it is," she murmured sadly, before continuing her trek home.

XXXXXX

Tokyo felt ominous. He felt it. Could feel it deep within his bones. Something was stirring, within him, uncoiling like a rope.

Or a snake.

Hidden from the world, that piece of him that would always be blackness and blank to his conscious mind unfurled and drank in the sensation of evil, the aftertaste of death and destruction. He understood it wasn't something that was natural; or, at least, something that hadn't always been natural. It was something pushed into it, bound into the metagenetical makeup of the essence, a trillion years of hated forced evolution. Unlike the irrational hatreds he was often in the grip of, this was a coldly rational hatred. Blinding with the sensation of it, and pushing towards irrational acts and revenge, yet rational all the same.

Yet, he found that now, unlike a time previous, the hatred and anger did not rule his life. It no longer dominated his destiny, turning him into an internal orgy of sex and violence that he feared he had been becoming. In all, he was now a better person for exploring the dark side of his personality - he knew it existed, he accepted its existance, and he had beaten it. With some help, but he had beaten it.

Likewise, his companion had also been through a similar experience. The outcome with his companion had been more of a sure thing, but with him... it had been in the balance.

The dorm building at Kanagawa seemed to be full of life. The city behind them was in mourning; the simple constructions here, melting snow heaped up around them, uncleared during winter, was in expectation of a return. He could feel it. He felt it, like everyone else here could feel it.

"It feels... like it's waiting," one of the women behind him said. "For heroes." She said the last word uncomfortably, as if it was language she wasn't used to using. The word sounded alien, the way it was spoken.

"Ummm... it's much nicer than ours," another said from back behind the others.

"They have a manager who looks after the place, isn't that right, Keitaro?" yet another said. Yet, where once it would have been spoken in anger, now it was more wry than abusive. Perhaps that was because his companion had her fingers locked tightly through his.

"Maybe," he replied, distantly, stretching out with his mind. He could feel presences here that the thing in his mind recoiled from. A quick glance to his side showed Naru also felt the same thing. Seeing as he was the monster who had turned her, and she had been the weaker of the two, his reaction was the much stronger of the two, but she could also feel their pasts hiding. "They're still here... somewhere..."

"I cannot sense anyone nearby," the first woman added cautiously, looking about. "I sense nothing but us here."

"That makes what we have to do even more difficult."

"Idiot."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Keitaro commented to Naru from the side of his mouth.

"We do it like we were planning to. Something's coming, right?" she asked. "It should even penetrate your brain that somehow, we know when whatever is going on is going to happen."

Keitaro's mouth ran dry. He hadn't thought of that, but he knew. He could feel it, just like Naru said, hovering on the edge of consciousness. Instinctively, he knew it would let him know when something happened, but it had taken Narusegawa to bring it to his attention. Typical. He'd been locked up in his own world and forgetting others also experienced some of the things he did. "You're right," he breathed. "Thank you."

"So where are the magical girls?" Kaolla asked.

"Ummm..."

"Where's Hotaru? I wanna play with her this time!"

"What? Oh, the school -"

"I've got a whole bunch of new toys I can't wait to try out!"

"Su!"

The young foreigner stopped bouncing around, and stared at Keitaro. "Yes?" All innocence below the playful eyes.

"How would you like to fight a supervillian?"

That idea appealed. "Yesssss!" she squealed.

XXXXXX

Ranma's training of the senshi faltered for a few days. Mitsuki wasn't that receptive to his training, and the others, sensing something had happened on the way to and from their aborted sparring match, mostly left the subject alone. All continued training, but Ranma, preoccupied, didn't concern himself with the day to day details of who would spar with whom, nor with paying much attention to katas, style and skill. Instead, he was distracted, often to be found focussing himself on turning a chunk of rock into a sculpture.

And yet, he felt no accomplishment from these actions, either. He knew that, no matter what he did, this wasn't a real world. Even if they could find a way to bring everyone back to the real world, Ranma knew that likely it would only be the people. It would be like nothing had changed, apart from the missing time they'd been in the system. Maybe even Tokyo itself would be destroyed; he couldn't say. But ultimately, nothing he did here beyond stopping the extermination of some millions of people would be of any consequence.

So, the rock art did nothing to abate his mood or help solve his confusion. The few hesitant times he started to say something to Mitsuki, she rebuffed his attempts at conversation. Hotaru's eyes seemed to follow him everywhere, and the constant hugging, the occasional, distracted kissing, the hesitant blossoming anew of their physical relationship did nothing to help matters. He needed to talk to Mitsuki. He needed to know what was going on between them. He could feel it now, tugging at him. Like he was some kind of rogue planet, dipping in and out of the solar system, swinging around two planets that (he now realised) wanted him equally. And while he was determined to stay with one, the other was confusing his life enough that he would orbit dangerously close to the other from time to time. It was something he couldn't help, something he couldn't understand, but something that he wanted to help, had to understand. He knew that, but to get that vital last piece of the puzzle, he needed to talk to Mitsuki without her doping herself on her medication or finding cause to be elsewhere.

After training on the fourth morning, Ranma's problems seemed to be going. He could feel Kaname, behind his eyes, watching curiously, yet silently. Whatever was going on, he felt she knew. Probably better than him, but she was the female side to his ego, unbound by his personality and drives, and so that was to be expected. At least she wasn't laughing at him, but then, she wasn't handing the answer to him, either.

"Class dismissed," he finished, and grabbed a towel after the others had taken them and most had retreated to the springs out the back. The ground was damp, snow melting and slowly turning exposed dirt into mud. And, considering the fact the senshi practised super-powered martial arts on this stretch of lawn every morning, there was an awful lot of exposed earth.

As he turned to face out towards the ocean, he realised Hotaru was standing before him. "Sempai," she offered in a tone that belied the pleasant expression on her face.

"Hotaru-chan," he replied, toweling sweat from his brow and neck after a moment's hesitation.

"We have to talk."

"I thought that's what we were doing, but okay."

"I mean, not here. Somewhere else."

"Where did you have in mind?"

So that was how, half an hour later, Ranma found himself digging in his pocket for some money for the theatre clerk. "I don't know why we've got to see a Pocket Monster movie," he grumbled. Not enough money. He glanced up under his bright red fringe at the attendant: a young teenaged boy, face covered in pimples. Inwardly, he sighed. Outwardly, he giggled, grabbed a surprised Hotaru's arm, pressing his ample bosom against her until Ranma's front engulfed her shoulder like it hadn't eaten in months, kissed her on the cheek, and before Hotaru's surprise could turn into a warm melt into his side and possibly ruin any chance hope of the ensuing conversation making much sense, he pulled back and giggled coquettishly at the clerk. "Hiiiiii, would you mind if we go in there?" she asked, pointing flirtaceously and pulling Hotaru's arm so the younger woman collapsed into Ranma's side. The clerk's face lit up brightly with blood, and he made some kind of what Ranma guessed was supposed to be a chivalrous gesture, but instead was little more than a leer with his hand as he gestured towards the doors. Ranma simpered, realising with some surprise this had been the first time in a long time he'd used his female body to its fullest, most natural advantage over others. He half-dragged the surprised Hotaru past the attendant and through the doors, into the darkness, but once inside, she took over, guided him to an isolated pair of chairs where she waited until he sat before she did.

"No one else will be here, not at the moment," Hotaru replied to Ranma's original question. "And we have to talk. Be alone."

"Why?" Ranma asked. "What do we have to talk about?"

"Us. Us, Ranma. And this whole 'Dark General' thing you've had going."

"Oh. Oooohh..." Ranma repeated as realisation hit. "It's just... power. Stronger than I have experienced before, deeper in my body. It felt like -"

"Like?" Hotaru prompted.

"When I was that Sailor girl. Um, Ceres."

"But how was it different?"

"As Ceres, I had... urges. Like voices. Telling me... telling me that it was my duty to rule the world. That it was my destiny. That everything in Tokyo would be shining towers and healthy lives."

"And the rest of the world?"

"In decline. Dead, dying, degenerate. Frozen. But I was being told that wasn't my destiny to help those people. Just those who lived in Tokyo and served..."

"Served?"

"I don't know. It was just feeling. Urges. An overwhelming force of future history. And an overwhelming sense something ain't right about that state of affairs." He folded his arms and pouted darkly. "It was wrong."

"And as this monstrous General persona?"

Ranma shrugged, growing thoughtful now. "It wasn't... evil. It encouraged... revenge. Vengeance. For things long in the past. Possibly dead things now."

"How could it not be evil?" Hotaru asked, her arm shifting inside the crook of his arm.

"Remember a few weeks before we came here?" Ranma asked, seemingly changing the subject. "Usagi was telling me, under duress, some of the things that had happened to you guys while we'd been fighting together that I didn't know about? Like... well, like those dreams she had she thought were important."

"I remember."

"Then you remember there was one thing the Queen said to her? 'Two sides of the one coin, with Earth as the edge that joins them together'." Ranma turned to face Hotaru. "That's stuck with me since. I kinda understand it. It's the positive and the negative joined together. Once can't exist without the other. The past is chaos, the future is order, and one's no good without at least a little of the other."

"Why do you say that?"

"I dunno. I just think that, y'know?" Ranma shifted, uncomfortably. "Being... a monster, a General, was a rush. Completely. I didn't feel like I had to worry about other people, I could concentrate on the task at hand because I didn' have ta worry about... collateral damage. I did, though. That's my personality."

"I didn't think personality had anything to do with evil."

"It's not... evil. It's... different."

"It's not different. It's evil. We know this. This is what we dedicate our lives to fighting. It's evil."

Ranma gently unhooked his arm from Hotaru's. "That's your point of view."

"They kill people!"

"And you don't?" Ranma asked, before Hotaru could say anything else. "Hotaru, I'm not saying it's right, but you're both fighting the same way almost. They are about to kill people in the billions, but 'til now, they haven't. Up until that big monster in Minato, we killed just as many as they killed almost. Almost. And until it was brought to your attention, you and your friends killed without remorse, without wondering if there was some way you could save these people. And even then, Ami only gave some half-hearted attempts after Keitaro was saved. No one's asked me about me much; and I'm worse than Keitaro ever was... I could be more powerful than Natsumi if I wanted ta be." He shrugged. "They're no more evil than you are. They do things differently, they live different, and they've been shaped differently... but you will both do anything - ANYTHING - if it will bring about a situation you feel is worth it."

"That's not -" Hotaru started, but Ranma continued.

"Yoshihiro will sacrifice every human, animal and plant on Earth to unseal his world. Would Sailor Moon do the same?"

"You know she wouldn't," Hotaru replied, daggers growing in her eyes.

"Do I? I know she'd think she'd save everyone. Save all life on Earth, and bring the Moon Kingdom back into existance. But if it was an either-or situation, like Yoshihiro seems to be confronted with, I think she'd be torn."

"Billions of lives currently alive on Earth against hundreds of billions of dead? I don't think that's much of a choice, Ranma."

Ranma sighed. "That's an evasive answer, Hotaru. Very evasive. Which would you choose?"

Hotaru ducked her head and bit her tongue. While part of her had been born on Earth, an equal part of her had grown up defending the Moon Kingdom from threats to its security. She found, as she gave a moment's thought to the question, that she hadn't been too certain as to which answer she'd have given. "Of course I'd have said defend... Earth."

"As a resident of Earth, and only of Earth, I don't like the implications of that hesitation."

"Well, what do you expect?" Hotaru shouted suddenly, going on the offensive. "You accuse me of wanting to destroy the world! You accuse me of not caring about... about everyone! I do! I do care! When I was young, I never used to, but dammit Ranma, I've changed! Chibiusa did a lot for me there, and so did Usagi, but it was Usagi who saved me from destroying the Earth - twice! I'm Sailor Saturn, senshi of death and rebirth, and my task was to defend the Moon Kingdom against anything - ANYTHING - and that includes the threat to the Moon Kingdom and surviving royalty from Earth and the Dark Kingdom. That means Usagi. If Usagi wants to destroy the Earth, then it's not my place to question. That's where my loyalties lie."

"Thank you for the honest answer, Hotaru," Ranma said, eventually, gravely. "That puts another piece in the puzzle."

"What puzzle?"

Ranma gave a mysterious, suddenly impish grin, and shook his head. "I've got some secrets too, remember," he said after a moment. Then, things began to tunnel around him, and he knew his time was up again, for however long. "And they can wait for a while," he said before he was gone. Kaname remained in his place, starting and looking around in mild surprise.

"That is so disorientating," she grumbled to Hotaru, before realising the younger woman looked ready to explode. "Uh... have I come at a bad time?"

"No," the younger girl managed after a few minutes. "He infuriates me."

"Ranma?" Kaname asked, puzzled. "I thought he was your, you know, boyfriend."

"He is."

"Things aren't going well?" Kaname hazarded.

"I don't see things as he sees them."

"How does he see them?" Kaname asked.

"Differently," Hotaru replied, letting go of a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding. She seemed to deflate back into her cinema chair while Pikachu blasted some rocks apart on the screen, covering her in flashes of neon yellow lightning. "I know he sees things differently. I've had proof of it in the past. But I thought he agreed with our aims. Our goals."

"Which are?"

"The destruction of the Dark Kingdom. Bringing a halt to this million years-plus war. Recreating the Moon Kingdom. Regenerating our way of life."

"Ranma's opposed to that?"

"Yes."

"Maybe he's not."

"Why do you think that?" A purple eye rolled in Kaname's direction.

"Maybe he's opposed to how that'll affect his world," Kaname replied.

XXXXXX

An idea crouched on the rooftop, staring off at the rapidly lightening horizon. Imaginery light flickered from the primitive masquerading as the sun as it poked its head up above a finite limit, then almost immediately was obscured by thick clouds. While they promised no more snow, they did offer the chance of rain, cleansing the ground of the loose, dirty sludge that was building up as spring approached. The idea laughed, hollowly. That sounded so profound, so like what was going to happen shortly.

Because it had to happen. The idea knew that. It wasn't a personality, just a concept of a personality. Not everyone could be saved, the idea knew that, even if the Real Thing didn't. The Real Thing was an idealist. Even now, it wanted things to be even, be fair, be just, but that wasn't the way things were. For things to happen, people had to die. Idealists were usually the first to die. The question was, was the Real Thing really an idealist? Or was it something else, something that was cunning, planning for survival of those most important to it here? Honestly, it didn't know. It could be a third option, one that suggested it was simply struggling to make sense out of what it had been thrown into without warning or permission. And the more the idea considered, there were more options, a fourth, a seventh, a thirty-third...

The list would only grow. The idea stopped thinking, and let the chill breeze that preceded the rains to flow over it. It felt nice, reassuring, although it was biting and cruel. It anchored the idea in its reality, this jumbled world of paradoxes and expert systems, flowcharts and conceptual schemas given form and thought. Its reality. The world it lived in. Like The World, even down to people pretending desperately it was real.

And perhaps that was the problem. Like The World, this system modelled the real world to the point it was hard to tell the difference. You shouldn't have physical sensation in computer games, but in The World, you could touch other people. You could smell other people. If you were so inclined, you could taste other people.

The idea contemplated that this was very much an approximation. Bark didn't feel like bark. Snow wasn't as cold as snow. Cold soggy cheap ramen didn't quite taste like cold soggy cheap ramen. Everything was just slightly different, as the game told your brain you were feeling these things, but the subconscious was yelling that you weren't. And that was what the system was like. Everything was right, everything was correct, but there was a discontinuity in the experience of sensation that was caused by the brain shortcircuiting memory. It wasn't right. It was all wrong because it was so right.

And that was the crux of the problem. The idea couldn't see why few people could see this was true. Everything was so right. Everything was so exact, right down to the grains of salt in kitchens, right down to lichens and mosses growing in dark, damp places, right down to almost individual cells in the human body.

Almost. The idea thought that perhaps bodies weren't as well-organised or imagined as everything else. Perhaps they were a really good visual model with limited statistics, a personality graft and an ego. Or perhaps not. The idea didn't know. What it did know was that below, the house was stirring. People were waking. Or rather, not people but concepts and code. That was what the idea was finding worrying. Since she had started swapping places with the Real Thing, she had gained his abilities, and his new vision. She thought, privately, that this would only last as long as the system did, but regardless, she could see in numbers, statistics, colour-shaded values... everything was so strange and new, yet so comfortable and old. And still, Kaname had a choice to make.

XXXXXX

Makoto heard feet land lightly outside the kitchen window, and she saw Ranma's back as he stalked off. Or, rather, the way Ranma was walking, Makoto realised Kaname was back. She walked slightly less aggressive than Ranma did, she noticed, with more of a roll to her hips. Makoto didn't know what it was, whether it was perceptual or real, but the feel of the action seemed so personal to the other persona that she attached it to Kaname. It was almost time for training, and the senshi were stirring. Hotaru had seemed upset when she'd come home, Ranma had ghosted past them all and gone to bed, thoughtful. But Makoto had heard Ranma get up shortly after the last of the senshi had gone to bed and climbed to the roof, and had stayed there all night. When the sun had risen, Ranma had shifted a few times, apparently uncomfortable in thought, and then he'd landed in front of the window. Makoto shrugged. Maybe she should go say something, she thought, but didn't know what. It wasn't something she was terribly good at, words and the whole spilling of feelings thing.

Not good at all. Makoto preferred to act through physical actions. People got a better sense of where they stood with Makoto, or where she was coming from, if she could show them physically. Usually defending them, it seemed, but not always. Someone who'd reminded her of an old upperclassman had asked her to help him shift house; another had had her help him fix his motorcycle, and others had asked her many times to hold boxes, books, bags... the list grew and grew. But it was Makoto's way of trying to say she was friendly. Unfortunately, it didn't often show up as that to other people. Mostly, they thought she was mannish, strong, a violent freak, someone to keep away from unless you needed help of that kind. Usagi, on the other hand, had seen something different, in that simple, cheerful, optimistic way of hers, and had kept talking to Makoto until Makoto had relented and opened up somewhat. But, while she had opened up, she still felt actions were a better indicator of feeling than words.

Why tell someone you would help them in a fight when you could just help them in the fight and let that honesty show?

It was a simplistic approach in its own way, Makoto knew, and thus open to interpretation, and for finer interactions, physicality wasn't that good for discussion purposes. She would have to have someone else go and talk to Kaname, someone quieter, someone nicer, someone less likely to accidentally try and pound her through the ground with an ill-timed pat on the back.

Makoto dried her hands and headed upstairs.

XXXXXX

When Usagi descended the stairs from the dormitory, she found Kaname talking to someone. Who, she didn't immediately recognise, but when the head tilted to look over Kaname's shoulders at her directly, she recognised the sharp calculating cunning behind the eyes.

"Oh, it's you," Nabiki Tendo said. Kaname turned around.

"Usagi? What's up?"

"Makoto said you might need to talk. And, you know, since we talked a bit the other week, I thought..." Usagi's voice trailed off at Nabiki's continuing glare. "Uh, is this a bad time?"

"Not at all, Usagi. Nabiki was just telling me about the fact she's a martial arts master now."

"I didn't think she -"

"I know kung-fu," Nabiki replied.

"Kaname?" Usagi asked, confused.

"She's found, by accident, what I've been trying to teach," Kaname explained to Usagi, stepping out of direct line of sight between herself and Nabiki to include the other in the conversation. "How to visualise what I've been talking about, to change this reality."

"How did she...?"

"How did she figure it out?" Kaname asked rhetorically. She swung her head to look at Nabiki with a piercing gaze. "She says she simply started looking at things. Realising that this world is an artificial construct was the first step. Using her mind to influence it was the next."

"I don't understand," Usagi replied again, feeling as if she was trying to catch up on something important but missing something equally important that was needed to understand it.

"We can demonstrate," Nabiki said suddenly, and Kaname's eyes narrowed. Was that nervousness in there, lurking behind her lashes and intense brow? And if it was, wondered Usagi, what was she nervous about?

"Are you sure -" Kaname started, but Nabiki cut her off.

"I'm up to it. I really know kung-fu." She slid into a ready position, her body fluid as if she'd been learning the arts all her life instead of economics. Kaname obviously noticed that, and returned the pose. Usagi stepped back. Without her even realising, the fight had started. Fists and feet blurred, and Usagi's senses shrank until it seemed like the altercation in front of her was all that existed. Having had experience of the time gate on Pluto, she recognised the sense as time dilation on a local, personal level, yet that didn't make the effect any less unreal than this now. it was like she was watching them in slow motion, yet they were moving as if in a reel of fast film. Moving so fast they left after-images on Usagi's retina, Nabiki and Kaname traded blow for blow, and at the speed they were moving, each punch and kick thrust out a concussive field that started to tear at Usagi's clothing. Strangely, Usagi realised, Nabiki seemed to be a match for everything Kaname did.

And Kaname seemed strangely pleased. She was learning. Learning at an accelerated rate. Ranma could learn a move by watching it, but it still took him time to master it, make it his, counter it, but Kaname was learning and responding on the spot. Even as Nabiki stepped up the speed of her attacks, Kaname began pouring on the energy herself, pushing back on Nabiki. The Tendo woman pushed back again, stepping up her power output and speed, and then Kaname -

XXXXXX

Rei, clearing up outside a small shrine she'd found behind the dorm's walled-off springs, shivered, and ravens that had thus far stayed silent exploded into noisy life, leaping for the skies. She felt the burst of negative energies, the maelstrom that swept out of the valley below them. Again, she shivered; she recognised the pattern behind the energy.

XXXXXX

Anathema, that was how Usagi felt it, even if she didn't know the word. The energy gushing like a flood out of Kaname, visible now as a blasting waveform rising from her feet, caused Usagi to lean forward to try to retain her balance. As Kaname expended more and more power, though, Usagi found it a losing battle. Her feet started digging a furrow backwards as she struggled, but she was finding the dark energy was not just pushing her backwards, it was blinding her.

A quick transformation, and even Sailor Moon was finding it hard to stay in one place. Every time Kaname upped her power level, Nabiki seemed to match it. Yet, Sailor Moon noticed, Nabiki was slowing, her energy was flagging. For all that this normal girl had learnt, the magical amounts of energy she had located and accessed, Nabiki couldn't keep up with Kaname even now. A finaly burst of energy, and the brilliant aural wave withdrew inside Kaname. She looked... different. More aware of her surroundings, her hair jet black.

Usagi sucked in a breath, and with only a scant moment pause for a second thought, she transformed. Kaname didn't notice Sailor Moon readying herself to fight if she started destroying houses - or even looked like she wanted to. But Kaname was still focussed on Nabiki. Sailor Moon could now feel it, deep down, that Nabiki's power was much less than Kaname's, even with all the fancy moves. And if Nabiki was an unskilled (or publicly-unskilled; Sailor Moon suspected that Nabiki had likely had some training in martial arts in her family's dojo at some point, even if she didn't admit to it) fighter and Kaname had some skills (or a lot if she wasn't focussing) and the power of a General behind her, the senshi could - or, rather, would - be immensely powerful again, and be able to stand up to Yoshihiro and his Agents... at least, in the system.

She wasn't stupid enough to believe that would be the same outside in the real world.

Sailor Moon barely registered the arrival of the other senshi, but then, she had started to realise that none of them were needed. The taps and touches and kicks and punches Kaname sent Nabiki's way started getting through her defences. Moving lightning fast avoided the worst of the blows, but they weren't quite fast enough to beat the raw power Kaname was sending Nabiki's way.

And that's when Sailor Moon saw it: Nabiki knew that this system was fake and that knowledge had allowed her to bend the rules. She thought she could change the world, and she did. Kaname on the other hand... or rather, Ranma... had always believed that, and had the benefit of experience and faith. Whereas Nabiki was obviously new to this and taking her time focussing on the task at hand, something in Kaname just knew she could and didn't let trivialities such as nervousness or doubt enter into the equation.

Most of the others gave her a questioning glance; Saturn looked as if a glacier was cooking off inside her head, Nemesis just looked disinterested. Sailor Moon waved them down. For the moment, it was nothing but the sensation of evilness, but no corruption, no decay, no violence apart from the tightly controlled moves of Kaname. Then, again, in the middle of the fight, Nabiki found extra power. She began returning to more of an even keel with Kaname. Both women concentrated now, their moves flying faster and faster, until even Mercury's visor could barely make out anything other than a constant haze of colour. As Nabiki grew more confident, Sailor Moon realised, Nabiki's abilities grew. The system allowed her deeper and deeper access into the substratum of data structures, drawing on artforms Sailor Moon hadn't heard about (but had seen in cheap Hong Kong movies Mamoru occasionally liked to watch on dates), and increased the speed and power she could access. Again, Kaname found herself on the back foot, stepping back a few times to avoid devastating punches and kicks that slammed through reinforced cement walls, the ground, street lights and the like with ease.

Nabiki's form glowed and crackled with power, ki charging through the roof. She fired off energy waves, long beams of laser-light will that sliced through the hillside behind them as Kaname fought and dodged, and Sailor Moon realised with a start that Kaname couldn't beat Nabiki at the moment, she could only avoid. As powerful as Kaname had grown, she fought because she had to... Nabiki fought because she wanted to. And that was also causing a particular amount of difference in their fighting styles.

Kaname blocked a vicious slice with her forearms in an X-position, yet even with this defensive posture, the strike dug her into the ground a few centimetres. Nabiki sprung backwards, to gather her breath and wits about her next attack, obviously showing off and enjoying showing off. "I'll throw the fight if you pay me, Ranma," she said, sounding a little winded.

"She hasn't realised that's not Ranma again," Venus whispered behind Sailor Moon's back.

"I don't need someone ta throw a fight," Kaname replied, her accent surprising Sailor Moon as she drew a weapon.

But what surprised her more was the weapon itself. Ranma's transformation wand, with the Roman symbol for Ceres mounted on the top. "Ceres dirty rock - make up!" Kaname shouted, thrusting it into the air. Grey streamers twirled around Kaname's form, settling into a familiar abbreviated sailor suit in grey trim, although - Sailor Moon noticed - the cut of the uniform was slightly different than the last time Ranma had worn it. The skirt seemed slightly longer, the gloves and boots having some intricate detailing on them, and the jewel in the tiara glowed a vibrant red - the colour of Ranma's girlform's hair, Sailor Moon realised. Sailor Ceres' hair was still a jet black, which gave Sailor Moon another surprise - she was still pumped up as a General.

The fight continued, and this time Sailor Ceres didn't let up. The punches, the kicks, the ki blasts, the speed, the backflips and rolls, Nabiki couldn't dodge or parry all of them. Strikes crept through, and although at one point, she gamely tried pressing ahead, Sailor Ceres quickly put her to rights.

Sailor Moon noted a warm feeling around her ankles, and looked down to see Luna brush past. "I thought Ranma broke that wand," she shouted to the cat over the noise of impacts and mini sonic booms.

Luna's eyes never left Sailor Ceres. "I thought so, too. They must be more durable than we remember." Artemis, appearing beside Luna, nodded his agreement.

"We remember so much, but there is more we're always still remembering," he confirmed. "I'd always thought those wands were awfully too fragile for normal use, and I guess this is why they never broke."

"Especially with Sailor Mars throwing hers at people," Sailor Moon slid in with a quiet sly grin.

"WHAT?" Mars exploded, then, remembering where they were and what was going on, backed down into a simmer. Nemesis placed a hand on her shoulder momentarily, surprising Mars, but the hand was gone again before she could turn to see the expression on the older senshi. 'Was that... have I just been comforted by HER?' Mars wondered, before her attention was grabbed again by the fight.

With the power of both kingdoms behind Sailor Ceres, who won the fight was a moot concept. It became who had the more fun. Once Nabiki realised she couldn't match that last burst of power that had accompanied that last transformation, she had settled into showboating. Sailor Ceres, knowing before that last transformation that she'd already won, went along for the ride. This was what she wanted to teach the others, and the easiest way to teach was to show, then have the students do, and do, and do again until they got it right. But with Kaname the only person in the group who knew how to move and fight like this, she, like Ranma, had been struggling to find a way to show that even the senshi could master moves as she could.

At least in the system.

And here was someone, with no magical abilities, with no major martial arts training, with no magical or technological support, beating a Dark General. Sailor Moon guessed that Nabiki would have been able to beat a senshi as well, judging by the fact that usually, the Generals of the various Dark Kingdom assaults on the Earth were almost stronger than the senshi as a whole, and so Sailor Moon realised now why the various agents they had fought on occasion had been horrifyingly strong and supernaturally fast. Unlike the two in front of her, their power was not beset by doubt of their abilities or concern for others; they were programmed to do their job, and they did it. There was only one of two possibilities for them: outright win or outright failure. Nothing in between was a possible result. Singleminded determination would lead them to continue... but the senshi, they found victories in saving people, in escaping to fight again when better prepared, and in finding ways to victory that didn't necessarily result in a bloodbath.

In fact, the less blood spilt on both sides, the better. Sailor Moon herself had been known to offer herself for the universe from time to time, such was her dedication to making the effort to save everyone, just just the innocent from the depredations of others, but those abusing their power also.

But as she aged, as she saw more of the world, she had begun to doubt the validity of saving everyone. Perhaps some people couldn't be saved, perhaps some should die... some people didn't change. This Yoshihiro was one. The agent constructs in the system were another. And somehow, she suspected, the General Natsumi Otohime was yet a third.

Eventually, Nabiki gave up. Her doubt grew too much, and her moves sloppy, clumsy, weaker. Sailor Ceres also noticed, and began cycling back on her power output. Sailor Moon hadn't realised the ambient temperature had dropped when Kaname had worked up her power to start with, but noticed her goosebumps start disappearing as the temperature raised. Colour leeched back into Ceres' hair, and then her transformation from senshi dropped as well.

"That's... free of charge," Nabiki panted, hands on her knees as she tried to regain her breath.

"You didn't say that last time we had an encounter," Sailor Jupiter muttered.

"Consider this the... service which Ranma paid for," Nabiki continued after a pause. She seemed to be waiting for some kind of reaction from Kaname; instead, all she got was a calloused hand on her shoulder.

"Thank you, Nabiki Tendo," came the grave reply. Sailor Moon looked into her eyes, and saw... barely restrained enthusiasm. This was what she had been waiting for, the means to explaining how to fight the agents, but hadn't been able to elucidate to anyone's satisfaction... or understanding.

Now they knew. Do, or do not. There was no try. Kaname shrugged at her, a gesture Sailor Moon took to mean 'try it yourself'. She turned, slowly, finding Nemesis standing beside her, already moving into position. Sailor Moon, the least physically coordinated of the senshi. If she could manage this feat, the others could also. Kaname's simple faith moved her, hands and feet already moving into the complex dance she had learned from her teacher, with heart if not with skill. Nemesis also moved slowly, and Sailor Moon moved into an opposing move. She didn't think she could do this; and then she remembered Nabiki Tendo's moves, and her opening riposte: she knew kung-fu.

And, somehow, Sailor Moon found she did, too. And tai chi, tae kwon do, karate, some other dangerous words, and, surprisingly enough, something her brain registered as drunken master style. As her brain marvelled at this knowledge, the moves laid out intricately on how to move and countermove, her hands moved now on their own, acting on instinct and years of training not hers. She blocked blows, dodged kicks, staggered around headbutts and split-jumped over charges. Occasionally, she found time and the wonder to return with an attack, and Nemesis did likewise in her moves, each complementing the other with the style and grace they offered in combat, occasionally silent in amazement.

And then they realised, the others were almost standing still. Time for them seemed normal, but everyone else was still reacting to the start of the fight, moving through the air in extreme slow motion. That realisation was enough for them to break the spell, and they collapsed back into the system proper as if flicked there by a rubber band.

Both senshi collapsed to the ground, gasping, eyes wide with surprise as they struggled to catch their breath. They looked up at each other.

"We did it," Nemesis said.

"We did it," Sailor Moon echoed, pulling herself up from the ground. Once upright, she looked at her hands, the thin supple fingers that now held so much more magic in them. She smiled, somewhat surprised with the connection she made between her newfound abilities and Mamoru, whom she hadn't seen in four months.

Surprising, really, she considered. Even before this event, he showed up semi-regularly and they continued on dates... but since the system hijacked everyone from Tokyo and the surrounds, including Tuxedo Kamen, she hadn't seen him. Not really. One glimpsed moment only, and he hadn't seen her. She wondered deep in her heart if he also felt this world was wrong, if he knew what was going on -

"Of course he knows," Kaname said from the middle of the impact crater in the roadway.

Sailor Moon looked up. "How do you -"

Kaname shook her head. "I don't know. And I don't know why he hasn't been by. But Ranma saw him when Ranma was away. And Ranma saw him keeping quiet." Kaname didn't add her personal thoughts based on what Ranma saw. But Sailor Moon made the instinctive step regardless.

"The other knights, the other champions," Sailor Moon realised. "He's standing by them in case something happens to us!"

"I think so, yes," Kaname nodded. The other senshi nodded also, slow nods as they each came to agree with the thought. "Those who were injured, far from home when Raijin struck - I think he is looking after them. He is connected. As you were to your worlds, he is to his as well."

Earth was Endymion's adopted home, Sailor Moon realised, not where he was actually born. But none of the senshi in their previous lives had actually had to have been born on the worlds who names they bore to be connected to them. Most had been born and raised on the Moon, in the Kingdom's primary city, each batch of senshi raised with the next queen-to-be. Except, of course, Pluto, who was eternal and singular in ways Sailor Moon had yet to completely understand. Yet she understood the almost gravitational pull of orbital bodies on their satellite, and that was what Mamoru most definitely was. She hadn't quite realised, but now she nodded, accepting his absence again, yet with a lighter heart on the matter.

"You can all do this," Kaname said to the group as a whole, her eyes moving from one senshi to another. "Powered up or not, you can do this. Whether you're a senshi or a human or a dog or a cat, so long as you can believe you can do this, you can."

"How I defeated those Cybrids," Mercury remembered. "For a life form that had eradicated itself almost perfectly from Mercurian records, I found the information to defeat a little too easily enough."

Nemesis grumbled. "You call the nick of time 'too easy'? Oh, I forget, you weren't the one being thrown around like a rag doll." Mercury shot her a glare that faded after a moment as Kaname continued.

"More to the point, regardless of whether you think ya can do this or not, I know you can. We've seen you beat impossible odds. We've seen you fight back from the pits of despair. We've seen you move mountains, save people, protect the world and everything on it. And we've seen you as people, lost, alone, afraid, doubting - but never defeated. Whatever we think of you and your mission, you have it in you to do good. The world will live and breathe by your actions, and history will record the Moon Kingdom again." Sailor Moon noted Kaname's eyes were unfocussed at the moment, as if she was staring off somewhere else. Sailor Mars saw it as a mild form of possession, and readied herself. Yet whatever was inside Kaname, be it Ranma or some kernel of either side that had taken route in her, did not feel evil to Mars. "The future will bring trouble, hardship, doubt and redemption. It will bring pain and death, destruction and enlightenment. A false idol will rise, and I will not be beside you during this time. It is a test you must face yourselves. And then, in the end, faith and hope will triumph, with the bitter tears of an infant its chorus." The almost-messianic light faded from Kaname's eyes, and she blinked, settling back down onto the flats of her feet as she looked at the senshi.

"What?" she asked. "Whaaaat?"

They had let their transformations drop. Something in Kaname's words had seemed to be for human consumption rather than immortal powerhouses, and one by one they had blurred back into their pyjamas, trackpants and sweatshirts, keenly aware of the cold clammy wetness of the melting snow around their now-bootless feet. And something in their faces, from the awe in Usagi's, to the suspicion in Rei's eyes, to the surprise in Hotaru's, told Kaname she'd missed a very good show. At the very elast, she hoped she'd put one on, with fireworks and spinning heads and floating, but she didn't know. She turned to Nabiki, a question on her lips, but Nabiki was already taking a few steps backwards.

"Don't look at me," she said, holding her hands up almost defensively. "I don't know what's going on. I didn't cause it." Then, as the assembled women behind Kaname turned their stares to lock on to her, Nabiki broke and fled down a side street.

'That took some courage,' Kaname wondered, then turned back to the senshi. Time for explanations. Inwardly, she sighed. It was going to be a long morning.

XXXXXX

Again, the weeks passed in a blurr. But this time, a literal blurr. The senshi trained. They did. Surprisingly, after Sailor Moon and Sailor Nemesis had the skill of eradicating doubt from their hearts, Sailor Mercury was the next to succeed. She had been shown it was possible; therefore she knew if she followed the guidelines Kaname laid down, she could indeed act in a similar way. It was logical, and she was a logical and confident person.

By the end of the first week, all the senshi were sparring in slow motion and fast forward. Another week, and Kaname was showing off some skills she'd been learning consciously while the senshi were training: namely, using their afterimages as decoys. It required a lot of speed, but once the belief hurdle had been left behind, all involved in the training realised that in this world, speed was a concept they themselves set.

The third week, they practised hitting and dodging. The fourth, advanced techniques were taught.

All knew that once outside the system, they would lose these newfound abilities, but for the moment, while they were in this digital world, they would be able to make use of everything their imaginations could create.

And all the while, the constructs in the Zone were built, eldritch fingers rising up from the ground into the sky. From time to time, energy would crackle between the towers, before bursting into the air. Spring storms released these electrical charges in huge bolts of lightning that would rain down into the conducting lightning rods on top of the buildings in the city, or harmlessly into mountainsides and hills surrounding the CBD, although Kaname, in her more Ranma-like moments, would stare with a troubled gaze into the strike zones as if expecting some huge monster to emerge.

Perhaps she was right, Usagi reflected at one point. Perhaps they were getting too complacent. Monsters could be anywhere in this system. She remembered the construction fields, and shivered, even though she was protected from the storm outside by the warm environment of the small grocery store where she was shopping for the dorm. Somewhere up the street, Makoto was umming and ahhing over meat prices, and had gvien Usagi the task of picking up packet meals, spices and rice.

She considered her dilemma while trying to decide between two seemingly identical brands of ramen, and found her mind wandering. Should she expect some kind of counterattack? Kaname didn't think so, or so Usagi assumed, because the girl was growing silent again, untrusting, withdrawing from anything but training. Hotaru was reacting badly. For all she acted cold and aloof from the whole matter, she was still in reality very young and easily hurt. More easily hurt than others, since she hadn't trusted people for a long time while she had been possessed by a demon in order to save her life. She had trusted Ranma, and now Ranma had said something that made her hurt...

Usagi had warned him. Had warned him and the others. Something had told her he would be a bad thing for the senshi, and while some things had worked out, and while he had managed to make Hotaru (and perversely Mitsuki) happy, he was also master at making both disappointed and depressed. Neither was a state Usagi liked her friends being in. Yet something about Ranma stopped her from villifying him. Was it his cheery persona? His optimism? His refusal to leave things unfinished? His spine? Something about the way he handled his less-than-normal curse, perhaps? Usagi didn't know. She should, though, she fumed to herself.

With a start, she realised there was no sound in the grocery store. Something had happened. She looked around, and there were a variety of GOTT agents closing off either end of the aisle, all identical in appearance although none looked like the Agent Sato who had caused so much trouble for the senshi previously. The closest to her spoke. "It is one of the anomalies."

One behind him continued. "Orders from the Head Office have changed. This one is to be erased." As one, the dozen or so agents standing around Usagi took on attack postures, before running towards her as one.

It was automatic. Later, she couldn't explain how she had reacted so fast, felt no doubt, no confusion. She had just dropped the ramen packets from her hands, and launched at the agents like a demon possessed. Drawing energy from the ambient temperature in the store had frosted the windows over instantly, and likewise froze any liquids on the agent's exposed body parts - eyeballs, for example - yet that hadn't slowed them at all. Usagi had no time to transform, just let slip with a punch that sent one agent through a dozen aisles, smashing through the shelves, another flew away with a kick that smashed him into the freezer unit at the end of the aisle, also knocking down half a dozen agents. More crowded in, and her fists and feet blurred with activity, her mind bright with confidence and burning with righteousness and supported by hope. An agent got a punch in, and she flipped backwards, quickly controlling her flight by grabbing onto a support column as she whizzed past, and turned her momentum to good use, swinging around the post and smashing her feet into the two agents running to follow. She lost track of the fight, until Makoto was there beside her, beating back the agents now numbering in the three-dozen.

"Thirty of these guys, just for us?" Makoto smirked.

"Don't get overconfident!" Usagi chidded through gritted teeth. "These are still people! We don't know what shape they'll be in after this is over!"

That quietened Makoto for a few moments, the seconds while they blurred the world around them. The environment seemed to darken, the floor run like a black ocean while the cabling on the ceiling seemed to swim and pour, split into children and great-grandchildren while they writhed into plugs Usagi couldn't understand. No doubt Ami would talk at length of 'quantum bubbling architecture' and 'shoe string economic theorems' and Usagi would be lost, but so long as someone knew what was going on, Usagi would be happy. From Ami's understandings, she would break it down until Luna could understand it, then break it down further so Usagi could. She would go with Ami's recommendations... if indeed the world was changing around them in alien ways, then that might mean Ami was wrong about the timetable.

And then, one last punch, and the agents rolled to their feet, sunglasses broken, suits tattered and rumpled, and almost as one, they tilted their heads, cracked their necks, and then straightened their ties. "Interesting," the first said. "You've been upgraded." Before Usagi could reply, the agents derezzed in a buzz of static, collapsing back into innocent people. They looked around, confused, and then began to drift off, as if deciding in a subconscious communal effort that nothing had happened and they really should be getting back to their daily routine. Usagi shuddered with the normality of it all, and glanced at Makoto.

"I heard the commotion," she offered with a shrug, but somehow Usagi knew that wasn't entirely true. Usagi could feel it, too. Was this what Ranma had talked about? Being able to sense people and their states from afar, without needing to see or hear someone? Just that advanced tickle in the back of her head? The one that said, look out! or, she's in trouble! that Usagi often relied on with her friends taken to an advanced degree. It felt good. It felt incredibly temporary, but boy, did it ever feel good.

"Did you get everything you needed?" Usagi asked. Makoto pointed at bags left haphazardly near the entrance to the small store, but Usagi was already looking.

"I think we'd best get home," Makoto murmured, as she brushed past Usagi, heading for the bags. Usagi agreed.

Once they had returned to the dorm, they found the others practising. As usual, Kaname had them fighting in sped-up mode, but Usagi and Makoto could see them move. Each individual punch and kick and magical ability. The senshi were finding new methods of combining their powers and strengths daily in this world now; from nowhere, Hotaru produced her Silence Glaive, spun it around, then began to drop it.

Kaname's hand grabbed it as if from nowhere. No, not Kaname's, Hotaru realised. Ranma's. "It's not time to drop the Glaive," he said, momentarily before something in him wavered, and Kaname was back again. She looked surprised, but her hand held steady on the weapon. "Like he said," she offered, before letting go, and turning from Hotaru.

Mitsuki's eyes followed Kaname as she made her way through the training group, toucing hands and arms here, shifting legs there, until she was happy with the fighting styles being used. Then, once close to the dorm, she ducked inside. With barely a thought, Mitsuki called back into training she'd long-since forgotten, and tracked her progress through the dorm buildings by her ki output. In the system, it was muted, far more than MItsuki remembered. But perhaps it wasn't the system so much as Mitsuki had forgotten her training. Once, she had been good, as good as Ranma had been as a child. Once, she could have gone on as he had, become a fearsome force, yet she had already woken as a senshi, when her mother died, and she no longer saw the need to practise her arts. Once she ascertained where Kaname was going, she left the others to their sparring, and headed inside herself unnoticed.

She found Kaname in the hot springs - the men's, of course - and peeled off her training gi in the change room, wrapping a towel around herself and heading out into the springs area. Kaname didn't notice her, lying under the water as she did often these days, but she felt the ripples as Mitsuki slid into the water with her. Kaname sat up, blinking warm water out of her eyes.

"It's all right, you know," Mitsuki said, opening the conversation.

"What is?"

"Dying," Mitsuki replied, shrugging.

"... why would I be thinking of dying?" Kaname asked, eventually.

"Because that's what you're waiting for," Mitsuki said. "I can see it in your eyes. I've overheard conversations with Usagi. I see... how you act with Hotaru. I mean, she nice, but she's wanting you to die as well."

"WHAT?"

"Oh, not like that. She wants her Ranma back. You're nice, but you're a pale imitation of the real thing."

"... pale imitation?"

"You're the primary personality here, and Ranma's the secondary, but who's dominant? Really? Which of you lives and loves and hopes and dreams and acts, and which of you waits for its time in the sun, carefully allotted to it through no lottery it subscribed to?"

"Ranma's the real me. I'm just his shadow."

"Exactly." Mitsuki leaned forward. "And shadows are extinguished by light. What happens when we turn the lights on in the next few weeks? Do you vanish? Do you sleep? Do you go anywhere when you die?"

"This is cruel, even for you."

Mitsuki shrugged again. "It's something you have to be thinking about," she said, off-handedly. "And it's something you need to prepare for. And it's something that you need to know... you're not alone in. I'm here for you. You know that, right? I'm here if you need someone to talk to. Because, because, some people know what you're going through. Sometimes." She fell silent, contemplative.

"Is there something you want to talk about?" Kaname asked, eventually. Mitsuki shook her head, and stood up.

"No," she admitted. "Nothing. Just... if you need to talk to someone who understands? Come see me. You know where I am." She left the springs enclosure for the change room, wrapping her towel around her again, leaving behind a depressed young woman.

XXXXXX

Now. The time was now, or never. If never, then the Dark Kingdom would never eventuate. If never, then Yoshihiro's existance would be for naught. If never, then billions upon billions of monsters would forever be locked into stasis, sealed behind the barrier erected by Serenity in the outrush of energies from the destruction of the destruction of the Moon Kingdom, lives cut short by an arrogant bitch who thought she could alter the laws of nature without effect.

And yet, Yoshihiro knew pressing the button would commit him to something he had only just found doubt for. This action would doom the world of his host's birth, doom any humans, animals, plants, rocks... everything... mostly, he didn't care. Mostly, he had the memories of a general inside him, a chief of the armies of the Dark Kingdom, a King in his own right, adored by billions in his time, now barely remembered in crude cave scratchings deep below the Earth's surface. And that was the problem. He was aware of the fact he had no other memories, and the reasons why. As a newborn, his first memory had been of his death, and then the waking, his first killings, his first mutation of another, and his first facing against the senshi and their new companion, Ranma Saotome. He knew these were his memories, and yet, they were from someone other than him.

That was what caused him to pause. After this action, after this gambit played out, there was no exploration of what existed within him. There would only be the Kingdom. What kind of king did not give himself completely to his subjects? And that he would, he knew, and his existance, his personal existance, would disappear, forever replaced by the regal trappings of state.

Yet, the engine start-up needed to happen now. Four weeks for the engines to build up enough of a head of steam as it were until they could not just displace itself through spacetime, but break the enforced seal that contained the Dark Kingdom. The cross-dimensional energies would have to build to a screaming tangent to realspace before it could use the energies of the people locked into the system's core.

He knew he would press the button, but he still held back. Something that would change the world, that would change him, was something that should be savoured. And what better way to savour something than to leave it in anticipation?

He turned, with a flourish, to Baku. "And so, it begins," he said.

She didn't respond. Not tied into the system as she was, her attention turned inward to the running of the multitude of redundant computer systems holding the life energies of the people of Tokyo. She couldn't respond. There was no way she could respond. No movement, beyond breathing. No sustainence, other than the feeding tube shoved halfway down her throat. No sanitation, apart from the catheter and colostomy bag. No life, beyond the system.

He waited a minute, hand locked in gesture. Yoshihiro wasn't sure when he became aware of Umiko watching from the shadows of one of the doorways, but once he was aware of her, a quick mental nudge bade her enter. Before she could speak, the phone rang.

Annoyed now at twin interruptions of his moment, he waved at Umiko for her to remain silent, while he picked up the old-styled handset. "Hello?"

"They got away, sir," the agent reported.

"That displeases me," he responded.

"They were too strong. The secondary anomalies are exhibiting trained behaviour similar to the Alpha anomaly."

"That is also displeasing me. You were generated to protect the purity of the system code. It is a mission directive you are failing."

"Yes, sir."

A pause.

"Agent Tomo, give me an update on the progress of construction," Yoshihiro said, finally.

The agent seemed almost to be relieved the question wasn't about the senshi. "Construction is proceeding apace. Intelligence suggests the anomalies do not yet know about the purpose of construction, although they may know they are locked into a computer simulation of Tokyo rather than the real thing. Intelligence believes this erroneous belief is brought about by the fact we have used existing civilian contractors to rebuild the Zone. Construction at ground zero will be complete in twenty-one days."

Three weeks, Yoshihiro reflected silently. Four before he could do anything. But three before the system was correctly aligned. While he thought the senshi could perhaps annoy him further in the system, he didn't think they could actually cause him major troubles and derail his plans. Yes, he had contingencies, but he didn't expect to use them with regards to the senshi.

However, Saotome was another matter. Apparently, his personality had been displaced, and a new personality grown in its place. This personality had the ability to outfight his agents in the system, his defences, the viral defenders, the code generation procedures, and could conceivably tear down the thin walls between Tokyo real and Tokyo make-believe. He rubbed at his chin absently. "Good work, Agent Tomo. Keep in touch." He replaced the handset in the phone's cradle.

Umiko stepped up. "Engineering reports ready, Master."

"Excellent." And still, he hesitated. Some perception of the future, perhaps, or some condescension of the past -?

Umio's hand rubbed maternally between his shoulder blades. "If you are not ready to activate at this time, we could run a test..."

"No," Yoshihiro shook his head. "No, there is to be no test. This will work." Or this will not work, he completed in his mind. He had never been prone to doubts, except where Ranma was involved - and why was that? - and yet, here he was, pausing at his moment of triumph. Once the engines weer activated, the harmonic rumble from them would protect Tokyo from all hostile intent. It would be a force field, although he shuddered to use the human catch-all term. The field was a subtle dimensional barrier field, shifting Tokyo slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. Travellers could come and go safely, vehicles would continue to work coming into or going out of the region defined by the spherical shield, and yet, people or objects hostile to Yoshihiro would be removed from this dimensional location and translated somewhere else.

Where, Yoshihiro didn't care, but he thought the coordinates registered somewhere out in space.

With no more thought, he stabbed his thumb down on the control. The engines rumbled into life, Frankstein's monsters of machinery accumulated from before the initial dimensional rift through the war between the kingdoms through to today waking from their sleep. Without the balance supplied by the crew quarters - among other rooms - that had been removed in the rebuilding of the engines, the power-up caused some minor shaking until they had banged millennia of disuse out of them and cycled into a smooth power curve. Yoshihiro set the primary nav console to increment the amount of energy flowing into the drive system slowly, and stood back, satisfied.

Umiko looked at him expectantly.

"It's time."

She smiled at his words, and left the bridge via slipgate. For Earth, obviously, he reflected. She had her plaything there. He needed to be played with. Yoshihiro had work for him to do, and his dear mother understood the need for it.

XXXXXX

Kenichi swore. He swore he didn't want to do this again. And yet, he was. He knew he was. It was going to happen regardless. Then it was happening.

The monster paused in her rythym, panting, and looked down at him, smoothing back an errant ear with a hand and tucking random strands of hair behind it. "Is everything all right, my sweetmeat?"

He wanted to say no. He wanted to push her off him, withdraw from this battlefield, and retreat to a place she couldn't touch him. But that was impossible for him these days. He knew he could not say no to her. HIs life, his will, was hers. The woman with the bell lied. There were no angels. There were only monsters in the abyss. Her careful eyes searched his face, he could feel them, even if he wasn't looking at her. Then she must have decided it wasn't anything because she began that movement again, but more cautious this time, slower, carefully, as if he had the power to do something to her. Perhaps he did. But he denied the monster within him, and that meant he was powerless.

"Everything's not all right, is it?" she asked after a few more moments, interupting her deep-throated purr but not her motions.

He refused to speak. That, he could manage. More resistance, he couldn't manage. Bound as he was by ties he couldn't fathom, his body, his mind, was hers. She was proving that even now, with that little twist of her hips that brought him to the brink of being able to claim he couldn't continue for the moment, but she knew his control; indeed, she was affecting it. Normally, being taken against his will such as this would cause him to remain flaccid unless the stimulation was too great and his subconscious desires fought against his conscious mind's disgust. Yet, here, his subconscious withdrew in horror in tandem with his consciousness, and this seemed somehow even worse.

He felt he could have accepted it if she had been human, if a part of him had wanted this. And while she once may have been human, Kenichi knew she wasn't now. This was only parody of love or lust, not the actual thing. This wasn't even about power; this was about gratification and misplacement. He'd seen how she looked at her boss when he wasn't looking. He knew those secret desires that lay coiled behind her eyes. He had experienced them from time to time himself, when looking after people who he protected for a long time, at all hours of the day. People who had to be helped everywhere, people who had no idea of the realities of the world. He had come to be close to them. He had, in some cases, fell hard for them. And although only in a very small group of cases had his thoughts included anything sexual, that yearning to be with someone strongly could translate, if it wasn't a possible union, into messy unions elsewhere. He knew what she was feeling, or a human analogue of the feeling, but that did not make this right.

"That's all right, though," she continued, eyes growing vacant as her face slackened. "It will... be all right... soon." A few more gasps, some vigourous workings of her hips against his, and she dropped down to him, wrapping her arms around Kenichi's body, shuddering almost as if cold. Kenichi thought perhaps she was.

"What do you mean?"

"It's almost time for the endgame," came the small voice. "Reconstruction of reality. The unsealing of paradise."

"At the cost of everything else," Kenichi muttered sullenly.

Umiko drew herself up. "I don't follow."

"You were once human," Kenichi appealed from his prone position. "You must still have feelings and urges for people. Look what you did to me, and I still have them. Not everything is dark and negative with you people; not everything needs to be fought for and won, not everything needs to be destroyed to replace new things with old."

Umiko looked almost sad. "You understand nothing. You understand not why I do what I do. I love my Master. I love my people. I love -"

"That's not love," Kenichi returned savagely. "That's an abomination. You're talking about murder, genocide, as if the human race was nothing but cockro-" His voice off suddenly as he found himself hauled up into the air, above the bed. Umiko's eyes burned with hatred, controlling the threads of dark matter that ran through his body. His throat was being closed, he realised dimly as he struggled for breath, and somewhere else in his head, he realised that was what he wanted. Release. He didn't want to do what they had planned for him and couldn't end it all himself, so having someone else end it for him, that was his only chance.

A moment before his triumph, he felt the air around him cool, the tendrils within him slack and release, and he dropped onto the bed's surface. Umiko sat beside him, dejected. "You never accepted the gift we gave you."

"It isn't a gift."

"It is if you think about it the right way. Freedom, freedom to do what you want, power, the power to make your life your own..."

"And a lack of morals and honour. Power corrupts all. I've seen it, in my position, before. A lot."

"You never felt for a man with a vision?"

"Once, I did," Kenichi replied. "But his vision was rotten under the surface. Shining towers for Tokyo turned into slimy grasping fingers trying to hold on to power in the city."

Umiko sighed. "That sounds great."

"He was rotten to the core. No personal integrity, but he hid it well. He donated to charities, he spent time with orphans, he did all the right things, and I fell for them. I should have known better."

"Don't you want to get back at people like that? Make them pay for abusing their privledge?"

Kenichi shook his ehad. "No. Not at all. What you don't understand is that you don't win by lowering yourself to their level. You win by forcing them to rise to yours."

"Not everything can be done happily."

"No, no it can't. But neither can peace be won by a gun or a soldier. That breeds resentment."

"How do you explain your job, then?"

"It's something that I'm good at. Giving my life for another. It's not a trick I can do more than once, usually, so my job might make the one I eventually save for real think about their life, think about what they're doing."

"Most people in power never do. They think your life is theirs to use and abuse, to keep them in their ivory tower."

"You're trying to have me think what you're doing is a good idea. That by supporting you, somehow my life will have meaning. That I'll be justified by their extinction. But I'm human, too."

"No, you're not," Umiko interjected with a smile.

"No," Kenichi said, touching a hand to his heart. And then he knew. Knew what the woman with the bell meant. He'd forgotten his heart. He'd once believed in the power of goodness. That was why he was willing to sacrifice himself. Why he was willing to deprive his ex-wife of a good former husband and his children a good father. He had believed that even evil would do the work of good, even if by accident, simply because good was too overpoweringly strong to resist it. Angels were everywhere. And right then, he realised he himself had been one, and he was determined to regain that feeling within himself. "Unlike you, I'll always be human. Because that's what I choose. That's how I choose to live."

"You don't have a choice," Umiko warned, and he felt invisible strings inside him pull his head, shake it in a negative gesture.

He heard the words, "No, I don't," spill from his lips, and he knows he hasn't spoken them. He feels the smile, natural in appearances, rise to his face as she grabs him and holds him down again, and he knows in his heart that he has a chance.

Because the angels tell him that.

XXXXXX

Agent Tomo looked over the reports on Sato's desk. He had found his location outside of the system had some bonuses, such as being able to slip into system time to do paperwork or to consider fresh plans. In the last week, since the Master had contacted him, the senshi had repelled every attack his agents had launched against them, and he was unsure of how to proceed. Construction in the Zone had almost been halted at one point, and had only been guaranteed safety (that time) when the Saotome construct had halted, looked at the construction site with all her attention focussed on it while managing a complex fight against thirteen agents, and had then somehow manoeuvred the senshi into moving away from the site.

Tomo did not find that thought attractive in the least. The thought that Saotome might have plans running contrary to the Master was a scary concept, and that Saotome might have plumbed the depths of the Master's plans was scarier, although Tomo didn't actually feel fear.

He reached for another report, talking about the imaginary power levels displayed by the senshi. If that power could be harnessed in the system, the Master's plans could be realised without needing a reciprocal locational beacon in the real world.

A knock at the door startled him, and Tomo looked up, before realising no one else could find this address. Slowly, he stood, slipping his automatic pistol from its holster, and then he stepped to the wooden door, before quietly turning the handle and sliding the door open. Agent Sato stood there, looking none the worse for wear after having his code terminated with a broken logic pipe, an eyebrow raised behind his dark sunglasses. "The vultures move... quickly this time of year," he said, before driving his fist into Tomo's midriff.

The agent staggered back, but Sato didn't remove his hand, and Tomo felt something warm. Normally, he'd have registered it as blood, even if he were incapable of being harmed, as appearances were everything, but this felt... different. His viral defences leapt into action, tracking down various sections of random code flinging themselves at his defences. And yet, Sato smirked. The viral defences didn't fail, they just... didn't react to the code segments once they came in contact. Something was wrong. Tomo staggered to the desk, tried to grab the phone and contact the Master, but his hands wouldn't respond. He looked at them, held them up, and with horror realised they weren't his hands. They had Sato's lines. Shock hit him then, and he looked at his hands, rolling them over and over, and then he admired them some more before turning back to Sato in the doorway. "Contact... has been made," the second Agent Sato said. The first nodded with a small smirk still remaining on his lips, before he turned and left.

XXXXXX

Kaname didn't feel right. Although she could feel her attachments to Ranma more clearly than she could ever before, something else seemed wrong. He was brooding, mulling over something in the way he typically did, it taking all his attention while he stared moodily off into the distance (or at Hotaru) and making ill-thought comments. But that wasn't what was wrong, either. Kaname felt something else. Something all-pervading. She knew something was brewing.

Ranma had stayed her hand nearly a week earlier, when GOTT agents had ambushed the senshi and her at the edge of the Zone. She had wanted to lead the others into the construction pits and destroy everything, but he had grabbed her shoulder, held her, told her no. That was for another time, another place, another reason.

His sense had seemed dark when she'd been stopped. That was his dark persona, she knew. The general side of him that had its own agenda, she was sure. Regardless of what she told Hotaru, if she had to choose between both philosophies, she would choose to side with the construction of Crystal Tokyo rather than the destruction of the Earth. She suspected Ranma was pondering other options, but what, she couldn't say.

Yet, the feeling wasn't that, either. And she knew something was up when Ranma became more alert in her head, behind her eyes. He was urging her to do something. Something important. Something like stepping into the shadow of a doorway.

For five minutes, she didn't know why he'd suggested that, but she didn't dare move. She became a statue, and stretched out with her senses. Nothing there. And then, there was someone. A woman, in the street, dragging a foot that was dressed in a smart black shoe. The blackness ran up her body, turning stockings into trousers, a skirt and blouse into a shirt and suit jacket, long black hair into a short neatly-clipped hairstyle. Breasts flattened and hips grew narrow. The gender on the face changed, from slim and pointed into wider, thicker, superior. Once the transformation was complete, Kaname watched the agent reach into a breast pocket and pull out a pair of sunglasses, which he then slipped on before leaving the street.

Kaname blinked. That was Agent Sato, the system defender who had terrorised her when she'd first become aware of the links between her current self and the previous personality in her head. She waited until he had passed her by, was well out of the street, before she tried to move again. And once more found that Ranma would not let her.

Again, Sato passed her position, not looking around. She couldn't feel him at all by sensing his ki, though, which was new. She'd always been able to detect agents before that way, even if too late, because their power levels were just too high to hide, but this was different. As if he wasn't there, and this was a hallucination. And then he passed by again, and again, and she realised he had to be running around the block at high speeds.

Until the woman's transformation clicked. It wasn't the one Sato she was observing. What had happened to her had happened to a lot of people. An army of Satos marched to a location Kaname couldn't fathom. In the crowd were people who were still changing, mutating, becoming, and Kaname realised the direction the Satos were heading in: the Ai Sou.

The dorm.

There was no way she could move without being set upon by a hundred agents, and while she was confident of fighting agents, these agents felt different. There was something about them - perhaps Ranma could fight them and be assured of victory, but Kaname felt there was something she was missing.

"Ranma..." she whispered as quiet as she dared. "Ranma, it's got to be your turn now." She felt him stretch within her, testing the limits of his boundries, and then with a scream, a shout of rage and strength, she drew all the local energy into herself. Past senshi, past general, into something stronger. Kaname's copper hair became jet black, ki blasted from her body in powerful waves that even the Satos couldn't miss. With a dismissive glance, she called up a slipgate a quarter-second before the dogpile of agents reached her.

Ranma's mocking smirk remained in the air for a moment longer, infuriating Sato, but that too was gone.

XXXXXX

The dorm was under attack when Ranma arrived fifty metres up. Somewhere, they had made the transition between selves, but Kaname was now the passive observer. It didn't matter to Ranma; right now, he had bigger problems - namely the thousand or so Agent Satos laying siege to the main building.

The senshi, in transformed forms, fighting at blindingly super-fast speeds, were holding on, but just barely. The front door was under assault, and only Sailor Moon and Mercury held it. A quick sense of the area told Ranma Mars and Venus were holding the hot springs, Jupiter the side entrance, which left Saturn and Nemesis the roof. Strong as she was, Sailor Moon was falling back, covering an injured Mercury. A glance showed Mercury had been injured, an arm broken, and she favoured it while her enhanced physiology rapidly knitted the bone and skin back together. Until such time as that happened, Mercury was a lead weight to Sailor Moon, who had to defend not just the door and herself, but also a friend. Ranma thought she could handle that responsibility, as Sailor Moon often displayed mostly untapped strengths from the bottomlessness of her heart; but no, he decided, this wasn't not yet the time for her to shoulder such a move. Her time was coming, but this wasn't that time.

He dropped to the ground, at the back of the crowd of Satos there on the lip of the stairs heading down the hill. One turned, and raised an eyebrow.

"Mr Saotome... back again, I see."

Ranma flicked his hair out of his eyes. "It's time someone stopped you for good. Here. Now."

"It's not... quite that simple, Mr Saotome," said another Sato as he also turned. "Contact has... been made."

"You're a monster. No worse than Yoshihiro or his people."

"That's... an incorrect assumption," said a third. "We're much more... than he could ever be."

"You're nothing but something in a computer."

"Ah, but then... so are you." The Sato who spoke was behind Ranma, had snuck up the stairs behind him while the others had his attention. He punched Ranma in the back, but Ranma's power had made him near-invulnerable to standard physical attacks. Ranma absorbed the blow, and something else, he realised.

The agent's hand was sinking into him, through what he now realised was nothing more than illusion for his core ego and personality. And as the hand penetrated, something began happening. He realised this was what had happened to the other people to make these Satos, he realised this was what he had seen happen to the woman in the street a few moments before, and as he looked down, he saw his visual appearance changing. Finally, he looked up.

"Contact has been... made," stated the new Sato, simply.

XXXXXX

Sailor Moon felt her blood run cold at the statement. She heard it clearly, because the Satos were being very quiet in their assault. She'd heard the conversation, heard Ranma's statements, while she'd fended off blows and defended Mercury from attack. The other senshi had only been able to kick and made the occasional punch or block since her arm was broken, and the two had found themselves the victims of a renewed assault. Ranma's appearance had cheered Sailor Moon, but she hadn't known why he had paused, why he had talked to the Satos. Now, it was too late. They would have access to Ranma's strength, his skill, and Sailor Moon realised, like Tuxedo Kamen before him, she wouldn't kill him if he turned to the other side. She couldn't. She wouldn't. The future wouldn't come if they gave up on everyone. Their future needed them to be compassionate, to be confident, to be truthful, to be just, and killing Ranma wouldn't be any of that, no matter how evil.

Well, maybe if he was really evil... but that was neither here nor there. The Sato's paused, and for a moment, Sailor Moon hadn't realised they had stopped fighting. She stopped too, as they drew back, parting like the Red Sea. And there was -

Sato.

The one that had been Ranma. "Sailor Moon... Usagi..." he began, as he walked towards her, a confident cocky swagger to his stride. "You don't know... how much trouble you've caused... me." Beside Sailor Moon, Mercury tested her arm. It would be enough for now, she decided, and stepped between Sato and Sailor Moon.

"You won't touch her!" she blurted, and Sato grinned.

"Little girl... what can you possibly do to me?"

But Mercury's visor was down, the powerful Mercurian computer using the system's network protocols previously hacked out of the two Cybrids, Eclair and Lumiere, as well as the GOTT main office to reach between the two and find some kind of chink in his armour. Sato laughed at the attempt, and a moment later, Mercury saw why. Stunned at the sheer magnitude of what she had tried, Sato simply reached out with a hand, and moved her aside as insensible as a zombie. Sailor Moon's dread grew, battling the hope in her heart.

Yet the position she found herself in now was no different to fighting Pharoah 90, or Beryl, or Galaxia. Hopelessly outnumbered, her friends falling to superior forces, herself becoming the last hope for the survival of the Moon Kingdom, Earth, and the future, and with this in mind, the battle against her nerves was won. The tide turned, she reached up, deliberately looking Sato in his arrogant eyes as he took his sunglasses off. Her hands found themselves either side of her collar-mounted brooch. With a stretch, she accessed higher powers, and felt wisdom and skill of ages sweep through her, strengthening her limbs, changing her outfit. Before she could do anything, before even she could finish her transformation, Sato winked.

A scant moment later, a hand snatched out and snapped down on the crystal in the brooch, and Sailor Moon felt her transformation leech away again as power was siphoned off into the agent's fingers. Yet, something was different. This wasn't like the first time her brooch had been broken; no, this was like... borrowing. She felt disturbed that she was being used apparently as a library, but on the other hand, Sato was taking great pains not to hurt her, although she guessed, if she was right, that some resistance was needed.

"Let go!" she shouted, and pummelled his hand with her fists. No result. A boot to his crotch gave him a surprised look, though, and he did indeed stagger back, letting go of her as he fell back into the crowd. A dozen Satos collapsed under the sudden injection of weight into their midst, and then she didn't know which was which as sunglasses flew everywhere.

But a few seconds later, as the other Satos approached again, and Sailor Moon and Mercury stood back to back, waiting for the attack, a Sato learned how to fly. Then another, then a few more. Ranma was up and swinging, shaking off the last vestiges of his temporarily-altered form. "Whoever would fall for that bit of trickery with his kind of power has to be stupid," Mercury murmured softly behind Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon agreed with a nod, but privately felt worried. There was something about Ranma recently, some darkness that still worried her. For all that the seed laid within him didn't overtly or even subconsciously appear to be affecting him, Ranma's attitudes... well-reasoned, maybe, based on more complete information than the senshi had, certainly... seemed to be darkening. His sense of humour, observed here, was slightly disturbing. She reminded herself she would need to 'cure' Ranma of this seed before too long; hopefully, he could handle it until such time as the city had been saved and they were all back in the real world.

"Hmmm... upgrades," murmured one Sato before being smashed backwards off the hilltop.

"A nice effort... Mr Saotome... but ultimately -" one Sato managed before Ranma piledrove him under the ground.

"Useless," another Sato completed, as Ranma snapkicked him in the face, breaking his sunglasses and thrusting him backwards into the distance. A myriad of Satos dogpiled Ranma, burying his slight form under two dozen people, quickly joined by another two dozen. They writhed and grinned savagely, enjoying the superiority over their foe. Sailor Moon took a step towards the pile, to try to help, but there was an explosion of simulated human flesh, and Satos were thrown away. Some impacted into the walls of the dorm, several disappeared over the lip of the hill, and both senshi found themselves having to deflect flying agents for the few seconds until Ranma was back on his feet. One by one, the other senshi appeared from their positions as Satos sprinted for the melee. Ranma appeared to be enjoying himself in a way Sailor Moon hadn't seen in a long time, lost himself in the flurry of kicks and punches and ducks and weaves that led the assault on the various versions of the singular enemy, as if life was once more uncomplicated.

To a degree, she guess from his point of view, it was. Ranma had proven he could handle the complicated dance he now wove across the front lawn, and even if he couldn't, he would just go away until such time as he could handle it. They'd seen that in him again and again. And he wasn't stupid. Well, not that it was stupidity that Sailor Moon was thinking about, but he ran if outmatched. He accepted there was no way he could win a fight if he himself was killed or injured beyond even his superhuman regenerative abilities, and would simply run away. Not that she'd seen it, not since they'd met, no. She had seen him back down, though, and push himself harder, stronger, or rely on the others' strengths to make up for his weaknesses. She felt in him some kind of leadership potential, embryonic; growing fast, though. He had a way with words, a way with people, that he grasped instinctively as he'd matured among them, once away from his problems in Nerima. Sailor Moon also had to admit, she hadn't found the Nerima people to be anywhere near as bad as Ranma had initially made them out to be - but he'd often said he was better away from it all where he wouldn't get sucked into their madness, and she agreed. It had only been recently - prior to coming into the system - that he had been able to go back there among them all without recriminating words and without joining in the blame games that ran around them in the short time they were there. It must have been difficult to be the focal point, but Sailor Moon suspected, from the things that Hotaru had told her from time to time, that with Ranma gone from there, and this new disaster, that the others from Nerima were finding some kind of balance themselves. Without Ranma there to be the central lynchpin of their insanity and jealousies, they were finding themselves without reason to continue to feud.

"He's taking his time," Venus remarked idly.

"I think he's letting off steam," Saturn replied, her Silence Glaive held casually in her hands.

Nemesis said nothing, but Sailor Moon noticed a touch of attraction in the depths of her ice-cold eyes. She shivered; somehow, she knew there were problems to come.

Mercury, from beside Sailor Moon, gave a quiet expletive, almost under her breath.

"What is it?"

"I think I know why Ranma might be one of the Generals," Mercury replied. Her visor was still down, and Sailor Moon could see coloured icons flicker across her friend's face. She drew out the expectation almost unconsciously, seemingly unaware of everyone's gaze centred on her. Eventually, she continued. "There's a spore infection coating him somehow. Inside and out. I'd suggest he was infected with it over six months ago."

"The incident in Furinken," Saturn breathed. "I knew Nabiki was up to something..."

"But didn't that General do something to him, ages back?"

"Natsumi?" Mercury asked, her eyes flicking to Mars. "Yes. She gave him her power, I suspect, but the spore infection was what allowed it to take hold. It was already manipulating him by then. Rewriting his brain and body into a recepticle for darkness." Ranma smacked an agent with jaw-powdering force, and a Sato bounced off across the plateau.

"Is it too late to be reversed?" Sailor Moon hesitated in asking. She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer, not just yet, anyway.

Sailor Mercury shrugged. "I won't know until we try. But the fact he doesn't seem to have undergone any lasting evil changes, I should think it'll be easy enough to get rid of. The spore... is very old. The readings its giving me suggest it's been in an active state for some three thousand years, but not attached to anything."

"It's confused," Jupiter said.

"That's correct; I believe having been given a host, the spore isn't sure what to do with him anymore."

"No, I meant the agent," Jupiter corrected. She pointed. "Look."

Almost as one, the Satos were pulling back, straightening jackets, returning sunglasses to their noses, stretching out cricks in their necks and holding various injured body parts. As they pulled back, the senshi could see the people Ranma had hit the agents out of, lying almost motionless on the ground. She stifled a moan as she realised they were still alive, just very, very injured from having hundreds of people trample on them. She gave an almost unconscious glance at Saturn, who was already widening her eyes in surprise and expectation. Sailor Moon herself gestured her crescent wand into existance, waiting, catching her breath before her next job.

"More," said one Sato.

"We need more," said another.

"That is... logical," a third added.

"You're welcome to try," Ranma grinned back, a little savagely. He gestured with his hands, an almost-flowing gesture that ended in a combat-ready pose. "Bring it on." The agents backed off. Then, as one, they turned and ran down the hillside.

For a minute, Ranma stayed in position, then left go of all his transformations, dropping back to Ranma Saotome's body... or rather more currently, Kaname Mizuno's. Kaname walked back across to the senshi, looking back over her shoulder. "Is everyone okay?"

An understatement. But the feeling was genuine. Sailor Moon tried not to get angry at the showboating Ranma had just acted out, realising somewhere that by taunting Sato, he had gained the agents' attention and drawn it away from the senshi. Yet, it had also almost caused them all a lot of grief: playing with the agents in that way had caused Sailor Moon's heart to almost stop in fear when Ranma had been assimilated into the collective. So she said nothing, stepping past Kaname to begin work on healing those lying injured behind. Saturn stepped past as well, looking at her boots as she passed. Mercury continued to stare through her visor at Kaname, who grew uncomfortable with the attention, until Nemesis stepped in, wrapped an arm around Kaname's shoulders, and led her inside.

"So, how did you find out this was going on?"

XXXXXX

The explanation of what had happened took most of the rest of the day. Kaname would finish a statement, and the others would want to know more detail about what was going on. Most had dropped into their original forms, but Mercury was still working inside her visor, frowning, as Kaname continued her story.

"So, you called Ranma, and he came?"

"Yeah. It was... weird. I knew I could. I asked, and he came." Mitsuki leaned forward eagerly to say something, then thought the better of it and leaned back again. Kaname didn't notice. "But he came, and then we teleported to above the dorm. And the rest, you saw."

"Teleported? Like monsters?"

"Yeah," Kaname said, slowly, thinking about it. "Kinda like them, yeah. Slipgating, the girl in between says."

"And this girl in between. She's, she's who Ranma spent those months talking to while you were just... well, you?" Hotaru asked quietly.

"That's right," came the reply. "I think she's got a soft spot for Ranma. I think she thinks he can save her life again or something. Baku, the dream monster. She has some serious issues. She's not as evil as she likes to think she is. She just likes hating herself for reasons I don't quite know, and externalises that."

"That sounds like our old friend, Natsumi," Makoto said.

"Ranma's old friend," Hotaru corrected, a frown on her face.

"Jealous?" Minako nudged an elbow in Hotaru's ribs.

"Yes. She's spent more time with him these last six months than I have," she replied, but the look on her face suggested more was up. She looked away from the others, deep in her own thoughts. Minako's eyes turned curious and concerned.

"Ranma can come and go now if you ask him?" Usgai asked again.

Kaname shook her head. "I don't know if he can or not. I didn't think he'd go away again so soon, but he did. I certainly didn't try to come back to control, and I don't think he gave it up. I don't know what happened."

Mercury nodded, still silent. Kaname eyed her cautiously. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Mercury replied, sliding her visor up. "Merely running through variables regarding the propogation of Satos and formulating strategies for defending against this new tactic."

Kaname nodded, twisting her mouth into a parody of a smile. "Let me guess: for numbers like that, we need him." She didn't say who, but the others knew. Mercury refused to confirm or deny, continuing to look Kaname in the eyes. Usagi felt uncomfortable, and the others shifted uneasily also.

But then Mercury shook her head. "Not exactly. But I think some time ago, Ranma was infected with a spore organism. I've been comparing scans of you from when we... first met, from when we first met Ranma, and now, after you've been able to change into... a senshi and a Dark Kingdom general, and at the same time... that may not have any effect in a world we perceive as mostly imaginary, but I am concerned in the real world, there may be an effect none of us, yourself and Ranma included, may like."

Kaname was silent for a while. "Is there any way we can remove it?" she asked, finally, sitting up straighter.

Mercury paused before nodding, a slight hesitation that only Usagi noticed. She frowned, curious. But Mercury was already pulling her visor down again and beginning the operation. The other senshi pulled back, although Mitsuki didn't step quite as far back, and Hotaru moved slightly further away, still distant. Minako's arm found its way around her shoulders as Mercury began a complicated procedure on a keyboard projected on the inside of her visor, fingers tapping apparently at nothing. Flickers of aqua-colouring energy lit the lounge like the light cast from an arc welder, dancing quickly along Mercury's arms and across to Kaname. Her fingers sped up, the energy probing through Kaname's clothing, her mouth, nose and eyes. Parts of her skeleton became visible with the bursts of light, and yet the senshi weren't blinded by it. Kaname's eyes narrowed and she fidgeted where she sat, uncomfortable with the appearance of the procedings, possibly worried about the performance on display, but Usagi couldn't really say. There was no fear, no anger, no resistance.

For some reason, that worried her.

But really, she showed no signs of the darkness that was evident in Yoshihiro's forces. No selfishness beyond Ranma's usual arrogance and thoughtlessness - when he was around - and Kaname hadn't yet started killing people for fun or draining them of their energy - besides her power-up ability. So why was Usagi thinking something should be happening, something was going wrong? Why did Usagi have the nagging feeling this was not stopping the problem?

She didn't know. Even as she thought those words, Mercury's light show dimmed, and eventually faded as she dropped her fingers from the non-existant keyboard, and let her transformation fade. "There's no sign now of infestation," Ami said, dropping into a chair. She looked exhausted. Usagi didn't blame her; without rest from the fight, she had saved someone's life by throwing herself whole-heartedly into yet another fight. The others all looked tired, and Kaname - who didn't look tired at all, dammit - gently sent them off to their rooms to sleep with the promise she'd stand watch.

Usagi was too drained to complain as Kaname led her towards her bedroom. Once she was stretched out on the bed, and Kaname was pulling the blankets up, Usagi thought to ask, "Are you sure you're okay?"

Kaname's twinkle disappeared from her eyes, and Usagi knew the impish grin was Ranma's. "We're both okay. The time is coming, but the point of no return has already passed by. I can't be here forever, not like this. it's my time."

"Are you okay with that?"

"I... think so," Ranma said, sinking to a crouch and rolling back slightly on his ankles. He looked thoughtful. "It's going ta be exciting, I think. Or else it wouldn't appeal."

"Appeal?"

Ranma's eyes locked on to Usagi in the here and now, and his expression closed like a door. Kaname was back. "I don't know. He's not telling me anything. Just that I think it's going to be final." Kaname stood, and left the room. Before she shut the door, she paused and added, "Whatever happens, don't blame us. Or Hotaru or Mitsuki. It's our dance." The door slid shut.

XXXXXX

Each day, the senshi fought Sato. Hundreds, then thousands, then more. But the senshi were as strong as they wanted to be while in the system, and they wanted to be invincible. With Kaname and Ranma to organise them, they stood more of a chance, in a tighter group, fighting away from their home territory in places more defensible. And yet, for some reason, instead of pressing the attack, Sato would begin to flag, then retreat. No one could work out why, although Ami hypothesised that Sato was only able to possess so many people for a short time, and that his energy would wan the longer he continued the fights. Mitsuki put forward the theory that Sato was trying to keep them tired and unable to act against Yoshihiro's plan in the only way he could. Usagi and Kaname had conferred at one point, and believed both ideas had merit, but neither told the others.

And so they fought. Day in, day out. The fights would start, Ranma would direct, they would win, they would go home to sleep. No major victories were won, but then, no major losses were recorded either. Usagi considered that a bonus.

On the sixth night, Kaname woke the others before dawn, and in the chill morning of early spring, the senshi headed towards Tokyo in the darkness.

XXXXXX

Yoshihiro awoke.

Unlike most people, there was no inbetween with him. He woke, like switching on a light. He was sleeping, then he was conscious and fully functional. Umiko stood before him this morning, as she did every morning. He smelled food beyond her from his dining room, and without effort he stood gracefully and proceeded to eat the meal she had prepared. Like a mother sending her son to a job interview, she brushed at his black suit, preening, grooming. His suit didn't need it, however; she knew that as well as he. But she was proud, and effectively his mother, so he allowed it.

It was her day, too. It was the day for all of them, for all of the Dark Kingdom. He knew the time without needing to look at a watch; like many other sense of his, it was instinctive. It would be Light soon. Time for the unveiling. Time for the unlocking. Soon, very soon, the construction in both worlds would be complete, and Night's Pride could start draining the energy it needed from the people of both cities. With a population of seven million in the system, and easily double that expected to be within close proximity to Tokyo in the real world... it was to be an interesting day.

The breakfast was over too soon for Yoshihiro, he found. Strange; he had begun to enjoy the simple meal that morning rather than it being the standard perfunctory action it usually was. Perhaps that was an omen of things to come, he reflected. Perhaps he was to become someone new today. The saviour of his people. A hero against overwhelming odds. He glanced up at Umiko, already dressed in her business suit, and stood. Ready for a day of work.

"Only an hour more," Umiko said as she offered his briefcase.

"Indeed," Yoshihiro replied, distant. "Have all the modifications been completed? Have the engines -"

"Don't worry," Umiko urged, "it's all been taken care of. I think Ayumu has even painted it."

"Ayumu?"

"Ayumu Kasuga. One of... the lesser monsters. Newly turned just prior to Raijin. She's... different."

"And she has painted Night's Pride."

"Yes."

"What did the ship say?"

Umiko was quiet for a while, cleaning up the table. "I think it's embarrassed."

"Oh." Yoshihiro waited patiently for Umiko to finish, and then when she was beside him, he asked, "Do you feel anything today?"

"I feel lots of things. Anticipation. Pride. Satisfaction. Six months of hard work, brought to an end. The release of our world from the seal placed on it millennia ago. A new beginning. Excitement, I guess," Umiko admitted.

"Hmmm," Yoshihiro murmured to himself. He supposed that was what he was feeling. A new beginning. Anticipation. And yet, they weren't the word he was reaching for. He felt fluttery inside, but he wasn't sure if it was a good or bad sensation. And then he simply dismissed it, called up a slipgate for both of them, and they appeared in an alleyway near the podium there were to make their announcement to the world on.

Behind the walls of the construction site were massive crystal towers. People had seen them for weeks now, and been asking what they were - they didn't look like buildings, and wasn't that what Crystal Tokyo was supposed to be? The announcement had sent waves of surprise and wonderment through the country, and international dignitaries were to be there in the crowd that day. Zero hour was fast approaching. Fifty minutes. Koizuchi already stood on the podium, discussing items quietly with other Tokyo City Planning Committee members. Several bodyguards stood around the platform, eyeing the growing crowd with disinterest. Yoshihiro noticed Kenichi among the bodyguards. For a change, he didn't look worried, or concerned, or scared; he looked thoughtful.

That should have concerned him, he knew, but for the moment, he still had that fluttery feeling. Something was going to happen; something good or bad, he could no longer say. But something would happen. That much was certain; that much was good.

The crowd seemed distant as well. Moving restlessly, like something primal in their brains told them something was happening that was beyond their knowledge. Yoshihiro guessed somewhere in this crowd would be the remaining heroes of the country - those that could get time off school, that was. Something felt strange in the crowd, something muted, but he couldn't pin it down. Instead, he let his gaze sweep over the people, already numbering in their thousands for such an early hour, and found nothing of note. Umiko touched his hand, and they headed up onto the podium.

XXXXXX

In the crowd, Keitaro stood ramrod straight, pretending to be a flower. Narusegawa stood beside him, clutching at his arm, eyes screwed shut. The girls stood clustered around them, mostly watching for anything out of the ordinary. Kaolla Su fiddled with an oversized remote control until she was satisfied it was working fine, while Motoko's stance betrayed no nervousness... beyond her fingers straying around her sword's hilt.

"Shinobu?" Keitaro asked, his eyes also screwed closed.

Shinobu's voice was timid, under stress. "He's not looking now. It's safe."

The wind rushed out of Keitaro as he slumped forward, able to breathe again. Narusegawa similarly collapsed against him, breathing in shallow gasps. "That felt wrong."

"He could sense us, I know he could," Narusegawa replied.

"No," Motoko replied, her voice taut with the tension her body pretended didn't exist. "He is distracted. He thinks this is won. That he is triumphant."

"The others are still alive," Narusegawa said. She didn't know how she knew, but she did. From Keitaro's quick squeeze of her hand, she knew he felt them, too. "They'll be here."

"We get to stop a bad guy! We get to stop a mphhhphhhpht!" Kitsune's hand quickly found its way around Kaolla's mouth to stop her from talking in the crowd. Sarah gave an exaggerated 'shhh!' gesture to Kaolla, who nodded and broke free from Kitsune's grasp, pouted, and then moved back next to Sarah where she pouted some more. "What's the point in beating bad guys if you can't tell people about it?" she grumbled.

"We need to stay quiet for just a little longer, Su, then you can go wild," Keitaro assured the younger girl with a hand on her head.

"Really? All right!" she yelled, jumping around again. Kitsune covered her eyes while Sarah glared Kaolla into submission. "I'll be good."

XXXXXX

Right now. It was all coming to a head right now.

Sailor Moon knew that when she saw Tuxedo Kamen, looking a little the worse for wear, standing outside the Zone with children. She knew they were heroes, just like them, but they hadn't trained like the senshi had, like Ranma had shown them. She knew they wouldn't have been there if it wasn't about to end. Kaname knew something, and that was why she'd roused them so early and brought them here.

She thought.

Kaname didn't seem to be doing a lot of sleeping, but she was no worse the wear for it. Sailor Moon thought she had found that because this was all a computer simulation, perhaps she didn't need to sleep, not if she didn't want to. She didn't know. But she did know that Tuxedo Kamen was looking at her in surprise.

She leapt into his arms, feeling tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and not caring. His arms came up hesitantly around her, then enfolded her completely in a tight embrace. "Sailor Moon? I thought you'd be dead!"

"Dead? Me?" she sobbed.

"Everything that's happened... I haven't seen much news," he said, apologetically. He gestured to the children standing beside him, nervous, staring around them in fear and near-panic. "We've been busy."

Sailor Moon stared. She recognised many of these people as those who had fought Raijin with them - many of those who had joined the battle against the raging monster she hadn't recognised or been physically close enough to remember them six months later, but the twin girls she recalled, just as she recalled the girl with the brave face and her adoring raven-haired playmate, and the now-bedraggled teddy bear that hovered protectively nearby. There were just over a dozen of them, all wearing the same exhausted expressions and glancing about in fear. Sailor Moon guessed why. "You've been hiding from GOTT?"

Tuxedo Kamen nodded wearily. "They've hounded us since that monster exploded. We got out of the Zone, only to find government agents... who we THOUGHT were government agents... waiting for us. We only got away by surprise - they weren't expecting us to have any fight in us, and they were right. We ran, hid underground. And since then, we've managed to hide and stay mostly safe. But the last few days, there have been lots of this -"

"Agent Sato," Kaname interrupted. "We're all trapped in a computer simulation of Tokyo, and the world, both worlds, are about to end. We're going to be used as a power source, a battery seven million people strong."

"Seven million people?" Tuxedo Kamen asked, his mind working overtime with the figures. "With that amount of energy -"

"One could destroy a world," Sailor Jupiter completed.

"Or create one," Sailor Moon added quietly. Kaname concurred with a silent nod, all the while looking around.

"Today, it ends. This does, anyway. He's coming. He has to finish us off, so we can't stop this from happening."

"But can we?" asked one of the children.

"Of course we can," Sailor Moon said with a bright and determined smile. "We can do anything. We're the pretty soldiers in sailor suits, and you're all heroes yourselves. If we can't, then who could?" Several of the children smiled, but others looked doubtful. Sailor Moon leaned forward, and spoke slightly quieter, more sincere. "Believe me, we won't stop trying. We'll save Tokyo, the world, and ourselves. I won't let anything happen to any of you." She straightened up, and looked about.

Kaname had brought them to the edge of the Zone, huge walls towering above them. They had been strengthened since Sailor Moon had last been here, when she and her friends had sneaked inside and discovered people being turned into Dark Kingdom monsters for work shifts in the construction of what Ami had realised was a massive transdimensional teleporter. About them so far were no evidence of monsters, nor of the army of Satos following the senshi - in fact, apart from the senshi, Kaname, Tuxedo Kamen, and the children, there was no one about, not even small animals. Beside Sailor Moon, Luna shivered.

In the distance, they heard footsteps. Not hurried, not in unison, but the footsteps of seven million very self-assured people in black suits and dark sunglasses.

Kaname glanced over her shoulder to look, then turned back to the others. "We need to get through this wall. We need to get to the centre of the Zone. And we need to get as many Satos in there as we can."

Sailor Moon pulled herself together, and nodded. "Mmm. Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Nemesis, open us a door." She glanced at Kaname. "A big one."

The senshi complied, and a moment later, the group were pushing through a small debris field of obsidian rock from the wall and heading into a maze of tall matt black barriers. Sailor Moon led the way, walking quickly but carefully. Behind her followed Mercury and Venus, ushering along the front group of children. Tuxedo Kamen brought up the second group, with Jupiter and Mars assisting, while Saturn, Nemesis and Kaname followed behind, the heavy-hitters of the team on guard in case the Satos arrived earlier than expected.

Footsteps above, to the right. A quick ki blast, and a Sato crashed to the ground. Scuttling, to the upper left - then silence. A swing of the Silence Glaive, and something impacted on it, slammed back into the air, and collected several more Satos. The sound of many footsteps, running up the middle - a yell, then a deep rumble as the ground turned to liquid and absorbed an army of Satos.

Then they were free and clear of the maze, in the open, and above them rose a series of crystal towers of eldritch design. They looked blasphemous somehow, the eye trying to resolve it into something it could understand, but failing dismally. "Don't even bother trying!" Kaname shouted as she now took the lead, searching out the centre of the Zone. She knew where it was. She'd been found there, and she knew where it was instinctively. The others followed suit, not needing to ask to find out what she meant by her words - they knew she was referring to the architecture above them.

As the group broke and flowed around towers, they had to dodge tentacles of black that stabbed down into the ground, spreading corruption. Everything hummed with power of a kind that couldn't be seen, only felt in the deepest, darkest pit of one's bones, and Sailor Moon fought the urge to call a halt to the flight, intending to try and bring down some of the towers. But she knew this was needed, somehow this would all work out.

There would be a happy ending.

There had to be.

And then they were in the centre, Kaname holding firm against the waves of Satos that charged, and Sailor Moon lost track of time.

Kaname's fists blurred, and swung, cracked with the sound of sonic booms and created huge wakes in the ocean of agents as she boosted those she touched back with such force, they bowled over the horde behind them. And somewhere in the middle of that, she found peace.

XXXXXX

"Hello, Ranma," Kaname said, simply.

He sat beside her, twirling a flower in his fingers gently. He wasn't looking in her direction, rather he was staring out at the sun rising. The tree behind them felt real, as did the grass under them. The growing warmth of the sun reminded Kaname of days she hadn't seen before, and likely never would again. "Kaname, hey," he replied, eventually.

"You know what this is, don't you?" she asked him.

"Yeah, I know what this is," he said, still not looking around. "It's the World. Collective reality subset underlying the subconscious gestalt mind of the population's super entity."

Kaname thought for a few minutes, then nodded. "Yes, that's it exactly."

"And it's empty now. What does that say to you?"

Kaname thought for some more time. "That there's no one left?"

"That everyone's busy? Or that people can't access this? The groupmind is gone, Kaname. We're on our own here. When this place goes..." Ranma shrugged.

"It's time to go?"

"Yeah." Now he turned, looked at her with the gravest of expressions. "When this place goes, it's time to die. One of us has to. That's when we need to... do it. And only one of us can go back."

"I know." Kaname repeated that in her mind. She knew. Her choice was made. She hadn't had a long life. Ranma had lived nearly nineteen years now. The choice was simple.

Ranma knew, too. He'd lived nineteen years. In some form, he aimed to live longer. Natsumi had taught him things, things he could apply in the real world... things Kaname didn't know, and things there weren't time to teach her. He could survive the split from his body. She couldn't. Wasn't much of a choice, not for a hero, not even for whatever Ranma was these days. Darkness had touched him, just as much as the light, and neither wanted to let the other have pride of place in his psyche. Which suited him fine. He was Ranma, he was himself, he wasn't defined by someone else's narrow definitions of what he should be.

His choice was made. So Kaname could live, he had to die.

XXXXXX

A Sato made a lunge at one of the children, and while she flinched back, grabbing for a card and her wand, her teddy bear protector transformed into a giant lion, breathing huge gouts of magical flame that incinerated a dozen Satos. Moments later, the burnt corpses stood up, brushed soot off their sleeves, and charged back in, but by then the girl had grown to giant-size, and was swatting dozens of Satos at a time with swings of her foot.

The grey and purple android flying above the group fired off blast after blast of energy at the oncoming agents, mostly to no avail, but occasionally, in the headlong rush forward, several of the agents would be discorporated until their code could reintegrate.

The senshi fared much better, with their speed and strength enhancements they could access due to belief, but even so, they were being pushed back. What had started off as a wide perimeter was now shrinking to a circle a bare two dozen metres across at its widest. Kaname, operating on automatic, filled in when a senshi needed to relax for a few seconds, assisted where the children were faltering, would push back the agents on one side until she had left for someplace else, and they pushed back in.

A losing battle, Sailor Moon knew, but it was one they couldn't afford to lose. Whatever strategem Kaname or Ranma had up their sleeves, it had to be now. She could feel...

There! One of the towers let off a flickering surge of darkness, energy licking out and absorbing a battalion of Satos. It was starting now.

XXXXXX

"... with the kind assistance of the Diet, and local planning committees, our fair city has been rebuilt anew - as Crystal Tokyo - by the man standing here with me now, the millionaire Yoshihiro." A smattering of applause came from the audience of thousands, but most people chose instead to cheer vocally. Yoshihiro stood on the podium with Koizuchi, bodyguards flanking either side of them in their dark suits and sunglasses. Koizuchi had the microphone for the moment, ready to hand it over to Yoshihiro, wrapping up his speech. "He's been reclusive until now, the moment Tokyo has most needed a protector, a patron, and he has now designed the city of the future... and is going to reveal it to you all now."

Koizuchi stepped aside from the microphone, and after a moment's hesitation, looking over the crowd, Yoshihiro stepped up. For a few moments, he busied himself raising the microphone to his height, then he let his eyes sweep over everyone again. To an outsider, it looked like he was touched by all the people who had turned out for this occasion, that he was excited about the moment his masterplan was revealed. He actually looked enthused, brimming with enjoyment. Behind him, Umiko smiled. Behind her, Kenichi looked thoughtful.

"Friends." The one word carried with it a touch of emotion most people couldn't place. Those who could realised only that he meant the word genuinely. "You've given this city so much. You've given me so much. The chance to build this vision of your future... it brings tears to my eyes. Honestly, you have no idea, no concept of how touched I am you've all contributed to this moment. This bright, shining, glorious future." Behind him, in the Zone, something started up. An electrical sound, arcs of energy coruscating between emitter points.

XXXXXX

The ground shifted beneath their feet. Ranma and Kaname looked down as one. They could feel it. Their connection with The World was fading as something happened in the system. A shimmering in front of them caught their eyes, and they glanced up to see Natsumi standing before them.

"Parallel subsets failing. System integrity breaching. Dimensional lock is materialising in Tokyo Prime." She paused, looked meaningfully at them both. "It's time." And then to Ranma: "You bastard, you come and save me." She was gone a moment later.

The ground heaved.

XXXXXX

"When I was a child, my - my mother, she said to me, I would create a place for my people that would be looked back on with much joy, much relief, that we had achieved what others have wanted us to fail with. Our home is gone. Our home was destroyed by unthinking monsters, rage people like us cannot fully understand, nor comprehend. But the beast is now gone, dead and discorporated, a thing of history - and history belongs in books, locked away in dark rooms in libraries. To those of us here today, it falls upon us to make a better world for all our people. And so, I have created what lies beyond these walls to be enjoyed by you all."

"Get ready," Keitaro said. "Whatever's coming, it's coming soon." Kaolla Su nodded with a quiet grunt as she twiddled with knobs on an oversized remote control handset. Narusegawa moved closer to Keitaro, her hand quietly closing around his. Behind Yoshihiro, the sounds of industry became louder, more involved. Something seemed to go wrong with the sun a few moments later, the day darkening as if the sky had grown cloudy, but nothing had. Many in the crowd glanced up, but saw no reason the light had dimmed.

XXXXXX

The Satos didn't stop. They continued coming. But they slowed. The Zone around them was picking up in intensity. Licks of energies arcane enough to resist interpretation by Mercury's visor devastated their numbers, but the senshi were growing tired. This had been going on now for a week, and the constant battle was draining. Kaname still moved among them, her moves putting them all to shame. She still looked as fresh as she had months ago when they had first met her. Somehow, that motivated the senshi to continue fighting. The children had grown weary, and were now in the centre of the circle, resting, afraid. Sailor Moon snuck a quick peek at Kaname as she passed by - and realised her hair was fading towards black, then back to red, then back into the dark copper tones associated with Kaname.

XXXXXX

"The entire world will look upon this moment of revelation as a moment that changed the world! In an instant, billions will stop! Tokyo will again be the centre of culture of the world - exporting all we are well-known for to all corners of the globe instantly! A glorious future!"

The whine from the Zone ramped up into a shriek. Now, people started to panic rather than mill aimlessly. Keitaro held the others firm, his eyes never leaving Yoshihiro on the podium. "Su?"

XXXXXX

The ground splintered, shattered, thrust up. Ranma found himself on top, the ground rising high into the air. Kaname dropped, but Ranma reached out and grabbed her in one hand. It was a bad grip, and he found himself thankful Kaname's fingers were wrapped around his, because otherwise he'd have lost her, and that was NOT part of the plan.

But some things go awry.

XXXXXX

Nemesis bumped into Kaname, who stiffened and froze. "Sailor Moon! Kaname's really freaking out over here!"

"Keep the agents off her! We need her!" Sailor Moon shouted back.

XXXXXX

"People of Tokyo -"

A ripple above the streets, and there was something big and green above them... firing into the Zone with a huge energy beam...

"I give you the future!"

XXXXXX

"I've got you!" Ranma yelled against the tornado of sound assaulting them as the ground splintered and fractured even more.

Kaname smiled with relief. "Ranma!" she shouted back. "I'm sorry I won't get a chance to say goodbye to Hotaru or Mitsuki."

She let go.

XXXXXX

Kaname's hair flashed red, and Ranma spun around to Saturn. "End it all now!"

Sailor Moon's eyes widened. "What?"

Saturn didn't wait for an explanation. She spun her Glaive, stabbed it into the ground, and shouted, "DEATH REBORN REVOLUTION!"

XXXXXX

Tokyo paused.

XXXXXX

Dead. They were all dead. Sailor Moon could feel them all, seven million people, her senshi, her lover, the children, Ranma. They were all dead.

Ranma said, "Begin it all again."

So, she did.

XXXXXX

Sound. Furious amounts of sound assaulting their ears. Sailor Moon gagged, and collapsed to her knees. She felt Ranma's hand leave her shoulder, felt him slump for a moment before checking first on Nemesis, then on Saturn, then the others. No more Satos. But it was dark.

XXXXXX

The green spaceship stopped emitting its burst of light, and the sounds ceased. Yoshihiro, arms raised and outstretched, waited, a smile on his face. But what he was expecting didn't happen.

Applause. People were cheering him. A curious reaction to their deaths, he thought stupidly for a moment before realising something had gone wrong. He saw a former subject of his, staring goggle-eyed behind his back, and Yoshihiro turned to see what the adulation was about.

Tokyo.

The walls had fallen, and everyone could see it had returned. Seven million people, lost, aimless, starting to stagger towards the crowds. Buildings, plazas, trees, power cables... the city was back, as if Raijin had never struck at the city six months earlier. Minato had returned. The lock had not been breached. He felt himself stagger, as if struck physically. He dropped his gaze from the buildings to the crowd, and at the front of the crowd...

"You."

Ranma Saotome looked up. "Me." He looked at the cheering throng behind Yoshihiro and shrugged. "You're the hero today. You gave them back the city. They'll love you for it." Strangely, Yoshihiro thought, Ranma didn't sound bitter. Drained, tired, but also... happy. No doubt enjoying being back in the real world. The crowd behind Yoshihiro surged forward past him, embracing those who had returned. Among them were Keitaro, and his charges from the Hinata Sou, their planned attack on the Master forgotten in the rush to see those long-since believed departed.

Annoyed, frustrated, angry, Yoshihiro raised a gloved hand - only to find Umiko's hands wrapping around his, purring in his ear, pulling the arm down, removing him from the area quickly. No one noticed the battlecruiser above them disappear either, for the remainder of the day was celebration.

XXXXXX

Mitsuki lay on her bed, hands clasped across her chest as she considered the last six months. Evil, evil times. She'd said much more than she wanted to, but at least Ranma was back. She felt... safe again. Warm, wanted. She could feel him around her again. Almost feel him in her. He swung, and he swung, but his orbit kept bringing the young man back to her. No. That wasn't right. That was Kari's lust. Had to be. She reached out, took the bottle of pills she kept beside her bed from the low set of drawers there, and popped a couple. She took a sip from the glass of water next to the bottle, and lay back, feeling the extra-strength medication taking effect. But the bottle was nearly empty, she noticed. She'd have to get more. Thankfully, she still had her prescription. That she had checked on as soon as she had arrived back at the dorm. They'd been gone six months, and nothing had changed.

Nothing had changed.

She felt calmer now, not thinking about Ranma so much, and she settled in to sleep.

XXXXXX

Bone-tired, sitting on the roof of the Ai Sou, Hotaru leaned up against Ranma, shivering. He looked up at the sky, curious, almost detached. "It's 1AM, Hotaru. Time you should be in bed."

"I'm enjoying having you back," she said with a tired, but light smile. She snuggled in tighter against his chest - his chest, she'd made sure he had a hot bath before coming upstairs with her. "It's been so long since I've had you this way."

Ranma nodded. "It's been so long... since I felt this was me." His mind drifted to Kaname, that last look of hers. The expression of her death.

"That's to be expected," Hotaru replied. His arm drifted around her shoulders. "Ranma?"

"Yes?"

"Do you... do you love me?" A small voice, in an ancient tone.

"Yes." Distant, from eons away.

"Would you make love to me?" A smaller voice, a nervous young woman.

There was no response for an age. Millennia passed, suns grew old and flared into death, life rose and fell, civilisations were birthed - then developed television and died.

"Ranma?"

"Is that what you want?"

"... yes..."

"Really, Hotaru, is that what you want? If this happens... everything changes. Things won't stay the same."

"Things change, Ranma. I know that." Hotaru found it odd, apparently consoling Ranma, her strong protector.

"I hear a baby crying, Hotaru. I hear him all the time. I want to give him a future. I want to give him love. I want to give him something he never had before." He paused. "Is that wrong? To feel that responsible?"

Hotaru shook her head. "No. It surprises me that it's you talking about this, though. But... we'll use protection. I've still got that condom."

Ranma smiled, still distant.

"You don't sound right."

"Ami cured me this evening," Ranma said, with a bit of a smile playing around his lips. "I'm no longer a Dark General. So she says. I think it was that powder Nabiki used on me. Maybe. I don't know." He shook his head. "I'm a little fuzzy tonight. Mitsuki's... not right. Something's going on there. I've felt it so much recently, and haven't been able to make her right." Hotaru's hand reached up and rested on his where it lay on her shoulder. "I'm missing something. A piece of the jigsaw. I've forgotten something."

Her dying expression.

"Stop talking about my competition," Hotaru tried to joke, feeling like she was speaking through balls of cotton wool. "It's me who's asking you to sleep with her."

"Sleep?" Something of the old Ranma sparked behind his tired eyes. "Who said anything about sleep?" Hotaru giggled. "Go downstairs. I'll be down soon. I'm not feeling right. Something's wrong. I need to clear my head."

Hotaru nodded, pecked him on the cheek, and slipped out of Ranma's embrace. Pausing on the edge of the roof, she gave him a loving look, then headed downstairs.

Time passed. Ranma was barely aware of it. He was missing something. Some part of him. He didn't feel right, he hadn't lied about that. He felt he was less than he had been, like something was left in the system when they broke out. But for the life of him, he couldn't think what.

Her dying expression.

Grief, perhaps? Maybe he was berating himself for not trying harder to save Kaname. But then, she made her choice, as he had made his to save her - it was just that she found hers easier to carry out than he found his. Eventually, he looked into the stars, and made a silent farewell to Kaname before heading downstairs.

He fumbled his way into the room in the dark. Slow, steady breathing issued from the bed, but he knew she wasn't asleep, just resting. "I'm sorry I'm late," he said.

"Shhh, you're here now, that's all that matters," she replied, helping him free his arms from his shirt. His hand scrabbled across her chest like a crab, enough to arouse him while she shifted enough to remove his pants. He kicked himself out of his shoes, and slid under the blankets.

Her body was like fire given form, boiling hot liquid mixed with an almost religious fervour to match. Their lips, then their tongues met, tussled, warred for dominance, while their hands, for so long bound by convention and the restrictions they placed on themsevles, explored each others' body lightly, but leaving nothing untouched. When his hand slipped between her thighs, she groaned with frustration. Her hand wrapped around him, and together they writhed in mutual pleasure.

Once she'd had enough, she pushed at his chest, and he acquiesed, rolling onto his back while she straddled him and pulled him deep within her. The initial motions were clumsy, shaky, but they quickly found a rhythm, a pulse that quickened between them. The fire built, the cauldron boiled, and Ranma rolled her over, driving into her with a few quick motions.

More urgent now. The pressure between them building, and still, silence. Neither of them made a sound. Neither had to. They'd both been ready for this. Her eyes opened in surprise, her neck arched with the sudden arrival of pleasure he'd brought about, and in the same moment, he exploded within her -

Her dying expression, her face bright and happy as she saw something he didn't, something beyond him. He saw it, too. He'd glimpsed it before, in the past, when near death, but now it was clear as day -

Oh.

Oh dear.

He looked down without eyes, and saw Mitsuki screaming, shrieking as she realised what had just happened. He scrambled upright, backpedaled across the room, into the wall as she stared uncomprehendingly at the tableau before him, and then, it clicked. It made sense.

He hadn't felt right all night. He was talking to the right woman. He'd gone to the wrong woman. And now...

"That's right, Ranma," Kaname said from beside him. "You're dead. And dammit, that's one HELL of a mess."

"Kaname?" he asked, bewildered. "But you died -"

"Yes, I did." Kaname gestured at the headless corpse lying on top of Mitsuki, who was still screaming. "And so are you."

SAILOR MOON SAYS:

I said I had this one in progress. It's been a very long time in coming, though. While the two thirds flew from my fingertips in a couple of months, the last third has been murder. About a year ago, we all found out at work we could all lose our jobs. Then we were told that was wrong. Then I got transferred temporarily to our technical division, and then my original department got outsourced to India and my secondment was made permanent. And since then, I've been working hard and getting very little sleep. So writing has escaped my fingers.

I write this at 12:33AM, and I'm kind of glad to have the chapter finished, especially since for the last six months, I've plotted out most of the next chapter and a good chunk of Justice. One more chapter until Love is finished! What's really scary is this and the preceding two chapters come in at novel-length - rest assured, I'm going back to writing shorter chapters, they're much easier to sustain both story-wise and energy-wise. A number of times, I've been stuck on one sentence for weeks, or in one or two cases, months, without any energy to think of a solution.

Not giving an ETA on the next chapter, but believe me when I say it won't be another 16 months (I still find it hard to believe this chapter has been in progress that long). I'm hoping any plot holes that might have eventuated by this side-excursion into the System aren't too gaping. A re-read of chapter 1 shows I've covered most things, even if it might not initially seem that way. Anyway, this isn't going to post itself, so I'd best see to that before I do anything else.

Edit: Sorry guys, has robbed me of asterisks, trying a repost to see if that works...

Next time, Ranma's dead. And the senshi have to deal with it. And then there's his funeral... that's some real fun. But now, he's not really dead kids, just taking a bit of a nap... while he's on a magical mystery tour with a former personality throughout time and space - stay tuned! 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...