DISCLAIMER: Relatively standard stuff. Existing characters are 
properties of the people who made them up. Mitsuki, and several
other characters are mine, and so's the story, hence ownership
and copyright of them belongs to me. Contact me at 
misato_98@yahoo.com if you want permission to use anything I've 
written for whatnot purposes.


LOVE

By

Raymond Cooper

Chapter 1

** Love Sucks **


Two women, in their twilight years, sat on the porch of an old-style
dojo as the sun headed down into its mid-afternoon position. Both 
sat, serenely, hands folded in their laps, staring out at times 
long-since past. Memories of people now gone, places now built over
by concrete and steel, enemies that were now as infirm as they 
themselves. Memories of smells long dead in the world, such as 
daisies and roses, of rain on dirt and dry cement, the smells of a 
partner in the heat of passion. Noises, too, were missing. Those of 
children playing, cars, trains, and birds. It was the birds that the
silver-haired woman missed most, with children a close second.

She turned to her companion, who despite her advancing years, still
had a head full of magnificent red hair. The other was sitting 
silent, still, motionless... yet poised, as only a lifetime of 
service to ancient, now dead, arts could entice one to sit. The 
silver-haired woman knew the other still practised, still taught
- it was one of the specialties of her generation that they attempted
to continue. She knew, for example, that Xian Pu had attempted
to continue the arts of the Amazons after the Indo-Chinese
Conglomerate had bulldozed and plasma-bathed the village to make way
for new multi-level cities. But, like most of the others, Xian Pu was
gone now, too.

The other finally turned, noticing the gaze of her companion,
or perhaps only now deigning to acknowledge it. "It has been a while
since we were all last together."

"Those of us that remain," replied the first.

"Yes." The redhead fell silent again. Not for the first time, the 
first felt jealous of the other, jealous of her ability to hide from
the wrinkles that time wrought.

"What does the future hold for us?"

The redhead was silent for a time. Then: "The future... ahhhh, my 
old, dear friend. We won't be around to see it. Well, much of it. And
you should be glad of that. This world we live in now," she gestured
to the north, where NeoTokyo was taking place, growing up in 
kilometres-high spirals and towers, "will get worse."

"Maybe you made the wrong choice. You know, about what you said to 
that Setsuna girl."

The redhead shook her head. "Nope. That we're all sure of. Perfect
peace and happiness? Must be fought for. Mistakes must be made for us
to learn. I learnt a lot from her friends."

The silver-haired woman turned to the sun again. "I remember."

"All you remember of that time was how I hurt you."

"I remember more than that. I... I just... it has been a while."

"Indeed."

The two were silent, regarding each other and the environment
around them. In the distance was a belch of fire. The sound took a 
number of seconds to reach them, and when it arrived, it was a low,
dull rumble, like a distant earthquake. The redhead cocked her head
to one side, listening intently. "The planet can't take much more of
this."

"The overpopulation?"

"Everything. It is going off like that even more often now than 
before. Thankfully, people are beginning to notice. But too slow."

Both nodded sagely. Then the redhead looked down between them. A Go 
board lay there, pieces arranged in battle from the last, final game,
aged and weathered. To both women, it meant so much, the pieces 
arranged like this. Both of their fathers had perished in the spots
they now occupied, the Go board between them. This last game lay 
forever unfinished. The redhead reached down, picked up one of the 
pieces, turned it over and over in her fingers. "If only they'd taken
up another hobby. Something less dangerous. Like playing tennis with
live grenades or something."

"I know how you feel," said the silver-haired woman. "It's like they
both should still be here. I feel them sometimes. My abilities
are lapsing as I grow older. I can barely pick up a ki signature
now, let alone differentiate them. And I feel them from time to 
time." She paused. "I feel all of them."

"You're the last now, Akane."

"I'm so lonely, Ranma. I'm the third one."

The redhead put the piece back down, and moved over to her friend's
other side, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her into an
embrace. "You're very welcome to come stay with Hotaru and I, you 
know. We'd love to have you."

"You've heard about the dojo, then."

"The demolishing? Yeah. Come on, our place is always yours. You know
that."

"Ranma?" Akane looked up, eyes glistening with small drops of water.
"Ranma? Can you tell me a story? Of how it was before it all got so 
bad and dark? Before everyone was dead?"

"You want me to continue on from where I got up to last time we were
together?" Ranma asked, and Akane nodded. "Okay, then. You know, 
every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. This is the 
middle... but I'm going to start at the end of it, tell you where
it went to before I tell you how it got there."

"Why?"

"To make it more interesting."

"Oh, okay..."

"So. We're talking about love, aren't we? So let's pick it up from
there. Love. My first sexual experience. Nervous, knowing I shouldn't
be doing this, feeling so wrong, so bad... and yet it was so good."

******

And then, at the moment of release, Ranma's head exploded and he 
toppled lifelessly onto Mitsuki. She blinked, once, automatically
wiping the bone fragments and brain portions from her eyes, heedless
of the numerous small injuries to her face caused by chips of bone,
then started screaming.

******

Usagi heard the screaming, woke with a start. Her clock said it was
2AM, definitely not the time for screaming. She pulled her pillow
over her head, tried to go back to sleep. But Obviously Mitsuki
was having a great time with whatever guy she'd dragged home...
wait, Mitsuki hadn't gone out... oh no...

She bolted from her bed, headed out the door for the stairs. The 
other senshi on the second floor were beginning to poke their heads
out of doors, and at the bottom of the stairs, outside of Ranma's
room, was Hotaru, looking inside with a look of complete and utter
shock on her face, her skin a paler shade of alabaster than normal.
She stepped back, shaking her head slowly, hesitantly. "No, no, he'd
never -" she said, before Usagi reached her, pulled her away from the
door so she could have a look herself.

One glance was enough to confirm her worst fears: a naked Mitsuki
lying under a blood-soaked Ranma.

But... there was a gap where his neck and head should have been. Like
something was missing.

That was about when Usagi noticed the stains on the walls, red, grey,
white. His head had just... exploded. She turned to one side quickly
and vomited the contents of her stomach up just as the other senshi
reached the doorway. There was a shocked silence.

Then several other stomachs evacuated meals from earlier. Hotaru
slid down the wall, holding herself, screaming and sobbing at the 
same time, making a weird hiccupping sound. Mitsuki continued
to scream inside the room, as if she was a child, woken up from a bad
dream. Usagi felt like that herself.

Ami changed into her senshi form, bringing down her visor to check
the room through the safety and slight removal from reality this 
offered her. Streams of numbers and characters scrolled past her eyes
and she worked the whole room over. Her glance fell on a packet of 
pills next to the bed, and she almost glanced away again, until 
numbers in red started flashing. There was a reaction in them, 
something bad. Something dangerous. Dark Kingdom dangerous.

But would a monster inhabit the pills of a person suffering multiple
personality disorder? No, likely not. Which meant, most likely,
that this was a secondary effect of something.

Mercury gave a start as she remembered Ranma asking her something
a while ago, something about a powder that was supposed to do 
something to him or to the senshi. She'd scanned him, and found a 
small parasitic spore form of a Dark Kingdom monster. She had thought
she had removed it... but obviously not. Perhaps it was still 
gestating in him now, because the energy signature from the pills
was the same as she'd found on Ranma. Yet, his body showed no trace
of it. Strange. She took Hotaru and Usagi aside, dragged Makoto along
too to take care of the younger senshi while she tried to talk to 
Usagi, tell her what she'd found.

"But... but she blew his head up!"

"Not her," Mercury said again, trying to keep bile down and her tone
level. "Understand that. She had a bad reaction to a Dark Kingdom
monster. A spore that infected her medication." She continued
to explain, until most of the senshi were around her, listening
to her calming words. One by one, they realised what had happened.
One by one, their anger and shock turned to pity, to sorrow, and to 
compassion. They all knew of Mitsuki's problems. They knew she'd been
taking her medication religiously for the last six months. They knew,
too, that for some reason, Ranma had been more and more attracted
to her of late. That had the effect of making Hotaru a little more
insistant for his time and attention, but no one had thought it would
come to this. And with her medication tampered with... well, there
were very destructive personalities within Mitsuki's head. She did 
her best to keep them contained, and Ranma had been trying to help
her with them... but still... 

And while they knew she was responsible, they found that they 
couldn't blame her.

Police were called, statements made, photos taken. Then the body was
removed. They wouldn't have believed that Mitsuki could have exploded
Ranma's head, and they were certain no one else in the house could
have done it... so they left with no further action taken against
the young women.

And so, when Hotaru stopped crying, and dried her eyes, while Makoto
and Minako helped clean Mitsuki off, Hotaru said, "Someone has to 
tell his family and friends." And she stood up, walked out of the 
dorm, in the early hours of the morning.

******

Hotaru walked the streets of Nerima, and felt a presence behind her.
Familiar, comforting. Like an old friend, wrapping an arm around
her, drawing her into a tight hug, kissing the top of her head. She
turned, but nothing. For a moment, using the techniques Ranma had 
taught her, she thought it was her boyfriend, her sensei... her 
former boyfriend, her ex-sensei, she reminded herself. He was gone
now, paint on the walls in his room. She felt her eyes tear up, and
once more, she wiped savagely at them as she had done several times
since leaving the Ai Sou.

A few minutes later, she felt another familiar presence behind her.
She turned, quicker this time, to see Tatewaki Kuno behind her, hand
on his bokken. "These early hours before school times are not a safe
time for a Goddess such as your fair self to be traversing through,"
he said. "For there are many dangers that -" Kuno shut up suddenly
as a bike tyre impacted on his head, bounced, and the Chinese girl
riding it make an excellent landing on the road in front of him. 

"Aiya! Stupid speech-boy get out of Shampoo's way! Shampoo -"

A chain whistled through the air behind the Amazon, and she turned,
grabbing it, pulling Mousse into view. "Wah! Shampoo! Do not run from
the fates of love!"

"Shampoo not running! Shampoo biking! Very fast!"

"Shampoo! The Amazon Elders have confirmed it! We must mar-" Mousse
got no further, for the chain he had sent hurtling at Shampoo flew
back at him, wrapped around his neck and choked him tight. He fell
to the ground gasping, grabbing for the chain to loosen it enough
to breath. Shampoo made good her escape, noting that the girl had 
left the area already and was heading for the Tendo residence.
That wasn't good. Shampoo hadn't recognised her at first... but she
did now. She had been there that time she had nearly been killed,
been with her Ranma. And she had been there other times, too, as well
as attending Furinken High. This wouldn't be good. Curious, she 
pedalled after the younger girl.

"Why strange girl go see Tendo's?" she asked, curious.

Hotaru didn't so much as glance in Shampoo's direction. "Gather
your friends. All of them. Everyone who knew Ranma. Get them to the
Tendo Dojo before I get there." She didn't slow down, just kept 
moving steadily towards her destination. Shampoo glanced even more
curiously at the girl's face, then decided something felt really
wrong about this situation, and did as she had been asked.

******

Everyone was gathered within the dojo's hall in record time. The 
strange girl whom everyone had seen around or knew personally
in some cases was standing towards the front.

When Akane entered, the girl, Hotaru, stiffened slightly. Akane 
wondered what was going on, and why no one was attacking her, 
especially after everything she'd done, both to Ranma, to Nabiki,
to her. She could see Nabiki was chomping at the bit to cause a fight
here... she had never gotten over that betrayal. Another Tendo sister
hurt by Ranma.

Although that wasn't completely true, Akane reflected. He had done
the best he could to disentangle them with their friendship intact,
she had to admit that. He had tried to make everything right, and 
he'd taken the blame for the split, even though somewhere deep down,
Akane knew she'd been a large part of the cause. Ranma had still 
helped out when he could, even though he didn't have to. He obviously
considered her to be a friend... a very good friend, at that. He'd
helped out with Kasumi, kept that quiet, made the others keep quiet.
And while Akane was still angry, she knew that was because she was 
still hurting.

What she felt was strange was that Hotaru had called everyone 
together. Absolutely everyone. Ukyou and Shampoo were huddled over
near Cologne. Happosai was brooding with suspicious bulges in his 
pockets, wanting to bond with his new haul of panties, but curiousity
was too much for him. Or something. Akane found she didn't like the
look on his face. Or Cologne's, for that matter. Kasumi served drinks
with a smile, but she was quiet. Nabiki glared at Hotaru. Ryoga stood
nearby with Kuno's hand clamped to his shoulder to stop him from 
going anywhere. Kuno's sister, Kodachi, was also nearby, dressed
in a dress for a change. Even Miss Hinako was there, glaring at all
the delinquints around her, without her being able to do anything
about it. And her father and Ranma's were sitting behind them all,
staring out the back forlornly at their Go board, wanting desperately
to get into a game.

It wasn't until the door slid open one final time that Hotaru looked
up, sadly. Akane wondered at that, and turned to see who had just 
entered. Nodoka Saotome, Ranma's mother.

It was then that Akane knew this was going to be bad. Hotaru's
next words confirmed that.

"Ranma Saotome... is dead."

******

The grief hit everyone in different ways. Akane felt like she'd been
punched in the stomach, and sank to her knees. While she pretended
she didn't care much for him, she did love Ranma. She knew that they
wouldn't be able to stay together... but she did love him still.
And she wanted to see him one last time to tell him that, to his 
face. Not through innuendo, not through actions, through three simple
words.

******

Ryoga's first thought was, Now Akane is free! Then the words impacted
properly, and he found himself staring into space, half a grin on his
face, that drooped slowly into a frown, then a shocked expression
as his shocked-into-immobility brain fought to catch up. It failed.
His rival for affections, his rival for love... his best friend,
now and forever... was gone for good.

******

Kuno had expected something of this when he had observed the people
turning up. Yet, no doubt, they would not be as emotionally
strong as he, and would need someone to show them how to handle their
grief. He stood, tall, in an actual heroic pose, honouring the fallen
foe and comrade in arms in the manner of a warrior. Yet a tear 
glistened at the corner of his eye. His sister clung to his shoulder
and cried, but Kuno felt that was more for the fact one of her 
playthings was now beyond her. He wrapped an arm around Kodachi,
held her tight. Maybe now she could heal from abuses long-since
past. Maybe now, he could, too.

******

Shampoo nodded gravely. She, also, had expected as much. She 
comforted Ukyou while Cologne closed her eyes and contemplated.
The loss of Ranma's genes for the Amazon tribe was a great loss. She
had hoped that he would return to Nerima, but as time passed...
and as the conflicts between the people training under her and those
under Ranma grew... she had known somewhere that he would never marry
Shampoo. This girl in front of them would have been the one. She 
opened her eyes to find Hotaru looking directly at her.

"We will talk. Soon," Hotaru promised. And right then, Cologne knew,
somehow, she was responsible for Ranma's death.

******

Genma continued to stare dumbly at the young girl, Nodoka at his 
side. Then Soun burst into tears. Nodoka took the news stoicly,
then spoke. "I assume you will return his body for funeral 
arrangements?"

Hotaru shook his head. "I would like to arrange them, if I may, Mrs
Saotome. Although everyone is invited."

Nodoka considered this. "That would be good. I... am sorry. For your
loss."

"Not merely mine."

Nodoka nodded. "True. And thank you. For informing us yourself."
She paused. "May I see the body?"

Hotaru looked slightly green at that suggestion, and shook her head.
"I'd rather you remember him as in life, than as he is now."

"This is also sound advice, but I fear... I must see the body."

Hotaru nodded. "I'll arrange it with the hospital. But the funeral
will have to be a closed-casket one. He'll be cremated afterwards.
The ashes... will go to you and your husband."

"Thank you." Nodoka bowed slightly.

******

Happosai was quiet in his corner. "Ranma's dead." Never again would
he feel those soft, luscious breasts, never again would he be able
to steal his panties or bras... or swimwear... never again would he 
see that bright chirpy face... never again... "Oh, Ranma..."

******

Everyone in the room shivered, feeling something. Those more aware...
turned to stare at each other dumbly. The ki signature was very 
familiar.

But everyone passed it off as a weakness of grief, feeling a loved
one close to oneself.

After all, people didn't return from the dead.

Ranma Saotome didn't walk this Earth any longer.

******

The funeral was held several days later. All of Ranma's friends
from Nerima showed up in formal dress, apart from Kuno, who honoured
his fallen comrade in a battle uniform from the kendo club with a 
troop of kendoists behind him, also in uniform at attention.
His family, likewise, showed, Nodoka standing tall and proud and 
firm, honouring the memory of her son, the man known as Ranma 
Saotome.

On the other side of the casket were the senshi, Mitsuki standing
behind them, the saddest and most upset of the lot. Some wondered
why she was so upset, looking so guilty. From what they had heard,
it had to be some mighty fierce warrior who had killed their former
friend, not this purple-haired woman. Hotaru stood slightly apart
from the others, in between the senshi and the Tendo family. Soun's
tears threatened to put everyone to shame.

Akane noticed the girl standing slightly apart from her friends,
and moved to stand beside her. Her hand gripped Hotaru's. "No hard
feelings," she said, throat choking closed on her as the younger
girl looked up, upset. "I mean... you know... with Ranma. I was...
stupid -"

"No, you weren't," Hotaru said. "But there's time for that later.
For now... thanks for the company."

Akane nodded kindly, and turned back to the simple ceremony Hotaru
had organised. She noticed a blond-haired man enter the parlour
and stand behind the Nerima crowd. He was dressed in a black suit,
but with a white shirt underneath, and a light blue tie. He wore 
black gloves on both hands, and kept his eyes on the casket. Akane
noticed Hotaru had seen him when her hand suddenly clamped down hard
on Akane's. She'd have to find out what that was about afterwards.

But for now, the celebrant cleared his throat, and began to speak.

******

The funeral passed quickly for Hotaru. She had noted Yoshihiro
standing opposite before the celebrant had started, and his eyes had
been rooted to the casket, as if he hadn't really believed that Ranma
could be dead. When the celebrant had finished, and eulogies had been
completed for Ranma, the crowd mingled. Hotaru tried to look for 
Yoshihiro, but he had that nasty habit of fading into crowds. She 
wasn't sure if he'd left or not yet. That wasn't good.

What was worse was when she turned around to check if any of the 
other senshi had noticed him, and found him smiling down at her. 
"Child," he said, "Why so down? This is a time of reflecting
on the good moments of his passing."

"What are you doing here?" Hotaru threw at him, angrily.

"Honouring a fallen foe."

"That's a lie!"

"Is it? Or perhaps you'd feel better if I told you I was here making
sure he was really dead. You know, because I'm this all-powerful
'bad guy', and he was the only one of you with perhaps enough power
and skill to defeat me. Perhaps." Yoshihiro shrugged. "But I really
did come to pay my respects to the dead."

"You'd have us all dead," Hotaru snarled, "if you had your way!"

"Of course. But it wouldn't be through underhandedness,
would it? I don't like all that sneaking about. It's what got Natsumi
into trouble in the first place." Yoshihiro paused, turned to the 
casket. "But Ranma is gone now. A pity, I no longer feel I have a 
challenge here."

"A challenge?" Mitsuki spoke from behind Yoshi, and he half-turned
to note the senshi were standing behind him, angry at this intrusion
into their day-to-day lives. "All of us together, we're more than a 
match for you. Dark Kingdom scum!" She spat at him. Rei moved 
slightly to one side. The other senshi took her lead, spread out, 
ready to engage the enemy.

"Scum? I think not. Royalty, perhaps, your better, definitely.
Single-minded?" He directed a grin at Mitsuki, who fumed. "Of 
course."

The room had by now fell silent, aware there was something going on.
Those with the ability to detect ki noticed some interestnig
patterns forming in the room, knew there was about to be a big fight.
And they also readied themselves, somehow innately aware that the man
the girls Ranma had lived with were facing off against was an enemy.

Yoshihiro snorted. "Truly. None of you pose a threat to me 
whatsoever."

A voice behind him said, "Oh? Is that so?"

******

Ranma fell silent in her recounting of the story, remembering.
"And that was the end of the middle. It was a long story. It was a 
hard and painful story. But that was when it got better for us all.
We all found our centres after that moment, that one indefinable
moment that everyone had. The sense of doing right. Justice. Good.
Yoshihiro in his way... was a force for good. A driving force behind
evolution of the species. We will get there one day, Akane... one 
day. Because of that moment. A moment of love."

Akane smiled, remembering the moment. "You're growing sappy in your
old age."

"And you enjoy fairy tales too much for my liking." Ranma stood 
suddenly. "I'm sorry, Akane. I've... I've got to go."

Akane nodded, distant, still in happy memories of when her sisters
were alive. Ranma left, sliding the partition doors to the patio 
closed as she went inside.

Akane turned, feeling a presence behind her. "Ranma?"

The young Ranma she knew oh so very well, the male Ranma, crouched
there, smiling his crooked smile. "Heya, Akane. How's things?"

"They're not... as good as they used to be."

"I can see. I know."

"I... know why you're here."

"Do you?"

"You're dead, aren't you?"

"At the moment," Ranma conceeded. "Being dead... well, it's 
different. You get to like it."

"I'll get to like it before you, you mean."

Ranma nodded. "Sorry, Akane. But it's time."

"Yes."

And the years melted away. Akane stood before Ranma then, as young
as he appeared. "I suspected as much. You... always knew things after
that day."

"Yes."

"And you knew things today."

Ranma merely nodded. Then he gestured to the doors behind him. "Akane
- it's time. Your mother... your father... Kasumi... Nabiki...
Shampoo... the others. They're all in there, waiting for you."

Akane stepped towards the door, then hesitated. She turned back, 
stormed up to Ranma, wrapped her arms around him and kissed him 
soundly, passionately, hotly. She pulled back, looking down at her 
feet. "I'm sorry, Ranma. I... had to do that. Once." She looked up.
"I do love you, you know. I always did. I didn't mean to push you 
away like I did."

Ranma stopped her with a finger to her lips. "Shush. I know, Akane.
I love you, too. And now... now... go on. Through the door. Be with
your family, where you belong."

She nodded, and this time, there was no hesitation as she strode
through the door.

Into the greatest love of all.



SAILOR MOON SAYS:

Gah. I hate computer crashes. Well, six weeks without a computer
is character-building... according to my parents. I know that to be a
crock from experience ;)

This is the first part of Love, the second arc from my Ranma/Sailor
Moon/Love Hina crossover fic. It tells of the end of this arc, 
actually, as you might have noticed. I hope you enjoy what leads up 
to it... I enjoyed writing this. A lot. Surprising, really. One good
thing about the six weeks it took to get me a new computer is that
I had been discarding ideas for this arc willy-nilly, and it let me 
get some ideas in line for this arc's story in toto...

As always, feel free to email me with comments, queries, etc. I can
also be found on IRC, on dalnet servers, #anime channel from time to
time. I'm Misato__Katsuragi (long story, but it's where all my 
Misato's come from).

Anyway, next chapter, picking up from the beginning. I've got a lot
of ground to cover this arc, as you might notice. Oh, I do so hate
hard drive crashes that take *everything* with them! All my notes
went with it :( DISCLAIMER: Relatively standard stuff. Existing
characters are properties of the people who made them up. Mitsuki,
and several other characters are mine, and so's the story, hence 
ownership and copyright of them belongs to me. Contact me at 
misato_98@yahoo.com if you want permission to use anything I've 
written for whatnot purposes.


LOVE

By

Raymond Cooper

Chapter 2

** L'amour Impossible **


"Ooooh! Look!" Hotaru stepped away from Ranma easily enough. The poor
red-headed girl was exhausted. Once upon a time, Ranma had carried
Hotaru up and down the stairs in front of the Ai Sou, where they 
lived, but at the current time, Ranma was feeling a little...
drained.

The younger girl turned back to face her friend, gesturing at a CD 
stand. "Megumi Hayashibara's got a new single out!"

Ranma snorted; in his girl-form it came out higher pitched than even
he had thought it would. "Megumi Hayashibara. Her voice is too 
squeaky and you can't take her seriously as a voice actress. She'd
better not try anything other than comedy."

Hotaru pouted. "Sempai, just because you're a bit sensitive about
being stuck in your... uh, girl form for a while doesn't mean you can
just act nasty and snide all the time."

No, it didn't, and Ranma had to admit that. Hotaru was being as 
cheerful as she could - and while it was very obviously false to 
anyone who knew her well enough, Ranma did appreciate the effort.
He said as much to the girl, whose alabaster cheeks seemed to glow
a subtle pink with the kind words. Definitely something Ranma had 
been missing on giving the poor girl for a while.

It had been three days now since he had woken up, three days since
he found the girls he lived with now knew the truth about his curse.
While he wanted to change back to his normal form, Hotaru had nixed
the idea, saying that the damage he'd sustained in battle was very
great and she almost hadn't been able to help him at all. When Ranma
fell silent and checked his ki, he'd found he had almost emptied
himself dry helping the senshi. Indeed, even then, a week after the
event, healed by Hotaru, he'd only just recovered enough of his life
energies to regain consciousness.

The day before, he'd done his best to get out of bed, prove Hotaru
wrong about her diagnosis. He had managed to hobble around the 
dormitory, but hadn't been able to climb stairs at all, and had been
as weak as a kitten. Indeed, Usagi knocked him down in the kitchen
by throwing open the fridge door a little too fast on the way for a 
snack. Hotaru had promised to take him into town the next day if he 
was feeling better. He was - still too weak to risk a transformation,
but feeling well enough to try and tackle the stairs to the road.

That was an ordeal in itself. Ranma now had a better appreciation
of how Hotaru had found things before his training had begun to 
strengthen her ever so slightly. In her transformed state, she could
easily overpower him in a straight-out slugfest, but Ranma held the
upper hand in skill and experience. Or so he liked to believe.
It was the only one of two conclusions he had made during their 
sparring matches that he accepted - the other was that she was 
holding back for fear of hurting him. Much more of a blow to Ranma's
ego, that one.

The walk into town had been tough, but by now, Ranma was mostly fine.
The exercise and eating returned his strength and vitality to him,
and he could walk fine enough now, without having to be helped.
He had been spared that embarrassment in public, at least. He thought
he might be okay to try a transformation back to his normal body in a
day or two, but was't going to push it. If he continued recovering
at the rate he was thus far, then he might give it a go. But if he 
plateaued, if he levelled out, he'd give it some more time.

At least he no longer thought of his female form as the curse he once
had - it was very useful at times. And comfortable at others. He 
touched Hotaru's arm as he reached her. "I'm hungry again. Let's find
something to eat."

******

"Hungry again?" Hotaru asked, disbelieving. He nodded, and they found
a small street cart to buy and eat instant ramen from.

She'd already watched Ranma put away four big-sized meals today...
and it wasn't even lunch time yet. In addition to that, he'd had 
numerous in-between snacks. She guessed it was something to do with
replenishing his energy, similar to the recommendations
when she'd had a series of blood tests years ago, when she'd had her
'problems', around the time she first met Usagi, that one should
eat and drink a large meal afterwards, to help replenish the blood
in her body.

Yet Ranma had put away enough to feed a small African country,
and still looked hungry.

No wonder he could harness such energies when he needed to; the man
was a checmical powerhouse.

She could feel Ranma's life force building within him again, like a 
rare flower unfolding in a myriad of intricate patterns, ever faster,
always rushing to catch those all-too-brief summer rays of light.
She was attuned to injured people in some way, she'd found a long 
time ago, but now... she seemed to be finding ways of feeling people
without seeing them, without touching them. She suspected that was 
part of Ranma's teachings, but it wasn't something he'd covered,
apart from a few blindfolded lessons with her, Rei and Mitsuki to 
teach them about listening for an opponent's moves and actions.

It was something she'd have to bring up.

She could feel Ranma's presence, burning stronger and stronger
with every passing minute, especially when he ate, and could detect
small puffs of energy and life passing around behind and beside her
- ordinary people, going about ordinary lives.

Then something made her hair stand on end. A light, burning bright,
at least as strong as Ranma used to be. At least. She suspected
the sensation she was receiving diminished with distance. She turned,
regardless, to see if she could see who was filled with such energy.
But all she could see were normal people, heads down, leading their
normal lives.

And one tall blond man, slightly foreign looking, standing on the 
other side of the street, looking up at the sky. As she continued
to stare, she felt that this man was the source of the energy, and as
she watched, he slowly turned his head to look at her directly.

She felt a rush of something within her, moments later decided it had
to be hormones or something similar as she felt intensely attracted
to the handsome stranger. His clothes were dark, but casual rather
than the formal of most twenty-something males currently on the 
street. His face was pleasant, his eyes easy and reassuring,
his nose straight and chin strong. He nodded, almost imperceptibly
at her, then turned back to the skies above, staring as if he'd never
seen them before.

Hotaru's knees felt weak.

Ranma stopped slurping up his ramen, and turned to Hotaru. "What's
up? You're quiet."

"Oh... uh, nothing," she blushed. "Nothing at all, sempai. It's 
just..." She turned back to the street to spot the mysterious
handsome man, but he had vanished. She turned back to Ranma. 
"Nothing."

"Okay." He continued to eye her in that way of his when he knew she
wasn't telling the truth, but wouldn't call her on it, leaving her 
her privacy. It was something he was very good at, letting others
keep their secrets. Something to do with his personal code of honour
or something, she hypothesised.

Meanwhile, she continued to sip at her drink, waiting for Ranma to 
finish so she could be cheerful and chirpy again. Quite how Usagi
did this all day long, every day, Hotaru didn't know. Or would Minako
be the one to ask? Who knew? Not Hotaru. It was very draining,
being nice and happy all the time. Well, being nice was what she was
like all the time, she felt, but occasionally she snapped at people,
acted in a sneaky manner, among other things.

And it had been just over a week since she'd attended Furinken
High. That made her wonder what schemes Nabiki Tendo had gotten up to
while she had been gone. Without Hotaru around, the young senshi
would find it hard to counter anything she had done before it 
involved Ranma. That powder that Nabiki used on Ranma a month or so 
ago was a surprise that Hotaru didn't think she could afford again.
Yet she didn't know what it did. Ami hadn't been able to determine
anything about it, and pondered whether it would do anything at all.
Hotaru hadn't found anything physically wrong with Ranma, so maybe
that powder was suppose dto do soemthing natural, if anything at all.
A laxitive or something.

She shrugged; this afternoon, she'd have to attend the school, to get
her notes for the previous week and to catch up on Nabiki's plans.
That was a definite. IF she could Ranma home first.

Noticing that Ranma was finished, she stood up. Ranma followed
suit.

"Ranma, why -"

Ranma held a hand up. "Hotaru, stop." She obliged. "It's so nice of 
you to want to cheer me up. Really. But, uh, you know, you've got 
things to do. Like school for instance! And I've got things to do. 
I've gotta get back in shape. I've gotta get my body back the way it
was. I've missed a week, over a week, of training - that's not good.
I've got to start getting back into my routine, and you've got to get
back into yours."

"Ranma, I *like* looking after you!"

"I know, Hotaru-chan, and I like you looking after me, believe me,"
Ranma sighed. "But... c'mon, you gotta get back into your life, too.
You gotta go to school, you gotta train - and how can you train 
properly if your teacher isn't able to move?" He snorted.

Hotaru had to admit, he had a point. The more she looked after him,
the more both would be tempted to forget about their outside lives.
Or so it seemed to her. Maybe it was a residual hormone surge from
seeing that man, but she leaned forward and kissed Ranma on the lips.
Ranma acted a little shocked, but wasn't going to pull away.

******

Two kids stopped and stared at the two girls kissing in front of the
ramen stand. One turned to the other and said, "See, Hiroshi, what
did I tell you? It's a good luck charm."

Hiroshi growled under his breath.

******

Hotaru waved goodbye to Ranma and walked away. Ranma turned back to 
the ramen stand to get his breath back. That had been some kiss...
and he hadn't wanted it to end, either. But he had some examining
to do that he didn't want Hotaru around for. He'd felt the energy
spike behind him a whole lot clearer than Hotaru had, and he had much
more control over his body and emotions than she had... yet even he 
himself had been slightly attracted to the source of power. Like the
relentless pull of gravity surrounding a major planet, he likened
it to. He felt it with the senshi, even when they were in their 
unpowered forms, an attraction that pulled at him. With Hotaru,
he had let the attraction pull him to her, and let his own 
personality and humour pull her to him. If something was going to 
happen between them, it would, and it would damned well happen 
naturally.

He'd felt the way Hotaru had reacted, and felt a pang of jealousy.
Yet he couldn't blame her for her reaction; the person who was 
throwing out that kind of energy was extremely powerful, more so than
Hotaru had noticed. He was also tending towards the darker side of 
nature, like these Dark Kingdom creatures Ranma had faced off against
with the senshi at his side. Yet, in his condition, he doubted he 
could have blocked a punch, let alone a projected ki blast, and he 
hadn't made a move to boost his own power levels faster or prepare
for combat. He'd remained as if completely oblivious to it all. 
Hotaru hadn't picked up on the likely affiliation of the man; but 
that was okay. He trusted her not to do anything stupid, like try and
follow him.

He hoped, anyway.

******

Hotaru walked along a concreted drainage stream, thinking quietly
to herself about how she would present her absence to Nabiki Tendo.
Perhaps the 'flu might be a good excuse, or some other illness - God
knew, Hotaru Tomoe had been inflicted with enough illnesses over her
lifetime. Possibly even a pulled muscle, a strain, or a dead 
relative.

Or perhaps... no, she blushed at that thought. As far as Nabiki 
apparently thought, Hotaru lvied with her strict parents. Managing
to sneak her boyfriend over for one day might be believable,
but for over a week? Not likely.

She had a hand on the chain-link fence as she walked when she heard
something. It sounded like a cat's nervous cries for help. She peered
through the fence, and there, just up a little, beside a hole in the
mesh, was a cat, a slightly off-white colour with purple tufts of fur
on its head. Beside the hole was a bike, and in the distance,
fast moving away, was a cloud of dust and smoke being whipped up by 
what Hotaru assumed to be some of the Nerima people she had been 
meeting.

The cat was hanging into a branch just below the hole in the fence,
and was wet and bedraggled, struggling to hold on as the branch 
slipped further and further from the fence and closer towards the 
gushing stream below. There was panic in its eyes and tension in its
body.

"Hello, kitty," Hotaru called, lying her bag next to the concrete
abutment the fence sat on and poking her head and shoulders slowly
through the fence. "Come here, come on" she continued, holding out 
her hands.

The cat tried to swipe at a hand, but was too far away. The branch
slipped further down towards the water.

Hotaru leaned further through the fence, finally resting her knees
on the concrete to reach in as far as she could. "Here kitty, kitty,"
she called again. The cat took one look at Hotaru's now-within
reach arms, and fled up them, scratching and clawing as she went.

The girl was surprised - a knee slipped, and she went through the 
fence herself now, as the cat made it through onto the road next to 
the bike. It made a sound almost like a raspberry, Hotaru thought,
as she now clutched to the unsteady branch.

The branch shifted again, groaning under the new, much heavier 
weight. It bent. Hotaru righted herself, turning so she now faced
the hole in the fence, and tried to reach upwards, to grab the fence.
But the branch slipped, and her feet splashed into the water. It gave
a little more, and as Hotaru tried one last time to reach safety,
the branch snapped just above her hands, and both halves fell into
the water, taking the girl with them.

While the stream wasn't terribly wide - only a few metres at most - 
it wasn't shallow, and the water was moving rather fast. The current
swept at Hotaru, and the girl's body didn't offer much resistance.
She tried putting some effort into swimming, but wasn't strong enough
to make it. She opened her mouth to activate her transformation,
and swallowed a mouthful of water.

It was only the first. More quickly followed, and then her vision
was obscured as the water closed over her. She thought she saw 
something -

- something big, something dark, hovering over the water -

******

So, where was this guy? Ranma was searching through the streets
in the direction he'd felt the man head towards, but could find no 
trace of his energies. He had to be around somewhere. And it's not 
like a tall foreigner could hide so easily in a mostly Japanese
community, on a purely visual level. He had to be here somewhere.

Instead of finding his target, though, he felt a surge of the dark
energy he associated with Dark Kingdom monsters erupt from a side 
alley he was passing, and when he looked down -

******

Lips.

Soft, tender, yet insistant and powerful.

Giving her new life.

Hotaru coughed, and the lips disappeared. She opened her eyes, and 
saw light, streaming down from above. A man's shadow leaning over 
her.

Complete and utter silence.

And a smell.

A brief flutter, like those of a bird's wings, and the man was gone
in a swirl of light from above, heading off in the direction of the
sun so she couldn't make out any features.

But she saw one thing.

He had blond hair.

She sat up, unable to move after him. There were footsteps behind
her, angry footsteps, and she turned to face them. Shampoo, holding
a dress in place as she fastened it around her shoulders. She fumed,
the anger coming off the Chinese girl in near visible waves.

"You take Shampoo's airen," Shampoo growled. "What you doing here?"

Hotaru stared up, dazed and confused a little. "Wha?"

As if by magic, bonbori appeared in Shampoo's hands. "You not nice
girl! You viper! You steal Shampoo's airen!"

Hotaru shook her head, trying to clear it and also to refute the 
charge laid against her. "No, I... we... he likes me. And I like 
him."

Shampoo snarled, and leapt.

Only to be caught in midair. "Hands such as these peasant's hands
should never so much as caress the outermost layers of clothing
of a goddess such as this," Tatewaki Kuno announced, holding the 
Amazon up with one hand and deftly warding off what would normally
be crippling blows from the enraged girl. "Flee, ruffian, and leave
my goddess alone." He gave a toss, and Shampoo bounced down close
to her bike. She scowled at Kuno and Hotaru.

"This not over yet." Then there was a ring of her bike's bell, and 
Shampoo was gone.

Kuno turned back to Hotaru, and bent down on one knee, lowering
his head. "I apologise for not ceasing this dreadful attack on your
person sooner." He thought it best not to offer the reason, in case
it should be taken as an excuse. Hotaru got Kuno to help her to her
feet. "Shall I assist you to school?"

"Yes, please, sempai," Hotaru muttered, running her fingers through
her hair and grimacing. Not only were her clothes wet, but her hair
was a mess. At least her bag was dry. She retreived it, and took one
last look at the hole in the fence. And sniffed.

The smell of roses was still strong in the air.

******

- he saw a young girl he recognised. "You again."

Natsumi Otohime looked up from where she was trying to rip off flesh
and congealed blood from a wound in her side. "Who are you?"

Ah. That's right. Ranma had met this girl in combat, and in 
meditation, yet he'd thought the meditative event was simply a 
hallucination. And whlie he recognised her, she might not recognise
him. Well, he'd have thought she might in his girl body - what he was
in then - but not his male form. So that was a little confusing,
too. But... it was dark in the alley, darker than it had any right
to be, and it was bright outside. Perhaps she couldn't see his face?

Ranma stepped closer. "You're hurt."

Natsumi laughed. "You went to university to make that informed
decision?" She gave a cough, and black ichor geysered from her nose.
"Scram, normal. I've got other things to worry about right now. But
if you don't leave, I'll make sure you stay for good."

That sounded like good advice to Ranma, who was never known to stay
around in a fight when he was losing. And he would lose this one, if
it came to that, with the levels of power Natsumi was throwing
out compared to his own. Yet, something held him back. "What happened
to you?"

"I screwed up. Tried to get rid of the Master's favourite. Okay?"
She coughed again.

Something in Ranma twisted. Something coiled. He asked, "Is there
anything I can do to help?"


SAILOR MOON SAYS

A short chapter this time. I've discovered new games on my new 
computer :) Yay! I can play things more recent than 1998 now, and I'm
loving it :)

Unfortunately, that's having a corresponding knock-on effect with my
writing :P I started this chapter the other day, should have started
it much earlier. But it's finished now. No, you didn't miss anything
with this chapter, this has gone back to the beginning of this arc.
The first chapter of this arc was the last. But was it everything
of the last chapter, or were bits missing? Hmm. How did things get 
that bad? Where the heck are things in this chapter going?

Next time: Umm... does anyone actually read this far? We catch up 
with Natsumi over the last week. Next time, on Something Moderately
Interesting Some Of The Time! Uh, Love. ^^;; DISCLAIMER: Relatively
standard stuff. Existing characters are properties of the people
who made them up. Mitsuki, and several other characters are mine,
and so's the story, hence ownership and copyright of them belongs
to me. Contact me at misato_98@yahoo.com if you want permission
to use anything I've written for whatnot purposes.


LOVE

By

Raymond Cooper

Chapter 3

** Omelette **


Ranma paused. Something in him tensed. He knew what was coming,
and he couldn't stop it. He asked, "Is there anything I can do to 
help?"

Natsumi Otohime, former Dark General of the Master, just stared.

Of course, she recognised the red-haired woman leaning over her - as
the lead General for so long of her Master's forces, she knew the 
red-haired fuku-wearing woman on sight. Which was weird, in a way,
since the senshi all had magical properties that led to hidden 
identities. Natsumi knew she shouldn't have been able to recognise
the girl before her... but she did. So that meant, this girl wasn't
a senshi. She was just super powerful, nearly on the level of perhaps
the weakest senshi... but smart enough, aggressive enough, just plain
more skilled than the reincarnated warriors from the Silver 
Millennium. She fingered her VR helmet slowly, sitting just above
her eyes, tempted ot check out the power levels of the girl, but she
decided not to. She was currently in no position to do anything
based on what she might find.

She paused. She knew that the red-haired girl was uncertain here,
not wanting to help, but being driven to it all the same. She looked
up at the girl again, squinting into the light. "Why? Why would you
ask me that?"

The red-haired girl shrugged. "Perhaps it's something to do with 
fate. Maybe it's something with the differences between us." She 
hesitated, then added, "You really don't expect me to help you, do 
you?"

Natsumi shook her head. "No. No, I don't. I've tried to kill you - 
and your friends. Why should you?"

"Because I'm in the position to."

"What would you expect from it?"

"I dunno," the girl said thoughtfully. "Maybe to walk out of this 
alley alive and in one piece? Maybe to help someone who's not in the
best of condition. Maybe just a story. Surprise me."

So, Natsumi surprised both the girl and herself by beginning a story,
as the girl bent down to help bind wounds.

******

Two weeks ago.

******

Natsumi knelt before the Master. 

"Yes, Master." His form was swelling, and had dulled considerably
since the last time Natsumi had laid eyes on him, only scant hours
before. Umiko was nowhere to be seen; indeed, her ki aura couldn't
even be detected by Natsumi's VR helmet. She used that to scan the 
Master, finding that his time was almost at hand. The final hours
before his transformation to his adult form were now. He spoke in her
mind, telling her what she needed to do.

She nodded as she accepted his instructions. Take a contingent
of troops out, find a large number of people, absorb their energies
into fuel for the Generals and the Master's adult form. They'd need
it for the next stage of his plans.

"It is time. I will assemble the troops."

Natsumi ducked her head in a bow, then stood, turned on her heels,
and left the room. All was silent as the Master's sightless eyes 
tracked her path along a corridor, seeing through the walls. A black
polyp swelled up behind the Master, and disgorged Umiko, eyes closed,
hands folded across her chest. She opened her eyes, lowered her arms,
and looked at the door to the chamber.

"She will make her move soon."

The Master spoke in her mind. Umiko nodded. "She is a good General,
Master, but her hunger for power is corrupting her views."

She listened some more, then nodded.

"Yes, Master, I will do this." Umiko nodded, and teleported out of 
the chamber, leaving the Master's crysalis to shiver in anticipation.

******

Natsumi stood in the underground meeting chamber, with a dozen lower
youma. They were of all varieties: skeleton people, half-plant
abominations, people whom had had their skulls explode under growing
brains, fire creatures, were-cockroaches, and more. She enjoyed
the rush of power from them, their loyalty to her every word. There
was nothing better about being a powerful creature.

She could have altered her form when she had been inducted, forcibly
originally, into the Master's forces, but had decided rather to take
advantage of the technical knowledge of the Master himself and 
developed an upgraded version of a typical VR helmet. Based around
components dating back to the Silver Millennium and eras of advanced
human and non-human solar system life forms even more prior to that,
the VR helmet was supposedly superior in computing power than the 
device Sailor Mercury had been observed using. In addition, it had 
some nifty features that Natsumi hadn't made enough sue of, like for
instance being able to project people into computer games.

Also, it was great for playing Princess Maker 3D with.

The troops before her now were some of those Natsumi had made herself
since her turning. Yet not all - it wouldn't pay to perhaps lose all
of her loyal troops.

Standing in front of heryouma like this, though - it gave her such
a rush. She hesitated a few moments to soak up the slavish devotion
to her they offered.

"The Master has given us a mission!" she called out, just loud enough
to be heard by all. "We will proceed to a location where there are 
plenty of people! We will absorb their life energies, and bring them
back here, for the glory of the Master."

The largest were-roach lifted a foreclaw. "Will the senshi be there?
They have that habit of showing up."

Natsumi shook her head. "I have it on good authority that they will
be... shall we say... delayed." She smiled.

******

Tokyo University.

And the library explodes.

******

"We leave - now!"

Natsumi called up a dimensional slipgate, teleporting the youma with
her to the location she had chosen while on her way to the meeting
chamber.

It was a mall, large, long, filled with people of varying ages, 
nationalities and colours. The speech in the area was mostly 
Japanese, but there was some English, along with a smattering
of Chinese and Korean. Natsumi's VR set automatically subtitled
what she couldn't understand directly.

Several people noticed, turned to look, and most thought the youma
attack force was a promotional gimmick - although the flaming 
skeleton and huge, bulky dogman looked almost too real to be faked.
A nervous titter went up from someone in the crowd as more people
noticed the strange figures, and at least one teenaged girl buried
her face in her laughing boyfriend's shoulder.

Natsumi gave them a cursory glance, then turned to address her troops
once more. "Now! Strike! Strike for -" Someone tapped her on the arm.
A security guard, with a small taser on his hip. A second guard hung
back about a dozen metres, a third on the other side of the mall's
atrium where they had teleported in. Natsumi could feel another
half-dozen congregating on this location. She sighed.

"I'm afraid you'll have to move along," the guard said in a calm,
reasonable voice. "We're a family-oriented mall, and you'll have to 
wear appropriate, uh, outfits if you want to enter here."

He knew what they were. He HAD to know, Natsumi thought. Perhaps
he was hoping either to stop a panic, or to talk himself out of 
seeing a bunch of monsters appear from nowhere. Oh well. Time to 
disappoint the poor human. She turned back to her troops momentarily.
"Rip them apart. Suck them dry. Leave no human to tell the tale."
She turned back to the security guard directly in front of her. 
"Except for this young man. He's mine." The smile she gave him wasn't
pleasant, and promised much pain and agony.

His hand gripped at his taser, and it was about then that the crowd
realised something was up, that something here wasn't right. Like all
good citizens of Tokyo, and in fact all of Japan, they knew of the 
existance of monsters dedicated to stealing ki from all people.
But in time-honoured tradition, everyone believed in the simple 
phrase 'it couldn't happen to me'.

Usually, they were right. With a country of nearly three hundred
million people, the chances of the remaining youma hiding in dark 
places on the island attacking any particular one of them were 
staggeringly low. Over ninety-nine percent of people would never 
experience any evidence of a youma.

That is, natural youma.

Dark Kingdom youma... were a lot more common, but also, not as strong
in the main as some of the ancient stand-bys, like Kappa of the bays
and rivers, the occasional giant dinosaur throwback, and whatnot.
And Dark Kingdom youma were often in the mood to procreate, 
especially the Generals. Stealing others' energies wasn't nearly
as exciting if you didn't have anything else to show for it. Hence,
most liked to make a troop or two if they could.

Previous to now, the invasions hadn't often allowed for troop-making
by the Generals. But the Master was different to Beryl and the 
others... he had plans that involved things a little more complicated
than revenge on the Moon Kingdom, a little different from chasing
after schoolgirls in short skirts.

In the long-run, anyway, Natsumi thought with a smirk. The Master
in his adult form would likely have some kind of sexual preference
- but it might run the other way from the norm - he might chase after
schoolboys in their long trousers.

Or perhaps even schoolboys in short skirts.

Natsumi stepped forward, towards the guard. He raised the taser from
his hip, jammed it in her stomach just as the first youma behind
her started to head towards the crowd. The guard could feel the panic
rising, not just within himself, but within the crowd. Why'd this 
have to happen now? He was off-duty in half an hour, and the city was
in an uproar and on alert for terrorists after the university
library had been blown up. And now there was a creepy girl in front
of him, who KEPT SMILING THAT CREEPY SMILE, who didn't seem to be 
alarmed at the taser in her stomach.

Natsumi shrugged and yawned as he pulled the trigger. Bands of 
electrical current writhed around her body for thirty seconds,
until the weapon fell from the fingers of the disbelieving
guard. He gaped, then made to step back.

A woman screamed in the crowd as the dogman reached her, pushed her
aside, and tore her son in two. He grabbed at a tiny flash of light
most people simply couldn't see, not being able to see that high into
the EM spectrum, and absorbed the boy's ki. He then did the same to 
the mother, and continued in a line through the crowd.

Other youma were more subtle, drawing the energy out of people with
beams of light, sucking it out parasitically through the mouth, or in
one case, eating eyeballs.

The guard didn't quite manage to step back. Natsumi's leg swept under
him, and he fell heavily to the ground. Then Natsumi was on him, 
tearing out his throat, splattering his comrade with his blood, 
making the other man turn to flee. The flaming skeleton got him in a 
deathgrip, burnt him alive. Toasted flesh assailed Natsumi's nose,
and she felt aroused by that. Mmmmm... the blood soaking her clothing
was also doing that. She captured his life essence before it could
pass into the next world, and stood up to continue the work of 
directing the hit.

******

Now.

******

Ranma wound the ripped sheet around the General's arm. "So, you 
killed people," he tried to say casually. But somehow, the words 
stuck in his throat. Still, he knew he wouldn't be able to try and 
reason with her if he came off all high and mighty on her, so he did
his best to fake it. He knew she knew he wasn't okay with her 
actions, but he was trying to be understanding.

And for some reason Ranma didn't quite understand, Natsumi seemed
to be grateful for his assistance. The story came easier now, and she
seemed to be almost contrite for her behaviour. Whether this was ana
ct or not, Ranma didn't know. But if she continued on this track,
it wasn't too unlikely she could fall at his feet, apologising
for even being a glint in her father's eye.

"Yes," the General said, looking down at her hands, "I killed 
people."

"So what did you do so wrong that your master wanted you dead?"

The General eyed Ranma. "Master, with a capital m." Ranma nodded.
"Well. The strike had gone well."

******

A week ago.

******

Natsumi lay on her bed, in the otherworldly base of operations
the Master had set up for them. With his power, he had shifted a 
chunk of the sewers beneath Tokyo into a pocket dimension some time
ago, and had set up permanent slipgates to Earth at certain sites
in the complex for access. Of course, his Generals could teleport
to and from Earth with ease, this was more for the average youma or 
espionage agent.

She knew in her head what she wanted to do, and was working out 
exactly how to go about it. She'd given the energy she had gathered
from the mall to the Master, or rather, tried to. He hadn't wanted
it - denied giving her the orders to carry out that mission, in fact.
That had confused her, but she reasoned, she could do with the power
it granted. Within her, she felt it made her much stronger than even
perhaps the Master.

The last week, he had been mobile. Out and about, as it were, walking
the streets of Earth. He'd already gained a reputation as an arrogant
gaijin in more places than one, yet he'd never had a problem from 
those annoying senshi. At least the older, more experienced
women weren't around any longer. Pluto, Neptune and Uranus thought
things out a little better than the younger Inner senshi seemed to.
But there was that nasty Nemesis around still... the Master's plans
for her hadn't gone quite according to plan. And the red-headed
senshi... she seemed to be much weaker than the others, but much,
much more skilled in martial arts - which made her dangerous as the
average youma was slow, unresponsive and weak compared to skills
such as those observed in that girl.

The Master was off on another of his jaunts right now, as a matter
of fact. What he hoped to accomplish by doing nothing was yet to be 
made clear to Natsumi - perhaps his transformation to adulthood
had readjusted his brain or something? He certainly didn't seem to be
thinking right. No more 'go on the offensive, kill them all, we can
always make more footsoldiers' strategies, instead he was more, 'I'm
going out for a walk now, dear Umiko.'.

The way he fawned over Umiko turned Natsumi's stomach.

In fact, the more she thought of it, she could run this outfit better
than either of them.

Her plans had only called for showing herself to be stronger,
more capable than Umiko, to replace the Master's favourite General.
After all, Umiko was weak, a sop, unwilling to do the hard work that
went with such a position. And Natsumi was willing.

So very, very willing.

But with the Master's habits of late, maybe she should set her sights
higher, do something a little more... active in taking over the 
heirarchy of the organisation or something. Depose the ruling despot.
Make herself one.

She didn't quite realise it, but this was what she had been 
subconsciously moving towards. Natsumi's plans to oust Umiko had been
born of the urge to lead, to rule, to not have to be under someone
ever again. Power was her goal here, power over her own life. And if
that meant power over others, hey, that was an added bonus.

The more she thought about it, the more getting rid of Umiko now 
seemed like a good idea. Why? Because then the Master couldn't
interfere in the outcome of the battle. Natsumi could take Umiko 
easily, she thought, but the Master would tip things in Umiko's
favour. Hence, the General lifted herself from her bed, pulled her VR
headset down over her eyes, and headed for the Master's bedchamber.

******

Umiko stood, ready. She already knew what was to come. She waited,
ready for the imminent attack, yet relaxed, cool, calm. When she felt
Natsumi's power levels flicker, in an attempt to cloak herself from
others, Umiko knew this was the time. She flexed a hand at her side,
feeling long-disused power crackle inside her fingers. It had been
some time since she'd last powered up - heck, she hadn't used or 
abused her abilities sicne she had finished her initial alteration.

And to be honest, Umiko didn't really want to waste another nurse's
uniform. They were getting harder to come by.

Natsumi was just around the corner now. Umiko forced herself to 
relax. The fight, definitely about to happen now, would be tough,
but Umiko knew she outweighed the younger General. There were reasons
the Master had stuck with Umiko as his nurse, as his mother, after
all.

The younger General stepped into the chamber, not so quiet now. 
Standing behind Umiko. The nurse turned. "So. It's time."

Natsumi's eyes narrowed under the VR set, but she smirked. "Yes. Your
time is finished, old hag. Time to make way for the younger 
generation."

Umiko waved a hand around the chamber. "The Master will be back soon.
How will you explain your injury, or even death, to him?"

"Who said it will be e dying?" Natsumi snarled in reply, and let off
a burst of energy.

For a moment, Umiko was somewhere else, in a maze filled with dots.
She could hear a steady chomping somewhere, and then in front of her,
from a break in the walls, came a giant yellow dot with a mouth.
Umiko blinked, then sighed, folded her arms, and snapped back to the
base's pocket dimension. "Really. Children's games. Do you expect
to beat me so easily?"

"A girl can always hope," Natsumi snapped back, and struck a combat
pose, resting her weight on her rear foot, pulling a hand up 
alongside her chest. Umiko sighed, then copied the position. Natsumi
moved through a series of ever-faster poses, attempting to set up an
attack posture Umiko couldn't match.

Umiko lazily met all of them.

Finally, the younger General had had enough. Natsumi leapt forward,
strategy forgotten, relying on sheer physical power. An aura of flame
sprung up around her body as she shifted forward, faster than the eye
could make out over such a short distance. A mini sonic boom snapped
stones in the nearby chambers in half.

The girl's left leg swung up, and clipped Umiko on the ear. The older
woman staggered back, her hand going up to check on the damage.
Her fingers came away bloody, and she blinked. Natsumi was moving
forward again, at speeds Umiko couldn't match, and snapped out a 
series of punches and kicks and the occasional tackle. Natsumi's
fists and feet flew, looking as if not attached to the ends of her 
limbs.

After a few minutes of being punched and kicked around, Umiko stood,
panting in the middle of the room, blood leaking to the ground in 
numerous places. Natsumi stood back, getting ready to deliver the 
coup de grace.

"Can you feel it, old woman? Can you feel the darkness waiting at the
edgees for you?" Natsumi smirked, and parted her hands for her final
attack. A small ball of energy formed, growing ever larger as she 
began to announce it. "Final power up - Excellent Attack!"

The now-much larger energy ball was flung towards the slumping
Umiko, and for a scant moment, time seemed to slow. Umiko smirked,
just before the ball hit.

It impacted and exploded, the wind from the strike and the debris
pushing back at Natsumi's clothing. She held her forearms up over her
face to protect her VR headset from chips of rock and metal, and then
lowered them, waiting for the dust to clear.

When it did, Umiko still stood, smirking. Not wounded now, she 
resembled something like a giant cat-person, her uniform ripped and
torn, fur jutting out all over. And green cat's-eyes glared at the 
young General.

'My strongest attack... didn't even phase her?' Natsumi thought,
her last coherent thought before sixty kilogrammes of muscle and fur
smashed into her.

Umiko didn't care for niceties with her fighting, her greater 
strength and endurance allowed her to tear the other girl to shreds.
Blood splattered the remaining walls of the chamber, slices of 
clothing and the occasional spurt of black ichor.

The younger girl tried to block with magical attacks, but the older
woman tore through her defences. She tried to counter the moves with
her own, but Umiko was just too fast. Finally, she curled up in a 
ball on the ground, wrapping her hands around her head and pulling
her knees up to her chest. Umiko didn't stop.

And then, she did.

The cat-thing stepped back from the bloodied girl, and snarled.
Natsumi didn't dare look up. There was a burst of dark power from 
beside Natsumi, and she knew the Master was there. "Ah, poor girl,
you've suffered so much. So very, very much. Which made you a perfect
choice for this role. Conniving, scheming, grasping. And you've paid
the price for it. Yet... your treachery was planned from the 
beginning, dear Natsumi. And I owe you something for that." He 
paused, stood up. "Go. I won't kill you. This time. Yet, if I see you
again... Live a normal life, Natsumi Otohime. Be with your sister,
your family. Fall in love and have children, and forget about this.
Forget this ever happened." He turned, and left, a now-human Umiko
by his side.

The nurse paused a moment, looked over her shoulder at the girl 
shivering on the floor in a huddle. "You might not know it yet, but
you just got the greatest gift of all." Then she, too, was gone.

******

Now.

******

"That's the story, girl." The General spoke quietly now, remember
where she had gained her wounds. She had healed mostly faster than
an average person, incredibly quickly, as a matter of fact. Yet her
pride was hurt. Her self-esteem, her ideal life shattered in a few 
moments of frenzied clawing and biting.

It all caught up with her as Ranma finished binding her wounds.
She looked up, almost in panic. "What do I do now? Where does my life
go?"

"I think... your Master said it best. Live a normal life." Ranma sat
back on his heels, tugging his skirt down absently over his knees
as he did so. Damn the senshi and their wardrobe.

"A normal life?"

"Marry. Have kids. Work. Make the world a better place for everyone."

"People... do that?"

"Yeah. Why does your Master do what he does?"

"I... I don't know. I used to, I think, but I don't know now at all."
Natsumi paused. "I always thought it was to make a world for us."

"Yet he can make pocket dimensions? And he wants this world?"

"I... I don't know."

Natsumi had changed greatly from the girl Ranma had stopped to help.
She was nervous again, upset, saddened by her loss of what she viewed
as her self and her mission. Ranma smiled. "You know. If you can keep
quiet, I think I know a place where you can stay until you figure
out what you want to do in life. How does that sound?"

******

It soudned good.

******

Natsumi's eyes opened when she saw the room. A decent futon to sprawl
on, built-in wardrobe, connecting bathroom that had only been fixed
a few weeks earlier, and most importantly -

She ran to the window. The view of the surrounding city and mountains
beyond lifted her heart immensely. The air was so fresh up here, and
the light -

That was one thing she had thought was bad in the pocket dimension
she had lived in - there was no sun. No warmth, no light. Almost
as if there was no love, and there wasn't. Not really. Deep down,
even Natsumi had realised that what she felt for the Master was 
filial duty rather than love - and it seemed she'd been turned with
even less of that than most of the youma had.

So, what was she to do now?

Ranma shrugged. "I dunno. I mean, you're welcome to stay here until
you can figure things out. Just, uh, stay out of sight of the other
girls, okay? They're... a little touchy." Natsumi frowned, wondering
why they would dislike a stranger, until Ranma mentioned one of the
girls had been the boyfriend of Keitaro Urashima. Oh. That explained
a lot. She promised the red-haired girl she would keep out of their
way as best she could, and turned back to the window, inhaling
the air.

How could she have ever forgotten what it was like to just stand 
there and smell the freshness of the world?

******

Ranma stopped just down the hallway, head lowered in thought. He 
didn't know if this was a good idea, having a Dark General in the 
dorm, but then, did he have a choice? He didn't want to try and force
her to change her mind about her path in life, but she had warned
him of various things to come. He owed her a chance at a normal life,
if that was what she decided.

So he shrugged, and went downstairs to find something to eat.

******

Hotaru stepped up the hill's stairs slowly, deep in thought. A 
rose-scented man. A mystery. A prince. She already had a prince,
though.

Was a girl allowed two?





SAILOR MOON SAYS:

Mmmm. Late again. This one would not write at all. I think it turned
out okay, though.

Next time: Ummm... you're asking me to think again. More with 
Natsumi, of course. And Hotaru's Rose Prince. Ahh, young love...
DISCLAIMER: Relatively standard stuff. Existing characters are 
properties of the people who made them up. Mitsuki, and several
other characters are mine, and so's the story, hence ownership
and copyright of them belongs to me. Contact me at 
misato_98@yahoo.com if you want permission to use anything I've 
written for whatnot purposes.


LOVE

By

Raymond Cooper

Chapter 4

** New Beginnings **


Princess Serenity stared from the window in her chambers, high up in
one of the spires of the Moon Castle. From here, she could see to the
horizon with no difficulty - although, considering it was only a few
scant miles from where she sat, that wasn't surprising. The crystal
buildings down below, the main city of the Moon Kingdom, reflected
blue light. Serenity knew what from - even without looking up, she 
could feel the Blue Star's light shining on her as well.

Not really a star. A planet. Serenity knew that, but as a child,
she had seen the glowing blue thing in the skies above the palace,
and had instantly described it as a star to those around her. 
Endymion, her bethrothed since before birth, had banged the back of 
her head with the palm of his hand, and told her what it was.

Serenity hadn't believed him, of course.

And of course, he had been right and she wrong.

Her mother had later shown her the surface of her Blue Star (by this
point, her name for it had stuck in her mind) through telescopes
and viewing devices made in Mercury's massive technology shops. The
people there were base, primitive, barely learning to till the soil,
only a few domesticated animals for food and mutual protection.
Serenity had gazed in awe at the creatures living below her, more 
animal than human, and asked her mother why they had to live in such
bad conditions, while the rest of the solar system lived in beauty,
with intelligence, able to move between the stars with as much effort
as crossing a room.

The Queen had sat Serenity on her knee, and told her that those 
primitives were what allowed the Moon Kingdom to exist. So Above As 
Below, the Queen said. Serenity asked how that could be, and her 
mother smiled.

"Serenity, it is a grown-up concept. How does one explain the sun to
a child?"

"It's an ovoid of matter compressed to the temperature fusion starts
at, mother. Even *I* know that."

"That isn't what I meant," but the Queen had another smile on her 
lips. "This matter is complicated. And the Moon Kingdom is ever in 
peril. So long as those below are as they are, then balance is 
retained in the system. Light and Dark coexist - you cannot have one
without the other."

"Are they are Dark, then?"

"No, they are not. The Dark... you know of the Dark Kingdom."

"Yes, mother." Serenity had read in books and been taught by her 
tutors about the horrors of the Dark Kingdom, where evil, 
power-hungry individuals battled between one another to gain ever 
more power, for seemingly no reason.

"The Dark Kingdom is the other side of our coin. For the Moon Kingdom
to exist, so must there be a polar opposite. A kingdom of Light means
a kingdom of Dark must also exist."

"Then where does the Blue Star come from, mother?"

The Queen nodded at the viewing screens, then rummaged in her gown.
Eventually, she found a simple coin, and produced it to show her 
daughter, who blinked at her mother uncomprehendingly.
"This side," the queen said, "is the Moon Kingdom. It is one side of
the coin. This side," she tapped the other side of the coin, "is the
Dark Kingdom."

"And where does the Blue Star come into it?" Serenity couldn't
see how the planet above could possibly fit into this analogy.
Her mother had run out of sides on the coin.

"Ah, that's the easy part." The Queen tapped the edge of the coin.
"This is the planet Earth. That which joins both sides and makes them
possible. You see, the people of Earth have equal amounts of Light
and Dark within them. That is their life force, you might say. When
one force gained too much weight in comparison to the other, then the
scales tip in favour of the greater force. This is why the people
below live as they do. If they ever civilised, they would have Want
in addition to Need, which is all they have now. Want leads to ever
greater problems, and finally to the Dark that lies inside the hearts
of every human."

"So, if they built cities and spaceships, they would become evil?"

"No. Not all. Perhaps not even most. But the equilibium between
Light and Dark would be disturbed. And thus would the Moon Kingdom
find itself in a precarious position."

"Why?"

"Because that Darkness would empower the Dark Kingdom, and the Moon
Kingdom would face a loss in power."

"Which would mean a change in the balance of power, right?"

The Queen nodded. "That is so. We would then have to find other means
of protecting our kingdom then."

"Could that ever happen, mother? The humans up there look like 
they're slowly working out how to build stuff."

"One day, perhaps... one day. But not this day. And not for a great
many more days."

There was a polite cough from behind the Queen and Princess, and the
Queen turned. "Yes, Admiral Jadite?"

"Your fleet has been prepared, ma'am. We depart for Mercury within
the hour."

The Queen palced Serenity down on the ground, and bent down to look
into her eyes. "Now. You go be a good girl for your tutors. We will
not be long, your father and I. This is only a goodwill tour of the
planets... and we will bring you something back."

"I'll be good, mother," Serenity said.

******

Usagi awoke, wondering why her bed was so hard and... oh. A dream.
Of course, a dream of her past life. Something she should have known
straight away.

Now, *why* she'd dreamt of the Moon Kingdom, and about such a thing,
Usagi didn't know. But then, mostly, she didn't care about the 
subject - just that she'd had another vision of the past! Always
capable of getting someone as scatter-brained as Usagi into a hyper
mood.

It didn't matter to her that it was still dark outside, she had to 
tell someone.

******

The few people in the upstairs rooms were sleeping soundly. Usagi
couldn't wake them. So she crept downstairs. Hotaru wasn't in her 
room... perhaps she was in Ranma's? Oh yeah, that'd go down real well
with the other Outer senshi. Usagi couldn't help herself - she 
slipped Ranma's door open and flipped on the lights, jumping inside
to meet the worst possible scenario - but no Hotaru.

No Ranma, for that matter.

This was getting ever more puzzling. It was about then that Usagi
heard a clank from the kitchen. She decided to investigate - after
all, she could never *ever* eat off those benches again if Ranma and
Hotaru...

But then, where were the other senshi? Visions of a naughty nature,
including some of the things she had seen in that hentai stash her 
brother didn't think she knew about, flashed past her eyes - mass 
orgies.

But no. Upon flinging open that door, she was greeted by Makoto,
blinking at her in surprise, steaming rice and vegetables, as well
as wrapping up small seafood bites. "Usagi?"

"Where is everyone?" Usagi asked. "I've just had a vision!"

Makoto looked sympathetic. "We all knew this day would come. The 
stress is getting to you. Was it Mamoru again, telling you to flash
-"

"No! It wasn't like that!" Usagi protested. Although she was *sure*
it had been Mamoru that time... thankfully she'd told her friends
about it before acting on it, and they had managed to talk her out of
it. It had been a somewhat embarrassing memory. "It was about the 
Moon Kingdom, ten thousand years ago, probably just before they...
we... all died out."

Makoto leaned forward, putting the food down and looking a little
more serious. "The end of the Moon Kingdom? Did you see anything
important?"

Usagi went to nod proudly, until she realised, well, no, she hadn't
seen anything important. Not to her, anyway. Just her talking to her
mother about the Dark Kingdom. She related this to Makoto, who nodded
sagely, and said, "You should tell Ami."

"She's sleeping, and I can't wake her up. She's like a log!" Usagi
frowned again. "Where *is* everyone? Is there a sale I don't know 
about? Cute boys or something?"

"I don't think Ranma would go ogle cute boys somehow, Usagi," Makoto
chuckled. "But I forgot. You don't see this side of dawn, do you? Go
look out the front door."

Usagi nodded, and headed outside. There, on the front gravel entrance
path, stood Hotaru, Minako, Rei, Mitsuki and Ranma, in training
gis. Usagi noted that Makoto had been wearing one in the kitchen,
but it hadn't penetrated then. Oh. Morning training. Usagi should
have known.

Ranma looked up and caught her about to duck back inside, and called
out, "Usagi! Joining us this morning?" He started forward, still in 
his cursed girl form, stepping around the other girls, being careful
not to interrupt their warm-ups. Hotaru gave him a wan, distant
smile as he passed, but that was about all the acknowledgement
he got as he made his way towards Usagi.

She shook her head. "No, not me. This is a stupid time to be awake."

Ranma grinned. "Best time of the day! And you know, practising
for an hour in the morning really helps you wake up, get fit, lose
that flab you've been putting on the last couple of months."

"Flab? What -"

"And yeah, you know, I'm doing advanced stuff with the others, but 
I'm sure I can work something up for you, at your level."

Usagi grimaced.

"It could be a challenge, though..."

Mitsuki leaned in towards Hotaru. "He seems hyperactive this morning.
Did you, uh, um..."

"Stop hinting. And no." Hotaru shook her head. Her gaze told Mitsuki
that her mind was on something else entirely. Rei glanced over.

"Mitsuki? Want to spar this morning?"

The purple-haired woman looked back, a little nervous. "Uh, you know,
that might not be a good idea."

"Oh come on, you're not that far ahead of me."

Mitsuki shrugged. "Okay..."

Hotaru continued warming up, lost in her own little world, oblivious
to everything.

Ranma waited, a bright expression on his face. He was actually
enjoying this, being up and able to move again. The previous night,
he had slept soundly, and felt that his ki was high once again. Much
higher than the day before, at least. He wouldn't want to tackle
any youma on a day like this. Or even Kuno.

Of course, if it was a male youma... this body had certain 
advantages.

Ranma wasn't sure if either of them worked on monsters, but if 
necessity called for it, perhaps he could find out.

If things got that bad, there were much worse things he could do than
flash his breasts at someone. Like try and run, for example. Just the
act of turning to flee wasted precious moments that could be better
put to use by attempting another attack, defence, or some way to 
wiggle out of the predicament without including dying.

But for now, he was happy. And Usagi looked decidedly less so, 
growing worse by the moment. Ranma guessed the rapid backpedalling
and shaking of her head, followed by the slamming of the front doors,
to mean that Usagi wasn't going to join them that morning. Pity. He 
was feeling up to a challenge.

As Makoto joined them and ran through a quick series of stretches
and some quick, sketched moves, Ranma retook his place in front of 
them. "Good morning, class."

"Good morning, sensei," the others chimed back. Ranma noted Hotaru
looked somewhat distracted - that would earn her a punch or a kick
or three, until she snapped back into the here and now. He wondered
what was on her mind, but forgot all about that as he started them
through their morning practise routines.

******

Up on the roof, Natsumi watched. Her VR headset was pushed back, she
was using her Mark 1 - her eyes - sensors to observe the movements
of the women below. Lots of flesh bounced, but not nearly as much as
her older sister had to throw around. Mutsumi was... well, even that
Ranma woman didn't come close.

Okay, close, but still smaller.

But her older sister's chest didn't jiggle that much. Possibly
because the only time she moved was usually when she fell asleep
on someone or something, which she did often. Natsumi sighed, and 
shifted to get more comfortable on the rooftop. The girls all 
punched, kicked, punched, kicked, ad nauseum, then broke off into 
pairs. She found the purple-haired one's fight with the raven-haired
younger woman to be one of the more interesting.

Purple leapt forward, legs trailing behind her, until Raven had set
up an initial blocking move, designed to make it easier for Raven
to shift into a specific defence posture once Purple committed
to an attack. Purple's legs swung out then sideways, almost as if she
was doing the splits, but swung each of her legs around in a 
one-eighty degree arc. Raven's forearms came up in a specific block,
and Purple collided with them, but then flexed at the knees, and 
tapped Raven's shoulders with her heels. Natsumi recognised the move
- mostly non-contact sparring, but the shoulder touch was intentional
- Purple could have hit higher, with much more force.

At Raven's head. Interesting. The woman was skilled.

She bent backwards at the waist, legs unwrapping while Raven ducked
low and punched forward. Purple's body twisted near impossibly
while she vaulted from her hands up to her feet around the incoming
fist, and slipped a foot past the outstretched arm, lightly touching
Raven's stomach. Raven obviously didn't like that, and launched
into a rapid volley of punches that moved almost too fast for even
Natsumi to see. None touched, although a few came close. One whistled
through Purple's hair, and Raven smirked arrogantly, her expression
turning a little darker when the older woman's hand tapped her 
stomach lightly again. The two sprang apart, Raven reassessing
her position, shifting her stance, readying for another attack 
momentarily.

Purple wasn't out of breath, but did look a little preoccupied,
a little concerned. Not with exterior events, but almost like 
something internal. Interesting. That reminded Natsumi of the look
one of the senshi gave from time to time, the purple-haired
one who was older than the rest. She wondered if this woman would
turn out to have a similar fighting style?

Raven had reassessed her position by now, and launched forth another
attack, which Purple duly dodged. Raven swung a wild fist around
in an arc, heading for Purple's shoulder, but again the older woman
dodged. Natsumi guessed that distracted expression, which appeared
once more, was responsible for her not noticing the foot arcing up 
towards her.

That smacked into her shoulder hard, and spun her around; Raven 
wasn't playing by the rules.

The distracted expression on Purple's face disappeared instantly,
replaced by one of anger such as Natsumi didn't see on a human very
often. She leapt forward, fast, almost too fast for Natsumi to see,
and slammed a fist down between Raven's feet.

The ground shattered, chunks of dirt, rock and cement lifting from
the ground almost in slow motion. Raven was frozen to the spot with
shock as the noise battered her gi, tearing at loose edges and 
assaulting her ears with a low, dull throb. Natsumi perked up - that
kind of strength was almost inhuman. Hell, it *was* inhuman!

She leaned further forward, to get a better view, and fingered
her headset idly. But no, she'd keep watching with her eyes. The 
digital feedback systems were nice, but some things that the onboard
computers deemed not necessary were removed. Thus, she would only get
an abbreviated version of the fight with them down.

She noticed Ranma bounce from her fight, getting in between Raven
and Purple, Raven staggering back. She wasn't looking at her, though,
but at Purple, and she waited until Purple was ready to stand. She 
bowed her head. "I am sorry, sensei. I should not have lost my 
temper."

Ranma stared into her eyes, and she fidgited. "Is your 
medication...?"

"My medication is fine... but as always, adrenyline seems to stop it
from working." Purple looked downcast now, really embarrassed.
"I'm fine, really. I've been taking my pills."

Ranma nodded, saying nothing for a time. Then she nodded, and stepped
back. "Mitsuki. Spar with me for now, okay? I'm more your speed and
strength and skill." Purple looked uncomfortable with that, until
Ranma sighed, bent over, and punched the ground with less force than
Purple had. Under her fist, the earth shattered in a much wider 
circle, sending clods of earth skyward.

Natsumi's eyes narrowed further. This Ranma girl... she wasn't a 
senshi, and yet she showed abilities of them? Maybe that would bear
looking into. Non-magical-based powers weren't known to the Dark 
Kingdom. Perhaps she could make use of that knowledge moving against
the Master...

******

Down below, Ranma dealt several kicks to Mitsuki's stomach. "Ignore
Rei; she likes getting under people's skin."

Mitsuki grunted, blocking one of Ranma's punches, and sending two at
her attacker. When neither of them succeeded in touching her sensei,
she stepped back a little, got some room to manoeuvre in. "She annoys
me when she gets physical."

"She can't help it," Ranma said, circling. "She's got a worse temper
than Makoto."

"At least Makoto knows the meaning of non-contact and minimal 
contact," Mitsuki returned. "Even if her moves are signposted
a mile away."

"Can't blame her for her style."

"Maybe. Are you going to teach us stuff that's useful, though? I 
mean, katas are nice enough, but the attacks you have - combined
with our powers..." Mitsuki's voice trailed off as she saw Ranma's
eyes narrow.

"The attacks I make... the ones I can do... you couldn't. I've 
trained every day of my life to be able to do things like this."
He stopped for a moment, moved in close to Mitsuki without her being
aware he'd moved until she suddenly felt a pair of fists lying softly
on her ribcage. She blinked, looked down. There was Ranma, staring
up at her with those huge eyes of his, his arms blurring in a rush
of motion her eyes just couldn't make out. Mitsuki found she couldn't
even feel his fists moving from the point they were hitting. Then 
Ranma was gone again, back where he'd been a moment ago. He shook
his head. "I can't teach you that at all. Maybe in ten years or so,
if you stick with this. As for using this with your powers? Forget
it. You all rely on them too much for the moment, and your teamwork
sucks, to be honest."

Mitsuki blinked. "Then why -"

"Am I teaching you guys?" Ranma smiled. "I've been waiting for 
someone to ask me. What point is there relying on powers, when you've
got super strength? And speed, invulnerability, and a team? Most 
youma I've seen here tend to be resistant to your magic, in some way.
All have been hurt by hitting them. So why not hit them hard, fast,
coordinated?"

Mitsuki moved in again, and the sparring started anew.

"I made mistakes before I got hurt. I let you guys use your powers.
I let you guys bounce all over the place, let you dictate to a large
extent the pace at which we moved, and what we did. No more. I'm 
structuring you guys. Classes from today on will be different."

The others heard him talking to Mitsuki, slowed down their sparring
matches, and moved over to listen to the conversation.

Ranma ducked a pair of kicks, 

"I'm gonna give you all a basic course. You'll learn to spar 
properly, proper moves, a bit of discipline. No powers for now. 
You'll work individually, and will spar in pairs, as normal students
do."

Ranma jumped over a series of punches, finally backflipping
off Mitsuki's head. She started getting a little angry, forced 
herself to calm down again. Ranma tapped each of her shoulders
before Mistuki turned.

"Once I think you've got the basics down, we'll start on that 
teamwork thing. No powers, just you all working at keeping your moves
coordinated with other people, so you don't fall over each other in 
battle. The more of you senshi I can actually get here... that just
makes it better."

He dodged another couple of moves from Mitsuki.

"You're telegraphing those, Mitsuki. Snap your moves a little better.
Don't hesitate in setting up. And let them flow."

"If I snap my moves, how can they flow?" Mitsuki growled.

Ranma demonstrated, making quick, definite movements with his arms
and legs, starting one movement just before the previous finished.
"Never leave yourself open," he said, tapping Mitsuki's stomach
with a finger as she extended herself in a punch. He bent away from
her knee that raised up under him. "You could learn a few things
about street brawling from Makoto."

Makoto blushed. "I'm not that bad," she grumbled.

"You'll all learn from each other. The more you know about your 
strengths and weaknesses, the better you function as a group. 
Hotaru's good with staves but has no reach without one. Makoto is 
good with her fists, but her style isn't suited to more than one 
opponant. Mitsuki just doesn't give up, that's both strength and 
weakness. Rei's temper gets the better of her, Minako can't 
concentrate. Should I go on?"

The women all looked at each other, apart from Hotaru, who gazed at 
the sparring match going on in front of her without seeing it.

"I wanna build you all up, so you don't make those mistakes. You're
not invincible. You get beaten by the most basic youma. Mercury
has saved you guys too often with her computer, Sailor Moon with that
sceptre, tiara or crystal. You can't rely on them for ever. What if 
Mercury is held prisoner? What if Sailor Moon is... well, she's 
useless anyway."

Ranma tapped Mitsuki's shoulder again. Mitsuki responded with a pair
of jabs, and a spinning kick that was matched by a kick by her other
leg, arcing back over in a high crescent. Ranma let the crescent
kick tap him slightly, and nodded. "That was a better attack. 
Following up like that is what I want you to do. Don't think three
attacks in a row'll get you anywhere, do four, five, six, until you
get a hit."

"You let me get that one," Mitsuki panted.

"You're playing on my ground, handicapping yourself. Why should I 
fight at my full strength while you can't?"

They sparred a few minutes more, in silence, apart from Ranma's
occasional recommendation. Finally, he raised a hand in a signal
to stop the match. He looked around. "That'll be it for this 
morning."

Makoto stepped forward, lifting her chin. "Breakfast is ready, then,"
she announced. The senshi disappeared, leaving Ranma and Hotaru 
standing, Ranma confused at the sudden disappearance of the women
from around him, Hotaru still staring at the spot where Ranma and 
Mitsuki had been sparring.

She didn't look like she was aware of the world around her, so Ranma
tapped her on the shoulder. Hotaru looked up at him, her expression
surprised.

"Hotaru-chan? Are you okay?" he asked, concern in his voice. Hotaru
hadn't been acting the same since the day before, when she'd come 
home from school. She'd been weird, distant, hadn't wanted to watch
TV with him or ask for help with her sparring or homework (although
the help Ranma could give her with that was limited to excuses for 
why her homework wasn't done).

What she said next stayed with him for the next few days, as he 
pondered it, trying to work out what she meant by it.

She looked up, so surprised, so innocent, so beautiful that Ranma
felt an urge to kiss her. He started to lean in, moving ever so 
slightly towards her upturned mouth, thinking as always, she'd 
reciprocate. Ranma's eyes closed as he moved further.

And then.

"I can still smell the roses."



SAILOR MOON SAYS:

Finally finished. This has taken nearly a week to write... although
it's been about a month since I last got a chapter out.

Right after I finished the last one, I got three weeks of work, in 
the fields, stacking pineapples on a bin on the back of a tractor.
Woo, love that Australian summer sun :P That weather and the 
exhaustion the job provided led me not to write for that three weeks.
It's taken me that long to recover.

Also, the last week, this chapter's been competing with a 3d model
I've been working on. Finished it tonight, so thought, damn, finish
this now, too :) So here it is, chapter 4 of Love. Hopefully,
chapter 5 won't be too far away ^^'

so, next time on Love: Natsumi's heart to heart, the rose-scented
prince (for sure), no training for a change, and some more from the
Moon Kingdom. DISCLAIMER: Relatively standard stuff. Existing 
characters are properties of the people who made them up. Mitsuki,
and several other characters are mine, and so's the story, hence 
ownership and copyright of them belongs to me. Contact me at 
misato_98@yahoo.com if you want permission to use anything I've 
written for whatnot purposes.


LOVE

By

Raymond Cooper

Chapter 5

** Homeward Bound **


Serenity stared up at the Blue Star above her. Well, technically,
she knew now that depended on her own personal point of reference.
Systemwise, the Blue Star was sideways-ish. Galaxywise...
that started getting confusing. Serenity didn't care about that, 
though. Twelve years old now, and things hadn't been going too well
for the last few years. Things on Earth had taken a dramatic turn,
with the first human societies coming together from the small 
hunter-gatherer family groups that had existed prior and after the 
last ice age. These socities were small, tightly-grouped,
and not really deserving of the term intelligent.

Yet they were developing. And fast, too. Fire had been conquered
long, long ago, but now all in the groups knew how to make it. And 
tools were common. Wolves had stayed with humans during the ice ages
for food purposes - they got fed if they assisted in the hunts - and
so were settling in to new forms, new breeds, and new attitudes
towards people. Horses, too, were being ridden by some peoples.
Houses were being erected, and one tribe, Serenity had noted in her
studies, were beginning to realise that certain types of food could
be grown and harvested.

And while Serenity thought this was great, her mother and father
found it to be an extremely tiring time.

The princess didn't know exactly what was going on - she wasn't 
privvy to every decision made by her parents, nor the intelligence
they received - but one did hear things in a palace, and the 
princess' own intelligence network was rather well-equipped.

Beside her, the Senshi of Mercury played with an image of a 
mechanical bug on her computer's touchscreen. Serenity watched for a 
few moments, then, bored, returned to staring at the Earth above.

"You know," she said, in an off-handed manner, "Endymion's been made
the Prince of Earth."

"Of course. The planet needs a protector and a voice in the Royal
Chambers, Princess."

"Mercury, you can call me by my name, you know," Serenity scowled
momentarily.

"I'll call you by your name, Princess, when you call me by mine."
Serenity guessed Mercury had to know she didn't know any of their
actual names. As was typical in protective services of the Moon 
Kingdom, being familiar with one's charge, or one's protector,
led to problems.

And not usually the ones entertainments were made of, either.

And yet, Mercury found it both interesting and annoying that Serenity
wanted to be friends with her, and the other Guardians of the 
Kingdom.

"Be that as it may, why him? He is my bethrothed!"

Mercury sighed, lowered her computer to her knees. "Princess,
you are a princess. You must marry a prince. Therefore, Endymion
must be a prince to be your bethrothed."

"But no one complained about that while we were children!"

"Time could be taken then to engineer things so he could be a prince.
You do know about the time differential here, don't you?"

Serenity sighed, and rolled her eyes back. "Yes, yes, yes. We did 
this in class, you know." She closed her eyes, and recited from a 
textbook. "'Time in the Moon Kingdom passes on a different plane to 
that of the rest of the universe, as there is much to be protected
and maintained and little time in which to do it in. The Time Gate
on Pluto, finest engineering feat of the architect blah blah blah,
maintains this precious balance so that time can be utilised more 
efficiently. This process is characterised in realspace by an 
increased flow of chronitons and blah blah.'"

"I can see why you failed your temporal mechanics tests, Princess."

"Who'd ever need to know how to field strip a temporal gate?" 
Serenity snorted. "Gimme the crown, the staff, and I'll do the job.
It's only ceremony anyway."

Mercury tapped the monitor. "That's what you wanted to find out, 
remember? Where your parents have been lately?"

"You know, and you won't tell me," grumped Serenity.

"I don't know, and that's the only reason I agreed to do this." 
Mercury tapped the icon of the bug's braincase, and on the right side
of the monitor, a small picture image opened. Scratchy sound issues
from the device's speakers.

On the screen, Queen Serenity and her husband leaned over a round
table, with an inlaid top, puzzling over icons that didn't make sense
to the Princess. Mercury frowned, though, and started running a 
library function on the left side of the screen to confirm some nasty
suspicions. Behind the King and Queen stood a pair of advisors,
with Planet Mercury-constructed computers.

"- into the seventh sector, Highness."

The King looked troubled. "Hasn't Zoicite returned with the Martian
fleets yet?"

"No. Planet Mercury s being evacuated. Dark Kingdom forces have 
invaded the lower levels of the Utopia University, and have disabled
the coolant systems in environmental control. The Dean estimates
the University will be lost in another three days, without 
reinforcements."

"What about the automated defence factories?" asked Serenity.

"Enemy bombardment from orbit has them in a repair cycle. They'll
be online again in another two days."

"Where is Zoicite?" The King, again.

"Father seems to be concerned," the Princess remarked. "I wonder
why?"

"I've been looking up those symbols they're looking at, Princess,"
Mercury said in a hushed tone. "Those are Dark Kingdom armies. And 
there seem to be more than the Moon Kingdom's on Mercury."

Serenity's head whipped around to stare at her bodyguard. "You mean,
we're going to lose your homeworld to these people?"

"Perhaps, Princess, perhaps not." Mercury closed the connection
with the bug, and stood. "Regardless, I feel I must contact 

Serenity stood, also. "I am sorry, Mercury. I'll help you get back
if I can."

Mercury nodded, and both turned to leave the observation gallery,
but stopped short finding Sailor Saturn standing behind them, glaring
at both. Behind her stood Serenity's tutor and personal guardian,
Luna. The short woman fidgeted. "Princess. Please. Don't concern
yourself with matters of state. You'll have to face them soon enough
in your life."

Serenity looked as if she was going to say something, regardless
of the dark look on Saturn's face that brooked no argument, but then
glanced sideways at Mercury, remembered that she had an obligation
to her friend, and said nothing. Contrite, both girls fled the room.

And once in the clear, Serenity helped Mercury to her personal
courier.

As the ship lifted from the moon's surface, Serenity hoped that she
would see the young Senshi again. She heard a footstep behind her - 
Saturn, she knew from the heavier tread and the click of the Silence
Glaive on the ferrocrete flooring.

"Highness. If you lose any of us Guardians, things may go worse for
your parents than they do now. don't risk any more of us in such a 
foolish gesture."

"Saturn, have you realised that sometimes, we have higher obligations
than that of state or our own self-protection?" Serenity turned to 
face Saturn. "If I can't look to the wellbeing of my subjects now,
what kind of Queen will I become?" And then she walked out of the pad
area, leaving to her personal quarters.

******

Usagi woke again. Two dreams in as many nights. That had to be a good
sign.

Downstairs, she could hear the morning training of the senshi who had
decided to train. Ami had asked Usagi to partner up with her and join
the others, but Usagi protested, she didn't want to get up early in 
the morning. Besides, she wasn't as clumsy now as she once was, which
was always a good thing, especially when at the top of the inn's 
hillside stairs, and didn't want to find out just how much of that
was good fakery and self-deception on her part.

She went into the kitchen, anyway, where she found Makoto, who'd left
practise early to finish up with the breakfast preparations.
Within moments, the front doors were thrown open, and a horde of 
ravenous teenage women rushed into the kitchen and began tearing
into the food Makoto had prepared. Usagi grimaced at how awake 
everyone seemed to be, and got herself a glass of water. As she 
drank, she noted what Makoto had laid on the table for people to eat.
And it was very nice food.

Which made Usagi wonder, why the rest of them weren't fed like that?
Well, her and Ami, she meant. Hotaru, Makoto, Minako, Rei, Mitsuki
and Ranma ate like kings, er, queens, in the morning, why shouldn't
Usagi? But within moments, the others had finished bolting their food
(looked like Ranma had trained them in a few more things than just
plain normal martial arts) and rushed for quick dips in the hot 
springs.

Ranma, as usual, even though still in his female body, headed for the
male springs, and in particular the cold water spring in that 
enclosure - Hotaru still thought it not a good idea for him to strain
his body by transforming yet. Usagi just thought that Hotaru was 
getting some weird ideas from watching Ranma bounce around the house.
Minako certainly was, that was for sure. But it was a sign that 
Hotaru was growing up - again - so that had to be something good.

They returned in short order, dressed for school and university,
where each student attended. Hotaru fidgited uncomfortably
as Ranma cast an enquiring eye across Hotaru's uniform, as if it 
reminded him of something, but shook the feeling of familiarity
off, and bade her a good day, heading for the roof to carry out some
more repairs on tiles.

Usagi reckoned by now the Ai Sou had to have the best repaired
roof in all of Japan.

She herself hurried to ready herself for another day of boring 
lectures and tutorials, and one minor test in a history lesson.
But she wanted to leave with Ami, and tell her about the latest dream
of times long past. Why? Well, anything about the Moon Kingdom could
be of use. They already knew it was Saturn who had destroyed the 
Kingdom - the ultimate protection of the Kingdom against the Dark 
Kingdom - but not quite the circumstances that led up to it. Nor did
they know a lot about themselves in those previous lives. Any 
information could make a difference.

And with another Dark Kingdom incursion into the world underway,
anything that could be remembered could be of extreme importance.
History had shown things remembered were usually things that *had*
to be remembered, for one reason or another.

They hurried down the stairs to the roadway, passing by Hotaru who 
was standing stock-still at the bottom. She seemed to be staring
off into space for no particular reason, and Usagi saw no need to 
point out to the younger senshi that she would be late if she stood
there much longer.

She didn't notice the man with the long blond hair across the road,
all dressed in black.

But, as she hurried off down the street towards the train station,
she did catch a whiff of roses in the air...

******

Hotaru couldn't believe her eyes. He was there, watching her. And 
smiling.

Why was he smiling?

Self-consciously, she checked without looking that her dress was 
smoothed down, her hair in place. Nothing showing that shouldn't
be showing. Everything tucked in where it should be tucked. A quick
peek proved she hadn't mixed pairs of socks up this morning (not like
the morning she had Kuno running insanely through the school 
demanding everyone swap a sock because divine revelations had stated
it must be so) so why was he staring?

Hotaru didn't know. She wasn't even sure she wanted to know why he 
was smiling. Why? Because that thought opened a door in her mind that
would open other doors, doors she wanted to stay shut. She had her 
Prince now. Ranma... suited her. Someone who knew her inside and out,
outward self and secret self, and yet still wasn't afraid of her 
power. Heck, he might not be able to match her in the power stakes,
but he could overpower her through sheer skill. He was good for her,
and she likewise wanted to be good for him. She wasn't going to look
at this man, this man who'd saved her life, whom she now felt a deep
debt of gratitude towards.

But she smelt the scent of roses, and her eyes and head moved of 
their own volition. She found herself staring into his eyes, and the
sounds of the street around her tunneled into oblivion, quickly
followed by her vision. All she could see was his eyes... staring...
staring...

Something surged in her stomach. Not like a feeling of nausea, or 
bile rising up towards her throat, but a happier feeling, joy...
like a million bubbles rising through her digestive system. This was
a thousand times more powerful than what she felt for Ranma...
this was completely physical, a yearning more like a yanking across
the street.

She barely felt her feet move, and before she knew it, Hotaru was 
standing next to the blond-haired man. His eyes were casual, calm,
yet piercing to the core of her soul. She fell into them, 
willingly... or so her mind told her.

Her heart told her otherwise.

Something about him didn't seem right. She'd never seen this man 
before the other day... why should he engender such a response
in the core of her being? More to the point, how could he?

But rational thought left her body as his arm swept around the small
of her back, and drew her closer to him. The real world seemed to 
tunnel further behind Hotaru as all she could sense now was the 
closeness of his body, the rose-tinted scent of him, the overpowering
stare from his eyes.

She tried to push away, blushing, beginning a protest of innocence
that she knew was a fake, and so he knew this as well - she could
tell from the way one corner of his mouth turned up in a smirk.

"I... I have school," she protested, even more feebily.

"It can wait," the rose-scented Prince replied quietly. "We have 
business... you and I..."

"Business?" Hotaru breathed.

"Business," the man agreed, and leant in low, kissing Hotaru lightly
on the lips. They were warm, moist, and sent shivers of electricity
throughout Hotaru's body. She later swore she could remember small
static charges leaping from the tips of her outstretched fingers
- but she put that down to imagination in the heat of the moment.

Ranma never kissed her like this.

Ranma's hand never strayed below the bottom of her uniform's shirt
like this Prince's hand was, either. It lingered on her backside
for a moment, and Hotaru felt herself bending into it, pushing 
backwards into his hand lightly, and she thought 'Ranma hasn't done
this to me, either'.

Then the sounds and sights from around her started tunneling back 
into focus, like someone was speeding up a slowed down record. Hotaru
blinked as the man pulled back slightly from her. "And now... I must
go. I am still new, and there are things I must see. I know you will
understand." He gave a slight bow from the waist, the light smirk
not leaving his face, although his eyes stayed rooted on Hotaru's.
"Until we meet again, Hotaru Tomoe."

And then he was gone, heading up the street, just walking slowly,
yet covering incredible ground, ducking and weaving in and out of 
pedestrian traffic without seeming to move from side to side at all.

Hotaru's head spun. What had just happened? How had it just happened?
She didn't know. She wasn't sure she wanted to know. She could still
feel his hand on her backside... could still remember pressing
deeper into it... wanting his hand to clutch her tightly...

Yet, she didn't want to. She didn't want to be feeling like this.
It shouldn't be like this, not something she felt bad about, dirty,
used. What had he done to her? What was going on in her head? Why 
hadn't she tried to push him away when he grabbed her around the 
back... or in other places? She was happy with Ranma, wasn't she? How
was he going to take this? God, did this mean she wasn't as attracted
to him as she thought?

Hotaru hurried to school, head in a whirl, trying to forget that 
warm, dreamy kiss, and failing miserably.

******

At the top of the stairs, Ranma watched, a frown on his face. His 
arms were folded under the breasts of his female body, and his 
training gi had some slight sweat stains from the morning's session.
He'd been about to try to catch up to Hotaru, and had stopped short
at the top of the stairs, seeing that strange man again down below
with his arm around Hotaru's waist, kissing her urgently.

When his hand dropped below her belt, so to speak, Ranma's face grew
hot. Angry, he was almost about to descend the stairs, and knock said
stranger into next week... but he could still feel the power from 
this one. Something strange, something bad... something that said 
don't mess with me, son.

Ranma didn't want to mess with him. Not yet. He'd seen some of the 
youma the senshi fought, and the weakest were maybe as strong as 
Kuno... perhaps Ryoga. The sense of power from this person was 
multiple orders of magnitude higher than those. Ranma knew he had a 
lot of work to do before he could even hope to break even in a 
match-up with these monsters.

The last he'd faced had left him near-dead, and he was stuck in his
female body until he had enough reserves to use his curse to change
back without possibly suffering even worse side effects due to the 
near complete loss of energy. It had been a few weeks now, and he 
should be able to change in the next few days. Ranma hoped. He had to
start some serious endurance training to be able to keep giving the
energy output necessary to keep up with the senshi and youma.

That still didn't solve this short-term problem, though. He knew 
Hotaru had to stay away from the blond-haired man... but if she felt
anything for him... how could he say no to her? Did his own feelings
count?

No.

They didn't.

He'd been through this often enough in Nerima. Akane and the others,
had they found anyone new to interest them, Ranma was expected
to be happy to be relegated to the background, happy to have someone
else walk in and trample over his love life - although at the same
time, Akane and the others would expect Ranma to love - heck, even
like - only them and look at no one else.

Ranma was used to being put in the closet.

But, perhaps this time, he shouldn't be put away until Hotaru was 
ready to play with him again.

Oh, what the heck, he decided, letting a clenched fist he hadn't
realised he'd shut open... I've broken up with girls before.

Ranma turned, and headed for the springs to cool off and clean up.

******

"You know, it's not your fault," a voice said above him as he soaked.
Ranma looked up, seemingly relaxed, but in truth, prepared to strike
if the voice's owner was going to attack him. Natsumi floated down
from the rooftop, where she'd taken a shine to observing the morning
training sessions.

"What's not my fault?"

"That he's attracting her eye." Natsumi shrugged. "I thought you'd
have known that. You seem to be pretty perceptive at times."

"At times, yeah," Ranma agreed. "But when I get, I dunno, angry?
Jealous? I kinda lose that ability."

"And you're jealous? You're angry?" Natsumi cocked an eyebrow at him.
He felt himself grow warm with anger and embarrassment...
here was this girl, this youma general, asking incredibly personal
things of him, of his feelings. Making assumptions, and poking her 
nose into his business. But then he forced himself to relax. It was
her aura. For the moment, she seemed to exude a dark energy that had
negative effects on people from time to time. It affected Ranma more
often than anyone else in the dorm.

"Actually... a little. Seeing him... do that... to Hotaru-chan...
it was a little scary."

"You know who he is."

"Yeah. His ki matches that baby-thing we fought at the hospital."

"Before my time," Natsumi sighed, taking up a position on a rock 
above the cold water spring, across from Ranma. "You know, he's only
doing that to get at you."

"I know. It still hurts, though, that she's not able to withstand
his influence."

"You felt it the day you found me."

Ranma nodded. "I felt it. I felt what he did to my insides, too. 
I've... never felt that as a woman before, that kind of... arousal,
I guess would be the word."

"He exudes sex appeal like I exude... well, used to exude darkness
and strength." Natsumi looked a little downcast. "I'm losing it all."

"Your power?" Ranma asked. Natsumi nodded. "Isn't that a good thing
for you? You can go back to your old life. Try it all again."

"And I'll be bullied again," Natsumi snarled in reply, but Ranma 
noticed the slight glistening of her cheek as a tear escaped from her
eye. "I don't want to be bullied anymore! I don't want to live in 
fear of people in my life! I want to -"

"Then join us in the mornings. Or me in the evenings. I'll train you
in self defence."

Natsumi glared at him, as if daring Ranma to tell her the offer was
a lie, something to hurt an enemy... a former enemy, she corrected
herself. But no, his face remained composed, calm, relaxed. 
Eventually, she nodded. "What are you going to do about your 
girlfriend?"

Ranma shook his head. "There's not a lot I can do," he admitted.
"If she falls for him... there's nothing I can do. It's not my 
business, that's one thing I've learned in life. Women do what women
want. It's my place to stand on the sidelines and be used when needed
and hide myself away, putting my life on hold, when not." Ranma 
sounded bitter as he threw the words out. Natsumi found herself
floating over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder in support.

"The purple-haired one likes you too, you know," she said, softly.

"Mitsuki?"

"Yeah. That one. She's got the hots for you like you don't know. And
Mars... phew! She's got more than an eye for you... she's got a hand
with your name on it! You're well liked here. If little miss Saturn
doesn't want to play, one of the others surely will."

Ranma glanced at her sideways. "How do you know who they are?"

"I've sensed their energy patterns in battle, remember? And these
girls have the same patterns." Natsumi looked at Ranma askance.
"You... haven't noticed, have you? That's not how you've been finding
out... their disguise enchantment is too strong, even for you! Wow.
I am impressed."

"What? What enchantment?" Ranma asked.

"Oh, it's not real magic, not like you know it, where everything's
generated from the body's bio-energetic reserves... ki, you call 
it... this is technology that, even though it's ten thousand years
old, is still a million years ahead of yours." Natsumi gestured
with a hand. "You haven't noticed how alike the senshi look to the 
girls who live here? Wow."

"Well, most of the senshi live here, yeah," Ranma said. "But not 
Mercury and Sailor Moon. I don't know where they come from."

Natsumi stared disbelievingly at Ranma. "You really can't see it, can
you? You've got to be told or shown... otherwise you can't see it. My
god... that's bad. That's... well, that's powerful."

Ranma looked down into the spring, confused. "I... I don't know them.
And if all bar two of the senshi live here, why are Usagi and Ami 
living here instead? Why..." Something occurred to Ranma. As it had
several times, in matter of fact, but everytime he thought on the 
senshi's identities, the ones he didn't know kept sliding from his 
mind's eye. And once again, Sailor Moon and Mercury slipped from his
memories, leaving only the knowledge they were at certain events,
things they said, not how they looked. He shook his head to clear
it - nothing cleared. "I... think I know what you mean. I've got to 
ask them next tmie I see them."

Natsumi sighed. "I'd tell you, but I think they'd kill me in return."
She sighed again, looking up at the sky for a moment before looking
back down at Ranma. "I... I think I will do what you said. Join you
for training. I'll have no power soon... nothing that can save me 
from people. Nothing that can make me special again. I'll be Natsumi
Otohime, younger sister of the narcoleptic weirdo. Oh, I can't wait."

The sarcasm could have killed rhinos in Africa.

"But before I'm completely useless," Natsumi said, leaning into 
Ranma's shoulder suddenly, her chin resting there as if it belonged,
"I'm going to do one last thing with my powers. Ranma Saotome,
I make you a new man!" She wrapped an arm around his neck, tilted
his head back before he knew what was happening, and latched her lips
onto his.

He made to struggle, but felt something enter his body: something
electrical, sending shivers of newfound power throughout his body.
His fingers crackled with static.

Then just when he thought he was going to explode, Natsumi pulled
back, wiping at her mouth, a little confused. Ranma turned around
so he could face her fully, and she tilted her head sideways a little
in confusion. "You... you taste of Dar-"

Natsumi's eyes opened wide, and she toppled over on one side. Ranma
leapt out of the water, hurried to catch her before her head could
hit the concrete surrounding the cold water spring, and started
to panic - what if she was dead?

But she wasn't. She was asleep. Sleeping normally. Not quite 
peacefully, but normally. Ranma nodded to himself. He noted that 
whatever she'd done to him, he couldn't feel it now. Perhaps it was
something to re-energise his batteries, so to speak. But his ki 
levels felt the same as they had that morning. Then what hasd she 
done? That, Ranma didn't know.

He grabbed a towel, wrapped it around him and tied it between his 
breasts before picking up Natsumi and taking her to a futon in an 
unused room. There he lay her out, pulled a blanket up over her still
form, and left, closing the door quietly behind him.



SAILOR MOON SAYS:

Gah. Writer's block. Anything worse? About the only good thing its 
done is let me work through some scenes from future chapters...
which'll hopefully turn up in somewhat altered form, like the last
scene in this chapter... there's one or two for the next few chapters
as well. Bah. 

Anyways, next time on Love: I have absolutely no idea at this time.
Oh, wait, I do: Natsumi goes home (yay!), Ranma finds out a dastardly
secret about Hotaru (boo!), and the rest of the senshi start working
in cheap bars and bad porno flicks (um... lost here, help out? ^^;).
DISCLAIMER: Relatively standard stuff. Existing characters are 
properties of the people who made them up. Mitsuki, and several
other characters are mine, and so's the story, hence ownership
and copyright of them belongs to me. Contact me at 
misato_98@yahoo.com if you want permission to use anything I've 
written for whatnot purposes.


LOVE

By

Raymond Cooper

Chapter 6

** **


Above her, far in the distance, Nemesis was sling-shotted
out of the physical reach of the Moon Kingdom. Serenity knew where
the faint pin prick of light was, visible by the naked eye only 
because time and space in the Kingdom was not what it was outside
of the Kingdom. The dot grew steadily dimmer, and the elder Guardian
of the planet turned, horrified to her.

"Princess!" she howled, "How can your mother sacrifice a world of the
Kingdom like that?"

Serenity was lost for words, unable to speak, knowing what would 
happen as soon as the planet left the life-bearing energies of the 
Kingdom.

"The same way the Queen could direct that comet to hit Mars," the 
senshi of Mars snarled. "Our worlds don't matter here anymore."

That's not true! Serenity wanted to say, to explain that her mother
was sacrificing entire worlds to try to save what remained of the 
Kingdom. As civilisation grew on the planet Earth below, as the 
balance between nature and order was upset, so the balance between
light and dark was being lost. And with that unbalancing, the Dark
Kingdom, led by Beryl, made their push on the resource and energy
rich homeworlds of the Moon Kingdom, entering that which they had 
been denied at the founding of the Kingdoms.

As Below, so Above.

Queen Serenity had at first tried to negotiate. When the Librariums
had fallen to the depravities that had engulfed the Utopia University
whole, the planet's administrative staff had been evacuated and 
bombarded with asteroidal matter from orbiting forge-satellites.
While staffs had been removed from the planet by warp gates and 
evacuation transports and temporal corridors making microjumps
across the system, the planet's population had been decimated.

Following the fall of Mercury, the Dark Kingdom Warhost attacked
Mars, striking while the planetary defence fleets were hurriedly
returning from Mercury. Zoicite, the Admiral of the Mercurian
fleets, returned to find Mars' population held at ransom: the fleets
to join the Dark Kingdom, else every man, woman and child on the 
planet would be slaughtered. Zoicite's loyalty to the Kingdom wavered
for but a moment; he was an honourable man, and his duty, his 
loyalty, as was that of every member of the Kingdom, was to his King
and Queen.

The King had paused in indecision. Queen Serenity didn't.

Zoicite was about to open fire on the enemy's encampments when, 
appearing via temporal corridor originating in the realSystem's
Oort cloud, a mighty snowball, fully fifty kilometres across, sped
past the orbiting ships. Dark Kingdom forces hurried to their own 
transport vessels as the snowball erupted in gas and dust, heated
by the passage through the corridor and by the much nearer location
to the sun, blew through the planet's atmosphere as if it didn't
exist, and impacted in the planet. Nothing remained of the northern
six hundred kilometres of the world, three kilometres of the crust
had simply been shrugged off into space.

Half of the Warhost hadn't survived, but the surviving numbers were
bolstered by Zoicite's defection in horror to the Dark Kingdom's
Queen Beryl. The King had made a personal plea to Zoicite under a 
flag of truce, but the Admiral, in anger and misdirected hatred,
struck the King to bring the pain he felt to Queen Serenity. The King
had died in Martian orbit, and the war paused for a moment while both
sides regrouped.

But then Venus fell, and Saturn, and Neptune, and Uranus. All that
were left in the Moon Kingdom were the planets Jupiter, Pluto, 
Nemesis and the Moon itself.

And now, in the latest battle, Beryl's forces had set off a chain
reaction of graviton bombs across the surface of Nemesis, thrusting
the planet from its normal orbit and out into the cold depths of 
space.

Nemesis turned to the Princess, pain in her eyes, anger in her heart.
"I can hear them, Princess, I can hear them dyi"

There wasn't even a snip of sound as the planet passed from the heart
of the Kingdom. Once outside the barriers, the planet reverted
to realSystem physical laws, and the inhabitants of Nemesis simply
ceased to exist. This, of course, included the senshi of the planet.
All that was left was a ball of energy, starting as the bright blue
of the world Nemesis, fading to a dull grey, then black. The ball of
energy hovered for a moment, then shot back into the palace, where
Princess Serenity's mother would harness the energies of the fallen
warrior for other purposes.

The guardians of Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto now stood around
the Princess. Mars was angry at the reason behind the loss of her 
homeworld, and only the fact that the Princess, the girl who she was
assigned to protect, was just as horrified as the other Guardians.

Well, most. Pluto and Saturn took different views on such things,
preferring more to cut out the heart of a living creature to save it
from cancers in the extremities. Saturn herself had been responsible
for the destruction of Venus when the Venusian fleets had defected
also in response to Zoicite's passionate speeches on the horrors
the Moon Kingdom's Queen was committing to keep her ever more fragile
grip on power, her need to stay in control of everything. The Martian
and