I told some people that this would be out a bit sooner than it was. Oops.
Chapter 2 is halfway done, but I'm going to be hit with 2+ exams before I
can complete it, so don't hold your breath. I've converted over to writing
the story in the LaTeX typesetting language, and using some horrendous
Perl scripts to turn it into formatted plain text. That also means that I
can (and do) generate a nice looking PDF. That is available on my web page:
http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~kominek/writings/
You can also get text copies of the chapters there.
- Jay Kominek <jay.kominek@colorado.edu>
Waiting Is.
Child of Love
Children of Hate
chapter one by
jay f kominek
<jay.kominek@colorado.edu>
Sailor Moon is the property of Takeuchi Naoko and some
corporations. Ranma 1/2 is the property of Takashi Rumiko and some
other corporations. I only claim ownership to the plot. It is not
my intention to violate their copyrights, but instead to entertain.
I can only hope to do so with a fraction of their skill. This story
is meant to be distributed for free. Please do not change it,
or stick your name on it.
Pre-readers, to whom I am grateful:
elfman, Lord Talon, hachiman, roslyn, Weeb
Comments and feedback in all forms are appreciated.
This story takes place after the ends of both Ranma 1/2
and Sailor Moon. I mix and match the manga and anime continuities
as I see fit. Minor details of the original series may go out the
window in the face of artistic freedom. :)
- - - - - - - -
Makoto looked at the two people standing in the middle of the
street. Not 20 minutes ago, they'd claimed to be the famous Saotomes.
She hadn't believed them initially, and rightly so. She was slowly
becoming more than merely convinced, though. After Rei had demanded
hard evidence of their claim, the two of them had jumped out of
a window. They were on the fifth floor.
Not even Sailor Jupiter was going to try a jump like that if
she had a choice about it. Sure, she'd survive, and the bones in her
legs would even heal straight after a few days (if she stayed Sailor
Jupiter the whole time), but it wouldn't feel at all pleasant. And
those two..
So the assembled girls had hurried down the stairs, to find
Akane and Ranma waiting a ways off, smiling. They waited for only
a minute before running off, quickly. It didn't take long for the
girls to completely lose them. Then, right as soon as they'd stopped
and just about given up, Ranma and Akane had appeared behind them.
"Well, I suppose if you want to stop here, thats okay.." said
Ranma, looking around lazily. "So, you don't think we'd be able to
do anything to some demons, huh?"
Now, Ami with her computer out, spoke up. "Well, Mrs Aino
or, er Saotome doesn't have any magic at all, and you just seem to
have a tiny little bit clinging to you.."
"Right, thats just my curse, its not like the stupid thing
could help me, anyways."
Slightly confused, Ami continued, "..and even that isn't
even close to my level of power, let alone Usagi or Minako's."
Now it was Ranma's turn to be confused. "What would we be
doing with magic? All it ever does it get me in trouble, why there
was the time with that evil spirit.."
A cough and a look of promised violence from Akane stopped
Ranma in mid-ramble.
"Yeah, er, so, anyways, what would we need magic for just
to beat up some demons?"
Ami stood wordlessly. She wasn't quite sure how to respond,
since she wasn't aware of any means to fight something like demons
without the use of magic.
Seeing the confusion on young Ami's face, Akane thought to
try and get to the point. "What do you girls use magic for?"
Ami was happy to again know what she was talking
about. "Well, the Sailor Senshi magic makes us faster, stronger,
increases endurance, and gives us magical attacks."
"Like what kind of magical attack?"
The girls looked between each other, and Makoto spoke
up. "I'll show them." After some nodding, Makoto called out her
transformation phrase. "JUPITER CRYSTAL POWER!"
Looking back to see a unimpressed Ranma and Akane, she faced
down the street before letting loose a Sparkling Wide Pressure up
into the air.
Akane nodded in thought. "Not bad. Something like that
might catch Ryouga's attention. Here, this should be about like
that." Drawing back her right arm while extending the left one
forward, Akane summoned her ki, and formed it into a red sphere
in her right hand. Speaking only slightly louder than normal,
Akane announced the attack, "Rekka Hokan![1]". Right arm shooting
forwards along the line made by her left arm, the ball shot off
into the night sky, swelling to about the size of a basketball
right after passing her left hand.
All of the girl's jaws had dropped, but Rei and Ami were the
only two who needed to worry about people parking in their mouths.
"Tha.. that was ki, wasn't it?" Rei asked, having managed to rein
in her astonishment.
"Yeah, that was one of the simpler attacks."
"Ha.. how do you manage to gather that much ki and give
it shape?!"
"Ah, thats the key to performing a ki attack. It requires
the heavy ki of emotion to fuel it. Ranma uses confidence, I use
anger. We know this guy who used to use depression, and this woman
who uses happiness. The more of the emotion you have, the more
powerful your attack.. The fellow with the depression actually
managed to achieve the perfect form of an emotion-based ki attack.
He had Problems."
"But, how did you do that without magic?" inquired Ami.
"It isn't magic! It is ki, your spirit, will and life wrapped
up in one. We can use it to achieve the other things you use magic
for. For instance, by directing it into the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken
technique, we can increase our speed.." trailing off, Akane added,
"..and more" but no-one caught that.
Whipping her computer out, Ami asked if Akane could
demonstrate the Amaguriken.
"Well, the basic Amaguriken just lets you grab chestnuts out
of a fire. Its the revisions that let you do useful things. You saw
one of them earlier. Thats the final revision. The first revision
is merely a speed punching technique." With that, Akane cocked her
right fist and let fly Saotome revision #1.
"Impossible.." said Ami, eyes straining to pop out of her
face. "Akane's fist was moving at an average of 750 meters per
second![2] Thats way beyond anything we can do."
Deciding to give the introductory lesson to advanced
Amaguriken usage on the spot, Ranma spoke up, "Same thing can be
done with your feet, or whole legs, or whatever other body part
you want. Reflexes are increased by affecting the mind. Endurance
can be increased by speeding up the healing process. Its hard
to increase your physical strength for very long unless you have
massive muscles, though."
While Ranma was ready to go into details, Akane was
not. "Listen, as much as Ranma's ego would love to stand around all
night and talk about martial arts techniques, I'd like to get back
to my daughter."
With little hint of disappointment, Ranma joined his wife,
who was already walking back. "Wait, if you want to help with the
next demon, how do we get ahold of you?" called out Usagi.
That managed to stump the pair, until Akane came up with
a solution, "Well, how do you normally contact Minako?"
Disappointed that she hadn't thought of it sooner, Ami
responded, "Ah, we have communicators. We left Mina's in her room
after we took her to the hospital. You could carry it around. Bottom
drawer on the left."
Nodding, Ranma and Akane left 6 very surprised girls to
return to their daughter.
* * * * * * * *
Kneeling before the dinner table, Ranma across from her,
Akane asked "What you said earlier.. about unsealing the forbidden
techniques.. did you mean it?"
"Well, not really. I mean, I'll do whatever it takes to get
the people who did this to my poor Minako, but we probably shouldn't
start using advanced techniques right off the bat.. we don't know
who we're dealing with, after all, and we don't want to hand the
techniques over to them.. Besides! Its not like we can't take
'em down with standard techniques!"
Akane nodded sagely and sipped her tea.
* * * * * * * *
A man spoke, "Now, mother, what's the matter?"
"Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended" answered a
familiar voice.
"Hamlet" didn't get a chance to respond, however. The
unfamiliar buzz of her daughter's communicator distracted
Akane. Having jumped suddenly, she threw off her fellow actors. "Ah,
excuse me.." mumbled Akane as she hurried out of the room to try
and figure out how to activate the communicator.
After fumbling with the few buttons for a second, she
managed to get a picture of Ami's face on the dial. "-ossing some
cars around outside of Kashu Coffee."
Nearly shouting Akane informed them, "I'll go get Ranma
and we'll be right there!"
From the blasted look on Ami's face, Akane decided that
maybe she didn't need to speak quite that loud.
* * * * * * * *
Standing on the high school sports field brought back plenty
of memories to Ranma. Most people would be thinking about football
games, or maybe the cheerleader under the stands. Ranma thought
about duels with Ryouga, Ms Hinako, Happosai, etc, etc.
Ranma watched as Taketo hit the softball. *Hmm, looks
like its coming this way, better dodge in a second, don't want to
look too-
"RANSOU!" the shout came from Akane, standing on the other
side of the field, by the fence.
*SMACK*
-fast. Ouch.*
"Idiot, why didn't you dodge that?" asked Akane, now standing
no more than 10 feet away and closing at a brisk pace.
"I was, uh, distracted by someone."
"Hrmph, how impolite of them. Oh, hey, there is a demon
attacking! We've got to go!"
Having instantly caught Ranma's full attention, Akane
grabbed him and began dragging him away from the field.
* * * * * * * *
Sailor Mercury would describe herself as quite distraught
right about now.
Really, most people would be wetting themselves were they
in her situation. She was, at this moment, lying in a shallow hole
in the sidewalk. This hole was convinently shaped exactly like her.
That probably had something to do with the fact that the
demon had used her to make it. She hadn't felt this helpless since
Vesves had taken Nishio's dream mirror and trapped her inside of a
computer. That had driven her to her Super form. Discussions with
Pluto, led her to believe that nothing waited beyond the Super form
for any Senshi but the Moon Senshi. No getting out of this one on
her own.
Sailors Moon, Mars and Neptune were also out of
action. Tuxedo Mask was standing over Moon whose wings were frayed
and tattered, trying to wake her up and generally fretting. That was
about all he could do with a broken throwing/sword arm. Poor Tuxedo
Mask, always showing up to help Sailor Moon and then getting pounded
on. Pluto and Saturn weren't present. Probably a good thing. Mercury
wasn't sure if Saturn would try to use the Death Reborn Revolution
on this thing, and she didn't really want to find out, either.
This left Jupiter and Uranus still standing. They'd both
launched their most powerful attacks any number of times. In fact,
all of the present Senshi had. At least the demon had enough decency
to be oozing something from a couple of wounds.
Propping herself up, Mercury was able to get a good view
of Jupiter making a nice Sailor Jupiter-shaped hole in the wall. At
least Mercury could lay down in hers.
Uranus had apparently taken stock of the situation, and
decided to back away for a second, hoping that one of the other
Senshi would get up to give her some help.
* * *
Sailor Uranus was not a happy camper. She and Jupiter
were the last ones standin- scratch that. She was the last one
standing. Not that she thought the Ainos- er- Saotomes, would be
of any help, but they'd called them a good 5, 10 minutes ago and
they still weren't here. If they'd promised to help they should at
least show up and take a pounding, too.
Deciding to act graceful from a bit farther away, Uranus
began to back pedal in the direction of Neptune.
* * *
Mercury, while previously quite upset over the current
state of things, was about to become even more upset. Seeing the
last mobile target moving away, the demon had started to look for
the immobile target most likely to become mobile soon. Poor Mercury
had been just about to start lifting herself off the ground when
she became the demon's new target.
Moving at a level of speed Mercury had only recently
realized possible, the demon charged her. Bracing herself for an
attack, she- er. She found herself a good 8 or 9 meters from where
she'd been. Looking around, quite confused, she saw the demon,
also looking confused, and two people in matching red and black
with black hair. Protective reflexes tried to kick in, but found
her muscles uncooperative. That gave her brain time to analyze the
past few days and come to the conclusion that the two people were
the Ainos. "No, the Saotomes" her brain told itself.
* * *
Akane was both upset that it'd take them so long to arrive,
and relieved that they'd made it there when they did. On the one
hand, she knew they could move a lot faster if they really wanted
to, but Ranma had refused to use the requisite techniques. However,
arriving when they did gave her a chance to help out Ami, which
gave her a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
Ami had always reminded her of her two older sisters
wrapped into one. A Kasumi with Nabiki's intelligence.. or was
that a Nabiki with Kasumi's kindness?
Watching the demon jog over to Ami out of the corner of
her eye, Akane leaked a bit of ki into her legs and arms. *Don't
want to lose any speed when I pick Ami up.. or wrench my arms out
of their sockets..* After setting Ami down, Akane expended a bit
more ki to disperse her inertia and immediately rejoin Ranma.
Luckily, they'd changed outfits on the way over. No sense
in being naked in front of a demon for the few milliseconds it
took change. Ranma was enough of a pervert without flashing for
evil given physical form.
So. There they were. Ranma and Akane Saotome. They were
standing a few meters away from each other, and the demon, roughly
forming a triangle.
Speaking up, Ranma announced in an uncustomarily level tone,
"You, are dead."
* * *
This surprised the demon. Of late its adversaries had been
spouting all kinds of semi-poetic nonsense about how they were
going to punish it and yadda, yadda, yadda. It was almost enough
to make it ill. A number of things struck it as different about
this one. It wasn't wearing a skirt, it was taller, and wasn't a
teenage girl. Oh well, it was still a human..
Not wasting any more time in contemplation, the demon
charged Ranma with the same kind of speed. Surprisingly (to the
demon), Ranma wasn't there when it arrived. Instead, it heard a
voice behind it. "Pathetic. An opponent as helpless as you could
drive my ki attack to Perfection."
* * *
Taunting the demon a bit in hopes of getting it to let
off some hot ki had proved futile. Oh, the demon had become upset
alright. He'd dodged the attack, but not even half as soon as he'd
have liked. This thing was fast. And while it had become quite upset,
it wasn't giving off even the tiniest bit of hot ki. *At least I
know not to fall back on the Hiryu Shouten Ha. Can't hurt to keep
up harassing it, though. Angry opponents get sloppy.. or let off
Rekka Hokans.* Ranma mentally cringed.
"Pathetic. An opponent as helpless as you could drive my
ki attack to Perfection."
Not strictly true, but it had the necessary ring to really
get an opponent upset. Standing there, oblivious to the demon's
pending action, Ranma was making a target out of himself that would
be unforgivable if he'd been informed of one teeny-tiny fact.
Demons don't use ki attacks, they use magical attacks.
Hence the large Ranma-shaped hole which managed to appear
right next to the slightly smaller Sailor Jupiter-shaped hole in
the wall. Without the ability to sense his opponent building up
for a ranged attack, Ranma couldn't hope to dodge.
Unperturbed by being knocked through a brick wall, Ranma
lept back to his feet and quickly took to dodging and weaving at
random. He wasn't about to be caught by the same thing twice. Akane
took the hint and began to run and leap about the scene of the fight,
as well.
Confronted by two targets cavorting about at speeds even
it considered mildly impressive, the demon prioritized. First thing
to do was to get them to stop moving around like that.
Firing a multitude of magic blasts that resembled inky
black nothingness at Ranma and Akane, the demon quickly found
that shooting at them was futile. So, it tried shooting at random,
hoping to get lucky. That didn't work either. Finally it realized
that these two targets had shown interest in the other targets,
so maybe it could use them as bait.
* * *
*Amazing..* was the thought that kept going through Sailor
Uranus' head as she watched Ranma and Akane. Her magically endowed
speed had allowed her to save the other Senshi from various forms
of devastating attacks in the past, but Akane had just run in
with speed that slightly surpassed Uranus', grabbed Mercury, and
moved her 20 meters. That wasn't that big a deal, with enough work
Uranus could probably have built herself up to that kind of speed
and strength. The big deal was what Akane had done when she'd set
Mercury down. One instant, she was moving in one direction at around
30 meters a second, and the next instant, she was moving just a
little bit slower, in the completely opposite direction! Physics
was more Pluto's specialty, but Uranus was pretty sure what Akane
had done defied at least a few laws of physics.
The rate at which "amazing" passed through Uranus' brain
only increased when Ranma and Akane began to put on an acrobatics
display which made her think of a pair of Olympic gymnasts who'd
forgotten about the law of gravity.
* * *
*Oooo, this thing is getting on my nerves,* thought Akane, as
she barely dodged yet another one of those blasts. *Hmm, I think I've
got a way to ruin this thing's day.* A small smile crossed Akane's
face as she started coordinating her leaps to carry her a bit farther
away. Reaching what she believed to be a safe distance, she noticed
the demon seemed to have ceased firing. Akane stopped and began
pulling her ki in and concentrating it into the distinctive patterns
needed. Finally ready, Akane began to announce her technique.
"SPL-"
"No!" screamed a now distracted Ranma.
His interruption's goal had been achieved, however. Akane
lost her tenuous grip on the ki patterns needed and felt them
disperse harmlessly. Focusing on Ranma, and preparing to bash
him a good one for distracting her, she stopped. The demon was
rushing towards Ami again. There wasn't any way she could make it
in time, but Ranma could. And did. Placing himself in its path,
Ranma let fly an unannounced Mouko Takabisha[3] at what passed for
the demon's face.
It didn't seem to care. Instead, it whipped some tentacle
things around and grabbed Ranma. A game of "make Ranma into a pile
of mush" then began.
This didn't sit too well with Akane. She was the only one
who was allowed to beat her husband senseless.
Akane summoned all of her ki, she was going to put an end to
this thing now, no more fun and games. Her visible battle aura went
from being a few wisps of occasional red to a small bonfire, lifting
loose pieces of gravel off the ground and generating a stiff breeze.
And then, it was all gone, worked into a massive ball of ki,
held in her left hand. Casually aiming her left arm, she let fly
the ball. Oddly, it didn't fly with the speed of most ki attacks,
but instead chugged along almost lazily through the air.
It missed, passing a meter or so to the demons left.
Barely having had to dodge, the demon was clearly amused by
this turn of events, that ball of whatever it was had looked awfully
painful. It was odd, though, Akane didn't look at all surprised.
*FSSST KLABWALM!@#!*
The ball had exploded into a small fire storm after passing
the demon by little more than its diameter.
Clearly pleased, Akane belatedly announced the attack,
"Hah! Fuhatsudan Kibou[4]. They always fall for that." Seeing the
demon down, and probably not planning on moving soon, Akane skipped
over to where Ranma lay. "Hey moron, you alright?" she inquired in
a nearly school girl tone. "Ugh. No thanks to you. Do you really
have to go tossing ki bombs around near other people?" "Would you
rather the demon still have you?" Rubbing his head, Ranma eeked out a
"Well..."
Quickly trying to change the subject, Ranma looked around for
something interesting. "Hey, look! That demon is still moving!" And
it was. In fact, it was just managing to pull itself up onto its
hoof-feet-things. "Aw man, how much does it take to put one of these
things down. And it isn't giving off any hot ki, either.." Revelation
striking, Ranma inquired, "Hey, how about that technique you were
talking about the other day? That revision to the Hiryu Shouten Ha?"
Akane was mildly surprised she'd been listening to him. She
may be one of the few people in Ranma's bracket, but that didn't
mean she was anywhere close to Ranma's level of skill. This meant
he had a tendency to get a bit distracted when she proposed new
revisions. If he really wanted them, he'd usually just make them up
on the spot. "Yeah, that one." Still stunned, Akane wondered aloud
"Think we can pull it off without any practice?" Ranma waved his
hand dismissingly and put on his stupid grin, "Sure, why not? Lets
go for it." Jumping to his feet, Ranma took up a position off to
one side of the demon, and began to gather his ki.
Once Akane had taken up her position, and the demon was
looking nervously between the two of them, she announced "I'll
lead off."
Receiving a confirmation imperceptible to anyone but her,
Akane began.
"TSUIN.." She was running clockwise around the demon, fast.
"..HIRYUU.." Ranma was running now, too.
"..SHOUTEN.." Vast streams of hot ki were trailing from
Akane now.
"..HA!" shouted Ranma, who had streams of down right cold
ki trailing him. On that word, both Akane and Ranma launched upper
cuts that never connected, but instead triggered the ki tornado
they'd setup.
* * *
Actually on her feet by now, Sailor Mercury was looking
around. Neptune, Mars and Moon were moving again. Jupiter was
wobbling about uneasily, holding her head. Making a mental note
to check Jupiter for a concussion, Mercury finally found Uranus
standing off at a distance watching Akane hurry over to a fallen
Ranma. Making her way over to Uranus, she noticed that Akane and
Ranma were setting themselves up on opposite sides of the demon.
"Mercury, I don't believe what I'm seeing."
"What do you mean?"
"Those two.. they're moving faster than me, and they don't
seem to be trying too hard to do it, either. And that energy blast
Akane threw a minute ago.. it was at least as powerful at my World
Shaking attack, and Akane thought nothing of tossing it. It seemed
like Akane had gotten fed up at one point and was going to end
it with a different technique, but Ranma stopped her before she
finished announcing it. I'm almost afraid to wonder what kind of
technique is so powerful that he wouldn't want her to use it."
"TSUIN.."
Uranus and Mercury turned as though choreographed to face
where the demon- and two.. blurs were. Mercury instantly had her
visor down. "Impossible. They're running in a circle at nearly
45m/s, and they're getting faster!"
"..HIRYUU.."
Mercury was continuing to mumble about impossibilities
when it hit Uranus like a freight train full of bricks. "A
tornado! Amazing! They're actually going to try to make a torna-
Oh god. They'll be able to run fast enough to do it, too!" Shouting,
Uranus told everyone "GRAB SOMETHING NOW!"
"..SHOUTEN.."
Holding onto the base of a lamp post with one hand, and
trying to keep her visor from being pulled off her face with the
other, Mercury continued to watch them. "Simply impossible.. they're
running at nearly 65m/s no-"
"..HA!"
And then the local area became a vacuum as the air was all
sucked up, launching the demon into the ki-charged air.
* * *
The Tsuin Hiryuu Shouten Ha was the most powerful thing
they were allowing themselves to access at the moment. While they
had access to enough ki to perform it for the rest of the day,
if it didn't work the first time, repeating it wasn't likely to
accomplish much more.
They were plum out of things to do, without digging into
the collection of secret or forbidden techniques they couldn't
access without deciding to beforehand.
Hence, it wasn't a good thing, when the demon landed -
nowhere near as far away as it should've, and much sooner - and it
wasn't moving. That didn't last very long, however. Propping itself
up on some tentacles, it finally worked its way up to its hoof-feet,
and sort of wobbled around.
Speaking for the first time, it seemed to inquire, "you
who are ?".
Looking back and forth at each other, Akane and Ranma tried
to puzzle out what it was asking. (After they picked themselves
up from the face-fault that ensued the demon actually standing up)
"Is it asking who we are?" "I think so.."
Seeing the demon apparently nod in agreement, Ranma
smiled. He was always happy to announce himself.
"I am Ranma Saotome of the Anything Goes School of Martial
Arts!" Ranma quickly added, "and this is my wife, Akane Saotome!",
after he felt her glaring daggers at him.
While Ranma had received a number of different responses
to his introduction, glee was rarely one of them. Gleeful demons
look really weird, believe you me. They look simply unnerving,
actually. This demon was most definitely gleeful upon receiving
this news.
"you saotome is ?"
"Er, yeah, thats what I just said."
Simply ecstatic at this point, the demon brought itself up
to its full height.
And it ran away.
Ranma and Akane were simply too stunned to move, and the
Senshi weren't about to chase after an enemy as powerful as that,
even if they were in a condition to do so.
* * * * * * * *
Returning to her living room, Akane brought with her a
tray stacked high with tea cups and various implements of proper
tea serving. Before setting down the tray, she paused to survey
the young girls and their male companion.
The two older ones, Haruka and Michiru, were sitting
together, looking very concerned. The man with his right arm in
a used looking sling, was fussing over a bruised Usagi who was
in turn fussing over his arm. The other three girls were sitting
together, Makoto's head wrapped in bandages, Rei knees braced (she
was sitting with her legs straight instead of bent underneath her,
too). Only Ami had escaped any visible damage, but she was wishing
for a chiropractor. Male companion?
"Excuse me, Usagi, who is your friend?"
Utterly distracted by fussing over the man's broken arm,
Usagi didn't hear a word Akane said. The man did, however.
"Ah, I'm sorry, I am Mamoru Chiba."
Since the object of her worries disappeared when Mamoru
stood up, Usagi realized that she'd been asked a question. "Oh, Mrs
Aino! Mamoru is my boyfriend! We're going to get married someday!"
*He has to be at least 4 years older than her, and she is
only 16. Well, I guess Ranma and I were only 16..* Akane turned as
she responded, "I see," and went back to serving tea.
Once tea had been served, Ami pulled her computer out
from the no-space in which it spent most of its time and set it
on the table. While the demeanor of the meeting was very subdued
compared to many which began with Usagi and Minako arguing over
the merits of various boys or ice cream, Ami still had to cough
to get everyone's attention. Assured of her audience's undivided
attention, Ami began. "First, to reiterate some things we already
know: What we fought was a demon. A 100% demon. Many of the things
we've fought in the past were simply animate evil confined or bound
to some sort of physical object. This thing normally resides in Hell
until summoned. That is the key. Somebody is summoning these things
to our world. It also means that its power is not being diluted by
being channeled through a normal object."
After waiting a moment for this to sink in, Ami continued,
not noticing that Ranma already looked bored. "Next, we barely
managed to do anything to it. Nothing but our strongest magical
attacks were able to even get its attention. Those only succeeded in
damaging it when more than one struck it at the same time." Pausing
to tap on her computer, she looked up when Ranma coughed. "Yes?" "I
was wondering.. we were able to hurt it, right?"
Without a word of response, Ami went back to typing,
leaving Ranma hanging. Then, "Well. That was what I wanted to
talk about next." Pleased with himself, Ranma began to smile. "You
weren't able to do much more than we were able to do." Ranma's smile
disappeared. "However, you were able to do it in a tenth the time,
and with 5 fewer people." Ranma's smile returned, but with a hint of
uncertainty. Speaking up, he input, quietly, "You should know.. we
were bound by limits on our techniques and power. I didn't think
these things could be as durable as they were, so I decided to limit
ourselves to fairly basic techniques. The Tsuin Hiryuu Shouten Ha
was stretching it."
Haruka's mouth dropped.
Almost scared, she asked, "You mean to say you weren't using
your full power.. or range of techniques?" Ranma nodded. "Just what
is your full power?" "Actually, I don't know. I've summoned enough
ki to level a mountain before, but that was about 20 years ago,
and I should be able to get a bunch more now."
Now everyone's jaw but Akane's dropped.
Michiru stuttered, "You - can - level - a - mountain?"
"Uh, yeah. Er, no. I could get enough power to do it,
but I don't have a technique to channel the power into that would
be right for leveling a mountain. I'd have to blast tiny pieces
off. Using that kind of power with most simple ki-blast techniques
wouldn't be a very good idea, you'd get no control or direction,
just a big explosion. There are techniques that could safely harness
that level of power, though."
The girls weren't comforted.
Haruka was sweating by now. "And.. that tornado you
two made?" Ranma was visibly pleased by the questions about his
favorite subject. "That was the Tsuin Hiryuu Shouten Ha[5]. We'd
never actually tried it like that before. It is a variation on the
single person Hiryuu Shouten Ha for use against targets which don't
generate their own hot ki."
"Do you know how fast you were running when you made
that tornado?" asked Ami. Ranma managed "Uh, fast?" "In excess of
65m/s!" "Huh. Like I said, we were sort of limiting ourselves." Ami's
voice had risen to an incredulous pitch, "You call that limiting
yourselves?!" "Well yeah, don't you?" Face-faulting ensued. "No! Not
even Haruka can run that fast as Sailor Uranus, and she is the
fastest of us!"
"Oh."
"Faster than Uranus? Raw power that exceeds that of all
the Senshi but Saturn? Able to get up from damage that crumples
Jupiter?" said a new, female voice, from right behind Ranma.
Turning around like a shot to see who had snuck up on him,
Ranma screamed "A talking cat!" at the sight of Luna. Almost without
traversing the intervening distance, he was on the other side of
the room.
All eyes on Ranma, he managed to pull himself out from
behind Mamoru. Akane was obviously frustrated, "Idiot, what are
you doing? Its just a cat." "Oh. Right. Sorry. Showing up right
behind me really caught me off guard."
Finding Ranma's reaction a bit odd, Usagi wondered "Why
did you.. jump so much even if it was a talking cat?"
"I, er, used to be *mumble* of cats."
"What?"
"Afraid.. I used to be afraid of cats.."
"Afraid of cats?"
"I got better."
"How afraid of cats were you before you got 'better'?" "Hmm,
well. Being around a cat long enough usually made me go insane"
replied Ranma, very seriously.
Nonplussed, Rei asked "How did you get 'better'?" "Ah,
uh," began Ranma, scratching the back of his head, "I just did,
I mean I am a great martial artist, after all. Hah, hah." "Don't
listen to him, I was finally able to drag him to a psychologist
once we moved to England" Akane angrily injected.
Another voice, again from behind him spoke up, "Hey, thanks
for not letting Mrs Saotome get me 'fixed', Mr Saotome." Slowly,
this time, Ranma turned around to see the family cat, Artemis,
looking at him for all the world as though he'd just been the
one to talk. That however, was foolish. Couldn't hurt to check
though.. "Did Artemis just talk?" Usagi happily piped up a "Yes."
Having had all he could take with talking cats, Ranma
fell asleep. Real men don't faint, after all.
* * *
Usagi'd been having a very roller-coaster day. First off
she'd been at this coffee place with Mamoru (he claimed they were all
the rage in America, but she couldn't see how a place that didn't
serve ice cream could be popular). Then a demon had attacked, beat
them up until the Ainos (who she'd only recently found out were
really the Saotomes) showed up, and started performing feats of
strength, speed and endurance that put the Senshi to shame. However,
even they hadn't been able to defeat it, it'd merely run away after
finding out who they were. Now she'd come to find out that the Ainos
hadn't even been giving it their all. Then Luna and Artemis show up
just like she'd ask (for once listening to her), and Mr Aino had,
er, taken a nap.
Eyeing the unconscious Mr Aino and the slightly sweating
Mrs Aino, Usagi pulled Luna over to her and asked quietly, "Are
they from the Moon Kingdom, too?"
Luna shook her head. "They can't be. Serenity only sent the
Senshi, Tuxedo Mask and Artemis and I forward in time. I've been
wracking my brain trying to remember anyone even remotely like
them, but I haven't been able to come up with anything. King and
Queen Venus were also very pacifistic, so they certainly couldn't
be them. Even when Queen Venus was the Sailor Venus of her time,
she abhorred violence and rarely used anything but her Lovely Chain
to hold enemies in place."
"Then how can they do what they do?!" demanded Usagi. "As
near as I can determine, their explanation is correct," answered
Luna, "They're martial artists, if thats even the right term anymore,
of a caliber that most people don't even realize possible."
Looking back, she saw Mr Ai- Saotome awake again, and
looking at her. "You still don't believe us?"
"`Er, I mean, I saw what you did, and I don't think it
was somebody else doing it or anything, but, uh, I just don't
understand how.."
"I guess I oughta explain just how we got as powerful as
we are.. First thing is we've both been training for nearly 30
years now. I'm betting thats at least 6 times longer than even
Makoto, Haruka or Mamoru." Getting odd looks on the last part, he
elaborated, "You can tell, you know, that they've studied The Art
some. Makoto's pretty good. Haruka and Mamoru are about as good as
you can get without ki manipulation and special techniques. Thats
the key. Ki-manipulation, and special techniques to use it. I've
been manipulating mine for 20 years or somethin'. Akane here has
been doing it almost as long."
"But the amount of ki you have is limited, I can't
believe that you didn't use all of yours up doing what you did
today!" interrupted Rei. "Yeah, you're right, we probably both
used up enough for a couple 'ah people." Confused, Rei asked "Then
how did you keep going?"
After pausing to sip some tea, Ranma responded. "Well.. thats
the next thing. Akane and I can't run out of ki unless we want
to, now." Rei seemed at least a little surprised, and all the
other girls wanted to seem surprised, but they weren't sure what
that meant.
"Right before the first time Akane and I tried to get
married, I was in this fight, with this guy who was supposedly
immortal. I shoulda run outta ki a quarter of the way into the
fight. I was tossing around ki like cheap candy and using it to
boost every part of me I knew how to. I came up with at least
one entirely new technique on the spot. Revised another one. But,
I never ran out of ki. I didn't think about it at the time, I was
too busy trying to save Akane... it ended up being 2 years later
before I was able to figure out what I'd did."
This time pausing merely for dramatic effect (and not
really succeeding), Ranma looked around before continuing. "I'd been
sucking ki from everything around me, in really small quantities,
but constantly. The mountains, air, plants, the dirt, other people,
you name it. I worked for a long time trying to control it with
my mind. I'd been doing at it for about a year when I remembered
a technique that my old high school teacher used, the Happo Go-en
Satsu." Rei, Makoto and Haruka shuddered. Having you ki drained was
no fun. After waiting for the three girls to calm down, Ranma picked
up again, "Figuring that I should start with something a bit easier,
and which I'd seen a whole bunch, I tried to figure out the Happo
Go-en Satsu. That took me a really long time before I remembered
that Ms Hinako had needed shiatsu stuff done to her to be able
to use it. Once I remembered that, it was a walk in the park[6]
to get her technique worked out. I picked up the next technique,
the Happo Gojo-en Satsu, fairly quickly. I was about to go crazy,
though, because I still couldn't figure out how to consciously
drain all the stuff around me like I had before.."
"You know," Ranma smiled, "it was actually Minako who
gave me the final clue, even though she wasn't born yet. I was
looking at Akane's ki, really annoyed that I couldn't figure out
what I was doing wrong, when I noticed the subtle differences in
her ki. Anyways, it turned out that the differences were actually
Minako's ki becoming separate from Akane's. I'd never realized that
two kis that close could be distinguished, so I started looking at
other things like that, trying to pick apart the ki of a fish in a
river from the river, junk like that. Once I developed my ki sense to
that level, the way to open up the ki paths just struck me. I can't
explain it to you, you just have to experience it for yourself."
"It was simply amazing. I could dump all of my ki into a
single attack without worrying about killing myself. Not only that,
but I could replenish my ki soon enough that my speed and reflexes
wouldn't drop. Normally you need to use heavy ki to get a blast
powerful enough to do anything, but now we can dump everything
we've got, we can generate blasts of pure light ki if we want."
"Anyways, Akane is the only other person I've ever tried to
teach it to. Took a good 4 or 5 years, too. Minako might actually
remember the explosion in the back yard when Akane first did it. I
had to put her back to sleep because Akane was too wrapped up in
throwing away enough ki to make a light show."
"You know, I bet that some of our friends can manage to
do it, too, but only at the level I was doing it 20 years ago.. I
should ask 'em about it next time one of visits."
Finally able to get a word in edge-wise, Ami piped up,
"So, you tap into the life force of the planet for your power?"
Ranma shook his head just a little. "No.. we use our own
power, we just use the planet's ki to make sure ours doesn't run
out. Think of it like this, every person has a little pond, and all
the water in it is their ki. Some people have bigger ponds than
others, but in the end they're all about the same. Whenever you
do a special attack, its like slurping out some of the water and
throwing it at them. We can't increase the size of our pond, we've
just got this little stream that trickles into it from the ocean."
The canonical explanation given, the girls sat back and
began thinking, until they were interrupted..
"Would, uh, somebody like to explain to me why our cat
was talking?"
* * * * * * * *
The demon which we last saw running away from Ranma and Akane
at its top speed was now doing its best impression of kneeling in
what appeared to be an alleyway. Some.. body? thing? was standing
in the corner looking down on it.
"Finally found them, did you?"
"i found them did"
"Yea! Well now that Cassia is done with you," began the
shadowy figure, "you can go back to hell!" it finished quickly.
Very pleased at being released from its servitude, the
demon got up to leave.
"..the quick way" announced the figure, quite happily.
At that, the figure in the shadows held up a hand,
and.. blasted?! the demon right out of existence.
* * * * * * * *
"Ranma!"
Instinctively flinching, Ranma turned away from Tokyo's
night skyline. His response of "Yeah?" was rather weary as he
finished pulling off his shirt.
"Your back! You've got a huge bruise on it!"
"Hrm.. must've been when that demon was trying to grind me
into the ground. Guess it was a bit stronger than I thought.."
With anger at Ranma's ability to lie to himself rising in
her voice, Akane snapped "Idiot, you know exactly how strong it
was. You know you couldn't have taken much more of that!"
Sitting down on the edge of their bed, Ranma began scratching
the back of his head. "I dunno, I guess I'm just not used to
being pummeled like that. Its been too long since I fought with
anybody who could lay a hand on me, let along deal out that kinda
damage.. Now Ryouga, I bet by now you could drop a mountain on
'im and he wouldn't notice.. Hey, thats it! Wasn't Ryouga telling
us at the last tournament that he was looking for somebody he could
fight who was strong enough to make him feel their attacks?"
"Hmm, I think so.."
"Maybe we should just use some more powerful techniques
on the next one. No need to start sharing all the fun if we can
help it."
"Moron, I'll show you fun.."
- - - - - - - -
A Partial Timeline
T-20 Ranma 1/2 ends
T-18 Ranma begins trying to figure out how to draw ki
from the planet. Haruka and Michiru are born
T-17 Ranma starts trying to learn the Happo Go-en Satsu
T-16 Ranma succeeds in learning how to draw ki from the
planet. Minako and the rest of the Inner Senshi
are born
T-14 Hotaru is born
T-12 Akane learns how to draw ki from the planet
T-2 Beginning of Sailor Moon, Beryl attacks, etc
T0 Sailor Moon ends. Minako is hurt. Current events.
- - - - - - - -
[1]: ``Rekka Hokan'' means ``Raging Fire Completion''.
Give or take. Attack names seem cooler in Japanese, so that and
proper nouns are about the only place where I plan on using Japanese.
[2]: See the case study on Ranma at:\\
http://web3002.servers.instant-web.co.uk/RanmaFAQ/arts/ranma.html\\
He can manage 1000m/s at 16, but Akane never was as fast as Ranma.
[3]: ``Mouko Takabisha'' translates to ``Fierce Tiger
Domineering''. It is performed by placing ones hands together,
palms out, at arms length, and then simply ``firing'' off a blast
of ki fueled by sheer confidence.
[4]: ``Fuhatsudan Kibou'' means ``Unexploded Bomb Ruse''.
[5]: ``Tsuin'' means ``twin'', so `Tsuin Hiryuu Shouten Ha''
is Twin Flying Dragon Ascend to Heaven Strike. On the Fujita wind
damage scale, F-2 winds, with speeds between 50.1 and 70.1m/s, are
described as doing considerable damage, demolishing mobile homes
and uprooting trees. Ranma and Akane are at 65m/s, and getting
faster. They may very well have reached F-3 speeds, which can rip
down walls, overturn trains, and throw cars.
[6]: From someone who lived in Nerima a ``walk in the park''
isn't easy.