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 18
Love, Actually
He rolled out of bed, casually and easily. He should have been able to; after all, he'd been doing that very thing for years, ever since he and his wife had bought the double bed from a semi-reputable dealer in the back streets of Yokohama. A disappointed murmured sigh from the other side of the bed caused him to roll his eyes, lie down on the bed again, and roll over to kiss his beloved on the side of her throat. She almost literally purred, contentedly. She refused to open her eyes, although her mouth parted in a slight smile.
"You haven't changed a day since we met," he said, disapprovingly.
"I don't hear you complaining," she replied, one eye cracking open to peer at him in an amused fashion. The voice was light, yet heavy with tone and experience. While he was older than she was, she was so much older than he could ever be, if only by the fact she'd been born before he.
"You do when I get accused of... of..."
"You can say it," she teased.
"... you know what I mean," he finished lamely. Her hand found its way to his hair and played with it.
"They still call you a pervert because they think I'm in high school," she said, finally. "And that's only a problem because your hormones are hitting you again." She smiled as well, as he kissed the hollow of her throat now.
"It's been 20 years, Hotaru. 20 years since I felt like this," Ranma grumbled as his fingers fumbled with her shirt. "Why don't they make these damned things a bit less fiddly?"
"Again?" Hotaru asked theatrically, an exaggerated sigh following quickly as her slim fingers picked buttons apart on her pyjama shirt, before moving to Ranma's. "20 years of nothing, then all this again. I swear, Ranma," she sighed again, this time deeper, throatier, as Ranma's hands did something interesting, "if you switch off again after another 30, 40 years, I'm going to hit you."
Ranma grinned wickedly before his face disappeared beneath the blankets.
Ranma's face paled once again. At least, Kaname thought, he'd stopped screaming. She thought this might calm him down. She stood slightly behind him, watching his ears turn red, and yet, despite himself, he could not turn away. He was fascinated by the tableau before him, watching Hotaru, looking perhaps a little older than the Ranma in bed with her had suggested. But on second thought, Ranma had decided this was age in her eyes that he was noticing - she was now a lot older than 16. The Ranma under the blankets moved, and Hotaru moved again.
"What... what am I doin' here?" Ranma asked, finding his voice eventually around the same time Hotaru found hers.
"It's... a place of happiness and joy," Kaname offered, "a little different from where we were before."
"Where's... where are we?"
"Right now, we're nowhere," the copper-haired woman replied. She sounded a little compassionate, Ranma noted distantly.
"That wasn't a dream, was it?" he said slowly.
Kaname shook her head.
"You died. Earlier today." Ranma sagged suddenly with the admission, as if finally bringing it up had brought him low. Kaname felt it had. She rested a hand on his shoulder, felt him tense under it, but the pity and depression won out and he slumped forward to the ground, on his knees staring at the floor.
"Ranma... you knew it was coming."
He said nothing, but she could feel the depression deepen within him. She tried another tack, attempting to fix one problem before moving on to the next. "I don't blame you, you know. I... knew what you were going to do. I came to terms with my choice long before you even knew I had one. You were prepared to give your life for mine, when I was nothing but a shadow of you, and when you were needed more. I knew you had a way out... I thought I might have one of my own."
She shrugged. "And here I am. Now. With you. Watching you and Hotaru... er... do things that... uh... hmm." Ranma turned around around as Kaname's voice trailed off. Her face was growing a bright shade of red but she seemed unable to take her eyes off the spectacle before them. He started to chuckle. "Hey!" she replied indignantly, "I died a virgin! At least one of us is going to be getting something, so if I have to live vicariously through the lives of others, then so be it!" She gave him a light clip around the head, which made Ranma laugh. Through her embarrassment, she smiled. At least he wasn't quite as despondant again, and had perked up a little. He stood up beside her, their eyes meeting.
"I have ta go back, don't I?" he asked.
"Yes, you do," she replied. "But not right now." She peeked around Ranma's shoulder as Hotaru sighed happily and her Ranma emerged from the blankets again. They kissed, deeply, then Ranma climbed out of bed and disappeared from the bedroom, naked. Kaname's eyes followed him. "Wow. I never got to see that while I had your body. I'm kind of regretting that now."
"Uh..."
"Oh Ranma, I'm kidding," she giggled, swatting him again. "I wouldn't have looked. That's what I have hands for."
Ranma's face and ears burned brightly.
"Kidding, kidding again." Kaname pouted. "You have no sense of humour."
"I wouldn't," Ranma grumbled, some of his strength of voice returning, "not about that. Not at the moment." He looked at his hands, and waved them experimentally. "I was ready to die for you. I was ready to die. And you - you robbed me of that sacrifice. Not that I'm not grateful or nothin'," he added quickly, "but it was somethin' I was ready for, had prepared for. I'd spent all that time with Natsumi, getting ready for a big push, and... all those plans..."
"I understand," Kaname said, not quite in a placatory manner, but coming close. Compassionate, Ranma decided. "I know a lot more now than I did back then."
"Back then?" Ranma asked, a little confused. "It was less than twelve hours ago!"
Kaname smiled a private smile. "Twelve hours for you, two hundred years for me."
"What've you been doing for two hundred years?"
"What do you think?" Kaname asked quietly. "Learning to become a guardian angel so I could protect you from what obviously comes next."
"Nothin' comes next. I'm dead, remember?" Ranma's voice was a little pointed, and the last words were rasped harshly rather than spoken. Kaname's raised hand forestalled further words, but she guessed he wasn't exactly listening to her right now anyway.
"You and I know this is a temporary matter. Once you have a reason to be alive, you will be." She watched amused as Ranma glanced at the naked Hotaru, now emerging from the bed, before he quickly turned his head back ramrod straight to face Kaname. "You get over that really quickly. You'd be surprised. She's not even all that..."
Ranma noticed Kaname's voice trail off. "She's not even all that what? Hurt I slept with someone else? Sure she is! It's what girls do! I know that."
"True, but there are things you don't know, Ranma. Things working against you here. Things in motion for the longest time." Kaname sighed, dropped her hands back to her thighs with a slap before shrugging and turning them again palm outwards towards Ranma. "And things I can't talk about at the moment. At the right time, though, I'll be able to tell you then."
"While you think of a good excuse, ya mean?"
"I don't remember you being this antagonistic."
"I don't remember failing to sacrifice myself for my friends, and failing, to watch another friend suicide and failing to save her, to then committing myself to the wrong woman before, either!" Ranma fumed. "This isn't fair! And this... this isn't real," he sulked, not completely to himself. "I'm dead."
"Only mostly dead," Kaname corrected. "I can understand the pain and shock of dying is having some adverse affect on your thinking right now, but you're not really dead. Otherwise..."
"Otherwise?"
"Otherwise you would be someplace else," Kaname finished, with a semi-knowing shrug, continuing to admit, "You'd probably get your wings before I did."
"Wings? You're... you're a..." Ranma was at a loss for words. Kaname reached out and closed his mouth.
"Wow... that feels... like me." She ran a hand across her own jaw, feeling similarities, but also some differences. She frowned, shook her head, and continued. "Yes. A guardian angel, to be exact. I knew you weren't listening. Given special instructions to save your life and get you back on the right path. You were nearly there in the system. You'd developed a plan, and were committed to seeing it through. You received the gift of prophecy to see you through the... more delicate interpersonal relations you were heading towards, as well as give you some idea of where to go."
"What?"
"Remember that last time you went all 'oh look at me! I'm a big bad Dark General and a senshi!' at the same time? Prophecy. You saw the future. We saw the future. And I saw... this. So did you. But you saw it from your perspective, I saw it from mine. I knew I'd died before you. That wasn't easy to live with, either, but it was the way things would be, so I had to accept it. I knew my life wasn't forever."
Ranma shook his head to clear it. The talking was helping a lot. He wasn't thinking so much about the bloodied pulp he'd left behind in Mitsuki's room, not as much. And knowing he was dead? Well, for the moment, nothing could help his state of being, but he didn't have to let it interupt his recently-found peace and quiet. "So... you're a guardian angel. Mine?"
Kaname considered. "Among others, yes. The Yggdrasil system oversees all of reality, this and others, so there's a lot of work, and most people only get the one option. You know, to pass on to the great beyond and live in the clouds and all the other volumes of misinformation."
"And the reality is...?" probed Ranma.
With a smug smile, Kaname replied, "I can't tell you that. It's something you have to see for yourself." She hesitated. "But not yet. Right now, you seem okay again. If you think you can handle it, I'd like to..." She broke off, looking a touch more serious than before. Ranma nodded grimly.
"You mean, go back to Mitsuki's room." Ranma tried to shrug casually, but found himself afraid somewhere in the pit of his stomach. Perhaps not afraid, but apprehensive, he decided. A real man, as he found himself for the first time in six months, would face his fears and his mistakes with a brave face. Or, at least, face them, rather than hide from them for any longer. He nodded as best as he could. "Take me back."
Inside Mitsuki's room again. Ranma took great care to look everywhere but at his corpse, still lying on top of Mitsuki. She was still screaming, her hands still gripping his shoulders where she'd been squeezing in what Ranma remembered was an extremely pleasureable grasp. Behind him, he could feel Kaname's presence.
He could hear doors opening now, senshi wondering aloud what was going on. Downstairs, Ranma felt Hotaru's fear as she slid his door open, then ran up the stairs to Mitsuki's room. She skidded into the room, the door flung back along its sliding track. Then she halted, backed out, hands clasped across her mouth. "No, no, he'd never -" she said, shaking her head before Usagi's arms wrapped around Hotaru to keep her upright and from bolting.
Ranma noticed she made sure Hotaru was okay before she looked up. Her face grew pale as her eyes flicked around the room, noticing the new decor, but she didn't scream, didn't collapse. For that, Usagi gained new appreciation in Ranma's eyes. "A little late," Kaname prodded from behind.
Then, just as Ranma opened his mouth to say how impressed he was with Usagi's caring reaction, she turned her head to one side and vomited, moving aside to not block the door. The other senshi, who had been blocking up the hall behind her, suddenly found themselves with a good view of the gore, and began dry retching. Usagi could no longer hold Hotaru, her hands needed to help hold her up as she retched, and Hotaru found herself to the wall and collapsed down to the floor against it, her inarticulate screams fading into a weird hiccupping sound. His heart clutched at that sound... the noise of someone letting go.
With a wave of her transformation wand and a barely audible unlocking phrase, Ami transformed into Sailor Mercury and began a scan of the room while the senshi tried to make sense of what had just happened. Mitsuki continued to scream. "Isn't someone going to help her?" Ranma asked to a crowd that ignored him. "Push me off, cover me with a blanket - just do somethin'!"
Mercury's gaze trailed across the room, finally landing on Mitsuki's bottle of pills. She frowned, and called up more information, centering her gaze on the small unobtrusive bottle. As Ranma watched, she started, eyes opening wide as she remembered something.
"She's remembering that whole Dark General thing right now," Kaname confided in a whisper. "She's found something in the pill bottle that's making her think maybe you've done something to Mitsuki. No, she's just changed her mind. Maybe something Mitsuki's done has reacted with you badly." She paused for a moment. "I'll let her explain."
Mercury looked around, and saw Usagi on hands and knees before a pool of vomit, Hotaru next to her. Makoto, taking some shuddering deep breaths next to Mercury after a whole lot of her own retching, found herself pulled to one side as Mercury grabbed her, Usagi and Hotaru and took them further down the hall. As Mitsuki's screams were growing into hoarse sobs, and he couldn't do anything for her now, Ranma followed, his curiousity enhanced by Kaname's words.
Mercury told Makoto to help Hotaru, then turned aside and began speaking to Usagi in a low voice. "I scanned Dark Kingdom energy in there, Usagi. That's what killed Ranma. He... had some parasitic spore on him, in the system which I thought I got rid of," she continued, shaking her head, "but I don't think I got rid of it. I sensed it again last night, and cleaned it off him. I think that may have been what was making him a General."
"But... if you cleaned him once and he got it again..." Usagi wondered through gasps and snorts as she tried to clean her nose and throat while still trying to hold her bile down, "maybe it came back again and he went evil and..."
"I don't think so," Mercury said, casting a worried eye back down the hall where Minako and Rei were starting to head slowly into the room to help Mitsuki. "The spore he had shows the same energy signature as one that is showing as residing in Mitsuki's pill bottle. It's nothing strong, though, not as strong as Ranma's was, and his was fairly weak, all things considered."
"Then -"
"The point is, there should be some residual patterning of the signature in Ranma's... in Ramna," Mercury corrected with a glance down at Hotaru, who was nodding silently to a quiet question of Makoto's while she was cleaned up. "And Ranma has no such signature. He has no sign of Dark Kingdom energy or matter on his person, nor in his clothing. I think, this may be some after-effect of Mitsuki's medication. Something that has been placed into them. But I won't know for sure without study of them."
Ranma moved aside as Minako came up behind him, and cleared her throat uncertainly. "Ummm... Usagi... we should probably call someone. An ambulance. The police. Someone."
Kaname touched him lightly on the shoulder. "Come. We've other places to be."
"Why?" Ranma asked. "I've just died. Isn't that it? If I'm going to come back from this, shouldn't I do that now instead of making them hurt?"
Kaname smiled. "You have come so far, and yet you still can't see the small picture. It is always the big picture with you, Ranma. The small things - people, feelings, motivations - they still escape you most of the time."
"They didn't this time!" Ranma shouted, aggressively. He balled his fists, ready for a fight, but Kaname's hand was gentle on his shoulder, reassuring.
"This isn't your story, Ranma. This is how they deal with your loss. What I have to show you is to help you fix that mistake." Kaname waited until Ranma's fists relaxed. "Let me help you. I am meant to help you." She waited again, until he nodded mutely. "Okay then. Relax. Take my hand. We're going back."
"Back to the past?" Ranma asked, a little dumbly.
"No, silly," Kaname replied with a giggle. "We're going back to the future."
"Ranma?" Hotaru called from the bedroom.
"Yes?" Ranma replied, before Kaname's nudge reminded him he couldn't be seen or heard. Damn. For a moment, he'd forgotten, thought this was all some weird and crazy dream. These transitions were almost like waking up. Nothing, then a sudden rush of noise, of light, awareness.
"Dummy," Kaname reminded him with a sigh.
"You're the dummy!" Ranma rounded on Kaname, returning to instinct for a second before he realised what she was doing. What she was still doing. The faint, knowing smile remained on her lips that told him she was still bringing him back so he could adjust and deal with the situation. With that realisation, he reigned himself in again and promised not to make such a scene again.
Well, until the next time, at least. This was... most disconcerting, to put it mildly.
"Ranma?" Hotaru called again. Ranma started when she came through the door, her face sagged and aged, hair a pepper colour in her usual bob style.
He turned his face to Kaname, but kept his eyes on Hotaru as she limped through the hall for the bathroom. "What happened to her?" Kaname's response was a silent grin.
Ranma, the one from this time, exited the bathroom. Now in his female form, she looked aged as well. Still a vibrant shock of red hair on her head, the rest of her looked stooped and lined, only the playful light of the eyes really showing any sign of youth. "Ahhh, you go ahead, Hotaru. I'm only going to the shops today. Ya know, more noodles. More and more seem to be disappearin' all the time."
She started down the hall for what Ranma guessed was the lounge, then almost as she reached Ranma, she started, and straightened up tall, shocked. Staring at Ranma. Lost in memories. A hand reached up, hesitantly, and then her eyes closed, and she felt, and to Ranma, he could see almost visible lines of concentration and ki branching out from the older version of himself.
"What -?" he said, taking a reflexive step back. Again, he turned to Kaname. "He can't see me, can he?"
Kaname shook her head. "No, he can't see you." She gave the older Ranma a knowing look. "He can remember you, though, I'd bet."
As if on cue, the older Ranma sagged again, lifting her hand to her head. "Today. Today was the day... it was today."
"Ranma?" came the querying voice from the bathroom. When no response came after a minute, Hotaru poked her head from the doorway and enquired again, "Ranma?"
She remained there, hand on her head. Gradually, it shifted to behind her head, and she scratched it as she turned around to face her partner. It was a habit Ranma recognised; she was lying to Hotaru. "Ah... nothing, Hotaru-chan. Just go back to your... your... routine. I gotta go out. I... I gotta go see someone today."
"Akane?"
"Yeah. Who'd you -?"
Hotaru shrugged, for a moment her aged form not seeming so old. Ranma could almost see the young, wan girl still inside her body. Maybe that was it. Maybe this was just faking, some kind of protection so people wouldn't ask questions about why their neighbours were still so young. "She's the last one, isn't she? Who else would you be going to see?" Hotaru paused, and both Ranmas could see Saturn inside her. "It's today, isn't it?"
"Now, Hotaru, I don't know that," Ranma countered defensively, but she knew the senshi of death and rebirth often knew more than she did about this kind of thing.
This time, it was Saturn who shrugged. "If it's not today, then, remind her we have a spare room. She'll need one shortly." She disappeared again, leaving Ranma alone in the hall.
She sighed, and headed out the door. With gentle urging, Kaname ushered Ranma out of the door after her. They followed Ranma for several blocks, as she exchanged quiet words with people on the street. Ranma hung back, with Kaname, almost nervous. His heart was beating rapidly, as if he knew he shouldn't be here, shouldn't be seeing this. This was Tokyo, obviously - the land still lay the same, but the buildings were all wrong. And towards the city itself, huge metal spires rose with self-construction rigs rising up incrementally as they built. Other huge towers rose, and one, incredibly thin, rose far up into the clouds. Ranma couldn't see the end of it, but it seemed to give the air a barely perceptible background hum, and small dots rose up and down the line. Ranma guessed it was an elevator shaft, but where to, he didn't know.
Eventually, the future Ranma looked up at a street sign and sighed. She stopped, waved as if for someone to come up to meet her. Ranma looked around, but could see no one behind them. Kaname gave him a push forward. "I'll be back here. I think she wants a private conversation."
Ranma managed not to look surprised as he skipped forward to his future self, who began walking as soon as he arrived at her side.
"Now," she began, "before you say anything, I can't hear you. I can't see you. I can... feel you. Kinda. But... more than that... I remember being here. Kaname's there too, right?" She gave a half-hearted wave over her shoulder. Ranma glanced back, saw Kaname return a grumpy wave. "She's angry at me. Because I'm gonna tell you some things you're not meant ta know."
"What kind of things?" Ranma asked, then kicked himself as he remembered his future self couldn't hear him. Yet, she smiled, amused, and Ranma thought maybe she remembered the reaction more than the words.
"I did tell ya," she reminded him. "Today's a sad day. Akane dies. Last of the Tendo sisters. Why Kasumi died, I dunno. Maybe she thought it was her time, or maybe she faked her death. I don't know. To my dying day, I'll never understand her." Ranma sighed, looked around the suburb as they continued to walk. "Ya know what's missing? Think about it."
Ranma thought about it. Something was missing? He shot a confused, enquiring glance back at Kaname. Although she had dropped right back, Ranma felt she still knew everything that was going on. Maybe that was part of being a guardian angel. But it was a question directed at him, so he thought. What was missing?
So far, no woman had doused his future self with cold water. No bike had smashed down on his future self's head, nor had chains wrapped themselves around him, nor had he been besieged by frustrated senshi or Dark Kingdom monsters. What was wrong? Now that he was thinking about it, something did seem wrong. And it was very unsettling. But, still, it remained elusive.
He reached out with his senses, eyes shut, relying on sensing energy patterns to guide his footsteps. He felt rather than saw the elder Ranma smile, he felt the people in their houses go about their cleaning, their lovemaking, their studying, their lives. And further afield, he felt... no, that was wrong. He frowned, pulled his attention in close. What was it?
People, living their lives, going about their business. But... the sense of it was wrong. His frown grew deeper. The elder Ranma's smile grew sadder. People rushed. People hurried. People took little enjoyment in what they did. And the children...
... were exactly like their parents. There was no play, no laughter, no joy, no sorrow. Just conformity. People grown in a meatgrinder of a society where everyone had no need to be forced into a round hole because everyone was already round. He shivered in spite of himself.
"I see ya found it," Ranma began speaking again. "No life. But this was the choice. This was always the choice. People... people can't be forced inta something. They have to choose. Choice is everything. Choice... is all that makes living worthwhile. Right now, you got a choice. You have your plan, the one you were planning while trapped in that computer simulation of Tokyo. But you also got the choice not to go ahead with it. I know what choice I picked. If you're here, I know what choice you pick. But the thing is... you don't have to."
"But... if I don't do this," Ranma said, his voice unsteady as he felt his future self already knew the outcome of his simple plotting, "if I don't do this, things could be worse!"
Ranma grinned, something the young man was certain others saw on his face when he knew he had won something. And disturbingly, he felt like he had just lost. "Things could always get worse. But this is ya choice. This is what you decided to make of things. This is... this is the way the world ends. No children, no birds, no bugs, no uncute tomboys belting you about, no Chinese Amazons to fight with, no soul reapers from the spiritual realms to contend with. No more giant robots and Whisperers, no ambushes or giant planet-destroying bombs. No alien invasions, no viruses, no intelligent machines. This is how the world ends."
There was a pause in the conversation then. Ranma felt that perhaps his older self had become lost in the past, but she hadn't. She turned back to him, looked him in the eyes, and said two words that stayed with Ranma until he came to again in Yoshihiro's throne room.
"No imagination."
Before Ranma could even form the thought to dodge, a huge metal crate passed through his body, collapsing into a squashed pancake of metal on the wall behind him. Another crate followed, and another. By this time, Ranma was calm again, looking around as Kaname tittered. He zeroed in on a wrenching sound, saw Yoshihiro tearing up another crate he threw at a nearby wall.
"Why, Umiko? Why? We had them! We had them right where we wanted them!"
Beside her master, Umiko looked disappointed. "Think it through. You're good at thinking ahead. Think ahead of this."
Yoshihiro released his grip on a fifth crate, before slumping back into his throne. Ranma felt it looked like something from a science-fiction movie, a dark grey uncomfortable-looking thing with switches and buttons on the armrests. He closed his eyes dramatically - childlike, Ranma guessed - pressed his forefinger and thumb to either side of the bridge of his nose, and thought. After a couple of minutes, he screwed his eyes up tight. Then he relaxed with a sigh. "No, Umiko, I really can't think of anything earth-shattering that should have stopped me from destroying them then and there. I could have defeated all of Tokyo's heroes. All of them! Think of it, no more interference in Hokkaido with our terraforming plans! No more magic cards defeating my strongest monsters! No more psychotic martial artists confusing my best tacticians or school reforms! No more combat androids foiling my schemes. No more schoolyard detectives uncovering my latest safe houses. No more failed ballroom dancers in a top hat saving the heroes I just defeated! And most of all, no more Sailor Senshi to oppose my drive to bring the Dark Kingdom back to life. No. No, you know, nothing could have been worth that."
Umiko sighed, ran a finger down Yoshihiro's arm thoughtfully. "It's only the glimmering of an idea, but we still need human help."
"We need human energy -"
"Yes, and the best way to get that is for them to offer it willingly," Umiko sounded annoyed and swatted Yoshihiro's shoulder before walking a few steps away.
"Are we... are we listening in on their plans?" Ranma asked, dumbly.
"Shhh. Yes," replied Kaname.
"Wow. This would have been helpful, oh, six months ago."
"Maybe. But I didn't exist six months ago. Now shhh and listen."
"But you can travel in time. You said you died two hundred years ago, but it's not even been a day! So you can do the time travel thing, like Hotaru says that Pluto woman can do, an' you're a guardian angel-kinda thing, so why don't you do some proper guardianing?"
Kaname smiled and touched a finger to the fuming Ranma's lips. "Shh. This is helpful. This is all helpful. So be quiet and listen in on the plans, like a good little good guy who's just been let in on the most powerful secret of the universe: that bad guys like their all-important plans being listened to."
"He doesn't know -"
"All bad guys assume people are listening, even if it's only themselves."
Ranma turned back to look, just as Umiko left the room, obviously having finished giving her information to Yoshihiro. She looked slightly smug, like a cat that had just eaten a fairly large canary. Ranma shuddered as she gave an almost silent "nyao" passing him. He glanced at Yoshihiro, who looked to be deep in thought.
"A glimmering, indeed. A time of devastation, a time of darkness, a time of despair... who will lead the recovery of Japan? I have already started down this path... with the charade continuing a little longer, I can regain my strength. I can rebuild my powerbase. I can gain the time I need to build the energy again to unseal our homeworld that Queen Serenity locked from our grasp with her death, and then..." Yoshihiro seemed to deflate. "And then..." he tried once more, but there was nothing. What was he to do? Once he'd retreived his homeworld, or his psyche's homeworld rather, seeing his body was of a more local origin, what else was there for him to do? Once it was joined with Earth, would the Dark Kingdom have farms? Boats? Water? Resources? Or would he rest on his laurels, smirking forevermore, knowing he had achieved what so many others had failed, waiting on his throne until the dark someone bigger and stronger came along and took his throne from him. What would become of him once he had completed his task? After a moment of pondering, he shook his head. "It is no matter. All that concerns us is victory. The queen is dead; long live the King."
Ranma stared. "Why's he doing this, then?"
Kaname shook her head. "He's acting on thoughts and impulses a million years old. Queen Serenity, Sailor Moon's mother, sealed their dimension from access and life in the endgame of a billion-year war. It was her final act."
"She gave her life for -"
"Nothing so noble," Kaname sighed, turning to face Ranma. "She'd started the war by believing to know what was best for everyone, and when she lost, she made one final act to make sure she wasn't the only loser. Mutually assured destruction. They hurt me, I damn well sure hurt them back. A final, irrevocable act that has led to thousands of years of brutality on both sides. And now, Sailor Moon has awoken - who unlike her mother, loves all equally - and this is the new endgame. There's a thousand years of pain coming that only she can end, but that thousand years is needed. Serenity was a good person; Neo Queen Serenity - Sailor Moon - is better. But people have to have choice. And to have choice, they have to be fully informed on the options. And the education... isn't nice. Remember yourself in the future? That world?" She waited until Ranma nodded slowly. "That's the first step. That's what happens inside a dead people."
"Oh." A thought struck Ranma. "So... why are ya telling me this? If choice is the important thing, shouldn't people have the choice ta follow Queen Sailor Moon instead of you obviously pushing me ta make people pick that future?"
"Ranma, you idiot," Kaname rolled her eyes, "The people do pick Sailor Moon... in the future. The far future. Not now, not next week, and that's what she's planning right now. If she sets up her Crystal Tokyo right now, it'll fall apart. She has to wait until everything is ready."
"Oh." A thought struck Ranma. "But then hasn't happened yet, so that choice hasn't been made. So... again, you're showing me this so I can what? Push people to make the decision that was set?"
"Of course not," Kaname replied a little indignantly. "But time... isn't as flexible as you'd think. There's lots of ways through it, but... think of it as a computer game. You can go through a level multiple ways, but you're still limited to a linear progression of story. The plot is the same, but the path to the major points of the plot, where it is set in stone, are different." She paused, and looked around the throne room before dropping her gaze and sighing. She took Ranma's hand. "I'll show you."
They appeared in a city. It was dark, lit only by flickering neon signs reflecting off a thick layer of smog. "This is one possible version of the future time when everything goes to hell. You've seen yours," Kaname reminded Ranma with a glance. "This is... another path. Instead of building upwards, the human race built outwards. The planet is now one giant city. The eco system can't support itself anymore. The atmosphere is toxic to humans, and the planet is about to shut itself down completely, and seal the population into stasis. They'll be woken again in about 900 years."
This time, they appeared in a field. Nearby, cows chewed lazily on their cud. Ranma looked up, and saw clouds forming a giant ring. Rain started to fall, but this turned to snowflakes rapidly. He looked at Kaname. "Greenhouse gas emissions have caused runaway global warming. This is the middle of December, in southern Canada. This is now pastoral land, and cattle are raised here. Several weeks ago, the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic shifted over a thousand kilometres to the south due to huge amounts of fresh meltwater being released from the Arctic." As she spoke, the apparent temperature dropped dramatically. The cows barely had time to lift their heads before ice plastered their coats of short fur and turned their eyes glassy. They died in a matter of seconds, snap-frozen from the outside in. "Storms like this, hitting rapidly, but not so much with rain as they are with snow, sleet, hail, and snap-freezing everything it touches. This ice age will last 950 years."
They appeared in a city again, but this time it was under siege. Giant tripod machines stood their ground and fired on defenders, humans Ranma could almost recognise. They were obviously American, wearing funny costumes and firing energy blasts, using super-strength. It was almost enough. Kaname gestured at an angry man with glowing red eyes and a black shirt that had a giant red 'W' emblazoned across it. As she spoke, he disappeared in a flash of light, disorienting the last of the heroes. They were vapourised by energy blasts. "This is the so-called 'war of the worlds'," she continued. "Man's last gasp against the Martian invaders. Their greatest remaining hero, their last best hope, kidnapped across the solar system at the critical moment. By the time he returned, the Earth was devastated, the heroes dead, the population dead or in hiding. He left. The occupation will last roughly 980 years."
"This is the way the world ends," Kaname said again, gesturing at the tidal wave that wiped out Sapporo, the last remaining city on the planet.
"Not with a wimper, but with a bang," she continued, as a giant of light exploded in Antarctica.
A pink giant blew up the planet as a final gesture of angry defiance. "Always with a bang. Anything less, and serious change could not be affected."
"And serious change is needed for the human race to continue to survive." Giant monsters, like something from a horror movie, swarmed over tanks and armoured giant robots.
"Because the balance is needed again," Kaname continued, casually stepping around a young man, struggling to control his body as his arm pulsed, grew, absorbed walls and people.
"This balance was lost when the Moon and Dark Kingdoms fought," she explained as Ranma followed, dodging blue-haired succubi and heavily-furred wolfmen, "and man learnt to control his environment instead of growing with it and within it."
The giant red artifact that reminded Ranma heavily of a star gleamed brightly in Kaname's eyes, although Ranma knew it was behind them, and in the sky. "That balance can never be reached again."
"What must come next," Kaname added thoughtfully, "is a new balance. And that's what the story calls for. That's where all these paths lead. Balance. Around 3000AD. That's when things get better. That's when the new balance is created." Above them, a cackling General Ranma didn't recognise gestured, and froze the people around them into crystals, forever to be frozen...
Ranma placed his hand on one of the crystals, amazed he could almost touch it. If he wavered in his concentration, his hand did begin to sink through the crystal, and Kaname smiled. "He's not dead," Ranma said of the occupant. "He's still alive." He looked around at the field of crystals, realised that just here were several hundred people. He could sense more people. More, everywhere, frozen in this instant of time. "They're all still alive," he said, glancing at Kaname for confirmation.
"Yes, they are. Sleeping, waiting for the time they are awoken." Kaname's hand trailed over one crystal, then another. "And the one who wakes them -"
"Is Sailor Moon," Ranma completed. "I kinda guessed that was where you were goin' with this." He looked around, and found himself somewhere else.
Hotaru's face was turned to the ground, but she walked. She was in Nerima, Ranma recognised the streets. Obviously, she was headed for the Tendo's house. His stomach dropped, but he gulped and watched. Kaname watched too, but not Hotaru. No, she was watching Ranma.
Hesitantly, he stepped forward, and wrapped his arms around her body. He couldn't touch her, but he could try and give her comfort. Her eyes held no tears, but Ranma saw more of the eternal guardian of silence in her expression than the young grieving girl. As his hands closed in front of her chest, she stopped, and her head snapped up, a surprised expression on her face. Ranma laid a kiss on the top of her head, and Hotaru's eyes grew larger. A hand crept towards where Ranma's were, but he let her go, stepped away from her and she stopped again, unable to feel even the smallest presence again. Alone, she cried, giving voice to her grief for a few scant moments before she wiped her eyes savagely with her arm. Then she continued walking.
"I hate seeing her like this," Ranma said quietly as they followed.
"You hate seeing your friends and loved ones like this," Kaname replied. "Most people do. It's only natural. And your natural instinct when someone you love is hurt this bad is to hold them. Make their pain go away. But pain is... something we learn to deal with. Something we learn to live with."
"That doesn't make it right, though," Ranma muttered in reply. He was surprised a moment later when Kuno walked through him, a man on a mission headed directly for Hotaru. His momentary surprise gave way to concern, then angry reaction. "Hey, wait just a sec, Kuno -" he said out loud, before pausing and looking to Kaname, who was stifling a laugh.
"Idiot, you're dead," she chuckled.
Kuno's hand reached for Hotaru's shoulder, but she tensed up before he could announce himself, and she turned to see him, one hand resting on his bokken.
"These early hours before school times are not a safe time for a Goddess such as your fair self to be traversing through," he said. "For there are many dangers that -"
The rest of his words were cut off as a thick bicycle wheel impacted onto his skull. Kuno went down like a lead weight, chin-first into the road. The bike, on the other hand, bounced back up, then landed in front of him. Ranma jumped back in surprise; he hadn't expected this, either. Kaname started, but quickly regained her composure.
"Was it always like this?" Kaname asked.
Ranma grinned. "No," he replied. "More like this."
"Aiya! Stupid speech-boy get out of Shampoo's way! Shampoo -" didn't get to finish her sentence. A chain whistled through Kaname's chest this time, but Shampoo turned back to face them as she caught the chain. Hotaru stood still in muted surprise. Shampoo gave a yank on the chain, and Mousse stumbled through Kaname as well.
"Wah! Shampoo! Do not run from the fates of love!"
A foot slammed down on one pedal of Shampoo's bike, then the other slammed down on the other side, and so on as Shampoo pumped her legs hard. From an almost standing start, she exploded away from Kuno's prone body. "Shampoo not running! Shampoo biking! Very fast!"
The chain still extending from his hand towards Shampoo, Mousse tried again. "Shampoo! The Amazon Elders have confirmed it!"
"Here it comes," Ranma predicted. Sure enough, Mousse didn't catch the casual flick Shampoo gave the pursuing chain with her back bike wheel, nor the sudden slackness in the chain whistling through his fingertips.
"We must mar-" he managed before the chain whipped back around his neck and pulled tight. It choked him suddenly, and he fell to the ground, gasping and clutching for the chain to try and loosen it. Ranma looked around with a smirk for Hotaru, to see her reaction - she'd been part of this for a while, and had survived, and he wanted to know what she felt about it.
Instead, Hotaru was already moving, and walking again at a steady pace for the Tendo's. Ranma's heart sank; whenever he managed to get over dying, even only temporarily as this encounter had managed for him, something snapped him back to the moment of his death, and the fact he was now dead.
As Kaname had hinted, he didn't think it was permanent. It didn't feel permanent, but he wasn't sure what he was feeling. Like... something powerful. Something ancient. Something new.
But Ranma wasn't the only one who had noticed Hotaru leaving. Barring Kuno, still twitching on the ground, and Mousse, who's face was turning a dark shade of blue and could be forgiven for not paying attention by way of suffocation, Shampoo's eyes followed the younger woman as she continued to walk. Recognition of a form appeared in the Chinese woman's eyes as Ranma guessed she remembered her from near-death experiences, and she also realised in what direction Hotaru was travelling in. She pedalled more slowly after her. "Why strange girl go see Tendo's?"
Hotaru didn't miss a stride, nor did her voice crack. Perversely, Ranma was proud. Kaname stood just behind him, a presence that Ranma could feel. She felt... strange. Urgent. Like time was growing short, or something.
"Gather your friends," was all Hotaru said. "All of them. Everyone who knew Ranma. Get them to the Tendo Dojo before I get there."
Shampoo pedalled alongside Hotaru, and glanced at her face. Something struck her there, it wasn't the soft face she had expected from the younger girl - even with the stories great-grandmother had told her, and her own experiences at this girl's companions, and knowing what she had done to Furinkan High School, Shampoo didn't get all-time evil vibes off her - but something was wrong. Something was missing. And that something was -
Oh no. A chill passed through Shampoo's heart. Not being able to see the dead, she didn't realise that was Ranma trying to lay a hand on her shoulder to console her but had passed through her completely, but she realised what it meant all the same. Without a second glance, she wheeled her bike around and sped off furiously as directed.
Ranma watched the Chinese warrior leave, then turned back to Hotaru, who continued to walk in a slow, steady pace. Almost a zombie herself, he thought, before leaning forward. "Hotaru?"
"She can't hear you," Kaname said from behind. "No one can hear you."
"I can hear me," Ranma shot back over his shoulder. "Hotaru... I'm sorry. I'm sorry I got into this. I'm sorry I'm gone, and I'm sorry it's you left ta pick it up. I didn' want this ta happen. I wanted us ta grow old together and die together, or whatever it is us senshi do when we get old like Mitsuki, and I wanted there to be a big battle for us to become legends, and I wanted us to have children - children we'd keep the hell away from Chinese training trips or my father. And, I'm sure, we're gonna get the chance to do all that. I can kinda see it, and I can kinda see you... and it's like I'm real, too. Alive. But... not yet. I'm..." Ranma grasped for words, but found nothing that described his current predicament with his usual blunt style, and so at the risk of sounding like Kuno, he finished, "in between breaths. Wait for me. Wait for me, and we'll make this all right."
He leaned down right next to Hotaru's ear, and whispered so Kaname couldn't hear: "We're gonna make this right, you and me."
And then, again, they were gone.
The first thing Ranma heard, before light exploded into his eyes again, was the complete lack of birdsong. The first thing he felt was the sense of a world more dead than he. The next thing he saw was himself - that is, his future self. Kaname hung back, gestured him forward. "This is something... something you're going to need to see and hear. I personally don't want you to see or hear it, but Yggdrasil says you do. So... go on in."
"What about you?" Ranma asked.
Kaname waved him off. "I'm staying out here. That older you gives me the willies. He reminds me... of how Cologne reminds you: someone who knows the angles and the game better than you do. And in this case, I'll give him that: he's lived it before, but this is my first time here. So," and she made waving gestures with her hands, "shoo. Go listen. Go watch. And say goodbye."
"Goodbye?"
"Goodbye," Kaname said firmly, but strangely sadly.
Ranma scratched his head in confusion, then turned to see his future self admitted by a silver-haired woman with a stoop. A shock of recognition hit him - this was Akane. Akane! He stepped forward, and followed the two through the house to the side porch. Surprisingly, little had changed that Ranma could see. There was even an unfinished game of shogi on the porch still, and Akane sat one side, the older Ranma the other. There they sat for a long time, until Ranma had nearly given up on them saying anything.
Then, Akane turned and regarded his future self for a time. Eventually, the future Ranma noticed, and turned to Akane with a sad look.
"It has been a while since we were all last together," Ranma said.
"Those of us that remain," Akane reminded her.
Ranma's faint smile suggested she knew something Akane didn't. The other didn't push her for more information. "Yes," Ranma said, and fell silent again. The young Ranma thought he detected a flicker of fire from Akane about something, but it was gone before he could recognise it.
Again, the two old women were silent. Akane broke the silence this time. "What does the future hold for us?"
Ranma was silent while she thought. "The future... ah, my old, dear friend. We won't be around to see it. Well, much of it," she amended. "And you should be glad of that. This world we live in now," a wave of her arm encompassed the city growing ever higher to the north of the household, where the younger Ranma again noticed those strange elevators to nowhere, before Ranma continued. "Will get worse."
"Maybe you made the wrong choice," Akane suggested slowly. Young Ranma's ears perked up and he leaned forward as Akane continued. "You know, about what you said to that Setsuna girl."
"What choice was that?" the young version of Ranma asked Kaname behind him, before remembering she was back inside the house.
The elder Ranma shook her head. "Nope. That we're all sure of. Perfect peace and happiness?" She waved a hand at NeoTokyo, rising beyond the Ward, "Must be fought for. Mistakes must be made for us to learn." She cast a significant glance at the young Ranma again, which gave him chills. She couldn't see him; she could remember him. "I learnt a lot from her friends."
"I remember," Akane replied, turning to face the rising sun again.
The elder Ranma gave a smirk. "All you remember of that time was how I hurt you."
"I remember more than that," Akane replied, testily. In her words, Ranma heard the fire he remembered and knew, but now tempered by age and wisdom. "I... I just... it has been a while."
"Indeed." And with that, the two fell silent. After a few moments, Ranma felt the world shift under his feet, and a pulse of geomagnetic energy ran under his feet, zooming in the direction of Kawaguchi. A moment later, there was a belch of flame on the horizon, orange tongues licking at the sky. Ranma noticed his elder version had her head cocked to one side, and a few seconds later, there was a low rumbling sound moving through the air and ground. That felt more scary than feeling the planet beneath him cry out.
"The planet can't take much more of this," Ranma's elder version said after a few moments.
"The overpopulation?" Akane asked.
"Everything," Ranma replied with a sigh. "It is going off like that even more often now than before. Thankfully, people are beginning to notice." She gave her younger version another significant look over her shoulder. "But too slow."
The two woman nodded sagely, as if this was something they had talked about often, and were in complete agreement, and then the redhead glanced down between them at the shogi board. It remained as it had the day their fathers had died, old, tired, arguing over one last substitution of pieces. The final move was captured, a snapshot of time, in the positions of pieces. And as old and weathered as the board and pieces now were, they remained as they had at the moment their hearts had given out. Breaking the rules, Ranma reached down and picked up one of the pieces seemingly at random. It twirled in her fingers before she stopped it, facing her younger counterpart: a king. "If only they'd taken up another hobby. Something less dangerous. Like playing tennis with live grenades or something." She smirked again.
"I know how you feel," Akane said quietly. "It like they both should still be here. I feel them sometimes. My abilities are lapsing as I grow older. I can barely pick up a ki signature now, let alone differentiate them. And I feel them from time to time. ... I feel all of them." She fell silent again, thinking of times past and friends lost.
As if to remind her of that, Ranma said, "You're the last now, Akane."
"I'm so lonely, Ranma. I'm the third one."
With thought and feeling, and a concerned look, the older Ranma replaced the playing piece on the board before sliding across the edge of the porch to sit up against Akane and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. The younger Ranma saw something go out of them then, Akane deflating into Ranma as the redhead drew her into a hug. With a start, Ranma realised she was scared. "You're very welcome to come stay with Hotaru and I, you know. We'd love to have you." But both Ranma's knew that wasn't going to happen, and the young Ranma was sure Akane knew it as well. She wasn't scared of the flames still licking at the horizon; she was scared of being the last Tendo for only a little while more.
"you've hard about the dojo, then." A game attempt at steering the conversation away from more morbid concerns.
"The demolishing? Yeah. Come on, our place is always yours. You know that."
"Ranma?" Akane looked up now, eyes glistening at the corners. "Ranma?" she repeated, a little more urgently. "Can you tell me a story?"
Kaname touched Ranma's shoulder. "It's time to go now," she said. Seeing Ranma's saddened expression, she softened a little. "We'll be back. We're coming back to say goodbye. Or, rather, you are." She led him back into the house.
"It's time to go. For now, at least." And the world snapped back into black again.
And reformed scant heartbeats later in the training hall of the Tendo dojo. Ranma gave a low whistle looking around, everyone he'd known from Nerima, China, anyone from any training trip he cared to remember that had found their way to Nerima was gathered in this one room. And yet, it seemed like everyone was holding their breath, waiting for someone to say something. He turned, and at the back of the hall stood Hotaru. Somehow, as short as she was, she seemed to tower over everyone.
Towards Hotaru, Akane sank to her knees in grief. Ryoga gave a momentary smile and his eyes opened as whatever Hotaru had just said hadn't sunk completely in yet, and once it had, his face fell and his gaze turned to Akane, while Akari beside him patted his hand. Kodachi Kuno let out a loud wail before collapsing into broken sobbing on her brother Tatewaki's arm, while Kuno himself took a deep breath and made some internal decision. Ranma noticed Hotaru start threading her way through the crowd, and checked where she was heading: the Amazons.
Shampoo gave a simple nod; Hotaru had obviously confirmed what she had thought earlier, but while she conforted Ukyou, Hotaru stopped in front of Cologne. When the elder's eyes opened next, she saw Hotaru in her face, wearing her best Saturn expression. "We will talk. Soon." To Ranma, it sounded like less of a promise, than a threat. He turned to Kaname.
"Why are we here?"
"Why are any of us here?" Kaname replied. "For me, it was a glitch of a computer system brought about by Baku. For you... well, you don't need the mental scarring of seeing your parents do the nasty on the porch, do you?"
"... that wasn't what I meant," Ranma replied, blushing and recoiling as he obviously now had the image imprinted in his mind. "Hotaru's just told everyone I'm dead, right?" As he spoke, Hotaru walked through him, and she shuddered almost imperceptibly, before continuing on to speak to Ranma's mother. Ranma's eyes become unfocussed and shifted from Kaname to Nodoka.
"Ranma? Yes, Ranma?" Kaname asked, making sure she had Ramna's attention again.
"It's just that... why are we here? No jokes," he added. "I don' see the point at all! You're saying you're trying to help me and guide me, but you're showing me my friends, my future self seems ta be helping more than you!"
Kaname smiled slightly. "And yet, he's telling you what he wants you to know, so you make his decisions. I'm the one showing you what your friends think of you."
That pulled Ranma up short. "What?"
"You just died cheating on your girlfriend. She's okay with that. She's kept that from your friends - and that's what these people are." Kaname gestured around the room, where Happosai was coming to terms with the fact there'd be no more female Ranma to play with, where his father was crying and his mother was patting his back, where Ukyou was staring at a spatula over Shampoo's shoulder, where Shampoo was trying not to cry and Mousse trying not to hover too obviously.
Kodachi was quieter now, but still sniffling. Her brother still had his arms around her, and as Ranma watched, he led her from the dojo. "But it's still not faiiiir!" Kodachi wailed. "This is cheating!" Kuno shushed her with uncommon quiet dignity as they walked past.
Miss Hinako stopped by Genma and Nodoka and exchanged some quiet words with them. Ranma heard the word "delinquint" come up more times than he cared for, but the diminutive teacher failed to lambast him completely now he was gone. Somehow, that affected him deeper than Akane's reaction. It seemed... like a serious discontinuation of his life, his existance. Without recognising the problems he'd caused or, more often, identified wrongly as the cause of, people seemed to be talking and feeling about someone else, not him.
He guessed, deep down, that they were thinking about someone else. Another Ranma, one who was some god among normal men. Kaname touched him lightly on the shoulder, reminding him she was there. The entire moment was surreal, the sadness palpable. It was too much. Too many people grieving. He had to comfort them, he had to be there for them, he had to do SOMETHING...!
And as one, everyone in the room started, glanced up and around, and then began swinging their heads around in Ranma's direction. Ranma jerked in surprise. Kaname shook her head, then whacked Ranma around the back of his. "It's not time yet, dummy."
"What?"
"The whole 'coming back to life' thing. It's not time," Kaname repeated. Then, a little slower as if explaining to a two year old, "You have to make an entrance."
"And stopping my friends and family from being sad isn't an entrance enough?" Ranma asked, disbelievingly.
Kaname shook her head. "You still have things to do before I can let you do that," she reminded him. "Akane's dying, remember? I did say you'd see her before you left. So," Kaname continued, taking his hand in hers, "let's go do that."
A rough push from Kaname between his shoulder blades told Ranma they'd arrived. In front of him, reacting again from memory, was his future self recoiling in surprise.
"Deja vu," she whispered, her eyes seeming to focus where Ranma was at that time, but again, not really seeing him. Seeing where he stood some decades before. It was weird, and Ranma felt a sense of dislocation sweep over him. Then the future Ranma teared up, stepped around where Ranma stood, and shot out of the house before any sobs became audible.
For a moment, Ranma wondered at that, but then realised that of course, she had been through this. She had seen what he was about to see... Akane, his first true love, die.
At that moment, it hit him in his heart, and Ranma sagged heavily under the weight of knowing someone was about to die before their time. It had to be before Akane's time... he was still here, still young. Surely, if he found a way to stay young in the future, he'd have told her, surely he'd have kept her young also.
But then rationality caught up to emotion, and Ranma realised if it was something he could have done, yes, he would. So while his life would have been building to this point, knowing what was coming, dreading the day he saw Akane Tendo that one last precious time before she slipped away forever, he would also have been impotent in the knowledge there was nothing he could do to fight the old age that was crippling her.
One last time.
Kaname had said she was bringing Ranma here one last time. To see Akane before she died, he assumed, but Ranma was dead himself. Or, more accurately, in between one metaphorical breath and the next.
He steeled himself, put on a smile and a happy face, and stepped out onto the porch. Akane sat there, still, so very very still. Ranma crouched down, watched her suck in one last breath, and then heard the dry uncontrolled rasp as it hissed from her mouth. At that precise moment, her presence swelled from near dead to the vibrant energetic dynamo he remembered from only a year or so before, before things had gotten complicated.
As if noticing Ranma's ki for the first time, Akane started, and turned around, surprise on her face. But it wasn't the old Akane; Ranma noticed with a small dose of weirdness that this Akane was younger, but still not quite as he remembered. She seemed almost to flow from the elder as she moved. "Ranma?" she asked, confused. Of course; her Ranma had only just left, and looked as old as she had.
"Heya, Akane. How's things?" he asked, putting on the best smile he could. It felt wrong, but it was the best he could manage. He tried not to eye the corpse Akane sitting serenely on the edge of the porch.
"They're not... as good as they used to be," Akane replied, confused. Ranma looked so young... and she hadn't heard him come back... the door was still shut behind him...
"I can see." Ranma swallowed hard. "I know."
"I... know why you're here," Akane said slowly, straightening up. Ranma stood up, also.
"Do you?"
"You're dead, aren't you?" Akane knew. Without looking back. She refused to look back. The confusion melted into wonder as she mentally continued on that train of thought.
"At the moment," Ranma replied, conceeding the point difficultly. "Being dead..." How best to put it? It was temporary, he knew. He'd already seen that. But more than that, he knew how to go back. Maybe it was an artefact from the System, a present from Natsumi, forbidden knowledge from the Cybrid haven of Mercury. Or maybe it was the heritage of being a senshi. Or a Dark General. Perhaps this was all written down somewhere in some arcane manner, his life and movements plotted out far in advance, and this wasn't the conclusion yet... merely an interlude. Maybe this Yggdrasil thing Kaname had spoken of was having a laugh at his expense and still waiting to throw obstructions at him. Maybe he was on television and unaware of it, or a dream, or something completely beyond his understanding. Or maybe he was dead and really knew how to get better. But for the moment? "Well, it's different. You get to like it."
Akane made to nod, then a thought struck her. "I'll get to like it before you do, you mean."
Perceptive, Ranma thought, and nodded. It was hard enough to admit it to himself, he didn't want to have to admit it to Akane any more than he had to. It was about then that he felt a tug, something metaphysical, and he realised instinctively that it wasn't meant for him... it was meant for someone very close to him. "Sorry, Akane, but it's time."
"Yes," Akane said.
She made to step past him, but stopped, and touched his hand lightly. With that light touch, he felt what she felt. The tug was love, pure, simple, unadulterated love. That of family. His mind traced through the streamers connecting her to wherever she was going, and he could pick them out. Soun, Nabiki, Shampoo, Kuno, Kasumi, Mousse, Ryoga... that he could feel them almost choked him up. That he could feel their waiting for Akane wrenched him. The life that must have come after he came back to life... but first he had to make it come true. He had to make that future more than a possibility. When he looked up, the years flowed from her, until she was the uncute tomboy he had first met those few short years earlier, a lifetime for her, how she obviously still thought of herself. Strangely, Ranma realised that this image of her had the haircut she'd had forced on her shortly after he and his father arrived in Nerima rather than the long hair she'd been so proud of. Perhaps she'd come to prefer the short bob, maybe it was a memory of better times.
Most likely, that was it.
"I suspected as much," Akane said, not looking him in the eyes. "You... always knew things after that day."
"Yes."
"And you knew things today." So much unsaid. Yes, of course, Ranma thought. He'd lived it before. He knew, and he knew that Akane had realised the moment the old Ranma had arrived. That love between them, the bond of the closest of friends, she had read him like an open book. They'd had years to hone their feelings, and as martial artists, they could read the unspoken words as well as they could read a billboard.
Ranma didn't trust his voice for the moment, and merely nodded. The urging pulling through her fingers intensified. With his free hand, he gestured to the doors into the house. "Akane - it's time. Your mother, your father... Kasumi, Nabiki... Shampoo... the others. They're all in there, waiting for you."
Akane broke their contact, and stepped towards the door, but before she could reach it, she stopped, whirled around, and stomped back towards him. Her arms wrapped around him, her strong grip surprising Ranma, and her head pressed in close, her warm lips finding his and pushing insistantly, passionately. Ranma responded, her intense passion mirrored by his surprised and bewildered acceptance. After too short a time, she pulled back, and studied her feet intently. "I'm sorry, Ranma," she started, a rapid babble of words spilling forth. "I... had to do that. Once." She looked up, making eye contact with Ranma. "I do love you, you know. I always did. I didn't mean to push you away like I did."
Before she could continue anymore, Ranma placed a finger on her lips. "Shush. I know, Akane. I love you, too. And now..." he gestured at the door again. "Now... go on. Through the door. Be with your family, where you belong."
Akane nodded, sucked in a deep breath, turned on her heel, and walked through the door with no hesitation. She disappeared from sight, and Ranma started; had her really just heard her say, "and where you belong, too."? Or had he imagined that? But no, there was someone. Someone there. Someone strong, powerful, able to breach the walls from wherever Akane went to wherever Ranma was. Not Kaname, someone else. Someone gentle. A smell ghosted past his nose, something that made his mouth water and his stomach grumble with anticipation.
"...kasumi...?"
Kaname took his elbow, which broke the connection and brought him back to the here and now. "Who? Never mind. Are you ready?"
"Ready for what?" The smell had made Ranma think something.
"To go back." "Back where?" He was strong enough to do what had to be done next.
"Back to your funeral. It's your choice. It's... the pivot point of what comes next."
"Yeah... let's go back." And he wasn't alone.
He chose life this time.
Ranma exploded into life, a sphere of ki expanding outwards from his arrival back to life. Instinctively, he knew it had worked. Except he was standing in a garden somewhere. Somewhere, far from where his body was. And where everyone else was. This was... weird. "Kaname?" he asked, looking around. No Kaname.
He could feel crushed flowers beneath his feet. Dirt squishing up between his toes. Birdsong. He was alive.
Ranma leapt high in the air. He was alive!
A chill brought him low, though. He felt something evil, something distant. Yoshihiro; the Master. He paused for a moment, then realised he had no choice. Contrary to Kaname's words, he knew what he had done to make that future had been what he had been considering originally. No choice. Just fate.
And destiny.
Ranma preferred to meet his destiny head on... and began running.
Hotaru turned around, looking for Yoshihiro. She'd seen him at the funeral, standing on the opposite side of the casket from her staring at it with a disbelieving expression on his face. And she found her attention had been shifted from the casket itself, the remains of her... her boyfriend, her sempai, her beloved to be, to this mass of corruption who'd almost stolen Ranma from her once before. Icy cold hatred burned deep in her gut, and then she lost sight of him for a moment at the end of the ceremony, and now he was gone. So she turned around.
He was standing right behind her.
His sense of presence was overwhelmingly great. Rose-scent assaulted her nostrils with undeniable strength. Up close, his black suit, his white shirt, his tie, his gloves even, all looked as if they had been ironed immaculately. The anger in her belly turned to fear, and Hotaru could feel herself start to shift backwards, but the part of her that was always Saturn grabbed her and made her face him, and another part, just as old as Saturn but more twisted, whispered at her to show no fear or weakness.
Both voices let her glower angrily at his genial smile. "Child, why so down? This is a time of reflecting on the good moments of his passing." An insult. His whole existance was an insult. If Hotaru had been Saturn, she would have struck at him. Even without the strength she possessed as a senshi, the olfactory memory the rose-scent brought up nearly caused her to leap on him and bite him to death.
"What are you doing here?" she snapped.
"Honouring a fallen foe," he replied, shrugging as if this was obvious.
"That's a lie!" burst from Hotaru's lips before she could stop herself.
"Is it?" Yoshihiro asked. "Or perhaps you'd feel better if I told you I was here making sure he was really dead. You know, because I'm this all-powerful 'bad guy'," he smirked at this point, "and he was the only one of you with perhaps enough power and skill to defeat me." Yoshihiro shrugged again. "Perhaps," he added noncommittally, as if he wasn't sure and was only being polite. "But I really did come to pay my respects to the dead."
"You'd have us all dead, if you had your way!"
"Of course," Yoshihiro sounded affronted at the suggestion it could be any other way. "But it wouldn't be through underhandedness, would it? I don't like all that sneaking about. It's what got Natsumi into trouble in the first place." Yoshihiro paused, and turned towards the casket, a look of sadness sweeping across his face. What was going through his mind, Hotaru wondered somewhere in the red haze that coating her vision. It almost seemed like he was grasping for something. Going through the motions. Not really here at all, but locked somewhere in his head wondering about something other than the obvious - his future, perhaps? "But Ranma is gone now. A pity. I no longer feel I have a challenge here."
Mitsuki was somehow standing right behind Yoshihiro. Or was it Mitsuki? Something seemed different about her. Angrier. Pricklier. Hotaru hadn't seen her move there, but there she was. She'd kept away from the other senshi for the last few days, and had stood to the back of the crowd while the celebrant spoke about Ranma, but now she was there when Hotaru needed her. "A challenge?" Mitsuki spat. The other senshi moved into position in a semi-circle around the Dark Kingdom lord, who turned around to take them in with a suddenly calculating eye. The girls looked angry, angry that Yoshihiro had intruded on their grief and privacy, their day-to-day lives invaded by this alien from the distant past. "All of us together, we're more than a match for you, Dark Kingdom scum!"
Yoshihiro chuckled, completely unfazed by the bravado and anger boiling off the young woman. Slowly, one by one, the others in the funeral home began turning around, aware something was going on. "Scum?" Yoshihiro asked. "I think not. Royalty, perhaps. Your better? Definitely. Single-minded?" He turned his gaze on Mitsuki now, the confident and mocking smile raising the level of her anger even more. "Of course."
Almost as one, the senshi stepped back. Their hands flicked down as one, and transformation wands dropped from sleeves and pockets into their waiting fingers.
"Truly," Yoshihiro snorted in disbelief, "none of you pose a threat to me whatsoever."
Behind the senshi, the outside door slammed open. "Oh? Is that so?" asked a familiar voice.
"R... ranma?" Hotaru stammered, staring past Yoshihiro and her friends. The senshi started, and turned as well. Akane's hands rose to her face, which grew bright red.
"I like ta think I'm a little bit more than a threat to ya," Ranma continued, cheekily. "But, ya know, really..." Ranma's voice trailed off as he realised everyone was looking at him. A little embarrassed, he scratched at the back of his head. "Um, yeah, hey everyone. I'm alive again." He opened his eyes, all business again, but realised the senshi weren't quite meeting his eyes.
Neither was anyone else. And the senshi were almost as red in the face as Akane. And it wasn't an angry red, either... Ranma glanced down. "Oh hell, I forgot clothes!" he barked, disappearing from sight while the crowd blinked in shock.
"Oh my," Kasumi said.
"He's such a... manly man," Nodoka added.
"He takes after his father," Genma smirked.
"Aiyah!"
"This buffoon of a sorceror has befouled my Goddess for the last time!"
Hotaru continued to blink.
Ranma appeared again about a minute later, dressed in what looked to be a priest's suit, complete with a clothes peg sticking up from one shoulder. "That was embarrassin'..." he muttered.
"No," said Rei in a stunned tone, "Please, any time you feel like wearing no clothes, go ahead." She flinched as Makoto whacked her around the head.
"In a way, I'm kinda glad you're all here," Ranma continued, in a louder voice, trying not to listen to Rei's comments to Makoto. "I got something to say."
"Do you expect me to stand here and wait?" Yoshihiro asked, pointedly looking at his watch. "Finishing off the senshi... that would have been good. I could have done that already. But I have an appointment to go to shortly, you see, and -"
"This concerns you, too," Ranma interrupted. "Just gimme a second. This is difficult. I'm not good with words, I'm better with actions." He raised his voice to address everyone again. "Thanks for coming. As you can see, it's now kinda pointless. I'm alive again. Don't ask me how; I did it, I can't explain it. But it was hard to come back. Hard to find reason again to live. I... know a lot more now than I did a few days ago. I seen some things about myself I didn't like at first, until I realised what I had done to make me like that, make me act like I did."
"Hotaru," he continued, "What I did to you was unforgivable. One day, I hope you'll take me back."
"You know I -" Hotaru started, but Ranma continued speaking as if she hadn't spoken.
"Mitsuki, it's not your fault. I was stupid. I thought you were someone else, but that don't matter. Rei, you need help. Serious help. Makoto, you're gonna make someone a good wife one day. Just don't pick anyone from this room, I'm begging ya. Minako, ..." Ranma searched for words, but found none. "Just keep bein' you. You're not perfect, but no one is, and you're happy. Akane, I guess I never really said it out loud, but I never thought I needed to. I love you. I can't be with you, but I love you, and your trip through life is gonna be great. Usagi..."
Usagi drew herself up with a little pride. The praise Ranma was dishing out was unusual... but so was the pause he gave before continuing.
"If you're not stopped, you're gonna destroy the world. And so..." With an inrush of energy grabbed from anyone and anything nearby, Ranma's body bulked out into his powered-up General form. "Yoshihiro, if I may... I think your plan for world domination is sorely lacking in some finer points. Ya nearly had it the last time. You could have had it all, with no opposition." He saw Yoshihiro flinch. "And ya wanting something to go on with. I can deliver that to you. I can deliver you the world, in the palm of your hand. I can give you the keys to the Dark Moon Kingdom. I can bring your world back for you."
"What?" Yoshihiro was on the backfoot. This wasn't something he'd expected. "You would rather destroy this world than let this girl destroy it?"
Ranma shrugged, nonchalantly. "If I'm involved, I got some chance at my friends and family surviving. If she's involved, she'll kill everyone on three worlds. Promise me Tokyo, and I'll give you the world."
He could see Yoshihiro struggling with the concept. His greatest foe, the only person he did truly consider to be a threat to his plans, and he was offering to work with him. And not just work with him, hand him the world. Hand him what he needed to take over, to bring the Dark Kingdom into the light. "This has to be some kind of trick," he said at length.
Minako concurred. "It's not in his heart to kill everything."
"What's in my heart is the best intentions for my family an' friends," Ranma smirked back. "And what's best for them is to keep living. If that's guaranteed, I don't care, particularly if the other option is to let someone destroy the whole world, including the people I love."
"If I agree to save Tokyo, you will work for me?" Yoshihiro asked.
"That's what I'm offering," Ranma replied.
"Ranma!" Makoto started forward, but Hotaru stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
"Makoto," she said, simply, before turning to face Ranma. "Is this what you really want?" Hotaru asked in a quiet voice.
Ranma nodded. "Either let things go as they have, and destroy the world - and be responsible for it - or try and change things, and save some people. It's one or the other, Hotaru-chan. I know where I stand."
HOtaru regarded him with a cold, calculating eye of ages. Eventually, she nodded. "Then when next we meet, we will fight to the death."
"If that's what it means," Ranma nodded also.
"I'm sorry things had to go this way," Hotaru said, quieter.
"There's no other way," Ranma agreed. "There is no other choice." He gestured to the door, and Yoshihiro preceeded him, eyes wary and senses alert. But no attack came. Ranma merely closed the door behind them, and they were gone with a faint popping sound.
Usagi burst into tears. Minako comforted her, while Hotaru and Mitsuki faced each other, Akane joining them moments later.
"Is he really gone?" Mitsuki asked in a quiet voice.
"No," Hotaru said.
"He's still here," Akane added, touching her chest. Hotaru looked at her strangely. "He said it himself. He can't use words very well. He... he says the wrong thing while trying to say what he means. He did it with me a lot. And I'd pretend he meant what he said, or misinterpret... he's good with actions."
"And he's scared," Hotaru interjected.
"Of what?" Mitsuki asked.
"Not of what," Akane replied. "For what. For us. He's doing this for us."
Umiko eyed Ranma warily from a vantage point behind and slightly above him on the bridge, while Ranma pointed out some ideas to Yoshihiro. The Master was nodding slowly in agreement as he saw where Ranma was coming from.
"This is Japan," Ranma said. "Giant robots, spaceships, monsters - this is what everyone here lives for. You're from here, but you're not from here. It's not somethin' you're gonna understand real easy. But trust me on this. If you need energy, from lots of people, you don't need to keep finding new people, although that can help. You need to farm them."
"But how would you do that in this situation?" Umiko asked, knowing her Master wouldn't, and would be relying on her to cover his ignorance.
"It's simple," Ranma replied. "You don't take people's energy. With monsters and aliens attacking Japan all the time, all you need to do is get them to give you their energy with their best wishes... and this is how you cultivate this farm..."
To be continued in the follow-up series "Justice".
SAILOR
MOON SAYS:
Wow. That took a while. Sorry about the wait,
there's a bunch of reasons that basically boil down to I've been
trying very hard not to use my brain at home to de-stress. Which
means I get nothing productive done, which causes the stress I'm
trying to avoid. Writing in HTML has been fun, also, mostly because I
wanted to avoid the problems I had reformating the chapter last time
after finding that had gone HTML and robbed me of my
formatting. Hopefully, this will upload correctly and you'll get the
chapter as I wrote it again.
It'll also make the posting on my eventual site all the easier ;)
I'm going to be starting Justice shortly. I don't want there to be the big year-long gap between chapters again if I can help it, so I'm going to harangue friends to push me into writing. The first arcs will be fun to write - so what's coming up? Should I spoil it? Nup. That said, the way the series ends is quite visible now. It's been a lot of fun coming back to chapter 1 and realising how well everything fit together. Everything I'd planned for the story had come to pass. And the writing was open enough that I could add in the extra detail of what was going on without changing the pacing of the sections... yay for forward planning.
Thanks for reading. Comments can be left here, or emailed to me at the address in the disclaimer. I hope everyone enjoyed it, bar the four year wait to get through this And I hope to see you, in a figurative sense, next time in Justice.
Raymond Cooper
11.21PM, 12.04.06