Disclaimer: I may not own Sailor Moon or Ranma ½, but people seemed to like how I've blended them together. Please note that while a few of Mouse's new techniques come from Naruto, that's all that will come from that series so you can pretty much consider this a SM/Ranma crossover and not a SM/Ranma/Naruto crossover. Without further notes from me, let's get this show on the road!
Usagi, Ranma, and Ryoga stopped in front of a small building that looked like it was an American 1950's dinner. Why such a place was in Japan, the trio didn't know and they didn't want to know. A new sign was above the building proclaiming it as "Mainland Mandarin Meal Stop." Right next to the door was a small sign that said, "Today's special, spicy beef ramen only 700 yen." Ranma in an uncharacteristic, at least to Ryoga, move opened the door for Usagi. Once Usagi was inside, Ryoga shot Ranma a questioning stare which was answered by a confused look on Ranma's face. Ryoga just shook his head and went in the door followed quickly by Ranma.
It was a relatively slow day for the dinner, but then again it had just opened up. Ranma looked around at the décor of the restaurant and was starting to get an inclining on who the owner was. Along the walls were various exotic weapons and the architecture was shaped to look like a traditional Chinese style. Ranma lead Usagi and Ryoga over to a side booth next to a large window. Usagi got into the booth first and was followed by Ranma while Ryoga stat down on the other side of the table. The three of them then pulled out the menus and began to look for what they wanted to eat.
About five minutes after they had sat down, a person came over and said, "Hello there. I'm the owner of this restaurant and- What! Ranma! What are you doing here in town?!" At this, everyone at the table turned to see Mousse in his usual outfit minus the coke-bottle glasses that Ryoga and Ranma were used to Mousse sporting. Ranma then calmly said, "I'm here in town because my mom lives here. Please don't tell me that the other two are here as well. I just want to eat a late lunch in peace, its something that I've grown to like a lot."
Mousse, although he had a while ago decided to bury his hatchet with Ranma and not in Ranma's back, couldn't help but want to make Ranma squirm. In a voice that held mischief in it and got more blatantly sarcastic as he continue Mousse said, "Which two are you referring to Ranma? Could it be Shampoo and the old mummy or maybe Soun and Genma? I do know that Kuno and Kodachi are greatly interested in your location. Maybe I should give a call to Nabiki and get a cut of the money she'll make off of your location."
Ranma, who had mid-way through Mousse's monologue, picked up on the fact that Mousse was pulling his leg decided to return fire. Crossing his arms over his chest and with a joking smile on his face, Ranma said, "That may be true Mousse on all accounts. But do you really think that your new business can withstand a visit from all the characters over in Nerima when you tell them that its housing the Nermia Nut farm's most wanted martial artist?" Mousse just shook his head and said, "Just give me your order you Prima Dona."
Usagi gave her order without paying a lot of attention to it because she was thinking about the events that were happening around her. Her friend Ranma Saotome just seemed to be full of surprises to her. From what she could tell, all of Ranma's acquaintances from Nerima seemed to be very unique in their own ways. Obviously, the boy had a great deal of adventures before coming to Juban. Ranma's adventures were probably not as influential as her own with the Sailor Scouts, but they were probably at least as fantastic.
Usagi was brought out of her musings by Ranma gently shaking her shoulder and she answered with a "huh?" Ranma just smiled and said, "I guess you were too busy thinking Usagi, but Mousse over here is offering us all flexible jobs as helpers in his restaurant. So what do you say Usagi?" Usagi closed her eyes and thought for few seconds about the offer. It sounded great, but what about a daemon attack or her parents? Usagi opened her eyes and looking into Mousse's said, "Let me get back to you on that Mousse. The offer sounds very tempting, but with the increasing monster attacks I think I should check with my parents to see if they want me to be out working."
Mousse nodded his head and said, "I understand. Remember that this offer is an open ended offer. Once this place get off the ground in a few days or a week I'll be needed all the help I can get. Not even my Shadow Clone technique will be able to help me deal with the rush."
Ranma then blinked his eye and said, "Shadow Clone technique? What's that Mousse and can I learn it?" Mousse shook his head and said, "The Shadow Clone technique is the advanced form of the splitting cat's hairs technique and creates an actual physical body that can think on its own with everything on it that the original had at the time of creation. The clone can only take one good hit of damage before it is destroyed, but you get all the information that the clone in question learned. However, the real drawback to the Clone technique is that it takes up a large amount of Chi to use and then splits your remaining Chi evenly between you and your clone. Also, you have to make sure that you use only pure Chi because if you use emotional Chi then your clones will just act on a particular emotion that can't be determined until after the Clone is created."
Ranma then asked Mousse on how many clones the formally sight challenged boy could create. Mousse then told Ranma that he could create about 3 or 4 clones without using up all of his chi. Ranma just nodded his head at what Mouse had said. While he had to admit that the Shadow Clone technique sounded very cool, its drawbacks made it undesirable for his style of fighting. However, it sounded like it would be of great help to Mousse whose style revolved around weapons and launching as many as possible at the target. The thought of facing 5 or 6 Mousse's with corrected vision and their individual scrap yards of metal made Ranma REALLY glad that he had gone through the Bakusai Tenketsu training. Ranma figured that without that particular piece of training he would most likely be turned into sliced ham if he fought Mousse simply do to the fact that there would be too many blades flying about.
Half an hour latter, Ranma, Usagi, and Ryoga paid for their meals and left the restaurant. Before they left though, Ranma had told Mousse where he lived incase Mousse ever wanted to come over to visit or have a match. Usagi waved good-bye to Ranma and Ryoga when it came time for her to go her own way to her house after telling the boys that she enjoyed the afternoon. Ryoga saw that Usagi, whether she realized it or not, was looking at Ranma when she said this and figured that he had some teasing ammo against Ranma. Ranma invited Ryoga over to stay at his house with his mother. At first Ryoga was hesitant, but when he met Nodoka and she heard Ranma's request, he went along with the request.
Usagi woke up in the morning and from her point of view on her bed looked around her room. Luna was sleeping at the foot of her bed and Ami, whose mother had to go to a week long conference in Kyoto for work, was sleeping peacefully on a futon to the right of her bed. Usagi was gland that her parents had allowed Ami to spend the week here while Ami's mother was out of town. Not only was Usagi glad to be able to spend time with and help out a friend, but in Usagi's opinion Ami was the most level headed of her scouts.
Usagi and Ami had spent a good part of the night talking to each other about various scout related things. Ami had told Usagi that she had been looking through the Mercury computer for any historical files on the Silver Millennium. In fact, Ami had in fact found that law that the Jovian Paladin had mentioned. Although Usagi had already come to accept this fact, she still wondered about something. How was it that Prince Nephelite's reincarnation seemed to remember these facts while she and the other scouts did not? Could it be the fact that he had been so young that allowed him to remember or was it something else? Usagi decided to leave those thoughts over to someone who could accurately understand the whole processes.
However Usagi and Ami's conversation last night had quickly been interrupted by Minako, who was calling to report about yet another daemon attack. She and Ami had quickly snuck out of the house and had gone to meet with the rest of the scouts. They had been joined in their roof hoping by none other than the Jovian Paladin, who had told them as they roof hopped together that he had felt something wrong coming from the direction they were headed. She and Ami had gratefully accepted his offer of help.
When the three of them had arrived on the battle scene, they saw Sailor Jupiter protecting the young man who had apparently had his 'heart crystal' extracted. The monster of the week was rather unique looking like a female version of 'The Rhino' with crystal projections all over its body. The battle with the daemon was difficult at first, but then the Jovian Paladin figured out an attack plan to kill the daemon which involved her and him double-teaming the daemon.
After the monster was taken care of, she and everyone else began to look for the heart crystal. They found it in the hands of Sailors Uranus and Neptune who were scanning the crystal for some reason. When Uranus saw the Jovian Paladin, she saw red and attacked him with a World Shaking. Jovian Paladin dodged the attack, stole the heart crystal from Neptune, and then said "You two need to cool off." Jovian Paladin then launched a 'Europa Enhancing Eruption' at the two dazed outer scouts. The ball of energy hit the two Scouts and sent them flying off into the sky ala Team Rocket.
Sailor Mars then immediately started digging into Jovian Paladin demanding to know why he was daring to attack scouts. He had, in a rather amusing tone to Usagi, said, "What do you mean how dare I attack them? They attacked me first! Besides, I only used a low power Europa Enhancing Eruption. They should be landing in Tokyo bay any second now and you can't deny that they need to cool off." Usagi had to admit to herself, that she had almost busted out laughing right then and there the scene was so funny.
Usagi got out of her thoughts when she saw that Ami was getting up. Each of them took turns getting ready of the day in the bathroom down the hall before they headed downstairs for breakfast. When the girls got downstairs, they found Shingo talking about the latest Sailor Scout news to the parents, "-And the Scouts have this new guy who helps them out. I have heard a rumor going around that he's Sailor Moon's new boyfriend. If he is Sailor Moon's boyfriend, then he is definitely an upgrade over the penguin." Ami turned her head just in time to catch a faint embarrassed blush on Usagi's face.
Usagi managed to cover up her blush and said walking into the room, "And just who are you talking about squirt?" At this Shingo shot a glare at Usagi, who was sitting down, and replied, "I was talking about the Jovian Paladin sis; don't you keep up on the latest news in town? A lot of the guys at my school are ecstatic that he's shown up. It's about time that a decent male hero showed up in town. That Tuxedo guy was just an embarrassment to the male gender with his pansy cheerleader routine."
At this Ikuko shot Shingo a glare and said, "Shingo! You know that I don't tolerate that kind of language in my house. Still, it is go to see that Sailor Moon and her friends have someone there to help them. Those poor girls just have too much ridding on them having to defend this city from all these monsters that show up. It's such a shame that there isn't anyone else to help them." Usagi, and to a lesser extent Ami, was quite glad to hear that Mrs. Tuskino worried about the scouts and wished that the scouts didn't have to do the things they did.
Usagi, wanting to find out what Shingo was thinking about the scout's newest ally, said between bites, "So Shrimp what's your take on the Jovian Paladin and his relationship to the scouts?" Shingo ignored the shot Usagi had taken at him and said, "I actually like him because he actually fights the various monsters like I said before. I think that he's a brother or cousin to Sailor Jupiter. I mean, his uniform has similar colors to her outfit and all of his attacks plus his name are connected to the Planet Jupiter. It makes more sense that he's a relative of Jupiter instead of her boyfriend like one of my classmates was saying. I mean, he's always been said to be far more protective of Moon than any other scout."
After that, the discussion changed to other topics and the girls focused on eating their breakfast. Usagi and Ami then said goodbye to everyone at the table before they headed out to school. At the, by now customary, meeting spot Usagi was pleasantly surprised to see Ryoga accompanying Ranma. As the four of them were walking down the sidewalks, duel file with Ranma and Usagi in the lead, Usagi inquired if Ryoga was going to start coming to school with them. At this Ranma replied that Ryoga was going to join now that he could find his way to the school.
Setsuna Meioh was sitting in her councilor's office trying to decide on a course of action. The Time Gates would clear up within two days provided that a temporal storm didn't suddenly develop. However Setsuna was afraid that, by the time she could actually use the Time Gates to find out all the facts on the situation, the situation would have grown completely out of control.
Not only was the group behind this latest round of daemon attacks getting more aggressive, but the scouts weren't unified! The fact that Uranus had launched an attack on the Jovian Paladin, whose name she had to learn from her students, when he had appeared to regain that heart crystal showed how bad the situation was getting. Fishing Uranus and Neptune out of Tokyo bay was so not how she had wanted to spend that evening.
Thinking over the situation, Setsuna could only come to one course of action. She would have to reveal herself to the princess. The only real place that Setsuna could figure for her to reveal herself to the princess would be here at school. She could have the school secretary call her up to visit. Setsuna even had a valid excuse, the attempted robbery and threat of rape from a few days ago. All anyone would think was that she, as the school councilor, was checking up on a student who had been through a potentially traumatic experience.
Setsuna phoned the school secretary's desk and had her request that Usagi come to the school councilor's office. Setsuna then busied herself with taking care of some paperwork while she waited for Usagi to come to her office. A few minutes latter, Setsuna heard a slightly nervous smile knocking on her door. Setsuna smiled and said in a calm voice, "Please come inside." On seeing Usagi nervously walk into her office Setsuna said in a comforting tone, "Sit down Usagi what we say here is just between the two of us. After all, I'm only here to help you."
Once Usagi was sitting down comfortably Setsuna started the questions needed for her official report. About fifteen minutes down the road Setsuna got the real reason for the visit and said, "How is this event affecting your abilities as Sailor Moon?" To Setsuna's pleasure Usagi immediately said without her body giving away her fear at possibly being discovered, "I'm afraid that I don't know what you're talking about Ms Meioh." Setsuna got up at this point and said, "I think that you do princess, Pluto Crystal Power, Make-Up!" Once the transformation was done, Setsuna sat down in her seat like nothing happened.
Usagi was gapping at the sight of her school counselor now in a sailor scout uniform calmly sitting down in front of her. When Usagi found her voice she stuttered out, "Y-you mean to tell me that you're a Sailor Scout?" At this Setsuna nodded before speaking, "That is correct princess. I would have helped you battle against the Dark Kingdom and the Black Moon Clan, but I needed to be by the Time Gates in order to protect them from our enemies possibly trying to use them."
At this Usagi nodded her head, it made sense that Setsuna hadn't been there before as she would have been busy defending the Time Gates. But Usagi had to wonder why Setsuna was revealing herself now and so asked. Setsuna responded by saying, "The reason why I'm appearing to you now is that this enemy is different than the others. They don't want to rule Earth as far as I can tell. Rather from what I've been able to find out about their goals they want to destroy Earth, or at least twist it into something that can't be recognized as Earth. They also either have no knowledge of the Time Gates or they don't see it as useful to their plans."
"To be honest Usagi, I am of greater use under your direct command fighting on Earth then I would be in protecting the Time Gates and using them to gather information." At this last remake Usagi said, "Uh Setsuna? What do you mean by using the Time Gates to gather information?" Setsuna was secretly pleased that Usagi was more thoughtful and aware then she had shown in the past.
"What I mean Usagi is that I can use the Time Gates to see the most probable major events in the upcoming few days. Now I can in no way 'read the future', but I can view the most probable events to happen in the next few days. Also, I can view the history of a person or a place accurately up until a few seconds to the present. However, thanks to all the time travel done by the Black Moon Clan from that particular possible future, the Time Gates are currently useless for gathering information. Can you tell me any important information as of your return from the future timeline of 'Crystal Tokyo', specifically revolving around your fights with the Daemons?"
Setsuna listened quietly and intently as Usagi told her tale to Setsuna. Setsuna was honestly surprised to find out that 'Little Nefy' had been reincarnated and that it was his reincarnation who was helping the Scouts. Setsuna was glad that a fighter of her 'little brother's' caliber had joined up with the inners. Usagi ended her recap with a single question, "What's with the other Outers and what are they after?"
Setsuna rubbed her temples and said, "Their currently looking for the talismans, three items of incredible power that we cannot allow to fall under the control of the group behind the daemons. I have one talisman with me and the other two are 'off the grid' so to speak. They know that the talismans were hidden within the Heart Crystals of two individuals. What I don't understand is why their endangering civilians by delaying the return of the civilians' Heart Crystals. I gave them a gemstone that will glow and point to a person holding a talisman within their Heart Crystals. Once you know who carry the talismans princes, you would only need to send a small spark of energy from the Silver Imperial Crystal to call the talismans from the Crystal without any damage to the barer whatsoever."
"To be honest Usagi, Uranus and Neptune are starting to really annoy me with Uranus being the biggest pain in my anus. They mean well don't get me wrong, but it seems like I'm more of their watcher than their teammate. We all need to work together in order to protect this world from the group attacking it and they insist on going it alone. I'm worried that when we find Saturn that one or both of them will try to kill Saturn due to Saturn being hailed as 'The Messiah of Death and Rebirth'."
Setsuna shook her head and said, "Let's get on to more constructive topics shall we? If you're wondering what power it was that, I believe you said their names were Ranma Saotome and Ryoga Hibiki, used in their fight the other day I can tell you. The energy is called 'Chi' and is something that all people naturally produce. In the time of the Silver Millennium it was quite common for the warriors of the Earth Kingdom to be able to manipulate Chi to form attacks and/or to greatly strengthen their bodies. I must admit that I was surprised when I was at the park to see that they were able to manipulate Chi as I thought the secrets had been lost."
Setsuna then got a deadly serious look in her eyes as she said, "Usagi, I want you to honestly consider revealing the identities of the Sailor Scouts to these boys. However, only do this if you trust them with you life. To be frank, all of the Scouts and you as well need training in your powers. Training that these boys can teach you, but they would need to know about your Scout powers in order to help train you. Also, you should talk to Nephelite's reincarnation and try to get his identity. Even if he requires that you alone know it, then at least you can reach him at any time. In the coming days I fear we will need all the help we can get to beat this coming evil."
It was the end of the school day and Usagi was walking out the door when she saw Ranma standing by a tree. Usagi then ran up to Ranma and smiled cheerfully asking him if they could walk through the park on their way home today. Ranma just shrugged his shoulders, agreed to her request, and started following her home. Ami was not heading over to the Tuskino household just yet because she had wanted to visit the library. Ami ended up walking next to Ryoga because he was going to the library was well.
Minako saw this and screamed to the heavens, "THAT'S TWO HUNKS NOW THAT HAVE PASSED ME UP!" Minako then pulled out a fancy Texas Instrument Calculator and started pressing buttons on it while talking to herself, "Let's see, take the total number of men in the world, factor in the percentage that are single, divide that by the number of men who are gay to the 4th power of the number of hot men…" Matoko turned to Rei and said, "She can do all of that to figure out her chances of getting a date, but she can't figure out how to work with binomials?" Rei just sighed and said, "I'm a fortune teller, not a psychic."
Meanwhile, Ranma and Usagi were calmly walking back towards there homes. If one could read their minds they would have seen that both were on the same track of thought. "Should I reveal my identity as Sailor Moon/Jovian Paladin to Jovian Paladin/Sailor Moon? What if he/she is someone I don't like? What about the other Scouts? Could I live with myself if the other Scouts don't like what I've done/who I am?"
Ranma and Usagi both broke out of their thoughts when they heard crying coming from behind a bush in the park. The two turned to each other and looked into each other's eyes. They could both see that they didn't want to leave whoever it was that was crying without at least trying to help. They both nodded their heads at the same time, Usagi with a sweet smile on her face and Ranma with a grin on his face. They turned and walked into the park to head towards the bush.
Once they could see past the bush, Ranma and Usagi saw a black haired girl kneeling on the ground crying her eyes out. She was about 13 or 14 years old and had on a black dress. Usagi's heart started to break at the sight of the girl crying and Ranma was uncomfortable as he hated to see girls cry. Usagi quietly walked over to stand in front of the crying girl. Ranma follow her but stood a few feet behind Usagi and was leaning against the trunk of a tree.
Usagi got down on her knees and softly whispered, "Who are you and why are you crying?" The girl's crying seemed to become interrupted as she realized that someone was talking to her. The girl raised her head a bit and found herself looking into Usagi's blue eyes with her violet ones. Fighting back the tears the girl said, "My name's Hotaru Tomoe. I'm crying because no one wants to be my friend as they think that I'm too strange."
This sad fact went like a knife straight to Usagi's heart. If there was one pain of the heart that Usagi didn't like to hear about it was the pain of loneliness. Usagi was a naturally caring girl that could rather easily make friends, so the idea of someone being left alone was wrong to her. Usagi liked to take care of this problem by become said person's friend.
While looking straight into Hotaru's eyes Usagi said, "Your not alone now, I'll be your friend." Ranma, who had been letting Usagi work her magic, then leaned forward from his spot by the tree and said, "I'll be your friend as well Hotaru." Ranma, while not the most sensitive of men, was very familiar with the pain of loneliness and didn't want another to suffer it if he could help them.
Hotaru looked back and forth between Usagi and Ranma, staring into their eyes to try and see any deception. All she saw was compassion and worry in Usagi's eyes and concern in Ranma's eyes. Her heart leapt at the fact that two people were willing to offer her friendship. But then a voice in the back of her mind whispered that they would never accept her if they knew about her strange ability. With pain in her voice Hotaru said, "You don't want to be my friend. No one does after they see my ability."
At this Ranma raised his eyebrow and said, "Oh? And what ability would that be little girl because I've see a lot of weird things." Hotaru looked down and quietly, although Ranma and Usagi could still hear her, mumbled out "I can heal people by just touching them." Ranma and Usagi both blinked their eyes before Ranma said, "You can heal people just by touching them and the people are afraid of you for that? What kinds of brain dead fools live by your house?! Having the ability to heal injuries like that is something I would want to have." Usagi nodded her head and said, "Your gift is something to be respected not feared."
Hotaru just couldn't believe her ears at what she was hearing the two people in front of her say. They thought that her ability was to be respected? The boy actually wanted to be able to do what she could? Hotaru just sat there for a second while her mind tried to handle this shocking information. Soon Hotaru gave a faint smile before she tackled Usagi in as strong of a hug as she could.
Usagi looked up at Ranma who had moved into her field of view. Usagi could see the smile in Ranma's eye as he gazed down at her holding, the now crying in happiness, Hotaru. Usagi felt her cheeks flush a bit as she looked onto her friend as he stood there with his arms across his chest softly looking at her. Right then and there Usagi knew that things were looking up for her. She may have a lot of trouble from the source of the daemons and from the two maverick scouts, but Usagi knew in her heart that everything would eventually be alright.
Author's Notes: So now the Scouts have met with Hotaru. I hope you like Mouse's pure Chi attack. Please note that the only things that I'm borrowing from Naruto are: the Shadow Clone technique, the twin rising dragon technique (Tenten's final attack in the Chunin exams), and the Shadow Clone Kunai technique. In the next chapter, The Death Busters change their plans and The Scouts need some back up. Will Ranma be able to find a way to deliver the much needed help? And will Ranma's secret identity be able to remain a secret? Find out next time with the next Chapter of Prince of the Planets!