Conjunction

12

Commissioned by Kenainath.

Ranma yawned and stretched, cracking his back with a groan. A pair of slender hands found his shoulders and he opened his eyes, to find Setsuna smiling down on him as she began to rub his neck and shoulders. "I know that feeling," she chuckled. "I'll expect you to return the favor."

"Gladly," he grinned, relaxing into the woman's touch. "Thanks for that. Didn't realize it'd got that bad."

"Mm. So what happened? You stay up too late with Usagi?"

"Nah. Had to leave town to take care of an errand. Dealing with the Amazons. With any luck, this'll get them out of our hair for good."

"Hm? Amazons?" Setsuna asked, cocking an eyebrow. "The ones who have been trying to marry or kill you over a simple mistake?"

Ranma rolled his eyes and snorted. "That's the ones."

Leaning over a bit more, and giving Ranma a good view of the underside of her breasts with her blouse pulled tight against them outlining their shape, she asked, "And you think this will make them less interested and not more?"

The man opened his mouth, then paused. Grunting, he closed his eyes. "It'll get the tribe off our backs. Probably gonna start seeing a lot more of Shampoo and the old bat real soon, but they promised to lay off the usual Amazon tricks, so at most you might get challenged to a surprise sparring match."

"Hm," the Senshi of Time hummed, a small smile quirking her lips up. "I don't handle those sorts of surprises well. Neither do the girls. Which I imagine they'll learn quickly enough, after the first time one of us shoots first and asks questions after resurrecting them."

Ranma winced. "Yeah, that'd probably do it."

Setsuna fell quiet for a few moments, working her fingers over Ranma's neck and shoulders. Eventually, she asked, "Are you ready to leave? If you're heading to our place, we can walk together."

"He can't. He's got other plans." The pair turned at the voice, spotting the red haired form leaning against the door frame. The redheaded Usa blew a bubble of whatever gum she was chewing and let it pop, grinning at the two. "'Sup?"

"The others told me about you," Setsuna hummed, looking Usa over with a frown. "There weren't any alarms from the Gates. How did you get here?"

"Hehe~! A girl's got to have some secrets, auntie Puu," Usa stuck her tongue out.

"'Aunt?'" Setsuna echoed, earning a leer from Usa.

"The taboo just makes it more fun," the redhead giggled, before reaching into the tattered black band tee-shirt she was wearing, between her breasts. "Speaking of fun… Catch."

Ranma caught the wad of cloth she'd thrown at him, recognizing the feel the moment it hit his hand—due to entirely too much exposure to Happosai. "Panties?"

"Not just any pantsu~! Can you guess whose they are?" Usa teased.

Unwadding the ball of silk, Ranma hummed as he considered them. The first set were plain white, with a bear on the front. The second set were a black thong. He recognized them both, because he'd seen both today, during gym, when Hotaru and the pink-haired Usa had both teasingly flashed their panties at him. Surprisingly, the black pair were Hotaru's.

"Why do you have these?" Ranma asked, eyeing the girl suspiciously.

Usa's grin was a bit too wide. "Don't worry. I'm not like other kidnappers. They came voluntarily because it sounded fun. We're gonna play a punishment game! If you beat me, you, Hotaru, and Pinkie can do whatever you want with me. If I win, I'm going to mess them up~ while you watch! Doesn't that sound fun?"

Ranma scowled and Usa giggled. "They agreed to it?"

"Mhmm!" She brought her hand up and drew an X of red, glowing, mixed chi and magic over her heart. "Cross my heart and hope to die~. So, are you coming or not?" Turning a smile on Setsuna, she added, "You can come too if you want, as long as you don't interfere. We're kinda serious about training, and I don't want any interruptions."

Setsuna considered for a moment before shaking her head. "No. I think I need to go check the Gates to make sure they haven't been tampered with."

"Pfft. You and I both know it's not that easy. There are lots of other methods of time travel available. Especially here. Especially now. I can think of three off the top of my head," Usa rolled her eyes. "But whatever. Your loss!"

She turned, swaying her hips as she left the room. Looking over her shoulder, red eyes met Ranma's blue as she sent him a look that had his cock fighting to get out of his pants. "Coming~?"

Ranma shared a look with Setsuna who gestured towards Usa. "Go ahead. I'll take a rain check on returning that favor."

"Sure thing," Ranma grinned, popping to his feet and following Usa. "Later!"

They left the school and took to the rooftops as Usa led them towards a highway. "So, where are we going?"

The redhead sent him an amused smile as they paused, watching traffic go by below. She pointed to a truck going by and they both made the leap, landing on the top and settling down to ride as the truck followed the road out of the city. "We both know a real spar between us is going to level city blocks, if one of us slips. And since I'm going to be riding you hard and fast, you're going to slip," she smirked.

Ranma rolled his eyes. "So you found somewhere nearby?"

"Yeah. It's about an hour out of town, in Yamanashi. An old, abandoned house. I was able to get it into livable shape for us. Nothing but empty fields and woods around for miles, except for the road. Everything's shielded from the road by the tree line, so we can cut loose a bit."

"And that's where Hotaru and Usa are?"

"Mm." Frowning, she blew out a sigh. "I told them that was gonna get confusing, but Hotaru didn't want to come up with a nickname for me. So, you pick."

"I'd say red, but that'd be kind of weird, considering," Ranma hummed. "What's your grandmothers' names?"

Usa tilted her head, a smile pulling at the corner of her lips. "Ikuko doesn't really roll off the tongue, and it'd be weird if you called me Nodoka when I was rolling my tongue~. It'd be like calling your own mother's name during sex. But hey, if that's your kink too…"

Ranma made a face and shook his head. "Now I have that mental image in my head, you little brat. Gross."

Usa tilted her head back, considering for a few minutes, before her amused smile shifted to something a bit softer. "I didn't spend much time with my mom, after I was about eight. Dad, that is Mamoru, didn't like me. Called me a fake and all sorts of other things, when he thought I couldn't hear—usually when he was bitchin' at mom about something," she shrugged. "Eventually, it got to be bad enough that she had Puu come and get me. Puu couldn't keep me, because as much as he hated me, Mamoru didn't want to let me out of his sight, and he knew to check with the other senshi. He was an asshole, and dumb, but not that stupid. He remembered what mini-me did and didn't want a repeat. Sucks for him, because that's what's happening. But yeah. She gave me to my sensei and the lady who basically became my mom for a while. She was fun."

"Yeah?" Ranma asked, raising an eyebrow, trying to figure out who it could be. "So, who was it? Shampoo? Ukyo? One of the Tendos?"

"Hinako."

Ranma frowned, trying to remember where he knew that name from. "Wait. Ninomiya Hinako?"

"Mhmm! You're the only guy she can consistently drain and not have them be useless after. She got to live her life as an adult most of the time and you got a wife out of it."

Ranma choked on his own spit. Coughing, he thumped his chest. "I what?!"

"Hehe! Is it really so surprising? As an adult, she's sexy as hell. As a child, she's cute and funny. It was like getting a two for one wife and daughter deal, without the baggage. At least, that's how she described it," Usa teased. "I wouldn't mind using her name—or at least part of it. Hina," Ranma watched as she drew the characters out in the air, in burning pinkish red. "There we go. But when we're not with mini-me, I want you to call me by my name."

"Alright," Ranma agreed. "So… ya wanna tell me what happened?"

Usa shrugged. "I already told you."

"How 'bout some more detail?"

The redhead met his eyes and asked, "Are you sure you wanna know? Future knowledge can change the future."

Ranma rolled his eyes. "Don't care. And besides, you're already here. It's already changed."

"Mm, yes and no," Usa shook her head. "So, think of it like this. Time is an ocean in a storm. Navigating it any direction but the one it wants to go is a bitch. Diverting it takes a lot of effort. The past is land. It's mostly set, until it's not. The present is a river, shaped by the land around it, winding into what might be a storm in the distance. The future, from your perspective, is the eye of the typhoon. Getting there is easy—you just ride the river. Getting back means having to navigate the storm."

Ranma nodded. "So it's hard to get back, and it's hard to change things in the… later past, because the uh, earlier past is more solid?"

"Basically," Usa agreed. "I left my rotten future and came here. I'm out of the storm, but now I need to try to divert the river. But because of the land around it, that's hard. Standing in the middle of it's not going to do anything. The only way to make any meaningful change is to either change the land around it, which means going back further and changing more of the past, or throwing a big enough rock in to force it to move. You're my rock. Just gotta get you up to speed and pointed in the right direction."

Ranma's head was starting to hurt, but he eventually said, "Then it doesn't matter if you tell me, 'cause it either won't do nothin', or it'll just give me a push."

"Heh. You did get it," she murmured, before nodding. "Okay! Short version? Mamoru is gonna find out that this time, mom's not fucking around. She's actually done with his ass. He's also gonna find out she's pregnant, and that'll set him off. He's gonna try to legitimately kill the guy who knocked up who he considers his woman. He doesn't give a shit that he was cheating, or that mom doesn't want anything to do with him—and unfortunately for mom and her plans to rebuild the whole 'Silver Millennium' thing, there are certain concessions that have to be made for peace between Earth, the Moon, and everyone else. That's an even longer story, but the end result is, because their past incarnations chose each other and chose to join the Earth and the Moon, and in so doing jilted somebody enough to kick off a war that wiped out all of human civilization at the time, the heir to the Moon and the heir to the Earth have to either get married, or their kids have to. Otherwise, all the old treaties that were going to be used to justify the rebirth of the Empire go out the window and it's back to unifying humanity the old fashioned way: by force."

Groaning, Ranma reached up and palmed his face. "So you're tellin' me that all of this is over an arranged marriage?"

"Yup!"

Taking a breath, Ranma let it out in a sigh. A quiet laugh escaped him and he said, "At least I'm not the one that got saddled with it this time."

"Ah…"

Ranma turned a glare on Usa. "I'm not, right?"

The redhead winced. "No. That's whoever happens to be the current heir to the old kingdom of Earth. Which is Mamoru, as the reincarnation of Prince Endymion and the planetary guardian of Earth. He's pretty much equal to Moon in terms of power and even without his planetary guardian power, he's still ridiculously magically strong."

"Don't see how that involves me."

"It's a challenge, stupid," Usa rolled her eyes. "Mamoru's not like most of the other chumps you've fought before. And you didn't just shit on his personal honor by cucking him, you shit on him officially. You fucked and knocked up the soon-to-be king's betrothed soon-to-be queen. He's gotta make a spectacle of it, officially. It's gotta be honorable combat on the field of battle. An old fashioned duel. Can't be an ambush, poison, working through a third party, or anything but you and him or it's gonna fuck over his reputation, and mom's by extension, for pretty much the rest of history. I mean, even if he wins, he'll still catch shit talk for it. He can't really avoid that when everyone can see proof of what happened walking around."

Frowning as he considered it, Ranma quickly realized he was missing something. Eventually, he asked, "If he's as strong as Usagi when she's Moon, how am I supposed to beat that? I've beat people bigger and stronger than me, but there's a limit." It pained him to admit it, but, "I'm good, but I'm not that good. Not yet anyway."

"You don't. That's the thing! You had some help digging through the legal codes involved, from Ami and Puu. Think of it like this. You've got a guy wanting to kill you. He's got a big fuckoff magical stick and without it, he's still strong, but he's not as strong. So, instead of accepting his challenge to let him beat you to death with his stick, you instead counter-challenge over possession of the stick and everything that goes with it. If he's dumb enough to accept because he thinks they're the same thing and thinks you're agreeing to accept his challenge, then he can't use the stick to beat you. And unless he digs into it himself, which he didn't, then he won't know that he can't use the stick until it's too late. That takes the stick out of the equation, but as I said, he's still stupidly strong without the stick—not having it just makes the fight winnable, as opposed to impossible."

"And if I beat him, I get the stick. What is that? His uh, his mojo? Magical mumbo-jumbo?"

"His titles and positions. All of them. That's specifically what you're fighting for. You're challenging his suitability as Guardian of Earth. And since, by the old laws thanks to his own family and the actions of his past incarnation, the title Guardian of Earth was tied to the position of prince or king of Earth—or princess and queen—then…" Usa grinned.

"Then me beating him, taking on that title, and marrying Usagi keeps the old agreement and everything can move forward without needing things to get nasty," Ranma finished, and the redhead nodded.

"Bingo. But that's only if you win! Which is where I come in. Last time, you were off your game. You had plateaued because you didn't have anyone around to push you. Credit where it's due, it wasn't a shutout. You actually handed him his ass up one side and down the other, for the first half of the fight. But you make the mistake of using one of the Saotome Anything Goes techniques you shouldn't have—you ran your mouth. You pissed him off. And because of that, he got more than a second wind. After the fact, we discovered tapped into a magical artifact that we thought should've been off the table for use, as part of the challenge. Apparently, it wasn't. We all thought using it was cheating, but apparently that didn't matter."

Ranma snorted. "Of course. He got some random power-up because he couldn't beat me himself."

"Not random," Usa shook her head. Pulling open her shirt, she grabbed a thin silver chain and pulled out a large, teardrop shaped crystal and held it up. Ranma watched as she pushed a bit of magic into it and the thing flowered open into a lotus shape, before returning to its crystal configuration as she pulled her magic back. "The Earth counterpart to this. This is the Moon Kingdom's Silver Crystal. It amplifies the user's magic and has a whole host of magical powers all of its own. Of course, they come at the cost of the user's life energy. Mamoru's got the Golden Crystal. It does pretty much the same thing."

Pulling the chain over her head, Usa tossed the crystal to Ranma, who caught it and held it up to the fading late afternoon light. The crystal flared bright orange and pink of sunset as he looked through it. He frowned as he felt it reach out, its magic brushing against him, before latching on and then doing nothing. A bit of probing with his ki showed him the damn thing was thirsty, as it happily drank every drop he poured at an eyebrow, he shrugged and passed it back. "Okay. Magic rock. How do I take it from him?"

"No idea. You'll probably get it after you beat him, but until then…" Usa sighed. "You'll need some way to counter it. You, that is the other you, figured that the only way to do that was to either find an equally strong magical artifact—which is gonna be kind hard since these things are unique—or to hit him so hard, so fast, that he doesn't have time to use it. So, that's what we're gonna get you ready for. You need to be able to hit hard enough, fast enough, right from the start, that you can put him down before he gets a chance to try any power-ups. And in the meantime, I'm running down possibilities for a magical artifact to, if not counter it, at least come close enough for you to bridge the gap."

Sending the martial artist/teacher a glare, the redhead leaned back on her hands. "You know, you have a real bad habit of destroying any magical item you come in contact with?"

"Me and magic don't get along," Ranma grunted. "Especially crap like that."

Usa rolled her eyes. "I've spent a few years tracking down and piecing together some of the stuff you broke, you know. Things like the 'cursed' battle dogi? Yeah, not actually cursed, just alive. You just have to know how to talk to it."

Ranma blinked, then made a face. "You wore that thing?"

"Yup~! It likes me!" Usa leered.

"It's a crutch."

"Nah," the redhead denied. "I earned my skill and power without it. But that thing was able to take someone like Akane and make her stronger than you. What do you think happens if I wear it? And then, if I transform on top of it. Hell of a trump card to have, right? Better I have it and keep it out of the hands of someone who would misuse it, and have it on hand in case I need it."

Ranma let out an annoyed breath, but nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

"Anyway. Plan A is training you to the point where you don't need the help. Plan B is trying to find something to counter the Golden Crystal. I've got a lead on one, but it's going to require some legwork…" Usa waved her hand, dismissing the subject. "Worry about it later." Lifting her hand, she pointed ahead of them. "We'll get off up here, then it's a quick run through the woods."

They waited until they got a bit closer, then jumped off the truck, landing smoothly on the ground and bouncing forward into a run. Ranma followed Usa through the woods for several minutes before it abruptly stopped and opened out onto grassy, rolling hills. Nearby, he spotted an old looking traditional house with a single light inside—some kind of candle or something judging by the color and slight flickering. From the outside, he could tell that it had been repaired recently, which fit what the redhead had told him. He could feel Hotaru and the younger, pink haired Usa inside.

The redheaded girl led him to the house and inside. There was really only one room and, as soon as Ranma's eyes adjusted to the light from an oil lamp in the corner, he raised an eyebrow as he took in the scene.

"Mmf!"

"Hnnf!"

Ranma turned an exasperated look on the redheaded Usa. "Really?"

"Uehehehe~!" the redhead cackled, making her way over to where the other Usa and Hotaru were strung up from the ceiling by ropes, still wearing their school uniforms, and had been gagged and blindfolded.

They had been tied back to back, with ropes crisscrossing their bodies and digging into various sensitive places. Apparently, there was a bit of play in the ropes because, as Ranma watched, Hotaru shifted and flexed and Usa moaned into her gag as she was forced into the rope that went between her legs, grinding it into her crotch. Making a frustrated sound, the pinkette ground back, doing the same to Hotaru, who made a happy sound, panting through her nose and returning the favor. It looked to him like they had been at it a while, given the sweaty state of their uniforms and the puddle on the tatami mats below them from their own arousal dripping down their legs.

"You two okay?" Ranma asked, and the pair of bound girls nodded. "Alright, we'll be back in a bit."

The redhead chuckled maliciously, trailing her hand over Hotaru's belly, then around to her half-sister's thigh. "See you soon~."

Hotaru and Usa listened as the pair left, closing the door behind them. Biting her gag, she shifted a bit and pushed back into Usa, making her friend squirm and getting her back into the rhythm they'd settled into. Outside, they could faintly hear voices as things started. She didn't pay much attention, until the first time the house rocked and the rope holding them in place shifted just slightly, making both 'prisoners' moan as it dug in a bit. Explosions that rocked her chest and flashes bright enough to see through the bra covering her eyes soon followed—settling into a frequency of pounding and flashing that wouldn't be out of place at a club, according to Minako.

Eventually, the wind howled outside as the sliding doors and windows began to rattle in their frames and the vibrations from the building shaking passed through the ropes into both of them. Almost as soon as it had started, the wind petered out with a gust that felt like it pushed the other direction for just a moment. The battle outside continued, picking up in pace and the strength of the attacks involved as she felt the magic coming off of the older Usa increase—but not the sort of jump that would come with a first stage transformation.

All of this is being done just as they are, she mused, a smile pulling at her lips as she was again proven right in her choice of man. Sensei is strong.

Eventually, everything outside went quiet. She heard heavy footsteps and the door leading outside slid open. There was a thump on the floor and groan, before she felt magic nearby.

Ranma's eyes cracked open as he glared up at the redhead. "I healed you. You're welcome," she chuckled, pulling a bottle of water from seemingly under her skirt and tossing it to him, before taking one for herself.

"I'm rusty," Ranma grunted after downing most of the bottle.

"A bit. You knocked a lot of the rust off with that fight though. Still gonna need more practice," the redhead shrugged, taking a sip. Moving over to Hotaru, she pulled the gag out of the other girl's mouth and pressed the bottle against her lips. "Drink."

Hotaru drank eagerly, washing her mouth out of the taste of the redhead's panties. She sighed happily. Usa went around to her younger self and did the same, pulling one of her stockings out of the pinkette's mouth and letting her drink.

"Now then!" the redhead giggled, turning an amused leer on Ranma. "You lost, so it's punishment time~!"

"Fine," Ranma grunted. "What's the punishment?"

"That's simple," the redhead leered. Grabbing Hotaru's shirt, she pulled, disappearing it into whatever hidden weapons technique she was using. She quickly stripped both Hotaru and the pink haired Usa, leaving them hanging there nude. "You have to sit there until I'm ready for you. Just sit and watch. And listen."

Finishing off his water, Ranma rolled his eyes. Making himself comfortable leaning against the wall, he sent the redhead a smirk. "Go ahead then. This outta be good."

The redhead chuckled maliciously. "You say that, but when I said punishment, I meant punishment."

Ranma frowned as he felt mana and ki twist in the air between himself and Usa. It took him a few moments to figure out what she had done as she began to teasingly draw her hands over her younger sibling and Hotaru, making the two squirm.

Some kinda privacy technique? I think only I can hear her and they can't, he assessed, wondering why the redheaded Usa would bother. That quickly became obvious as she began to speak.

"He liked to remind them of their place, you know?" Usa mused, lightly teasing Hotaru's stomach, her nail scratching the dark haired girl and making Hotaru try to pull away from the sensation. "Remind them that he had won and so they had to do as he said. Grin and bear it. So he did things like this."

"What?" Ranma asked, a sinking pit forming in his stomach as a suspicion as to where Usa was going began to gnaw at him.

"'Dad,'" she sneered. "It was a bunch of convoluted bullshit I didn't really pay attention to and no one bothered to explain, other than Puu saying it was legal and there was no real way out of it. They had to produce heirs and he was the only guy they could do it with. But he really liked to gloat. So he'd do things like this with mom and try to humiliate her in front of everyone for embarrassing him—"

"That's enough," Ranma grunted, making to stand, only to find himself forced back onto the floor by a shove from Usa's magic.

"Nun uh. You made the deal and you lost. Sit down, shut up, and take the punishment. Because if you fuck up this time, it's what you're gonna get. You thought the thing with Akane and Kuno was bad? Nah. Mamoru is a petty shit and smarter than Kuno. Kuno just took Akane because he wanted her—once he won, he didn't come back to brag. He didn't feel the need to. Mamoru's going to make it his mission to remind you that you lost at every opportunity, because he'll have a constant reminder himself. If he has to suffer, so do you. So if suffering a little now hearing about what happened makes you work harder to prevent it, then that's what we're gonna do."

Glaring, Ranma nodded towards Hotaru and the pink haired Usa. "So why the bait?"

"Incentive. Also, because I wanted to have fun with them." Sighing, for a moment the redhead just looked tired as her red eyes met his blue. "I'm not your enemy and if this works, I'm stuck in this time. So I'm trying to make friends. I know it sucks now, and I hope you'll forgive me one day, but… You need a kick in the ass and I'm the only one here with the boots big enough to do it."

Taking a breath, Ranma forced himself to calm down— "And no Soul of Ice."

The martial artist glared, but nodded. "Fine."

Settling in, he listened as Usa told him about how the rich, entitled playboy had let it all go to his head and how one particularly deep humiliation had turned him into a spiteful, petty bastard. The longer he listened, the madder he got. At this Mamoru jackass for being an asshole, yes—but also at himself for losing.

Not gonna happen. Need to find a way to take some time off for a training trip. Talk to the old bat and see if I can track down the letch and squeeze 'em for more techniques. I know they're holdin' out on me.

Gonna have to go ahead and dust off the forbidden techniques, too. Dishonorable or not, I might need 'em. I think that's what the other me from her time was thinking. Act like I'm gonna fight him head on, lure him into what looks like a normal fight, then disappear and hit him hard enough to put him down. But what if that doesn't work?

She said I need magic to counter his power-up. What about the staves? Do those have enough mojo? Probably not. If the thing he's got is as strong as the one she handed me, I'm gonna need somethin' bigger. She said she was workin' on getting it though. So I'll leave that to her for now.

Studying the redhead, actually listening to her—not just her words, but studying her tone, her body language, all the things she wasn't outright saying… Ranma knew he wasn't the best when it came to dealing with people, but even he could tell she was hurt. That this was personal for her.

Didn't think it was possible, but maybe her dad was worse than Genma…