Previous parts may be found at
http://www.thejohnsens.com/Sailormoon.html

Please enjoy!

Raye

_________________________

A Different Path

by Raye Johnsen
raye_j@yahoo.com

******
	'Ranma 1/2' is copyright Takahashi Rumiko, Shogakukan
and Viz Communications.  'Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon'
is copyright Takeuchi Naoko and other interested
parties.  If you think I'm making any money or have
any rights to any of this, you are very, very wrong.
******

Chapter Five: A Breathing Space

	Setsuna stretched as she stepped out of the time
gates.  It was always a relief to return to this
place, to this time... to her home.  She sighed with
pleasure as the fuku dissolved away into the street
clothes she wore whenever she considered herself
'off-duty'.

	Her fingers brushed against a lump in her pocket, and
Setsuna frowned.  One last thing remained.

*****

	Carefully, Setsuna stepped away from the family
shrine, clapping her hands together twice in the
prescribed form.  The smoke from the incense sticks
curled up and tickled her nose, and she sniffed the
perfumed smoke happily.  Some of the other members of
the family burned sandalwood for the ancestors, but
Setsuna preferred to use a variety of scents.  It
wasn't usual, but her father's family had never been
noted for its attention to the conventional, and
Setsuna thought they might enjoy some small variety;
she certainly did.  In the twenty-first century, she
had found a packet of apple-blossom incense, and three
sticks of it now stood, burning proudly upright in
front of the old photographs of her parents' families,
the virulent green dye that coloured the sticks a
clashing contrast to the black-and-white and
brightly-coloured portraits.

	She opened the small cupboard beside the shrine where
the ancestors' incense was kept, carefully placing the
seventeen remaining sticks to one side, so that nobody
looking for sandalwood would pick it up by accident. 
She was quite pleased to see that the rose and jasmine
incenses she had brought back in a similar fashion had
been used.  Closing the cupboard, she listened and
heard a clatter in the kitchen.

	Now for the part she had been dreading: talking to
her parents.

*****

	Setsuna peeped around the corner into the kitchen,
and saw, with dread, that it was Mama in there.

	She loved her mother.  Truly, she did.  But Mama had
cooking skills exactly, but exactly, up to the same
level as Neo-Queen Serenity.  She made a good cup of
tea, if she used a teabag.  She made a truly tasty
curry.  Plain rice from Mama's hands was edible.  But
that was it.  Anything else came out... well, it
didn't.

	It was lucky for her family that they all really
liked curry.  King Endymion and Small Lady weren't
quite so fortunate.

	"Come in, Setsuna!"

	She'd been spotted.  Trying to look as if she hadn't
been lurking around the corner, scouting out the
situation, Setsuna strolled into the kitchen.  "Hello,
Mama."  Oh, good, she *was* making curry, and not...
something else.

	"What's wrong, dear?" Mama asked, the reddish flecks
in her dark eyes beginning to swirl around, as they
did whenever her emotions were stirred up.  "Are you
all right?"  Setsuna felt the currents of power begin
to stir, as they started to respond to Mama's
emotional state.  She suddenly remembered exactly why
every florist, jeweller and chocolatier in the city
was prepared to drop everything when Papa came in and
to give him credit on rush jobs.

	"I'm *fine*, Mama," Setsuna said quickly.  A shade
too quickly.  The power, if anything, intensified.

	"What happened, Setsuna?" Mama asked again, almost
too quietly.

	"*Nothing*, Mama!  I just got back from old Tokyo -
and, and, um, what I had to do there."

	The power flows settled back down again; Setsuna had
the sudden mental image of a group of sleepy dragons
settling back into their naps with tired yawns and
muttered imprecations at that stupid alarm clock. 

	Mama tilted her head to one side while she chopped
the carrots - unevenly, but Setsuna wasn't going to
point this out to her.  "I thought you quite liked
visiting old Tokyo."

	Setsuna sighed, and pulled the family's signet stamp
out of her pocket, setting it down on the bench
between them.  "It wasn't a visit, Mama."

	Her mother stared at the signet, and her nostrils
flared.  The dragons were jerked to full wakefulness,
and the knife came down so hard on the carrot it
nearly broke the chopping board.

	"So," Mama hissed.  "So."  He hands were clenched on
the handle of the knife and on the chopping board, so
tightly her knuckles were white and the wood of both
handle and board were starting to crack.

	"I'm sorry, Mama!  I'm sorry!"  Setsuna said
desperately.  "I didn't *want* to do it!  I swear I
didn't!  But there was no other way!"

	There was the sound of running feet outside, and then
Papa shoved the door from the kitchen to the backyard
open.  He'd obviously been practicing, as he was
wearing his loose 'practice' clothing, and his hair
was tied behind him.  "Dear, what's wrong?" he
demanded.  "Setsuna?"

	Setsuna stood up and stepped back from the kitchen
bench.  "Papa - I just got back from twenty-first
century Tokyo.  It wasn't a visit."  She nodded at the
family signet lying on the bench, which both Mama and
Papa were staring at as if it were made of
weapons-grade plutonium instead of antique ivory.

	The door frame cracked where Papa was gripping it. 
His face was absolutely cold, as if it were carved of
marble, not flesh.

	"Papa, I-"

	"Go home, Setsuna," Papa said clearly, coldly, as if
she were eleven, not twenty-one.  "Your mother and I
need to calm down before we can talk about this."

	She stepped back, and then fled the room.  As she ran
out the front door, her brother ran around the corner.
 "What happened, Elder Sister?"

	"I did my *job*," she muttered mutinously.  "It's not
even as if I *liked* it!  And now -"

	Her brother shook his head.  "You mucked with the
*parents*?"

	Setsuna glared at him.  "I had to!  And now I'm being
kicked out of the family!"

	"I wouldn't say *that*," her brother said,
judiciously.  "More like - having your status
reconsidered...."

	"Shut *up*, Ryo," his sister suggested.

	"You know them, they'll calm down eventually."

	"Ryo...."

	"Yes?"

	"... Shut up."

****** 

	Kasumi got out of the taxi at the base of Cherry
Hill.  It was, she noticed, a very beautiful place.

	Cherry Hill Temple was set, as temples usually were,
on top of the hill, so Kasumi began to climb the
traditional thousand steps to the gate, and thought
about how she would phrase her request to the shrine
maiden.  She pulled the envelope Akane's note had
arrived in out of her pocket, carefully examining the
postmark again.  It still clearly said 'Juuban'.

	This temple was not the largest, the best-kept or the
most popular temple in this area, but Cherry Hill
Temple had one thing that no other temple could boast.
 Its shrine maiden was psychic.

	Kasumi sighed.  In the old days, a shrine maiden was
a potent warrior against the forces of evil.  Now,
they were just girls who dressed up once or twice a
month.  Except for a few, who were, by nature or
inclination, far more.  And, if rumour were speaking
truth, the shrine maiden here was one of those chosen
few.

	Although she had been unsure when she climbed out of
the taxi, Kasumi was growing more and more reassured
as she placed her foot on each step.  This place was
so beautiful, nobody of evil intent could possibly
live here; and there was such an aura of peace and
tranquillity that could only be the product of
somebody of power and purity dwelling there....

	"GIVE ME BACK MY COMIC BOOK, USAGI!!"

	Kasumi stared in bewilderment as a girl with long
blonde pigtails charged down the steps beside her,
closely followed by another girl with long black hair.
 She stopped for a little time and waited, and then
continued up the rest of the way.

	Another girl, dressed in the traditional red and
white of a shrine maiden, was sweeping leaves to one
side of the courtyard.  Feeling emboldened by the
return of the peaceful quiet, Kasumi crossed over to
her.  "Excuse me please, miss...."

	The girl turned to face her.

	"AKANE!"

	Nadeshiko found herself being enthusiastically
glomped by her coolly-affectionate older sister.

******

	"... so you do see," Nadeshiko explained patiently,
"why I'm going to stay here?"

	Kasumi sighed and picked up her cup of tea.  She
sipped, and said, "Yes, I do understand.  I just think
you're wrong.  Ranma and all your little friends ar
out scouring Japan, looking for you.  They all seem to
believe you have been kidnapped."

	Nadeshiko blinked.  "Didn't they get the letters I
sent?"

	"Oh, yes.  But for some reason they believe you were
made to  write them."

	"I don't know where they could have gotten that
idea," Nadeshiko said firmly.  "But as you can see,
it's not true."

	"Well, when you tell them that -"

	"NO!" Nadeshiko all-but-yelled.  "I'm sorry, Elder
Sister," she said, in a more sedate tone, "but I cut
all my ties.  I'll write, but I won't see them."

******

	A quarter of an hour later, Nadeshiko was watching
Kasumi's taxi drive off towards Nerima.

	"I won't see them, Elder Sister," she repeated to
herself.  "I'm not strong enough yet."


=====
raye_j@yahoo.com
http://www.thejohnsens.com/index.html

"It means, I'm in command... where are you going?"
   - C-3PO (to R2-D2), 'Star Wars: Attack of the Clones'

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
http://finance.yahoo.com

             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'