Chapter 19: Sailor Akane!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
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"I bring item you request," the supplier said. He unloaded his cart at the rear door to the Nekohanten, checking his invoice. "Soy sauce. Hot oil. Dried mussel..."
Ranma came up the alley and hefted a crate. "These are for me."
Cologne looked at the label on the crate. "Kairaishi mushrooms? What would you need those for?"
"Medicine. For an old man," he said with an evil grin.
"Oh yes," Cologne said, sharing the grin. "Something to help him sleep..."
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"You can actually see the future?" Ami asked. "That's how you ace tests? It sounds like the ultimate cheat-sheet!"
Ryo looked uncomfortable. "I'm trying not to use it that way. I mean... it helps when I'm not certain what an answer is, but I study hard to know the answers like I should. If I rely on it too much, I wouldn't be learning anything, and school would be just a waste of time." He looked down, trying to keep his eyes off of her. "I don't have full control, anyway. I see other things... daily events. People I meet. I've dreamed of you for a long time."
"Me?"
"Yes. I looked up to you as an ace student. I wanted to be like you, so I studied hard. But also... I've seen things about you..."
"You know I'm Sailor Mercury."
Ryo nodded. "And I know there's an evil man after me. He's going to try to turn me to evil, like him. I won't do it. I'd die before that happens."
"It happens tomorrow."
Ryo suddenly looked confused, then put a hand to his head. "Owww!"
"Are you all right?" Ami asked.
"I've been getting visions racing very fast lately... and sudden headaches. I think it's the evil man trying to block my power."
"No. It's one of us. Sailor Pluto."
"Sailor... Pluto? I don't think she's been in the press..."
"She keeps a low profile. She has a power like yours, she sees the future. What you're getting is feedback. Your power is conflicting with hers."
Understanding lit his face. "Ohhh. So it happens when I try to out-predict her?"
Ami nodded. She pulled a folded paper out of her book bag. "Read this, when you can. It has everything on it. It may hurt to read, but you can get through it if you try." She started to walk away, then turned back. "Hang in there, Ryo-kun. Everything will get better soon." She headed down the street.
Ryo retired to a park and unfolded the note. It was in Ami's handwriting. It told of his inner demon, the Rainbow Crystal, the need to get it out in order to cleanse him. And it told him what to do when the time came.
It was, as Ami said, a headache to read. But he strangely felt more hopeful than he had in weeks. He knew he could trust the Senshi. And he wanted to get to know Ami better.
Ryo went home to get some asprin and rest. He would need to be ready for tomorrow.
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"How I have awaited this day..." Happosai gloated as he sat down to eat his bowl of noodles. "How I've wanted this! Just one bowl... and I am invincible!"
The rest of the household sat down to dinner unsuspecting. Ranma seemed totally unaware of what Happosai had gotten hold of this past week. Now he could really teach the boy a lesson!
Unfortunately for him, as so often happened, he was betrayed by his own nature. The nightly news had just finished; the entertainment-focused program that came after now began showing a special segment. A swimsuit segment.
Everyone else in the house settled down to their own noodles, a more mundane recipe made by Kasumi. As it happened, Akane was sitting next to Happosai, and grabbed the wrong bowl of noodles. He, of course, did not notice until it was too late.
The rest of the family noticed it soon enough. Akane merely set her bowl down on the table. The force of the tap was now enough not only to break the table, but collapse the floor supports.
Happosai fixed Akane in his gaze, seeing her with his bowl. "So... it was YOU! You're the one who ate my Super Soba!"
The rest of the family was hard to convince. "Noodles that make you super strong?" Soun said. "How preposterous."
"The floor must've had dry rot," Ranma suspected. Though given the magic he had seen since getting cursed, he wasn't so sure.
"Well, this is an old house..." Kasumi admitted.
"Oh, well, no use crying over slurped soba," Happosai sighed. He leapt at Akane. "Just let me have a good cry in your bosom and I'll forgive you!"
"Oh, please. Don't you ever stop?" Akane held out a hand to block him. The force of the rebound threw him through the TV.
Akane looked down at her hands. "Wow. Maybe I really AM super!"
This smelled too fishy to Ranma. What were the odds that during the week he could not fight alongside the Senshi, not only because of Happosai but also the involvement of another prophet, Akane would get super-powered? Because there was on doubt what she would want to do. "The old man must be just playing with you," he said. "Come on. Arm wrestle me."
They got in stance. "Ready... set... GO!" WHAM. Hole in the floor.
After half a dozen defeats, he began to think someone up there hated him. He tried his best to divert her thinking. "Maybe you can break a few of the Furinkan sports records..."
Akane shook her head. "Come on, Ranma! I'm a super-hero now! I should be out there fighting monsters with the Sailor Senshi! What planet should I be?"
"All the planets are taken," Ranma said, holding his reservations about Saturn. "You'll have to be an asteroid."
"An asteroid? No way! I'll find something in the school library tomorrow! Kasumi, can you help me make a costume?"
"Of course, Akane. You'd look good in red..."
Ranma sighed. It looked like the bad guys were going to win this one.
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"This sucks!" Usagi whined. "We don't know ANYTHING about this battle!"
"Consider yourself lucky we know who they're going after next," Rei said. "That isn't exactly nothing, odango atama."
"But we don't know WHEN it's happening! Or WHERE! Or what kind of youma Zoicite will bring! Or where they're going to be..."
"Can it, Usagi! It's because of Ryo's power. We'll just have to make do."
"It is going to be a tough fight," Luna said. "Without the sort of detailed information Sailor Pluto can provide, we have to be ready for anything. I just wish we had and extra Senshi to help out..."
"You've got one!" said a strange voice from the door. All eyes turned to see Ukyo, Shampoo, and an umfamiliar girl in a red fuku similar to Mars' coming in.
"Sorry, guys," Ukyo said, hanging her head. "She insisted."
"Who are you?" Usagi asked.
"And where do you get off using MY colors?" Rei demanded.
Akane struck a pose. "I am the lovely sailor-suited avenger, Sailor Titan!"
"Sailor Titan?" the Inner Senshi all said together.
"Guys, meet Akane Tendo," Ukyo said, indicating with her hand. "One of the girls Ranchan is saying with."
"Oo, that family that his father is trying to marry him off to?" Usagi said. "So are you going to be the one?"
Akane gave an angry look. "There's no way I'd marry a jerk like him!"
"Jerk? He hasn't been so bad..." Usagi said.
"Don't bother," Ukyo said. "You had to be there..."
"So what kind of attack do you have?" Makoto asked.
Akane demonstrated a few karate moves. "I can break 6 cinder blocks!"
The Senshi sweatdropped. "Uhmm... we were thinking more of a super power," Usagi said.
"I'm super strong!" She went into the yard and hefted a few boulders in each hand.
"She meant MAGIC powers!" Luna said.
"What? You're getting picky? Super strength is a power! Just like Superman!"
"Superman is weak against magic enemies..." Rei mumbled.
"Forget it," Ukyo said. "We've been trying to tell her..."
"Violent girl no listen," Shampoo said. "Just hit."
"Well, maybe she can punch Zoicite out," Makoto said hopefully.
"Hmmm..." Luna wondered. "does he have anything to say about what strategy we should use?"
Ukyo shook her head. "Ranchan still can't see the details."
Shampoo handed over a sheet. "Great-grandmother give this."
The Senshi looked over the strategy written in Ukyo's handwriting, dictated by Cologne. It was not as detailed as one of Ranma's, but they were expecting that. "We can do this," Usagi said confidently. "You guys ready? Akane, you ready?"
"I'm always ready!" Akane made a fist.
"Let's go!"
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The wait was agonizing. Ryo had been waiting on the top level of the parking structure for over an hour. It was about the right time of night for Zoicite to show up, but he didn't know any more than that. Sailor Pluto, he was told, would have known to the second when, and to the inch where, Zoicite would appear. But because of HIM, Ryo Urawa, she couldn't know tonight. The heroes would have to be heroes on their own.
He tried to study for school, looking a little odd for studying in such a place. He couldn't get past the worry that there might not BE school for him tomorrow. Or worse, that he would show up and kill his friends and classmates.
He looked at the surrounding rooftops. The Senshi had said they were going to spread out around the area to cover all angles. Zoicite would appear above him, with youma to help, and the battle would be joined.
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"You had better not fail this time, Zoicite," Beryl said.
"I will have the Rainbow Crystal at the cost of my life, my queen," the general said, and saluted. He joined his selected youma and extended his teleportation power to encompass them. They all disappeared in a shower of petals.
They arrived in Tokyo on the roof of a tall building with a commanding view of the city. Zoicite produced the Dark Crystal and charged it with energy, allowing it to search out the next Rainbow Crystal carrier. An ordinary-looking schoolboy appeared. He began narrowing the location down.
Beryl had ordered him not to use the Dark Crystal until actually in Tokyo, ready to move. Only she and he knew of these orders. It pained Zoicite that even his beloved Kunzite had been kept in the dark about Beryl's plan. No one, even Kunzite, was above suspicion in her eyes. If Zoicite failed this time, in similar fashion, she would kill him and give Kunzite the job. No doubt she would think Kunzite's love was a sham to divert suspicion, and that Kunzite saw him as just another rival to plot against.
He pushed such thoughts from his mind. This crystal WOULD be theirs. Beryl would be pleased. All they had to do was get there before the Senshi could. It would be helpful if the carrier were far away, out of the Senshi's usual range, so that there would be no time for them to arrive. But the carrier would be where it was; they had to prepare in case it was in the Senshi's area.
It was. The boy seemed to be waiting on a parking structure. If the Senshi had some way to tap the crystal, they would be on their way now. But Zoicite would be faster yet. He teleported again with his youma in position.
They arrived in a circle around the boy. Zoicite raised a barrier of wind this time, the youma just outside it, facing outward, scanning for threats. He wasted no words on the boy, who stared at him as if knowing who he was and what was about to happen. He produced the crystal and exposed the boy to its emanations; the yellow Rainbow Crystal appeared and floated into his hand.
Outside the barrier of wind, the youma were hit with fire, lightning, and steel. He laughed as projectiles flew away from his wind barrier. And cried in surprise as the concrete deck of the parking structure beneath him exploded.
"GOTCHA!" Akane yelled, coming up through the hole she had punched in the deck. There he was, as described, a man in gray, almost handsome if he weren't an evil creep. They were surrounded by a wind barrier, but their plan had put Akane in the parking structure on the level below for just this sort of thing. Now the enemy was at her mercy. "Sailor Titan is here to stop you!"
"Another new one?" Zoicite said, dropping the wind barrier. "It dosen't matter how many of you there are. We will still def-"
Akane tried throwing all her strength into the punch; she caught Zoicite in the chest. Something seemed to retard her fist as it slammed into him, as if some force were absorbing her blow, but Zoicite still went sailing off over the rooftops and completely through the walls of a high-rise apartment. "YEAH! I got him!"
There was one youma surviving; it was bouncing around, jumping high in the air, trying to present a difficult target. Shampoo and Ukyo had no trouble perforating it with projectiles, but the Inner Senshi couldn't hit it with their attacks.
"Pin it down!" Mars said.
Mercury cast Shabon Spray. "That should slow it!"
"No it won't!" Akane said, seeing the youma flee outside of the fogged area. "It's running away! I'll get it!" She leapt after it.
"Great!" Makoto said. "Follow them!"
They did, but Akane seemed to be even more enhanced than they were; she opened distance, quickly catching up to the youma. She intercepted it in mid-air. "Take this!"
Her fist encountered none of the resistance it had with Zoicite; it went straight through the youma's chest. Akane withdrew her hand, shaking it off. "Ick! These things really aren't tough...' She felt faintly nauseous, as the monster looked too human for comfort; it was too close to killing a person for her.
A second later her disgust disappeared. The hole in the youma's chest closed up, leaving it cackling with glee. It tried grabbing her throat and choking her. "No you don't!" She pried its hands off and crushed them. The youma backed away, turning its crushed hands into blades and trying to stab. Akane dodged narrowly, getting her costume mostly cut off.
"ACK! Pervert!" Akane had her usual reaction to being disrobed in public. She lashed out again, this time with an open hand, pushing the youma away. Like Zoicite, it went through a building and out the other side.
The other Senshi caught up as Akane was trying to pick up her costume scraps and make herself decent. "Eep! I've never lost THAT much of my fuku before!" Jupiter said.
"Serves you right for copying mine," Mars exclaimed.
"I bet it's only a matter of time for you," Akane said. "You guys must go through a fortune in costumes..."
"Our transformations create them fresh every time," Mercury explained.
Akane was crestfallen. "You guys are so lucky..."
Mercury scanned the area. "The youma's still out there," she said. "On the next street over! Hurry! It's going to get away!"
The Inners took off after it. "Hey! What about me? I can't be seen on the street like this!" Akane shouted. Her costume scraps were now little more than a bikini. A far too sexy one.
"Take a break!" Mars said. "We have to stop it until Sailor Moon can get here!"
Moon arrived a few seconds later. "Are you okay, Akane?"
"Oh, I'm fine. I just wish I could crush that hentai thing myself!" She wrung her hands.
"Oh, don't worry. Only me and Ranma have powers strong enough to kill a youma on one shot. I think it takes Jupiter and Mars like four or five hits." She then looked at Akane's face curiously. "Ummm... are you sure your curse isn't coming back or something?"
"Why? Is something wrong with my face...?" Akane felt her cheeks. "Ack! What the heck-?"
Usagi giggled. "You've got whiskers! Maybe you're turning into a cat now!"
Akane broke down and cried. This super hero business wasn't what she had hoped.
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Zoicite woke up in a pile of rubble and shook his head. He noticed he was covered in dust. Of all the disgrace. That girl was ridiculously strong! If his shields hadn't blunted the force of her punch - !
He remembered his mission. The Rainbow Crystal! He looked around for it. There, fifty meters down the street. Teleport over, scoop it up, and then back to the Dark Kingdom. The youma he would leave to its fate. Though he hoped it would take one of those damned Sailor Senshi down with it.
He appeared outside the great audience chamber, still covered in dust. But he held the crystal up proudly. "Queen Beryl-sama! I have recovered the Rainbow Crystal."
"The Sailor Senshi were there?" she asked.
"Nothing I could not deal with, my queen."
"The fact remains that they WERE there. They still know who the crystal carriers are as soon as we do!"
"They must have been lying in wait for some time. Their actions showed they were not as prepared as they have been. Your precautions were effective."
"Surely they must have their own way of finding the Rainbow Crystals, as well as tracking our movements," Kunzite said smoothly. "For now, we can enjoy our victory. Zoicite, we should get your wounds tended to..."
"Thank you, Kunzite-sama." The two disappeared together.
Magnetite also took his leave. He wished he could have monitored the battle, but he understood Beryl's concerns, and her precautions had been logical. Perhaps, however, he should risk observing a battle in person. If he were caught, Beryl would surely punish him. But if not... he might find what trick these Sailor Senshi were using to find the crystal carriers for themselves.
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"Well, well..." Ranma gloated. "Looks like those noodles weren't so hot after all."
"It's true what they say," Kasumi said. "There's no easy way to getting stronger."
"Psh!" Happosai said. "Those noodles were a perfectly easy way to becoming invincible - for men. Those whiskers would be no problem on a manly face! But dear Akane-chan, you shouldn't be risking your womanhood like that!"
"Yeah," Ranma said. "You train a hard as you do, and you wonder why you've got a tomboy body?"
Akane bopped him over the head. Fortunately, having eaten the cure for the Super Soba noodles, Ranma didn't get a head injury. Though she wasn't too sure that didn't also have something to do with the hardness of his head. "That's not fair! Shampoo is stronger than I am and she has a better figure!"
"Well, Akane," Kasumi said, "some people just have better genetics for that. You should just worry about being the best YOU can be and not worry about other people."
"Well," Ranma mused, "if there's noodles that can make you super-strong, maybe there's some kind of food that grows your breasts or something. I mean, I've seen the creams in the medicine cabinet -"
This time Akane's hit did put him through the wall. "That's ENOUGH, thank you!"
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Having been unable to predict much of the Senshi battle the previous week, Ranma had focused on events closer to home. It was well that he did. The next week had all of Furinkan High dealing with a menace with authority: their missing principal, who, it turned out, had been on sabbatical in Hawaii, apparently researching academic methods.
The students were assembled in the auditorium, where the principal, deeply tanned and wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt and lei, explained the new rules. "All bruddas gotta get them buzz cuts! All sistas gotta get them bowl cuts!"
The students were enthusiastic in their response: "NO!" Ranma noted Nabiki was merely amused. She would be; she was already compliant with the rule.
"Eh, don' bus' up yet," the principal said. "I jus' getting started, yeah!"
If that was a start, the students didn't want him to finish. They threw shoes and sports balls at him. Then chairs and desks. Then the heavier gym equipment.
None of this got him down. He pointed to the rafters, where Akane was suspended, arms tied to a broom. "I know all about you, brudda! Ranma Saotome, homeroom 1-F, right? You wan' see you' waihine gettin' loose, yeah... you da first brudda gettin' dat buzz cut!"
Akane was not to be so easily contained. She broke the broom and came down on the principal with a kick. "And you call yourself the principal?"
"Bettah listen up now, keiki!" He held up a coconut. "Evahbody gona t'row some hands wit' me, yeah! Inside da coconut, dey like a pardon f'om de rules. Any brudda-sista get dis nut from me an' uncle principal don' bodda wid no haircut or da kine no more! You got t'ree days fo' do it! I like waitin' in my office!"
"He hasn't changed one bit..." one of the teachers said.
"He's always been like this?" one of the newer teaching assistants asked.
"He'll do anything to annoy the students," another longtime teacher said.
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Furinkan was a cookie-cutter postwar design school building; the principal's office in such buildings were in a fixed place, well-known to all students. Except at Furinkan those offices had long been converted to storage. The actual office of this principal was unknown.
Unknown to all but a few, at least. "So, Ranchan... where is it?" Ukyo stood ready for the fight to come.
Ranma moved to a section of the first floor hallway and stomped on it. It was a trap door. "Down there," he said.
"In the basement?" Akane said.
"Let's get this over with." Ranma dropped down into the darkness, followed by Ukyo and Akane.
The lights came on, revealing a vast space filled with a jungle. "Watch out," Ranma said. "Not all of the plants are fake - there's a few carnivorous ones."
They made their way through the jungle, being assaulted by teachers in animal suits. "The principal made us..."
"I-I've got three cubs of my own to feed..." one teacher in a lion suit said.
Other students were now flooding down into the basement, forming an army to back up the martial artists. They took to the palms, smashing open every coconut in sight. Ukyo and Akane stayed with Ranma, following him to a stilted bamboo hut at one end of the basement. "Up there," Ranma said, pointing up the ladder.
The army of students was close behind, for once grateful for the leadership of Tatewaki Kuno. "So long as I, Tatewaki Kuno, attent Furinkan High, no tyrannical haircut rule shall stand intact! Take THIS, dog of a principal!" He thrust his bokken at an Ranma, who dodged.
"Up THERE, you idiot!" Ranma said, kicking Kuno up to the hut. There, Kuno confronted the principal, bokken against shears.
"Shouldn't we go up and help him?" Akane asked.
"Give them a few minutes to get reacquainted," Ranma said.
"They know each other?" Ukyo said.
Ranma smiled. "Hint: What is the principal's name?" He looked at the teachers in animal suits.
"Ummm... Kuno," one of them admitted.
"You mean... they're father and son?" Akane said.
The combatants refused to believe it. "Dis ain't MY keiki," the principal said. "My son, Tatewaki..."
"Yes, Tatewaki!" Ranma said. "Who you're fighting now!"
"But Tatewaki was only 14!"
"When's the last time you saw him?"
"He been missin' three years now..." the principal said tearfully.
"The Tatewaki here is 17! Do the math!"
"But he's waaay shorter!"
"Gee... you think he stopped growing in three years?"
Tatewaki had his own objections. "It is true my father disappeared three years ago. And YOU look nothing like him!" He renewed his attacks.
One of the boys still up in the hut took a family photo off the desk and sent it down to the kendoist. "Eh? A photo of... my FATHER? How did you get this?"
The principal laughed. "Dat's a picture om me - three years ago!"
"You lie! My father's skin was far lighter than yours!"
"You suppose he got a TAN in Hawaii?" Ranma asked rhetorically.
Everyone else looking at the picture agreed it was the same man. Tatewaki still would not accept it. "Enough chatter!" he proclaimed. He raised his sword for a decisive strike. "Take this!"
The principal countered with dual shears, shredding the bokken blade. This greatly impressed everyone. Tatewaki was forced to realize the truth. "The very technique that took my hair three years ago... The Kuno family secret! The Wooden Sword Shredder!"
The principal gasped. "How do you know that name?"
The two separated and looked at each other in silence for a moment. Then they opened their arms.
"My Tacchi!"
"Daddy!"
They came together, and locked weapons again at the last moment. Ranma broke in. "I don't think this is going anywhere," he said. "Tell you what. If you can shave my head, you can shave theirs."
Ukyo, Akane, and the other students were shocked. "Ranchan..." Ukyo said. "You'd ... you'd make that sacrifice?"
"Hey, it's just hair. It'll grow back."
"Let him shave you," Tatewaki said. "He shall still not shave me!"
"You gonna get yours, Tacchi," the principal said as he thrust his shears at Ranma's head.
Ranma did not try to dodge. His hair came off, falling in great sheets on the ground. Except that it didn't. As the students looked, Ranma's hair grew back faster than it could be cut off.
"Dis ain't right," the principal said, and began cutting maniacally. Hair piled up to their ankles, knees, waist. Finally his shears were too dull to cut anymore.
Ranma dug through the piles of hair, having some trouble keeping his now flowing locks out of his eyes. He came up with his old pigtail, untied the binding on it, and retied his hair, cutting off the excess. "So... do I win?"
The principal was mortified. "Da hair can't be cut... it's a miracle... okay... I have lost. I'm sorry... I was so wrong..." He began to sob.
"As long as you admit it..." Ranma said.
"We'll forget about it," Akane said.
With the principal's defeat, school was finally able to start. As they made their way to class, Akane and Ukyo just had to know: "What's with your hair, Ranma? Why does it grow like that?"
"Something I ate in China. Before I was paying attention to my visions." He indicated the binding on his pigtail. "This is a Dragon's Whisker. Keeps the growth in check. If I let it grow too much, I get a lifetime's worth of growth in a week, and, well, my pop..."
Ukyo nodded. "He's bald. So you're going to be bald someday, too, aren't you?"
"I've always known that was gonna happen," he said. "I just don't want it to be premature."
He didn't see a need to say that the effect of the porridge would wear off before his follicles got exhausted. It would still be useful to have the fast growth in reserve in case the principal tried something like this again.
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"We have no cause for celebrations," Beryl said. "The Sailor Senshi still have two of the Rainbow Crystals, while we still have only one. Zoicite, how will you go about gaining the rest?"
"Queen Beryl-sama, Kunzite and I have been thinking about the Sailor Senshi's interference in our pursuit of the Rainbow Crystals," Zoicite said. "It seems they have their own way of finding who our Seven Great Youma are, and they have staked them out to be able to ambush us when we come."
"I fear we will be unable to gain the advantage of surprise," Kunzite said. "Teleporting in may play into their hands. I recommend we use their tendency toward ambush to our advantage."
"How so?" Beryl asked.
"We should use the Dark Crystal to find the next Rainbow Crystal and wait a day to scout the target and learn the territory. If the Senshi are indeed tapping the Dark Crystal, we can be assured they will be there. We can turn their ambush against them."
Zoicite explained further. "Once we know the terrain, we will know where they will be. I will take three youma and arrive at some distance, to move in by flight and surround one of their positions. The youma will engage the Senshi and distract them, leaving the crystal carrier defenseless."
Beryl was interested. "Let us see how this strategy of yours works. Bring me the Rainbow Crystal!"
Zoicite saluted. "It shall be done, my queen."
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Usagi looked over Yumeno Yumemi's shoulder as she continued to fill out details in her sketch. "That's me? I can't believe it!"
"Stay still," she told Mamoru, who was still sitting on the couch. He did as ordered.
Free to roam, Usagi began to look at Yumemi's other works not yet released. "These are so pretty. How can you draw wonderful pictures like this?"
"Whenever I draw, I pray those who see the picture will be happy. That they can find a wonderful love. That's why it's called the picture of love."
"Aren't you a nice lady, Yumemi-san? But you're all alone in exchange..." More to herself, she said, "I couldn't help with that. Yumemi is a very pretty lady."
"If people find out what I truly look like, it'll destroy everybody's dream."
"I don't think you can make everybody else happy if you can't make yourself happy as well," Mamoru said.
Yumemi seemed to realize truth in his words. She finished her sketch, and Mamoru joined Usagi in looking at a picture of a pair of lovers against a crescent moon. The woman seemed to be giving something to the man. The same pair appeared in several pictures.
"A scene of where a girl gives a sign of her love to her man. But whenever I draw these two, I feel so sentimental."
"I know your feeling," Mamoru said. "It feels so familiar to me, too. A lot of these pictures do. I wonder if there is more to your inspirations than just what you find in the world today."
"What do you mean?"
"It's like... you might be remembering a past life. A life I was in too. And some other people we know... we think we may have been in the same place once."
"Friends, reunited across time...? That's a romantic image. But I wouldn't know too much about such things. I just draw what comes to me."
She thanked them again for modelling for her. As they left, Mamoru looked around at the neighborhood, noting ambush points. "We should prepare for tomorrow. Ranma said he might be able to come with us."
"I hope so," Usagi said. "I don't want anything to happen to Yumemi-san. A good artist like her brightens everything so much."
They headed home to prepare themselves for the next night. If all went well, they knew Yumemi would be safe.
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Ranma was now caught between the principal in the daytime and Happosai at night. This made for a full schedule that would be difficult to get time to project Senshi battles. He made the most of this time.
The night of the next battle, Ranma casually sat down near Happosai as the old master sat smoking and watching TV. If he simply went out, the pervert would notice and follow him. But now, just when he was calm...
SNAP
One snap of the fingers and... "Out like a light," Ranma said softly; the old geezer had eaten his rice and vegetables earlier totally unsuspecting. He tiptoed out the door and took off for Juuban. Halfway there he transformed. Tonight, the Dark Kingdom would come for the fourth crystal, and the full complement of Senshi would meet them.
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They met on a street in Yumemi's neighborhood. The Inner Senshi were excited when Pluto showed up. Sailor Moon was bouncing with enthusiasm. "Yay! Pluto's here! We can kick butt and get the Dark Crystal!"
"Not so fast," Pluto said. "Zoicite's getting smarter. He's not going to just teleport in this time. He appears close to here and comes in on the ground. If we set up around here we get surrounded."
"If he's going to arrive somewhere else, can we ambush him there?" Tuxedo Mask asked.
"That's the plan," Pluto said, "but that doesn't mean things are going to be as clean as they have been. We can knock Zoicite out, but that leaves us vulnerable to the help he brings. We have to kill them first, and that means he gets the Rainbow Crystal again."
"What?" sailor Moon was aghast. "Isn't there any way we can get it for ourselves?"
"There's only so much a good strategy can do when your enemy is wising up and still overpowers you. I don't think we'll get any more crystals, but we have to try. That's when we win."
"I don't like the idea that we're definitely going to lose," Jupiter said. "It makes it seem like all we do is a waste of time."
"It's never a waste of time," Mercury said. "The world is counting on us!"
"Is always better to fight than cower," Shampoo said.
"Bushido," Ukyo said. "The warrior's code. We have to fight even if there's no chance."
"It's not like were going to die, right?" Mars asked Pluto.
"We have to look to our own safety a little bit if we want to go the distance in this fight," Pluto conceded. "As long as we win the final battle, that's what matters." She gestured with her staff to an apartment building. "He's going to appear over there in an hour. Let's be ready for him."
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The Senshi waited in the girder frame of a building under construction.
"Ten seconds!" Mercury said. Then, "SHABON SPRAY!"
"DEAD SCREAM!" "MOON TIARA ACTION!" "SUPREME THUNDER!" "FIRE SOUL!"
Zoicite appeared and was instantly choking on youma dust. He reflexively teleported in a random direction - tactical fighting straight out of Dark Kingdom combat drills. Training served him well just now.
"How did they know?" he shouted. "Never mind. They're over there, which means they are not at Yumemi's house. I have the Rainbow Crystal!" He headed there by a series of tactical random teleports.
Pluto jumped out of the fog to a nearby apartment building, several floors lower. She checked her future sight and lined up her shot. "DEAD SCREAM!"
The shot caught Zoicite full in the back; he was sent head-over-heels tumbling out of the sky, landing ungracefully on a roof one street over from the house. "Blasted Sesnhi!" he fumed. "They won't get this one!" He floated down to the house and smashed the front window with a wave of force.
Yumemi was there, screaming in surprise. "Who are you?"
Zoicite didn't answer. He sent waves of force around the studio, smashing everything, hoping to daze or knock out any potential ambushers. Satisfied he would not be disturbed, he grabbed Yumemi's unconscious form and flew up the street, where he shone the light of the Dark Crystal on her.
"Arise, Youma Vena!" She transformed into a seraphic figure, with pale skin and green hair. She stretched her wings. Zoicite began to relax. "This is going more smoothly now," he said.
"Not anymore!" Sailor Moon announced the arrival of her team. The Inner Senshi and the one with the staff were all there, ready to fire. "You won't take away the wonderful Yumemi-san! In the name of the Moon, I'll punish you!"
"And why should I be concerned? Go, Vena!" Zoicite kept looking around for more Senshi or crazy girls with weapons, fearing attack from any angle now.
Vena plucked feathers from her wings and sent them over the heads of the Senshi. They acted as drawing tools, creating images of force that became solid matter. Their drawings were simple rocks, falling on the heads of everyone present.
The Senshi with the staff dodged everything and gave Vena a whack over the head, which dazed her. "Sailor Moon!"
"Right! MOON HEALING ESCALATION!"
Zoicite was chagrined as Yumemi was restored. He blasted the Senshi with rose petals and summoned a jagged hunk of crystal, throwing it at Pluto. She burst out of the petal storm attack and deflected the crystal, heading toward Zoicite to fight hand-to-hand.
The general vanished, taking with him the prize of the night.
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Magnetite was grateful for Zoicite's plan. In taking the time to get to know the territory for himself, he had allowed Magnetite to set up cameras again. Now, hours after the battle, Magnetite, reviewed the tapes to see how the Senshi had done this time.
What he saw dropped his jaw. They were charging up their attacks BEFORE Zoicite showed - timed so that they would kill the youma before they knew what hit them. There was no way they could have known to the second when Zoicite would appear - the Dark Kingdom did not schedule things so tightly.
The final nail was the long-range shot the one Senshi gave when Zoicite was doing tactical teleports. It was standard Dark Kingdom tactical training; Magnetite was intimately familiar, having sparred against his fellow warriors and generals in much the same way. The point was to be creative in combat, unpredictable, not knowing from one moment to the next where one would land. Yet this Senshi Pluto had fired at an exact point as if knowing that Zoicite would be there.
He sat there in shock for several minutes. There could be only one explanation, he realized. One reason for their opponents ambushing them so effectively.
He teleported back to his command chamber in the Dark Kingdom and strode out, walking down familiar corridors to a treasure chamber of which he was still keeper. Things that had been found here when the Dark Kingdom reawakened, things looted from the Moon Kingdom at the time of the Conquest thousands of years ago.
Their limited memories of the past did not include most of the treasures and artifacts stored in this room. Magnetite had been put in charge of investigating them, learning what they were, who had owned them, what secrets they might hold. None of the Royal regalia, those were all kept in the capital city on the Moon, the last place to fall, the disastrous battle they had not truly won. These were likely form noble estates and military posts on Earth and about the Solar System, picked up in the long series of battles that led to the Moon.
Many were mundane items, jewels and clothes and works of art, valued as ornaments or for the reputations of long-forgotten makers. Some were a little more: magical items, some of little power, a bracelet that protected against cold, a necklace against poison, a ring that created light, shoes to give energy for long walks. Those things that had real power were in the hands of youma trained in their use, or generals for strategic purposes, or Beryl herself.
Magnetite now strode to the back of the hall and regarded a tall glass case holding what was inarguably the most powerful item in the Dark Kingdom's possession, an item no one was properly attuned to use. A staff, fashioned of a seemingly random string of cylinders and spheres, with an ornate double-loop at the top - the loops heart-shaped, the smaller sitting in the corner of the larger. Along one side were clusters of irregular projections. The whole form gave the impression of a giant key.
The basic cylindrical and spherical components of the central staff had cores of magically charged crystals of immense power. The metals encasing them and forming the loops and projections were also of great magical susceptibility: the more mundane of them including chromium, palladium, and selenium. Most of the metals, however, were unearthly substances now found only in Silver Millenium artifacts.
The energies contained in the staff were startling not only for their sheer magintude, but their nature, and the nature they imparted to the matter holding them. The staff was literally out of phase with the flow of Time. It was surmised that, in the hands of its original wielder, it would allow time to be accelerated, slowed, stopped, reversed. Beryl was hopeful that it could open the way to actually travel in time, allowing their ancient defeat on the Moon to be reversed.
"We are not fighting enemies who sense where we are," he said to no one in particular, "but where we WILL BE. They do not merely know what we intend to do, but what we will ACTUALLY DO. Who know where the force of events will carry us."
He looked hard at the Time Key Staff, remembering the Senshi that had shot so unerringly, so...*presciently*... at Zoicite.
"I think I now know your owner..."
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AN: Yes, it's cliche. Some cliches get started as simply logical or obvious developments. Given super-hero powers, Akane seems the type to try her hand at fighting evil. In the Ranmaverse, of course, the powers of the accomplished martial artists are not supposed to be all that superlative as to suggest vigilantism so readily. Then again, given the way their community asks for their help, they seem to be deputized already...
khim: Had no idea about any of your points. Was just making it up as I went along, sorry.
Next: Losses