.Disclaimer: Don't Own Ranma ½ or Sailor Moon.
-Chapter
Four-
-Sides-
Stewardess Alsabette Thorolisan the Twenty Sixth was no fool. She, like her mother before her, and her mother before her and so on, had never been a fool. For centuries they had remained at their post. Ruling as advocates of the peace and prosperity that had been granted to them by their late Queen.
Till that long awaited day when she returned…
And now she wept. Woe to her that the end of her line's millennia after millennia of rule should fall upon her shoulders. And woe more that the despair and torment of old would come again; she hoped against hope it did not.
"Mengleth! Thy council I seek!" She exclaimed, demanding the attention of the maid who had been there for her, helping her, teaching her, guiding her since she was but a babe. T'was Mengleth, and not her mother, who she looked to for advice. T'was Mengleth who held her when she was sick, and cared for her like no other.
"Council, I give, High Stewardess." Strange, those words, from the soft and caring old woman. Once she had screamed at her, calling her simply Alsa, and no more. Teaching her excited childish form and honing it, honingher. Disciplining her into the woman she had become today. Even now, years after her mother had passed and she had ascended to the throne, she still felt like the child Alsa whenever the old woman was in her presence. It was… comforting.
"The words I give to your ears, are for them and them alone. Should I find that these words have been uttered by another, I will have your ears removed. Does my voice ring clear, Mengleth?" Comforted she may be, but she was the High Stewardess, and had been for the past seventeen years. Things were much safer now, but she knew her time as ruler was drawing to a close. She knew the Thorolisan line would fall from power with her. She'd had sixteen years to get used to that fact, when the Crystal had disappeared not a year into her reign.
A secret that had been kept from the people all this time… A secret she was now about to divulge for the first time in the nigh two decades since she had first ascended. The Queen was alive somewhere. Her coming of age had come and gone. And now, the stewardess felt fear…
The old woman nodded her acceptance of the stewardess's terms with graceful certainty. It shouldn't have relieved Alsabette but it did.
"Mengleth…. Nana… Does the Golden Crystal upon the hearth still rest?" A common greeting. A casual one. For a commoner no less. Mengleth showed her confusion in her reply.
"May it forever remain till the day the Queen is born again. But… Understand, I do not. Why ask you?" She didn't understand why the stewardess would bring that up now. It made no sense. The Golden Crystal always rested upon the hearth. It had for… for… millennia! Long before the old maid had even been born; that was certain.
"Tis lies, you speak, dear maid. Though, know you not, till now. Some sixteen years and four moons whence the Kinsuishou disappeared. The Queen is born. Of age, she has been for four moons." The high stewardess buried her forehead in her hand, wiping sweat from her brow, trying to hold back the tears threatening to burst forth once more.
The maid gasped like she'd been sentenced to death. Anyone would! Th-the Queen! The honest to goodness Queen, had been born!? After all this time… Bloodfire! Unbelievable! "M-My stewardess, what… what plans have you?" She asked, after the time it took for her to recover from such a revelation.
The woman seemed torn as she formulated her answer. Finally she lifted her brow. "Sixteen years, now I have known. Sixteen years. Thorolisan's days are numbered. That those numbers should end with me… was I not a good ruler!? Did we not do as she commanded!? Aurica's prosperity spawned from her, yes! That is as may be, but was it not Thorolisan, who nurtured her? Brought forth the fruits the Queen sowed!? And now… now shall I… shall we be expected to… to… forfeit all I and my mothers have protected, to some, some… child?" She was ranting now. A decade and again she had dreamed of ranting but she had had no one.
"N-No… no, high stewardess. But… surely she is a benevolent Queen? Surely she would see how well your foremothers have done in her stead?" The maid was grasping at straws. Never, since the girl had worn her hair braided as a girl, had she seen the stewardess in such distress. Even as a girl, rare it had been. She had been a sturdy one. Like her mother.
It took time; the woman was breathing fast now. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face glistening with tears, but she did managed to cool herself.
"More you must know." Alsabette nodded to herself. Her story was not done. "More, did the Crystal do, then remain upon the hearth till new bearer did awaken. You know this. The darkness it kept at bay was no mere scourge."
Mengleth could do little but stare in awe as a story she had always known was spun anew. Spun again.
"The Crystal, for as long as it has rested on the hearth, has been as a prison. Long, long, ever so long has it caged a blackness darker than the deepest pitch. And for sixteen years and four moons… that darkness has been free." Alsabette told her maid. Tears leaking from her eyes.
"H-High stewardess?" The maid croaked. The stewardess appeared to be breaking down again. Tears were gushing from her eyes but she held back sobs. Somehow… "Alsa…?" The maid ventured fearfully, hoping it would calm her.
The Dark King was free! T-Tai… Taimaat? Was… free?! Burning Bloodfire!
If the maid's words, sparse as they were, did have any calming effect, Alsabette Thorolisan the Twenty Sixth did not show it. "A-Am I… Am I evil, Mengleth? Naught but revenge on the Queen, does the darkness seek..." She sniffed loudly, her body wracked with sobs that she refused to let take complete control of her. "O-our Queen, who freed our people so long ago from his grip. Am I evil that I, too, wish her dead?"
The maid didn't know how to respond… couldn't know how to respond. Her high stewardess… the highest of the high in the entire kingdom… the most powerful person in all the system, save only for the long awaited Queen, had just betrayed everything her childhood had ever taught her. She'd condemned the promised Queen, whom all of Aurica had awaited for more than twenty millennia, to death, once more.
The poor old maid feared for her ears…
A white room surrounded a slowly recovering red-head. Wires connected to her in more places then she knew she had; she couldn't move.
"Wh-where…?" Was the only word she could pull out of her dry throat.
No one was there, but Ranma was familiar enough with doctors' emergency rooms to know that this definitely was one. White walls surrounded a perfectly cubical room of three by four meter proportions. A heart monitor on her left read her the rate at which her own heart was beating. Two hundred and forty. The alarm was blaring, obviously the thing that had awoken her.
"Wh-what's going…"
"By god...!" Someone gasped from the doorway as it opened. "Sh-she's awake! D-doctor! Someone call the god damn doctor!"
The woman, Ranma thought she was a woman but her vision was so blurry she couldn't tell, dashed to the bedside and began fiddling with instruments and tools that Ranma had no clue about. She placed a stethoscope against Ranma's heart and then she gasped again.
Ranma could do nothing about the close proximity to her breasts at which the stethoscope had been placed. Couldn't even tell it was a stethoscope. Damn pervert! She could only follow blurry outline of the woman, with her eyes. What was her problem? And could she shut off that damn alarm? The redhead felt so bleary that she really had no idea what was going on, and if someone were telling her, she didn't think she would understand.
She wiggled and her body complied. Stretching. The alarm still blaring in her ears she yawned, and dropped back to the bed breathing miles a minute at the difficulty it took to even make that small move.
'Why isn't my body moving…? Something is wrong…' Thought her befuddled mind.
Another person, a man she thought, middle aged and Caucasian with sandy blonde hair and a white lab coat walked into the room at a speedy pace and fell into place beside the woman staring down at her, while simultaneously pulling latex gloves onto his hands.
The man moved forward towards the screen examining it. "That's not possible… get another machine! She couldn't even be alive, let alone awake with a heart rate like that."
"Listen!" The frantic nurse screamed, pulling the stethoscope off her ears, handing it to the calm doctor.
Of course, the woman was frantic. The girl was awake and acting like she barely felt that her heart was moving faster than almost triple the normal beat rate. Add to that, her lung problem that she was also miraculously surviving.
"By god…!" The young doctor exclaimed, when Ranma felt the cold touch of metal on her heart again.
"That's what I said!" The nurse jumped on him. "This girl is… is… superhuman or something! It shouldn't be possible!" The alarm was getting louder if that was possible. "Her heart rate is still increasing!"
Ranma vaguely registered the words, her eyes half lidded as she attempted to wake herself up. She lifted her hand, and found it to be akin to lifting a ten ton rock. "What's… going on…?"
The doctor seemed to know what he was doing. He grabbed the girl's hair and pulled back her head forcing her eyes open and staring directly down into them. "Ranma? Is that your name? Ranma? Can you hear me?" The doctor asked straight to her.
Ranma nodded. She barely felt the tugging at her forehead. Why did her chest hurt so much!? That metal thing was really cold.
The man accepted it. "Ranma. Alright. Your heart is beating too fast. Faster than I would believe possible. We have to slow it down. Do you understand?"
Ranma nodded again.That's why her chest was burning. "Make… make it stop… It hurts…" Her whole body hurt, as awareness finally began to seep back into her, and with that pain, unlike that which she had ever felt. Her chest felt like it had taken a direct dose of Akane's spicy Okonomiyaki. Her back, burned with the pain of laying on the bed. She could feel scabs and burns all over it, but all of them dimmed in comparison with her heart.
"Okay. Start her on the IV's. We gotta get that heart rate down." Still calm. Ranma liked this doctor. He reminded her of Tofu. She grit her teeth as the pain tripled suddenly and thoughts of doctors fled her mind. Thought's completely fled her mind.
She howled, as if the angel of pain himself were holding a scythe to her brain.
"Put her out. We've got no choice."
Ranma didn't feel anything save for the burning in her chest. Didn't feel the pinprick in her arm. Her eyes glazed over, seeing nothing as she arched her back in agony, screaming.
And then, as fast as it had come, her eyes fell closed, and consciousness left her.
"It shouldn't be possible." Doctor Aaron Davis, an American though not new to the Minato Ward Service Hospital, said. His calm voice reflecting his demeanor in perfect harmony. "She should be dead. She should have been dead almost instantly, when… whatever attacked her put those holes in her chest. One punctured a lung. One the left lower chamber of her heart, though it wasn't as bad. The other three missed anything vital, hitting only unimportant veins that can grow back in a week or so but still…"
The girl standing there, black hair cropped, wearing a sturdy business suit, did not appear calm at all. "She, she'll be alright though!?" She practically screamed disrupting the rapt attention the others had previously been giving the doctor. "If… I… I couldn't bear it if…"
The doctor sighed, pushing down the immense attraction he felt for the dark haired beauty with the ease of practice, and the practice of indifference. He hated giving the bad news. It was never fun. "I've… never seen anything like her before. If she does… it will be a miracle. I'm sorry. She's alive now… but bleeding in the lungs is… lethal. As far as we can see, her right lung has taken up the job of both lungs… As if she's adapting… maybe even evolving or something. I don't know. All I know is that what she's done, what she is doing, should be impossible."
Aiko didn't know what to do. Ranma… Ranma. The first person truly hurt since her campaign had begun once more. The girl was innocent, if strong. This had nothing to do with her so why…? Why her…
Had it only been a week ago that she had first met the redhead of unparalleled beauty; only a week since she'd met the man locked inside a goddess, hidden by dirty clothes and a sad smile?
And now there she lay.
The redhead was silent now, still, resting a in a picturesque luminescence, marred only by the patients robe she wore. The scene caressed her, sunset of late Saturday afternoon filtering in through the window and magnified through the glass door which Aiko looked upon her from beyond. If not for the fact that she knew the girl was dying, nothing would have seemed out of the ordinary at all.
That would not be true looking down on her. The robe which covered her had red bloodstains in the five places where the holes in her chest and upper abdomen resided. One of the holes had punctured her right breast as well. When Aiko tried to imagine the pain her charge must have endured to feel a… a… something digging a hole into her skin like that… It made her shiver in unashamed fear.
'Ranma… how are you so strong? How are you still alive?' She thought, recalling what the five puddles of blood pooling in her chest had looked like for the brief hour she'd been allowed to visit, before the doctor had shooed her to check the girl again.
Hours she'd been at this hospital. She'd met Hiroshi and also seen Ranma's parents. They were exactly as the girl had described them. A large man, with a deceptively muscular frame in a white dogi, backed by a small woman in formal Kimono, wearing a ceremonial katana at her side. The woman was shorter than her, though she would be taller if Aiko returned to her normal body, and she held a face was the splitting image of Ranma's; the only difference was that her hair had darkened with age, fading to a deep auburnish amber.
She did not introduce herself. Couldn't introduce herself. There were many people here. Many. Too many to have possibly all known Ranma's family by name. Boys, hundreds of them, though that might have been exaggerating some, friends of the gender storied girl, here to wish her well. If possible there were even more girls. A lavender haired girl of beauty that damn near matched Ranma's if in a more… forward way, was recognized by the disguised Senshi. 'That must be Xian Pu.' Aiko thought, when she first saw the girl.
'And Ukyo.' Her thoughts continued as her eyes wandered across a girl dressed primarily in boys' clothing. Tears were dripping down her eyes, but she was forcing herself to keep an upbeat attitude. By selling Okonomiyaki of all things. So many well wishers needed food after all, and she knew she would be no help if she just sat there and cried.
Other people from Ranma's many stories did she recognize. The tall one with the bowl cut head of hair, bearing a mask of impassiveness on her face. Aiko could tell that even the second Tendo was being hard pressed to keep that mask on though.
Very hard pressed.
Another girl, slightly older, wearing a formal, perhaps overly formal dress, with long brown locks sat on one of the many benches bawling into a middle-aged man's arms. 'Kasumi and Soun.' Pinpointed Aiko.
And all that was just the tip of the iceberg. Many more characters were there. Some she knew from the stories, having such wild descriptions that she could easily pinpoint their names. Some vague, due to lack of heavy description on Ranma's part, or perhaps simple lack of memory on her own.
Regardless, the waiting room was full.
"She's so loved… It's amazing how many people there are here for her…" the psychologist murmured to herself in awe as she looked around. Hardly a dry eye in the room. 'She doesn't even seem to know… how much they all care.'
Aiko let her mind wander, her eyes following people as they mingled, their eyes warily glancing towards the glass room that held Ranma, as they dared the looks all of them feared could be their last towards the living form of their friend.
She found her eyes lingering on the lavender-haired Xian Pu once more. She tried to quell the jealousy towards the girl's inconceivable beauty, and succeeded dismally in the same way she did with Ranma. Her face began to heat but she quelled it. Now was not the time for that sort of thing.
But then… she saw something. A brief flicker of… of something… on the girl's forehead, just as she turned away to speak to a tall man with short blonde hair.
As Aiko's eyes found the man she swooned pitifully, but quelled it even faster, as Mamoru's memory blasted through her mind. Guilt flooded through her, tears welling in her eyes once more as she turned away.
She allowed herself one final glance, knowing that love nor attraction were things she could afford herself any longer, and sighed as a tear trailed down her cheek.
"Ami… I bet you could do something… You're so smart, and your mom is a doctor… I bet you could… could…" She couldn't finish. The thought was too morbid.
And then her eyes caught something. This time it was certain. On the boy's forehead.
A symbol.
The symbol of a Senshi.
Her jaw dropped as a name came subconsciously to fit the symbol she saw there. "Uranus…"
Aiga was not superstitious. Not in the least. But even he could tell thatsomething was up when he awoke Saturday morning. He turned to his left at the downright gorgeous woman beside him and gave a soft smile. Five years he'd been trying to get her. Five long years. And now he had her. She gave a coo of delight as the light from the sun's pleasant rays slowly began to filter into the room. It was a soft light, neither painful nor burdensome. It gently coaxed them awake, as if merely offering the option of waking or continuing their comforting rest within each other's arms, if they wished.
It had been truly a night to remember for a lifetime.
But… still… something nagged the Furinkan pervert. Why, now? Why tonight? After all this time, year after year of trying to coerce himself into her good graces, things which he never had been within, why had she suddenly allowed him into her bed?
It was… vexing. Nioma Nia, one of the most beautiful girl's in St. Hebereke School for Girls, was now his lover. One of the most straight and narrow girl's ever. And of all people she'd allowed him take her virginity. He was certain. There had been too much blood for that to have been anything but her first time.
And that wasn't even the strangest part. He turned to his left, to the other girl who had just become his lover last night. Nioma's best friend Sorinayuga Ak… Ak… Ak-something. He couldn't remember what her last name was. All he knew was that it was more difficult to remember then her first.
Aiga wasn't a nice person. He knew that himself, and accepted it. He wasn't nice, in that he would take advantage of girls. He loved rebound girls, and adored making them his for the short time that they wanted him so he could move on to his next conquest.
But this… well… this was making his conscience ache. Badly. He knew for a fact that Nioma Nia was one of, if not the most dignified girl in St. Hebereke. She wanted to grow up. Get a good job. Have kids with the man she loved. A real new era girl.
The type of girl who was an 'if you get her, fight to keep her with every shred of breath in your body' kind of girl. Not the type of girl you get into a threesome with her best friend with…Yes. Something was odd. Threesomes very rarely involved virginity; two virginities was absolutely unheard of. He didn't know why but, for some reason, Aiga knew there was going to be some sort of cosmic backlash for this.
'It doesn't haveanything to do with that… that… Tendo person. No. It's just something weird these two. That's all.' He forcefully assured himself. It had nothing to do with that Akane, nothing to do with that strange pen, and definitely, nothing to do with being in a fuku.
"A-Aiga…?" Cooed the beautiful girl on Aiga's right. He turned his head to face her, her sporadic strewn hair flowing about her in wild, ruffled patterns and knots, all but screaming 'morning after.'
"Mmhmm beautiful?" He asked, avoiding her name. Mispronunciation of names was generally frowned upon when speaking to the person whose mind you blew the previous night.
But even he could see that something was wrong. These girls were not the crazed nymphomaniacs they had become last night. Something had happenedto them, but dammed if he knew what or who had done it to them.
"C-can you… do it again?" Sorinayuga begged in the sweetest, innocent look Aiga had ever seen.
Nioma chose that moment to open her eyes, catching her best friends question, and avidly agreeing. She stared into his eyes and nodded her acceptance of her friends wishes, indication that she did not wish to participate. Yet.
'Then again,' Aiga thought as he realized his conscience was being metaphorically stroked by the two girls on his right and left respectively. Along with other things, by at least two hands. 'Who gives a damn? Yum!' Was Aiga's last conscious thought before the two girls practically pounced on him.
Akane stared at her television in utter horror. Hiroshi… Hiroshi's had cleared his eyes and saw her hunched over Ranma breathing air into her lungs, and he'd screamed at her. He'd though she was trying to kill Ranma! The idiot hadn't even seen the flaming hound! Hadn't seen the explosion of wrath Ranma had released from beneath it.
He ran towards her, only then growing the backbone he needed to help Ranma. Akane hadn't known what to do, but sirens began blaring almost before she could think, and she ran.
Ranma had fallen unconscious… there was nothing she could do.
Hiroshi landed on the girl immediately, and took over where she had left off, breathing for the blood drenched red-head.
And now… now her Senshi form was being called highly dangerous and lethal! It wasn't her fault! She'd been trying to save Ranma! Not kill her!
'Heck of a lot of help I was…' Akane pouted in her mind, forgetting the presence of her cats.
"You did what you could. Your power hasn't matured yet, and if you use anything too powerful then you could destroy the entire city. That was the best you could have done." Circe jumped in on the sulking Tendo.
Akane felt angered that the cat though her so naïve as to believe there was nothing she could have done. She felt the power to destroy a planet there. She heard the planet's melody. All she'd have to do is sing along… But she did not react to Circe's prodding.
"Circe is right Akane. There is nothing you could have done." The black male cat patted the girl on the shoulder from his position on her bed, her sitting against it.
Akane glared, but that was all. She even had a magical power boost and she still was no closer to being better then Ranma. She'd always be in the red-head's shadow it seemed. There was never anything she could have done. She always did everything she could but… just couldn't quite get the job done. Not like Ranma.
Ranma the invincible defeats the evil hell dog… or phoenix… or dragon king… or… whatever! while on the brink of death. Akane damn Tendo sits watching on the sidelines, unable to do a damn thing. What else is new?
She would have returned words to the cat but thought better of it. If she strained herself relentlessly, pulling power through the dampener that was her civilian form, she could bring her voice back. But remembered how much her throat had burned after she'd finished talking to Aiga for that short time. No. She was still as mute as ever. Speaking more than a few words would cause her throat to burn as if someone was covering it with boiling wax.
"Don't glare at me. It's the truth. You did the best you could and I'll not have you wallowing in self pity. Chin up, lass." The black feline scolded.
Akane bitterly turned away purposefully turning her chin down to stare into her hands. She was a failure… every damn time she tried to do anything she failed. Again and again and again… she couldn't even love Ranma. No, she was too damn grounded in societies moral acceptances to let herself accept that.
Pulling desperately on her inner strength, allowing magic to flow into her throat she uttered the two words that accurately relieved a bit of her pain. "God dammit…"
With that, her power seeped away, leaving her throat. She felt it now when she put it there. Her throat was her power's focal point. When normal, it felt like a flute with all wholes pressed down so she had to push with all her might to make any sound come free. But when she transformed, the flute became a trumpet blaring with life and an expounding roar of power.
Obviously not enough power.
Ranma had enough power.She didn't need any cheap power ups for her fights. Akane remembered the terror she'd felt when the dog was hovering over her ex-fiancé. She'd thought the girl was about to be eaten alive… but no. Even on the brink of death, Ranma had a plan.
The Saotome prodigy made her feel pathetic without even trying.
The dragon of boiling and frozen air that began forming above them shocked Akane nearly out of her wits. Ranma's soul of ice, freezing the air around her, while the burning dog melted it into steam to make yet another version of her Rising Dragon Accession Wave.
And now, her advantage. The new, amazing skill she'd been given was inaccessible. She was wanted on suspect for attempted murder! God… how could things get any worse? She'd hoped to try to protect Sailor Moon, but now it was doubtful the moon Senshi would even listen to her.
Heck, the girl would probably attack her! No. Things were not looking up for the youngest Tendo. Not at all.
Dismally, got up. Visiting hours for Ranma were beginning soon. She wanted to be there today. She'd been so ashamed of how pathetically she failed yesterday that she hadn't been able to make herself find out if her ex-fiancé was alright.
But she wasn't a coward. She'd face her failures head on. That she promised herself. Ranma had given up so much to make sure she lived at Mount Phoenix, that she owed it to her to be there for her. That was all she could do.
Aiga walked with an arrogant stride. Something was definitely wrong. And he liked wrong. Oooh, did he like it. He was currently walking through a mall. Not all that interesting, most would think, and normally they would be right. But today, oh today! Today was a day that would go down in infamy!
His arms rested on the shoulders of Nioma and Sorinayuga on his right and left respectively. Behind him, following him, though they thought they were being secretive about it, were four more girls. One hundred percent of their attention was on him.
As he walked, people gawked at him, based on gender for differing reasons. Boys or old folks would gawk at the crowd he seemed to be attracting in curious mirth, or jealousy. Girls would gawk at him! At him!
He turned and looked at a particularly beautiful girl on a staircase that led to second level, on her way down, who was trying to find out what the commotion was. The affects of this action were apparent and instantaneous. Without a second thought the girl braced herself on the banister, her knees giving way as she made eye contact with him. He burst into a winning grin and the girl actually tripped and fell a step!
Oh god he lovedthis!
'Ah… Women arefinally noticing my natural sexiness!' The arrogant boy thought laughingly. This girl, whoever she was, was even more beautiful than Nioma!
He lifted his hands almost with grief, from the shoulders of the two girls he'd bedded the night before; he set them in their natural place at his sides. "Sorry ladies… I need to be going now, but your company was exquisite! I hope to do this again some time very soon!"
"Y-you've got my number… Right… Aiga?" Nioma asked, shyly. Shyly! Nioma!
…
SHYLY!
This was the same girl who'd snorted at his advance and told him to go sleep with a cow not more than a week ago!
Yeah… he was just that good!
"Of course! Nioma! I've had your phone number for ages. I call you all the time! You told me, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off and stop calling you a week ago!" Hmm… Strange. Beautiful she was. Not stupid. Surely she knew he had her phone number…
The girl gasped. "I… I wouldn't! I-I didn't mean it! I… I'm sorry… Aiga… I… I know better now! You're…"
Aiga smiled, glad to know that she was now regretting all those years of bad mouthing him, his bright grin shutting her up instantly. Good. He liked her that way. Silent and beautiful. Ah… "Don't worry. I knew you'd come around someday, Nioma. I'll always keep your number. And I'll keep you close to my heart." He said affectionately.
The girl swooned. She actually swooned! Hah hah! God! Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Despite the fact that he would gladly take the girl as his girlfriend and give up his lecherous ways for her, for a time at least, the poetic irony of her falling madly in love for him like she seemed to have done was not lost on him.
A small part of his mind thought otherwise. 'She's never believed anything like that that I've ever said to her before! Never! And that was relatively weak compared to some of the crazy romantic crap I've said! Something is wrong here!"
He shrugged off the nagging thoughts with the ease of practice, having long experience with combating his negligible conscience when scheming to spy on girls locker rooms and the like. He did have a conscience but it was small and pretty much dead weight when it came to anything important.
Now, he had new prey to catch.
"Goodbye ladies!" With that, he walked away whistling a merry tune. The girl's simply stared at him. If anything, when he glanced back, he would have said their eyes were… longing.
He grinned devilishly.
Crossing the hallway, moving around the corridors and around a window or two, he found the girl who'd fallen on the staircase. Now she was clumsily picking up the assorted tidal wave of bags she'd dropped, replacing items that had decided it would be good to run away from their containers.
"May I help you miss?" He asked in his most suave voice.
The girl looked up, annoyance clearly written across her features as she angrily replaced the items; most of it was clothing. The anger lasted right up until she saw who it was she was talking to. When her eyes met his her entire demeanor changed. "O-Oh! It-It's you!" The girl stuttered, her long deep brown to black hair bouncing with her surprise.
His demeanor changed too. He was shocked! "Ukyo!?"
The girl blushed sheepishly. "Uhm… yeah… Hey Aiga...! Eheh! Wh-what are you doing, here?"
Ukyo Kuonji realized she should be pissed. This… thing's very nature normally reeked of perversion and that usually served to make her mad as hell any time he so much as spoke with her. Today… that was different. The perversion was there, cultivated by a pool of… something. 'He's sexy…' She thought. Then she gasped at herself. 'I… I didn't just…!'
She did. She'd just thought that…that! She looked the boy up and down staring at his face and examining him the way a cop would investigate a murder.Telling herself that's how she was investigating him, though in reality it was more like how a wolf eyed a sheep. There was no change in… hell in anything about him! He was the exact same as he always was before but… something was different. And regardless of what had happened, he was making her trip all over herself!
"I'm shopping, Kuonji-san. What would you expect me to be doing?" He asked, his tone cool, his voice firm.
Ukyo flushed in embarrassment. "Oh! Right. Uh well… I… Yeah… I could use a hand."
'No you idiot!' She thought despairingly. 'Tell him to shove off! He's a jackass!' For some reason, her mouth would not listen to her brain. Her heart began to race, and she felt herself become aroused looking at him. 'Oh this is nuts!' The rational part of her brain told her. Her body didn't listen.
He knelt down and began picking up the items, his eyes trained on hers. Why in the world would Ukyo Kuonji wearing a… well… normal girl's clothing? It was just… weird. Blasphemy or something. But damn! When she actually tried…! She was… wow! Normal girls just couldn't compare to the martial artists!
Ukyo began fumbling around for the items. He was staring at her, straight in her eyes, but she would not back down like some blushing idiot. Were her hormones screwing with her today or something? Surely she didn't miss Ranma's male body so much that she would get… well… forthis to be attracting her! So she met his gaze and awkwardly tried to put items back in the bags without look at them. He seemed to have no problems lifting the floor-strewn clothing, folding it, and replacing it in the bags without even glancing where he was looking. 'How did he do that?' She wondered.
"I... I'm curious, Kuonji-san. Why are you dressed…"
Ukyo's brow furrowed. Attractive or not, it was thoughts like that that pissed her off! Was she not pretty? Not good enough for him? What!? She could be a girl sometimes if she wanted!
"…So beautifully?"
Her heart skipped a beat. Okay… Not what she thought he was thinking… 'Stupid heart!' She thought as words formed on her mouth that she did not put there. 'Y-you think I'm… Uhm…?"
"Very much so, Kuonji-san. Or… Ukyo if I may?" Aiga replied gently. In his mind only one word was running itself through his head. 'Score!'
Ukyo flushed. Maybe… Maybe Aiga wasn't so bad after all?
Tears of rage and anger and grief bled down her face as she cried in agony. Every part of her ached in pain, unending. She wriggled fruitlessly as she tried to find a position that wouldn't make her neck break with the strain. She couldn't stop the tears. Couldn't stop rubbing herself all over. Her breasts screamed with their mishandling, while her throat, bruised from the strangling she had endured for hours on end, rasped hoarsely. Her efforts were fruitless though.
She turned on her side, squirming her naked skin against the cold hard wood of the box they had thrown her in. Blisters seeped into her skin. Her back scraped on the nails of the box and she did her best to ignore them. It wasn't too hard. They were mere pinpricks compared to… to…
Her insides burned with pain and her heart felt weak with the violation they had wrecked upon her body. She let out a wet sob. Why? Why had they done it? Her thoughts against her father had long been full of malcontent. She had always been merely her brother's plaything. His servant at best, and dog at worst.
Everyone knew that. She'd never been allowed to sit where the important people sat. Never been able to eat with the nobles.
Just Anshar's plaything. But… but never his whore! Never…
Sixteen years of servitude. Sixteen years of trying… dreaming… hoping that someday, she could kill the man who'd given her life. But she'd never been able to act. Never been able to lay a murderer's hand to her father. She'd never liked him; as a child he'd beaten her whenever he'd seen her, lest she was bringing him, or her brother food. He'd made her beg for her dinners as a child. Slapped her when she called him father. He'd hated her with ever fiber of his being ever since she'd been born.
She stopped struggling, finally crunched up in the box in the most comfortable way she could get. Her knees on either side of her face, her bottom rubbing against the top of the box, soothing her sore privates against the cool wood, while simultaneously laying her head straight; relief flooded through her sore neck with the new position.
She sobbed relentlessly into her hands. "Serenity… I… I want a father like yours… so much… Anything, I would do to be the sister you want…" She whispered to herself, choking through the wet heaves of tears falling through her eyes.
Her thighs began to strain with the effort stretching them over her head, her feet pressing against same wall as the top of her head, but she could do nothing. If she moved her neck would burn and her bleeding genitalia would burn worse. The cold wood, while searing her back with numbness, was the only thing that lessened the pain between her legs. She was thankful for it.
She tried to make her anger return. She'd always had anger. Always hated the king. She'd seen the people. Their poverty. Their sadness. Their grief, as the Dark King went out amongst them and killed them for sport. The giddy laughter of her brother when they were younger as he watched, changing from laughter to glee as he grew old enough to revel in the same sport.
She'd sworn she would kill him someday but she'd never been able too. She could now. She could kill him now. If given half a chance she would see his entrails lying across the throne that had once belonged to her mother.
"Happy Name Day…" She sang in a low whisper, to herself, trying desperately to hold on to something… to content herself somehow. "To you, a happy name day…" Her crying gurgled her words to the point of taking her speech from her but she plowed on. "Six moons h-have past… s-since this day c-came last…" She tried to keep the up with how the song was supposed to go but she couldn't. Even so, the song helped sooth her. Helped her cope with what had happened. With what her brother had done. "Dear Kishar, to you, a H-happy Name Day…"
Over and over, she sung the song, the words seeping into her soul until she began to dream that her loved ones… her friends were there with her. Millie Wheatly, greatest baker in all Aurica. She would sing. Old Bysa Konger, the palace's head healer. She'd always loved talking to old Bysa. Bysa would sing to her. Gills Amnesty. The head servant. He'd sneak into her room, and sit at her bedside no matter how old she was, and tell her stories of the old times. The good times, before her father had come… before he'd turned her mother to madness. He was there… singing for her Name Day.
And Serenity… her best friend. Her only friend. It had been so long since she'd seen her… six months in reality since the last visit. She could… could almost see Serenity singing the song to her from afar in herbeautiful room… right that minute. God… how could she ever look at Serenity again? She hoped she never met eyes with her… she would feel… filthy… tainted in the presence of the purity of the Princess of the Silver Millennium.
"Please… God… Never let her find out about this…" She prayed, as she pictured the blonde girl singing the Name Day song to her, along with the others, until finally… finally, her sobbing began to ebb. The tears that she had thought were limitless in their falling had finally come to a rest. Slowly, ever so slowly, her mind hardened.
She had to escape. It was… was either that or, she had to finally kill her father.
She had to kill Taimaat. Either that… escape… or kill herself. Since killing her father was impossible as long as he held the Golden Crystal, and escaping was pointless; he could always find her through her mother's tie to the Kinsuishou, her only option was…
Hours, she remained, when her tears had run dry, and her bleeding had finally stopped. Hours and hours, but no one came. She felt her throat lose its moisture and begin to crackle. 'I… I'm going to die… Father want's me dead. I… I don't want to die…" She whimpered. Alone, cold, hurt, and trapped in a wooden box on her Name Day. New tears would have sprung up in her but she could not make any.
Just when she thought she couldn't take anymore, she heard a voice. "Princess… Are… are you alright…?" A cautious voice whispered from outside the box. Gills. The head servant. Grandpa Gills. He was the one who had told her the stories of her mother… back when she was sane. He… He'd found her… but that meant he knew what… what Anshar had done to her.
"G-Gills…? Let me alone. Let me die… Please… don't look at me like this. I don't want you to see... Just let me alone…" She croaked, her voice barely audible.
"I won't let you die, child. I… I love you… my dear, like my own daughter. And… I swear… someday… somehow… I'll get you out of here… out of Aurica… I promise…" The old man said. She could hear the tears in his voice.
Suddenly, light sprang into the box and a hole about half a finger in diameter was cut through right above her head, between where her feet were positioned above her.
"Gills… don't open it…!" She begged. She couldn't be seen like this! She couldn't!
"I can't child… the King would kill me. But… I couldn't stand it. You… you must be thirsty. Y-you've been in there for hours."
Hours? Was that all? It felt an eternity.
Suddenly something cold dribbled down from where the light spilled forth onto her head.'Water!' she thought with joy as she craned her neck to get to the blissful substance, spilling in through the small hole.
She licked at the wooden wall madly, anxious for even the slightest bit of moisture. Her mind tried to stop her. There was no dignity in this. But then… what dignity did she have left after… She was so thirsty, though! She couldn't stop the slurping need as her tongue wiped across the wet wood.
Gills winced, listening to the princess, though he was the only one who called her princess, lick at the wooden walls of the box in a mad hysteria. She would have been heir to the throne. She would have been the one learning to rule now… had it not been for Taimaat.
He pitied her. He tried desperately not to, but he pitied her. And she knew it. Still she could not stop herself from licking the hole till every shred of moisture was gone. "Please, Gills… Poison me. Let me die…"
"Ah! Gills! What apleasant surprise!" Came the humorous voice of her father.
Kishar cringed. 'No! Run Gills! Run!' She thought desperately, knowing that the words would be next to worthless. Her eyes began to wet but no tears were able to fall down her cheeks as she realized that Gills was a dead man.
"My dear," The voice slurred in that babyish way that always sickened her. "It appears that you might be useful after all!"
Kishar quivered in fear. All her life she'd been 'worthless' this or 'useless' that. She dreaded whatever had turned the tables. She'd been 'useful' for the first time as her brother's whore. Now he'd… found another use for her?
She'd rather die.
She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach and it took her a moment to realize that it wasn't her terror. Her box was being lifted into the air; goosebumps ran up her wounded skin. He'd always loved to do this to her… dangle her by her feet with his power. He especially enjoyed dangling her off the upper balcony, but, as she grew older, she'd realized how to keep below his notice.
Or so she'd thought. He'd remembered her Name Day… quite well. She never wanted another Name Day. Not with him in it. Or her brother. Never again.
"Come along now, Gills. I'm sure you'll be most happy. Your dear Kishar is going to be a bargaining chip in my alliance with Serenity! How would you like that, my dear? I'll deliver you express! I'm sure the shippers will handle you with excellent care!" He chuckled mirthfully. "You would like that, wouldn't you?"
Kishar almost fainted. He was… giving her away? To Serenity? She would have leapt for joy had she been able to move. Suddenly a golden needle sliced through the box cutting through her right arm with more ease than it cut through the wood. She yelped in horror as blood spewed from the wound. "Answer girl!"
"I… would…! I would…. Like that! Otou-sama!" She exhaled, forcing the words instead of the screams her burning arm demanded she exude.
She could feel his smile as the box tipped and she fell to the side, her bleeding arm crashing into the hard wood. She yelped but held it in. He loved it when she screamed, and she would not give him the satisfaction.
"It was quite strange really. I was just yesterday in a meeting with Her Majesty, discussing the 'alliance'." He quipped the word as if it were a joke. To him, it was a joke. He sought to conquer the Silver Millennium as surely as he had conquered Aurica. "She insisted quite furiously, that I give her my firstborn daughter to seal the alliance. You so loved the Silver Moon Palace didn't you my dear? Why! How could I object?"
His words sickened her. He's stench, permeated the air slipping through the small holes in the box, making her quiver in fear and disgust, but she said nothing. "So, I decided," He continued, mockingly, "that I would get the only real use out of you that anyone ever will before I give you away. Trust me… Anshar, marvelous boy he is, was less than impressed. But alas, there are other fish and all. Be glad, my dear. If I see you again, I will kill you on the spot. You've been warned."
In all her wildest dreams, she could never have imagined her father would give her to the woman she so desperately wished were her mother. If… If only she wouldn't be delivered naked in a wooden, coffin-like, box. But it could be a trick. He might just be raising her hopes so as to crush them as soon as she showed the slightest glimmer of hope. He was good at that.
Some time past, the man giggling in morbid humor as he turned her box upside down. She let out a howl as her private areas drug along the top of the box, her head slamming into the head of it, the small hole Gills had put there only slightly dampening how much it hurt. She curled into a ball, bringing her knees to her chin as much as she could, wriggling as she tried to get back onto her back, off of her aching arm, and protect her tender area.
Tears sprung anew as pain renewed within her.
"Queen Serenity!" Taimaat exclaimed suddenly after she'd felt herself float for a time, held less then carefully by the King's power. She heard him flourish and bend over to do what sounded like kissing the Queen's hand. Was it real? Was… was she really going to be given to Serenity. Oh Bloodfire, but she hoped so!
"King Bervenity." Came a voice made of ice, its tone colder than the Lunar Ice Caps. Kishar spat. That name did not belong to scum like her father! But she dared to hope, this was real. Serenity. It sounded like her… though she'd never heard the Queen sound so cold before.
"Where is she?" The Queen demanded, her voice chilling even Kishar to the bone. Her own mother, Mairis, could be frightfully cold when she wanted but Kishar shuddered as she felt a wave of freezing air blast through the cracks in her box. "What is the box for?"
A moment of silence passed, Kishar felt nothing. An eye settled into the hole, black as midnight, and she cringed. Her father could see in the dark, and she could feel the grin in the one eye he used to roam her body, or at least, what parts of her body that were not visibly covered by her knees or arms..
Suddenly her world shook, back and forth, and she was flopped around like the soda in a mrisis bottle. Her head banged against the ceiling and her bottom, thudded against the floor, but the pain was nothing compared to how much her arm burned. She hardly noticed, save for the wave of dizziness that washed over her.
"Are you still in there, darling?" Taimaat cooed, in what should have been a fatherly tone. "Better let the Queen know she's not getting… 'damaged goods'." He chuckled mirthfully as shame larger then even her longing desire to kill her father rose up within her. Serenity was here! It… it was really happening! She…
"I…. I'm here…" She croaked. She heard his hands clapped together.
"Splendid! There you are, Queen Serenity! All wrapped up for you! Aren't I kind?" He said with a big grin.
A gasp echoed from a different voice outside, and Kishar's shame doubled. Her mind screamed with self loathing. Why!? 'Chibi-Serenity… Sere-chan… She is here!? She… knew! God, I can't take this!'
A sharp jolt, far stronger then before, of coldness like that of the deepest winter blasted through her and she stiffened, dead still. "Were it not for my people and my daughter, I would kill you where you stand, Taimaat. I do not wish another war." Came the harsh voice of the elder Serenity.
"You would try, my dear. You would try." He said with what seemed like a happy grin. "Well! This is the final trade, correct? We have our alliance." He stated. It was not a question.
"Taimaat. If I so much as sense you brewing a war, I will destroy you. This I swear." Said the Elder Serenity, her voice the same ice whip.
"You have my word." Taimaat replied, his own voice now deep and threatening. "That is all then? Be off. Enjoy her! I'm sure she will find the Silver Millennium much more accommodating than here. I expect the first shipment of Imperium within the week."
"And I, the Aiode Matter." She replied tartly.
"Then we are in agreement. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll see myself out. I advise you do the same, Dear Queen. If I see that… scum… again, I will kill her." And with that, he was gone.
Kishar's box fell like an iron block to the ground slamming into it, her back thunking harshly against the wood on stone of the floor his gravity brought on. Her arm snapped and she let out a shriek, inwardly thanking god that her head had been ready for such a drop, and thus remained in the air.
"Kishar!" The woman exclaimed, all of the ice gone completely. The motherly Serenity the Fourth had returned.
"Queen… Serenity…. Is it… really you?" She begged, through the hole. "Gills? Are… you still out there, Gills?"
She heard scrambling and heard the sound of soft hands lying on the wood at the top of the box. "Kishar! I'm going to get you out of there."
"No!" Kishar exclaimed, piteously. "I… I'm… I don't want you to see…"
"Kishar… I'm taking you away from this place… I'm taking you home with me… you'll live with Chibi-Serenity… if you like…" The woman had tears leaking down her face. "I-I…. I can't believe he would do this!"
"Kisha?" Came a lighter softer voice. Kishar felt dirty. Tainted. Unworthy. Unfit to be anywhere near such kindness as these two. Serenity…
"It's really you… isn't it?" She asked, curling into a ball once more and spinning so her knees laid on the ground, her back facing up. "Please… please go away Sere-chan… I don't want you to see." She repeated, trying to make her voice sound forceful. It came out as barely a whisper.
"A-Alright, Kisha-chan. I… We wanted to save you…" She said, softly, tears trailing down her cheeks. "I can't believe he would put you in a box like this! He's… he's… a bastard!" The young blonde screamed, unable to rein in her anger. Her mother could find no fault in her daughter's words, so instead, she turned her attention to the other girl. Drawing on the crystal, she pulled light from around her and compressed till it became a robe of the finest and lightest sort.
"Dear, it's alright. I have a robe out here. I promise, I'll wrap you the second I open the box. I won't look. I promise." The woman said in what was her most soothing voice.
Kishar could only hope it wasn't all some trick. Some scheme of Taimaat's to make her wish for death even more than she already did. "O-okay…"
It happened all at once. The top of the box simply lifted off of the other four sides, titanium nails lifting forth from the malleable wood under the raw force of Serenity the Fourth's Power.
The woman instantly bathed the pale back of the young red-headed girl in the pristine white robes, and lifted her bodily out of the coffin-like container.
Kishar winced as light fractured her eyes, blinding her. She felt the soft robe drench her in cool, soothing, gentle touches, even as the woman hugged her mightily, and tears came again. She was Sixteen Now! A woman in the eyes of her peers. She shouldn't be… doing this! She should be… What she should have been and what she should have done were all swept away in the unbearable kindness of the ancient queen. She wept and bawled until she truly did think she would die of dehydration, soaking the woman's dress.
"Child… child… You can come with me now. I'll never let anyone hurt you again. I promise…"
Kishar's arm left arm held the woman as tightly to her as she could; her right hung limply, bleeding down the woman's dress. Chibi-Serenity gasped when she'd first seen the girl, as the box opened but she began rubbing her back in a friendly gesture when she realized how much Kishar had been hurt. She hadn't comprehended the true extent of what had been done to her, though.
Queen Serenity did. She knew what had happened the second she'd opened the box. Oh Holy! How could he have done such a thing!?
She didn't know. All she knew was that, from now on, Kishar would have the life she'd surely always dreamed of.
And no one would stand in the way of that. No one.
Kishar cried, and kept crying even when she realized Serenity had begun to lift her with her power, as her father did. But it wasn't the harsh strangle of Taimaat. No. It was… gentle… forgiving… understanding. It held her up, and allowed her to remain draped onto the woman's shoulder, clinging like the queen was a lifeline.
And slowly, she felt herself drift away, as the queen walked, Sere-chan by her side.
The last thing she heard before sleep finally took her was salvation itself; Sere-chan was singing the Name Day song.
Singing to her.
Ranma woke with tears in her eyes, blinking at the rays of sunshine pouring in through the windows. She felt like she was missing something. As if she had lost the most important thing in the world and would never again feel it. She felt as if she were dying inside and didn't know why. Her vision blurred. She wanted her mother. Nodoka? No… no, not her… She… she wanted to be home.
"Ranma…! She's waking up!" A girl's voice exclaimed. Ranma recognized it, dimly.
Someone rushed into the room. "What did you do!?" exclaimed a male voice. The doctor. She remembered.
"Nothing…!" The girl stood, and Ranma began to get an outline through the tears in her eyes. The girl sniffed loudly and seemed to wobble in Ranma's blurry vision.
Suddenly someone was on her. It was the doctor she knew, but it didn't stop her mind. Fear jolted through her. He was on her! Touching her! Hands were at her chest, and her eyes lit with fire, the tears clearing up in an instant. Ranma's fingers blazed to life faster than they had ever moved. She snatched the first hand and twisted it to the point of breaking, catching the second in an easy swirl, turning the man around. No one but Sere touched her. No one.
He winced and then gasped as both his arms were twisted behind him and a bare foot placed against his back. "Never touch me again." Ranma heard herself say. "Swear it!" She twisted his arms a bit harder to get the point across.
He screamed his affirmation. "I swear! I won't! Damn!" He shouted, then began cursing in heavy English.
She let him go and at the same time, pushed him with her foot, slamming him into the wall. Her heart was racing, as memory slowly began to flood back. Guilt welled in her as she realized what she had done. He was a doctor. It was his job to heal her! Why… why had she…?
Memory came flooding back. The enormous hound, bathed in flames, on her, tearing at her, ripping her chest. That's what he had been looking at. The holes. Not her… not her breasts.
She pulled her shirt open and found only scars where she'd been sure gaping holes would have been. What had happened to her? How long had she been here?"
The doctor slowly pulled himself up. "There's… no way…" He coughed as he got to his feet, dusting himself off. He turned to stare at the other patron, the black haired girl. "It's not possible. There were bloody gashes in her chest just twenty minutes ago!"
Ranma turned to look to the black haired girl as well and found her recognized her. "H-hey you're… you're the girl who stood up for me in the cafeteria! H-Hotaru!" Ranma exclaimed, proud that she had remembered her name from Gasanda.
The girl shyly nodded. "I… please don't remind me of that. I've never felt so sick before… But I heard you were hurt and I… I had to help!" The girl wilted. She was obviously quite shy, and a bit strange as well.
"H-how long have I been here?" She asked, but the doctor interrupted the girl's already shaky reply. "Three days." He said, matter-of-factly. "And in those three days, you've completely screwed with everything I've ever been taught about wounds. You shouldn't even be alive, let alone able to move, and yet you just completely disabled me."
"Impossible is nothing new for me." Ranma said, finally returning to her normal frame of mind. Something had been wrong with her when she woke up. Maybe it was a hallucination or something. She'd been dreaming. Sheknew that. But she never remembered, though this one, she could feel vague glimpses. A cage. A box. Something about a box…
"I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean… I… you scared me." She said, sheepishly.
The doctor grinned. "Aw, don't worry 'bout it. Had a rabies patient bite me once. You're much better then she was!" The doctor, said. "Better yet, you're alive, and well or so it seems. I'm Doctor Aaron Davis. And I'm glad to see you awake." He turned his insightful eyes on the shy girl sitting in the waiting chair. "Well indeed."
Hotaru gulped. Did he know? Did he know about her power?
Ranma sighed. "I… I guess I'm just lucky. I should've died."
Glancing around the room her eyes fell on Hotaru. The girl looked positively exhausted. Her hair was strewn haphazardly about her face and her eyes looked as if they would be rolling into the back of her head any minute. She slumped languorously against the back of the chair, her head resting on the wall as she watched the events with a sure smile.
The doctor raised an eyebrow. "Not something many would say." He commented wryly. He picked up a clipboard and approached the girl sitting on the bed. "Now, about your chest. Are you going to hold me to my forced oath or would you rather I look at it? Just in case your heart bursts and all."
Ranma shivered involuntarily. It was a joke; she could tell from his grin. That didn't stop her from worrying though. She remembered exactlywhere those claws had landed. Remembered the feeling of her heart being cleaved out from her chest.
He noticed this as she lay back down, and nodded at him. "I'm sorry," he voiced. "I've… just never seen such a miracle. It's a good experience for me! I'm… glad when a patient like you pulls out. You really… shouldn't be alive."
"I know…" The redhead replied solemnly. She turned a narrowed eye to Hotaru. "I think I have someone to thank."
The black haired girl shrunk shyly away from the redhead's firm gaze, and Ranma noted just how much she seemed to be acting as if she were guilty of robbing her while she'd been unconscious.
Ranma dropped the girl and let it fall to a small smile. She really did owe the girl. It was nice of her to come visit. And she still owed her a thank you for standing up for her that day. "Thank you for coming to visit me, Hotaru-chan. And for standing up for me a few days ago. It really meant a lot. I tried to find you but… you were gone."
"Please… don't remind me…" She murmured, repeating her earlier word.
Ranma was confused for a moment, but then Hotaru stood, wobbling slightly. "I'll be going out. I'm gonna tell everyone you woke up and seem to be alright. I-Is that okay? Doctor? She is alright… right?"
Doctor Davis nodded to her. "Don't give them complete assurance. I'm still not sure, but she seems to be in no pain. Tell them, that from the looks of it right now, she's experienced a miracle."
Hotaru grinned, though weakly; she turned her attention back to the redhead. "Ranma. I'm glad you're okay!" She gushed.
"Me too, Hotaru." Ranma replied.
Hotaru let herself out into the hallway.
After she left, the doctor approached the redhead, undoing her shirt. She stiffened. Every muscle in her body stiffened as his fingers worked at the pulling down the admittedly smelly garment. The reaction was there again but she stifled it. The urge to break his arms. He shouldn't be touching her!
'What the hell is wrong with me?' She thought, visibly stressed. Sweat began pouring down her face as his fingers trailed the scars. She gulped; a new emotion was rising within her. Fear.
"Does that hurt?" The doctor asked, oblivious to anything but her immense sweating. She was nervous around men. That much he'd gleaned already, so he disregarded it.
"N-no." Barely containable rage, along with an equal welling of fear merged together to form a nervous stuttering of her words. Why the hell was she afraid!? Kuno had flat out grabbed her before and she'd never felt an ounce of fear! Disgust maybe. But… fear?
The young doctor looked her in the eyes. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just checking your wounds. I Promise." He said with a tone of finality that backed itself on his actions. Apparently he could tell just how uncomfortable his touch was making her.
Ranma nodded, soothed a little, her fears being pounded on by her own pride and the doctor's amiable statement towards the unconscious wants her body was demanding of her. She didn't want him near her!
He poked her chest a few times more, asking for pain and finding that she truly felt none. Five scars, all dimpled a bit as if they were places where skin had been burn once, though, from the look of it, it happened a long time ago.
The doctor stood straight, pulling the girl's shirt across her breasts, covering them once more as a flood of relief washed over her. He gave a rough sigh with a light chuckle. "I just don't believe it. I'm going to have you scheduled for an MRI, just to be sure your heart and lungs are working like they should be, okay?"
Ranma nodded. "Y-yeah. That's fine. I don't wanna be released and then have my heart explode! Eheh…" She joked, and the doctor smile, catching his own pun coming back at him. "That would be pretty bad for you, right?" She asked, innocently.
Suddenly the door banged open. "Ranma!" Came a deep shout. Akane Tendo and Ryoga Hibiki dashed to her bedside like bullets. Akane grappled the redhead in an embrace that left Ranma wincing, while Ryoga stood behind them.
Ranma connected eyes with his greatest rival and found… concern. Downright worry and concern etched across the eternally lost boy's face.
"A-Ak… Akane?" She asked, turning her attention away from her rival to the girl in her arms. "What are you doing here?"
Akane glared up at the redhead and whipped out a sign, angrily reading, "Just because I'm not your fiancée anymore doesn't mean I don't care! I was so worried about you!"
Doctor Davis was intrigued by her literal 'sign language' but, not wanting to interrupt anything, took a seat in one of the four chairs lined up around the bedside.
Ranma felt a hand land on her shoulder as she stared into the eyes of the girl she… wished still loved her. Her heart warmed, and began to race a bit. Akane's tear-filled eyes. She cared. She cared! It was all Ranma could do not to take that as another way of saying she still loved her. She knew that wasn't what the girl meant but, oh how she wished!
She let her wet eyes leave the Tendo's face as she trailed them up the hand on her shoulder, to find Ryoga staring down at her.
"R-Ryoga?" She asked. "Wh-what are you—!"
"Shut up!" The lost boy interrupted harshly with a glare. He grit his teeth as if the words he was about to use were anathema but he said them anyway. "Dammit, Ranma I care, too!" They seemed to physically pain him, but he plowed on. "I… you're a friend Ranma! B-Best I got! H-How dare you get so close to dying! Wh-what the hell would I do then, huh!?"
Ranma felt almost as touched as she had been by her father a few days previous. Almost. But she was beginning to fear just how much her life was changing. Being a girl completely flipped her world on end. As a guy she'd never been treated like she was now. Suddenly, everyone was emotional. Suddenly, everyone cared. The thought made her feel hollow.
'Really…? Am I, really a friend?' She wondered, holding Akane. 'Or do you just pity me?'
She didn't want to know the answer.
Setsuna Meioh's eyes locked like targets on the gates. Her gates. They were her gates. She walked forward, reverently, in the mist, so similar to Lio's gates, but different. She felt every mist particle. She breathed, and the air replenished itself within her. The air was hers. She moved it, and a small tornado appeared in her hands. She gawked. She turned to look up to the sky and imagined a waterfall, spilling into the endless mist, and it was there. She imagined a vast forest as far as the eye could see, and it was there! She dreamed of a bedroom, red carpet, with an enormous mirror, on one wall, another wall made of windows, with glass doors leading out to a balcony, dimly lit by the night sky.
And it was there! Everything in this world was hers. This place was hers to command entirely. And she was left in awe. She turned to stare at Liopolis, her eyes wide as lakes.
"This is…" She breathed, trying to make a word to fit the wonder with which she felt, knowing that something so magnificent was tied irreversibly to her very soul.
"Indescribable. I've often tried, but it is impossible. My own feelings of reverence and wonder for my gates are similar to yours, or so you told me last we discussed it." Liopolis said as he walked forward to examine the small tornado still spinning wildly in her hands.
He grinned. "Nowthat would make an interesting toy between your legs, wouldn't you say?"
Her face heated and the tornado exploded in a cacophony of speeding air, slapping him quite thoroughly in the face. "Th-that's, c-completely…!"
He shrugged off the slap as if it were a little more than a feather-light touch. "Oh lighten up! You're twice as crass to me when you wake me up!" He exclaimed.
"I am not!" Retorted the green-haired girl, a deep red flush flowing down her body. "I'm scared shitless of sex!"
Liopolis blinked. For a good three seconds, staring at her glaring eyes.
Then he burst out laughing! Laughing! The nerve! "Reeeally?" He sniggered. "F-for some reason I didn't get that feeling yesterday!"
This man was absolutely intolerable! "Th-that was different!" She stuttered. "You seduced me! And I… That was just different!" The words sounded petulant and phony. Even she knew it. He kept laughing.
Sooner or later, he finally caught his breath, bastard that he was. What could she do? She just stood there, while he laughed, flushing ever redder. When he finished, he beamed at her.
She couldn't help the simper that came to her lips. Her genophobia was laughable. But it was true dammit! Or it had been. It was as if Lio simply took the phobia away. He… knew her. It was as if he'd known her intimately all her life. The little words he would say. The small smiles. His way of teasing her. It was as stimulating as it was infuriating! She couldn't believe how much she wanted to kiss him, shuck his clothes completely and just go at him again as they had the entire previous day. It was making her think he'd used a drug on her or something! Save for her heart skipping beats every five minutes, she felt perfectly fine though.
Her mind had wandered so far, daydreaming about the man in front of her that she'd forgotten about him, so his touch on her inner thigh was quite unexpected.
She yelped, finding him behind her yet again. How the hell did he do that!?
"As it turns out…" He whispered into her ear in that way that told her he knew what her thoughts had been. "You do like that tornado between your legs! You invented if after all, Soul of My Heart."
"Noooo!" She moaned, at first in protest, her eyes rolling into the back of her head as he seduced her again, realizing that he had his own spinning air cyclone in his hand and was trailing it down her clothes, touching the wide spinning end to her body. "You… can't keep… doing this! I… I have a boyfriend!" She attempted to say. She wasn't sure if the words had actually come out.
The man beamed once more. "Not anymore. You have a husband, now."
The cyclone left her skin and the mind-numbing pleasure left her again. This time she was disappointed. What was he doing to her!?
His arm slipped around her waist, holding it firmly as he walked toward the gates. "It's time, Sailor Pluto. Time to take up your mantle again." His hand tightened on her waist in such a way that Setsuna felt a wave of comfort. Sailor Pluto? Her!?
"Wh-what?" She asked. "I… you mean I am…?"
She had not realized he'd been walking her until she saw the gates looming over her. She felt afraid, but she didn't know why. She looked at him, confused, absorbing comfort from the warm arm holding her. The Gates of Time. She didn't know how she knew what they were called but that was definitely their name. It wasn't a gate, so much as it was a doorway, or so it seamed. A looming enormous Arc, five times her height. Falling from the arc was a mirror like surface made of metallic looking liquid, that appeared to be constantly cascading down into the mist.
He gave her a great grin. "I'll see you on the other side, Sailor Pluto. Welcome back, Soul of My Heart."
And suddenly the arm hurled her into the watery mirror.
It was only an instant, but in that moment, she felt the gates. They scorched into her mind. Burned into her soul. Searching her. Viewing her. Spreading her hopes, her dreams, her desires, her fears, all of her, reading her as if she were a mere book. Reading her, to allow her the privilege of reading them. It was not a surprise that she found herself naked, the gates making sure she was the true owner, reborn.
And then, came the power. Pluto. The gates read her body, and brought forth the power, outfitting her with a black gleaming light. It swirled about her like a black river of silk, sweeping her. The fabric surrounding her seemed to weave itself into existence. The time to weave such magnificently intricate fabric, speeding through in mere seconds what should have taken centuries.
After an eternity, that seemed a second. An hour that seemed a year. A minute that seemed a decade, she was dressed. Time descended upon her and the weight of her duty pressed into her mind. The knowledge of her immortality and the dreams of her future. It descended in the form of a staff of silver, a gleaming heart gilded into the top, handles made for her hands, and power grafted to fit her mind and her mind alone entered her.
And she was the Senshi of Pluto once again.
She blasted out the other end of the gates of time and found herself falling into the arms of Rebirth.
"Liopolis…" She sighed, breathing heavily, her heart beating miles a minute.
"Pluto." He responded, lightly, holding her.
"I… I'm sorry I was gone so long, My Eternity." She whispered. She didn't remember her life, but she remembered her death. She felt how long she had been gone. Three hundred years. Three hundred years her counterpart had waited.
"I waited for you." He turned her in his arms lying her down on the mist. The mist became a bed before her head hit a pillow and Liopolis smiled. "Usually it's the other way around."
"I know… I'm sorry… I don't remember any of my last life… just feelings." She beamed, despite her words. "But, I love you, Rebirth."
Liopolis's heart skipped a beat. He knew she wouldn't remember. She was Time. She governed the passing. She ruled the art of forgetting the things of old, leaving the past behind and moving on to the future. He was different; his was art was remembering. Recalling those who had past and bringing them forth once more.
Normally that worked. She lived forever, and while he died, he remembered when he was reborn and they could pick up where they had left off every time he returned to life. But she'd died last time. Died so that he would live. Normally it took thousands of years for the Senshi of Time to return. But Rebirth couldn't wait. Three hundred years he'd spent, digging through the multitudes of souls held within his gate. Searching and searching until he finally… finally found her.
Maybe that was why she remembered him? She remembered the moments in which he rescued her from the sea of souls taking her out of the gate, and her soul moved to take form.
He willed the change, touching the Henshin Scroll buried next to his heart, having long outgrown the need for the flashy transformation of his youth. The fuku, black, trimmed with white bows and fabric, the polar opposite to her own white with black trim.
And she kissed her. The type of kiss time spent itself waiting on. The type souls came back for.
And, to Setsuna, life… Rebirth and Time were perfect.
End Chapter
Author's Notes: PLEASE REVIEW! Come on! This is my third longest fic! It deserves better! Not for me! For the fic! For the fic!
Okay… partially for me.
Good news! I am officially a student at EIU (Eastern Illinois University!) Major: Mathematics. (I know calculus now! Haha! Thanks Newton!)
Not quite moved there yet. Not till the summer. But I'm finally growing up! Ain't'cha proud?
Okay, so it's not the Chicago I always wanted. Don't worry, I'll get there someday. Been going north my entire life, slowly, one move after another.
I hope you liked the fic! I TOLD you it would be angsty!
Till Next!
MB