Currently Ranma was at one of the local gyms working out in one of the indoor basketball courts. While martial arts weren't the center of Ranma's universe anymore he did like to keep in shape and to practice martial arts. Sure Ranma wasn't a member of the small group of super elite martial artists anymore, but he was still better then over 90 of the martial artists on the planet. Besides it was his mother's suggestion that he keep his skills up and Ranma wasn't about to go against his mother on this issue.
As Ranma finished a very complex kata he heard several people start to clap. Ranma looked around and saw about two dozen people standing in different areas of the court congratulating him for demonstrating such skill. All of this praise quickly caused Ranma to start blushing. Having people congratulate him for his level of skill was something that Ranma wasn't used to. Back in Nerima Ranma had shown off a higher level of skill then he had today and the people of Nerima hadn't even batted an eye. It made Ranma wonder what these people would think about his old battles in Nerima back before Saffron.
Ranma really should have remembered to be careful about wishes because he got what he asked for. Just as Ranma grabbed his towel to dry the sweat off of himself the left section of the rear wall exploded. Everyone on the basketball court, including Ranma immediately, fell to the floor to avoid the shrapnel. Almost everyone thought that a bomb had gone off, but Ranma immediately started to look around for Ryoga. This seemed like Ryoga's typical entrance stunt and Ranma didn't believe for a second that he had been able to completely wash his hands of the Nerima mess.
Just as Ranma had expected Ryoga was standing in the middle of the new hole in the gym wall with a blank look on his face. Ranma fully expected the lost boy to soon cry out, "Where on Earth am I?" However, before Ryoga could scream out his usual words one of the girls that were in the gym screamed out in terror. Ranma quickly pinpointed the girl who screamed and hurriedly followed her gaze to see what had shocked the airhead out of the stupor that Ryoga's entrance had cause.
When Ranma saw what had caused the girl to scream his heart leapt into his throat. One of the regulars at the gym was lying dead on the ground with a piece of metal shrapnel sticking out of the back of the man's skull. As Ranma stared at the man's body every encounter he ever had with Ryoga flashed through his mind. The lunch fights at the middle school, the first encounter in Nerima, that time when Ryoga first used the Shi Shi Hokodan, every single moment. Finally Ranma's mind came back to the present and Ranma had only one thought on his mind. For everyone's safety Ryoga needed to be taken down.
It wasn't that Ryoga was an evil person, but the boy was a danger to everyone around him. The problem was that Ranma couldn't ever remember an instant when Ryoga had paid attention to his surrounding during a fight. Back in Nerima there had been hundreds of cases where an innocent had nearly been severely injured because of a martial arts battle among the members of the NWC. While there were a few times when Ranma had nearly hurt an onlooker, those times were few and far between do to the effort he put in to not get others involved in his fights. Ryoga and Mousse had the most number of times where they almost hurt an innocent and unlike Mousse Ryoga didn't have horrible vision as an excuse. The lost boy just didn't seem able to keep track of his surroundings in a fight.
Back in Nerima when he had still been an immature child, Ranma hadn't really given much thought about Ryoga's inability to keep track of his surroundings. It had all been like a game to Ranma back then and he had childishly assumed that no one would be permanently hurt at the end of the day. Saffron had forced Ranma to realize just how dangerous the NWC's 'games' really were. Ranma could not pretend that his daily fights were just games ever since his hands were stained with Saffron's blood.
Now Ryoga's hands were stained with blood as well, but Ranma saw the fundamental difference between him and his old friend. Ranma's kill was because it was the only way that he had left to save Akane's life since Saffron would not allow Akane to get the water to save her life. Ryoga's kill was because the lost boy had decided to use the Bakusai Tenketsu to make a doorway and someone had been the way of the resulting shrapnel. It was pure and simple manslaughter without any mitigating circumstances or possible justification.
Ranma immediately stood up and roared out to Ryoga, "You murderer! Were you thinking at all when you used the Bakusai Tenketsu Ryoga? Thanks to your recklessness an innocent man is dead."
Ryoga was shocked to his core when he heard someone calling him a murderer. He wasn't a murderer; he had never killed anyone in his life and he rarely killed animals in the wild for food. When Ryoga heard the person who had accused him mention his name his recognized Ranma's voice. Ryoga had turned to face Ranma to deny his rival's claims when he saw Ranma's eyes. Instead of Ranma's normal friendly eyes that Ryoga was expecting, he was greeted by a hard piercing gaze that promised untold pain. Even though Ryoga knew that he could beat Ranma in a fight now that the pigtail boy couldn't use Chi, Ryoga was starting to fear for his life.
In a chilling tone that reminded Ryoga of the battle with Saffron Ranma said, "You've gone too far this time Ryoga. Thanks to your disregard for your surroundings Yasutora Yamaki is dead and there is no one but you Rygoa to blame for that. I can't let you just 'get lost' Ryoga, justice must be served. Since you can escape a high level prison just by using that technique of yours I'll have to insure that you can't use it ever again."
As soon as Ranma said that he closed his eyes and summoned a tiny portion of his mana. Do to how much power was needed for this spell and Ranma's still relatively poor control he had to concentrate on not getting swept away by the mana. A small dark blue ball of energy quickly formed in Ranma's right hand while the eclipse on Ranma's forehead started blinking like crazy. Ranma then opened his eyes and looked at Ryoga before he pointed his right hand at the boy. In a cold voice Ranma said, "Corrosive Shackle Shot!"
The sphere of mana shot out of Ranma's hand and hit Ryoga causing the lost boy to scream out in agony. Corrosive Shackle Shot was a rather nasty advance low-level spell that had been created on Nemesis to be used on dangerous criminals. It rendered a person's hands useless by fusing the fingers together while warping the bone structure of the hands. According to Sapphire the spell wasn't forbidden because it could be blocked by a basic defensive spell and the damage was easily reversible with a medium level healing spell.
Of course, Ryoga wasn't using a basic defensive spell so when the Corrosive Shackle Shot struck him it instantly fused his fingers and warped his hands. Do to the mangled state Ryoga's hands were in the boy would never be able to use his hands again unless someone used a healing spell to correct the damage. While Ryoga was staring at his useless hands Ranma was directing another member of the class to call the police so that Ryoga could be brought in for manslaughter.
Ranma was walking down the streets of Shinjuku with a depressed look on his face. Ever since Mr. Yamaki's death last week, Ranma had been confronted with several tough choices. Luckily none of those choices involved the government. No one in the police force wanted to touch a case involving high level martial artists and magic. Unlike the police in Nerima, the guys at the local police station didn't have the option of pretending that the disturbance never happened because of Mr. Yamaki's death. So once the police had arrived and found out what had happened, they proceeded to create a cover story.
Officially Ryoga had used a bomb to blow a whole in the wall of the gym which caused Mr. Yamaki's death. Ranma, at least according to the police's version of events, had used a small can of pepper spray to stun Ryoga until the police had arrived. The damage to Ryoga's hands was caused by Ryoga getting caught in the aforesaid bomb's explosion. Any weird lights that some people reported seeing were said to be the result of sparks from the damaged electrical wiring and adrenaline. Naturally the tabloids published what actually happened on the basketball court, but that just meant that most people believed the official version of events more firmly. Even the weirdoes that frequented the gym who had witnessed everything attested to the police's version of events.
No, the choices that were haunting Ranma were of a more personal nature and those choices involved his powers. Just why was he studying to use his magic so hard? Ranma couldn't claim it was for self-defense like he could in Nerima because the skills he had now were more then enough to protect him from most threats. He also couldn't claim that he was doing it just to control his magic. That could be done without studying higher level spells at all. At this point Ranma could use meditation to eventually insure that his magic never got the better of him. So why was he so driven to learn how to use his magic when there was the chance that he could abuse it like Ryoga had abused martial arts?
In the end Ranma found that there two reasons why he was so driven to learn to use magic. The first reason was rather childish in that Ranma wanted to learn to use magic because he had mentally transferred his drive to be the best martial artist to being the best magician. Luckily the second reason was a little nobler. Ranma had frequently used his martial arts and the physical skills he had developed from martial arts in the past to help people out. Usually Ranma forgot who he had helped out or how he had helped, but the joyful feeling that helping someone in need brought to him remained with him. Ranma wanted to be able to help people out again and magic was the way that he could help them out now that he was an 'ordinary' martial artist.
Ranma was snapped of his mental pity party by his curse activating. She rolled her eyes and continued to walk down the streets. One thing about living in a 'normal' ward like Shinjuku that Ranma loved was the fact that no one believed that she was under a curse. Everyone who saw Ranma's curse in action simply assumed that their eyes were playing tricks on them. It was so much easier the average person to believe that they hadn't seen Ranma change genders then to be confronted with the fact that magic existed. At least, it was better then being treated like a freak because of the curse.
Chibiusa was walking down the street staring intently at the small device in her hand. Anyone who saw her would simply assume that she was playing one of those new handheld games that had recently come out. However, the Moon Magitec console was not a handheld game console. It was a highly advance tracking system that could locate anything within a twenty mile radius as long as it had a sample or an energy pattern stored to know what to look for. And it could play any handheld videogame that would ever exist in the 20th century, Neo-Queen Serenity had been funding it's creation after all.
Right now Chibiusa was busy trying to use the Moon Magitec to locate the missing prince of Nemesis. Thanks to that tabloid article she had spotted yesterday in the supermarket Chibiusa knew that there was a magician living in Shinjuku. Given the fact that Shinjuku and Juuban were relatively close together and that warped hands sounded like a chaos spell, Chibiusa figured this was the place to look for the prince. The Moon Magitec supported Chibiusa's hypothesis because she had a lock on the prince using his magic's residual frequency that was left on his droid's dust.
There was a small smirk on Chibiusa's face as she looked at the Moon Magitec display screen. According to the readout the prince was just on the other side of the wall she was walking by. Chibiusa was so close to success that could taste it. However, when Chibiusa turned the corner and saw who was behind the wall she let out a loud "Huh?"
Instead of seeing a boy or a man like the princess had expected she saw a busty red head sitting on a bench by the wall. This didn't make any sense! Nemesis had a missing prince, not a missing princess. Even if the person described in that tabloid article wasn't the prince, the article had clearly stated that the magician had been a boy. The Moon Magitec shouldn't be pointing to that girl at all. Chibiusa looked down at the readout, then at the girl, and glanced back to the readout. According to the Moon Magitec, and Chibiusa and double-checked to make sure it was scanning for magic along the Black Moon Clan's usual energy frequency, the Nemesian prince was right in front of her where that girl was.
Just as Chibiusa was about to throw the Moon Magitec on the ground in frustration Ranma got up and walked towards Chibiusa. Ranma placed a hand on Chibiusa's shoulder and said, "Something wrong little girl?"
Naturally, Chibiusa jumped up in fright when she heard Ranma speak to her. As soon as Chibiusa landed back on her feet she glared at Ranma and said, "Don't do that! Do you realize how much you startled me?"
Ranma scratched the back of her head and said, "Sorry about startling you. It's just that you looked like something was really bothering you. Does it have something to do with your videogame?"
Chibiusa blinked her eyes for a second and then she realized that the girl in front of her must be referring to the Moon Magitec. At that point Chibiusa realized that she had dropped the Moon Magitec and quickly started looking around for it. The future princess let out a load groan when she found the Moon Magitec and saw that it was broken. Chibiusa turned to glare at Ranma and said, "Great, just great! Thanks to you startling me, my Moon Magitec is ruined." To emphasis her point Chibiusa picked up the future device and shoved its cracked screen into Ranma's face.
Ranma immediately hung her head when she saw the ruined Moon Magitec. She hadn't meant to ruin the girl's toy when she asked the girl if something was wrong. In an effort to try and make up for causing the device to be destroyed Ranma said, "Sorry about that little girl. I just wanted to see if you were alright. My name's Ranko Tohno and would you like to go get some ice cream? It's the least I can do to make up for causing your toy to be ruined."
Now Chibiusa was a very dedicated girl when it came to Scout business. Compared to the Inners it was almost impossible for something to distract Chibiusa from trying to follow her mission. However, Chibiusa had just had a major blow to her ego since she hadn't found the prince of Nemesis and the only tool she had available to help in her search had just been destroyed. This loss of self-esteem and equipment lead to Chibiusa accepting Ranma's offer of ice cream. Chibiusa looked up at Ranma and said, "Okay Ranko. By the way, my name's Chibiusa."
The two new acquaintances quickly found an ice cream parlor and Ranma expertly netted two very generous servings of ice cream for both of them. When Chibiusa watched Ranma scam the extra ice cream out of the poor counter boy she couldn't help but giggle. If Usagi, or any of the other Inners for that matter, could see how Ranko was working the counter boy then she would have begged Ranko for lessons. Once Ranma had both servings of ice cream in hand she quickly led Chibiusa to one of the corner booths so they could eat.
While Chibiusa and Ranma were eating their ice cream they naturally started talking. Both of them stuck to rather light subjects and carefully avoided saying anything that might indicate that they were anything other then normal girls. By the time Chibiusa and Ranma finished their ice cream they had become friends. This wasn't really surprising since both of them secretly wanted to have a friend. After another half hour of talking, Chibiusa left the ice cream parlor to head back home. In her hand was a small scrap of paper with Ranma's phone number in it.
Setsuna and Sailor Pluto were sitting in Setsuna's Charon Castle drinking some tea. Today was their weekly meeting to see how things were developing in both of their timelines. After sipping some tea Setsuna said, "So how are things coming with finding that heart crystal snatching gun?"
Sailor Pluto gave her younger self a knowing smile and said, "Oh it's been found. However, Neo-Queen Serenity has decided that the gun isn't to be handed over to you just yet. She states that Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune need to learn to work with their teammates before they can receive their talismans. Considering that the Outers in 30th century are dead because they insisted on working by themselves and were killed do to their lone wolf attitudes, I have to agree with the Neo-Queen. Since that Death Busters' plan won't move forward until they have the Holy Grail we can wait a bit for the talismans to be retrieved."
After listening to her future analogue Setsuna said, "While I agree with you that Haruka and Michiru need to learn to work with the Inners, why now? What I mean is why can't you tell me where the Death Busters are based at? Surely the Inners and Outers could learn to work together after this mess is all over? Training is best carried out when a war isn't happening."
With a small shake of her head Sailor Pluto said, "I'm not allowed to reveal the Death Busters' location to you. As dangerous as the Death Busters are, they are relatively harmless to the civilian population compared to possible future enemies the Sailor Scouts will have to face. The Scouts, both Inner and Outer, need more training if they are to handle some future threats that came up in my timeline may come up do to the divergence. It may sound callous and cold hearted of me, but the Death Busters need to continue to fight the Scouts so that the Scouts can be better trained."
Sailor Pluto looked Setsuna in the eye and said, "I know that neither of us want to see the Scouts and especially the princess hurt in battle. However, we can't protect them from every enemy that shows up and they need to learn to defend themselves. It would be one thing if the girls were willing to train in their powers, but we know that none of the other Scouts will train. At the moment all of them wish that they can just be 'normal' girls and won't touch their powers unless someone is under attack."
As much as Setsuna hated to admit it, her future self was correct. Still, that didn't make this tough love situation any easier for her to deal with. Setsuna then switched subjects and said, "I got a report from Chibiusa an hour ago. Apparently she used a Moon Magitec to track down the unknown Chaos magic user who helped out a few days ago. Chibiusa wasn't able to find the Nemesian prince, but she did find a young Chaos mage named Ranko Tohno. Does that name ring a bell?"
In very dignified manner Sailor Pluto replied, "That name doesn't ring a bell. I know Small Lady wouldn't lie about such a matter, but I just don't remember any mage by that name living in Japan in your time. When I head back to Crystal Tokyo I'll check the historical records. Perhaps Ranko Tohno lived in some other part of the world and her appearing in Tokyo is just an example of the butterfly effect as events in our two timelines continue to change."
"On the other hand there is a possibility that Ranko Tohno is from Nemesis. The Nemesian Senate provided us with very scant information about the missing prince. It's possible that Miss Tohno is part of a group that was sent back in time with the prince to watch over him or is the daughter of a member of such a group. This would explain why the Moon Magitec indicated that Miss Tohno created a Black Moon Clan style droid. Those things weren't developed until the 2300s. Before then the people of Nemesis used Youma style summons like the Dark Kingdom."
With the important issues of their meeting out of the way, both guardians of time started to talk about the latest gossip they had heard. One benefit of having their timelines permanently synchronized that they had found was having someone they could talk to. Having such a long life and witnessing so many critical moments in history meant that both of them had trouble talking with normal people. It wasn't like they could find anyone off the street to talk about how Alexander the Great was as a boyfriend verses Attila the Hun.
Ranma sat at the desk in his study room carefully reading one of many pieces of paper strewn all over his desk and spilling onto the floor. The various pages all over the place represented Ranma's current magical knowledge and some of his ideas on how to use magic in the future. Ranma had started writing all of this stuff down so that he could have something to reference back to while he was awake since Sapphire could only talk to him in his sleep. At the moment Ranma was wishing that he had taken the time to organize all of these pages instead of just leaving them in piles on his desk. Well, that was something he could correct later.
Eventually Ranma found the pages that he wanted and shouted out in success. Ranma then started to read his badly written, but still legible and through, notes. Mostly the notes Ranma was looking at dealt with magical armor and magical enhancement. A few of the notes were on droid construction and some relatively advance magical equations. For the next several hours Ranma carefully studied his notes and tried to see if his idea could actually work.
After dealing with Ryoga accidentally killing Mr. Yamaki and realizing his own reasons for continuing to learn magic, Ranma had decided that he needed to start using his powers to help people. Sure Ranma could help other people out as a normal person in some cases like his chance meeting with Chibiusa showed. However, Ranma knew from personal experience that there were things out there that needed to be taken care of that couldn't be handled by ordinary means.
Speaking of Chibiusa, Ranma found his new friend very intriguing. Chibiusa was a lot smarter and knowledgeable then Ranma had expected a ten year old girl to be. Not that Ranma really knew how a typical ten year old girl acted, but that was beside the point. Besides Chibiusa's intelligence and maturity, there was something else about Chibiusa that interested Ranma. At times when they were eating their ice cream Ranma had noticed a faint 'ghost' image of what looked like an older version of Chibiusa overlaying his preteen friend.
Now Ranma didn't know what all of these oddities Chibiusa had meant and frankly he didn't really care. She could be a little girl cursed to turn into an adult at odd times, an adult that had been transformed into a little girl or something else entirely. The kami knew that Ranma had seen plenty of people who had strange magical conditions. If Chibiusa fell into that category Ranma wouldn't have complained at all. Besides, it would be hypocritical of him to complain about Chibiusa hiding a magical condition from him when she only knew him in his female form.
Returning to the present, Ranma cleared his desk of every paper except for the ones he had been reading. Once the desk was clear Ranma set his notes on the desk and he pulled out a black sheet. Then with more focus then many people back in Nerima would have expected Ranma carefully began to work through some equations to make sure that his idea would work. The idea seemed sound and was supported by his notes, but Ranma wanted to make sure.
According to Sapphire, most mages who went into battle used magical armor and sometimes magical attacks that were crafted for their armor. The Sailor Scouts were one example of these armored magical warriors out of dozens that Sapphire could have named. One fact that connected all types of magical warriors was the fact that the normal method for empowering them was currently far beyond Ranma's current abilities as a mage. He might be able to create a talisman to grant him a few minor abilities, but any abilities would still have placed him at the lower rungs of his former associates' power levels.
So like Ranma did when he had faced off against Ryoga and the Shi Shi Hakudan, he approached gaining magical armor in a completely different manner. Instead of trying to weave several different complex spells into an outfit at once to make his magical armor Ranma was planning to create an actual suit of body armor. Each piece of the armor would have a single enchantment on it. These pieces would then be combined in his suit of armor to have the kind of effects that the normal method of creating magical armor granted people.
If Sapphire had been able to talk to Ranma the echo would have told the boy that such attempts had been attempted in the past. Those attempts had all been abandoned do to the headache that trying to integrate all of different enchanted pieces into a single outfit brought. However, this is where Ranma's bizarre luck and his ability to pull a new unexpected technique out of no where came in. Instead of just placing the enchantments on something like an earring, Ranma was planning to use droid creation techniques to create a suit of body armor. The only real enchanting Ranma was planning on doing was to create a body suit that would connect the various armor pieces together and allowing the pieces to reinforce each other.
It was a completely revolutionary way at approaching magical armor and from Ranma's calculations it would work. What really made Ranma's mouth water was the fact that his preliminary plans and calculations show that he could add a special system to his magical armor suit that would allow him to control his full magical ability. Not only would Ranma's armor allow him to actively fight against threats, but he could do it without losing control of his magic. Sure he'd still have to watch his magic whenever he used it in his 'civilian' form, but at least he'd have one less thing to worry about in battle. With his hair-brained idea confirmed, Ranma immediately set about designing what his armor would do so he could make it.